Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, October 09, 2017

10/09 Links Pt1: Bayefsky: Why is Pres. Trump Letting Palestinians Violate U.S. Law?; Iran Deal Isn’t Worth Saving

From Ian:

Anne Bayefsky: Why is President Trump Letting Palestinians off the Hook for Violating U.S. Law?

If President Trump is backtracking on his promise to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem allegedly for the sake of a “peace process,” why is he simultaneously allowing the Palestinians to violate U.S. law and sink peace unilaterally?

American law requires that funding for Palestinians be drastically curtailed if they use the International Criminal Court (ICC) to turn Israelis into war criminals. Though Palestinians have given the ICC a veritable bear hug, hundreds of millions of American dollars are still flowing into Palestinian coffers.

Palestinians are actively using a crooked international legal system as a means to avoid a negotiated end to the Arab-Israeli conflict and an acceptance of a Jewish state. It’s called lawfare — the antithesis of a “peace process.”

Palestinian-led lawfare has two goals: to criminalize Israeli exercise of the right of self-defense, and to criminalize Israelis living on any territory that Palestinians and the UN have unilaterally appropriated.

Congress has understood lawfare to be exactly what it says — namely, war by another means. They have also understood that twisting self-defense against terrorism into a war crime will rebound on American and NATO soldiers. Feeding Israelis to the sharks will be just the first course.

The International Criminal Court Statute was a coup for anti-American and anti-Israeli globalists because it trashed the essence of the reach of international law – namely, the consent of states. For the first time, international law could be used directly against citizens of states that had refused to be bound. Neither Israel nor the United States hase ratified the ICC Statute, but that cannot prevent the ICC prosecutor from going after either Americans or Israelis.

Moreover, the late stages of the drafting process of the ICC Statute – originally conceived as an instrument to target the most heinous acts perpetrated by humankind – were hijacked in 1998 by the Palestinians and their friends. The result is a statute that purports to turn Israeli settlements into war crimes.

PMW: Another PMW success as Belgium freezes funding of PA schools

On Sept. 27, 2017, Palestinian Media Watch reported that the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education has named at least 31 schools after terrorists. PMW reported and notified the Belgian government that one of those schools whose building Belgium funded, the Beit Awwa Basic Girls School, subsequently changed its name to the Dalal Mughrabi Elementary School, honoring the Palestinian female terrorist who led a bus hijacking and murder of 37 people, including 12 children.

PMW also reported on the danger of naming schools after terrorists as exemplified with one of the schools named after Dalal Mughrabi where children are taught to see the terrorist as a role model. One girl told PA TV that her “life's ambition is to reach the level of the Martyr fighter Dalal Mughrabi." [Official PA TV, March 27, 2014]

PMW sent this information to the Belgian embassy in Tel Aviv, including the picture below of the Belgian flag, which still appears on a plaque announcing Belgium’s funding at the Dalal Mughrabi Elementary School.

Reporting on the Belgian government’s outrage that the PA has renamed the school after the terrorist murderer Dalal Mughrabi, The Algemeiner quoted the spokesperson for the Belgian Foreign Ministry, Didier Vanderhasselt:

“Belgium unequivocally condemns the glorification of terrorist attacks [and] will not allow itself to be associated with the names of terrorists in any way.” [The Algemeiner, Oct. 7, 2017]

According to the Belgian Development Agency (BTC), Belgium has built 23 Palestinian schools since 2001, and was planning to build 10 more in the coming years. [Website of Belgian Development Agency, accessed Oct. 9, 2017] However, according to the spokesperson all these plans are now frozen:
“Belgium has immediately raised this issue with the Palestinian Authority and is awaiting a formal response... In the meantime Belgium will put on hold any projects related to the construction or equipment of Palestinian schools.”

Michael Oren: The Iran Nuclear Deal Isn’t Worth Saving

Had American sanctions on Iran remained in place in 2015, companies would have had to choose between doing business with the United States, the world’s top-ranked economy by gross domestic product, and Iran, ranked 27th. That same stark choice will confront businesses if sanctions are reinstated.

Similarly, the contention that Iran will rush to make nuclear weapons in the absence of an agreement is unfounded. Iran could have made that rush well before 2015 but it did not. The reason was the 2012 speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United Nations General Assembly and the implicit military threat that backed it up.

The world, he declared, must not allow Iran to amass enough highly enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb. “Red lines don’t lead to war,” he said. “Red lines prevent war.” That red line will remain indelible whether the deal is strengthened or canceled. What was true in 2015 holds equally today: The more credible the military option, the lesser the chance it will need to be used.

The agreement’s apologists say that altering or negating the agreement will irreparably harm America’s prestige. Yet it is difficult to see how America’s status is served by a refusal to stand up to Iran’s complicity in the massacre of half a million Syrians and its efforts to annihilate American allies.

Israel’s position on the Iran deal was and remains clear. “Fix it or nix it,” Prime Minister Netanyahu recently told the United Nations. If canceled, the deal must be replaced by crippling sanctions that force Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons capacity. Fixing the deal would include conducting stricter inspections of suspect Iran nuclear sites, imposing harsher penalties for Iranian violations and, above all, eliminating the “sunset clause.”

Either way, revisiting the agreement will send an unequivocal message to the world. It will say that Iran’s state-funded terrorism and its attempts to establish a Shiite empire will not be tolerated. The weakness of the Iran deal invites wars, it will say, while displays of strength prevent them. It will say that the United States is truly unwilling to accept a nuclear Iran — not now, not in a decade, not ever.

John Bolton: The Iran Deal Isn't Worth Saving

"Cut, and cut cleanly," Sen. Paul Laxalt advised Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, urging the Philippine president to resign and flee Manila because of widespread civil unrest. The Nevada Republican, Ronald Reagan's best friend in Congress, knew what his president wanted, and he made the point with customary Western directness.

President Trump could profitably follow Mr. Laxalt's advice today regarding Barack Obama's 2015 deal with Iran. The ayatollahs are using Mr. Obama's handiwork to legitimize their terrorist state, facilitate (and conceal) their continuing nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs, and acquire valuable resources from gullible negotiating partners.

Mr. Trump's real decision is whether to fulfill his campaign promise to extricate America from this strategic debacle. Last month at the United Nations General Assembly, he lacerated the deal as an "embarrassment," "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into."

Fearing the worst, however, the deal's acolytes are actively obscuring this central issue, arguing that it is too arduous and too complex to withdraw cleanly. They have seized instead on a statutory requirement that every 90 days the president must certify, among other things, that adhering to the agreement is in America's national-security interest. They argue the president should stay in the deal but not make the next certification, due in October.

This morganatic strategy is a poorly concealed ploy to block withdrawal, limp through Mr. Trump's presidency, and resurrect the deal later. Paradoxically, supporters are not now asserting that the deal is beneficial. Instead, they concede its innumerable faults but argue that it can be made tougher, more verifiable and more strictly enforced. Or, if you want more, it can be extended, kicked to Congress, or deferred during the North Korea crisis. Whatever.

As Richard Nixon said during Watergate: "I want you to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up, or anything else if it'll save it — save the plan."

If recent analysis here and elsewhere is correct, SJP and associated anti-Israel organizations are likely to be shifting strategy to take advantage of the increase in radical political activity on college campuses and elsewhere. This activity is likely to take the form of building alliances with groups protesting at schools, pressuring administrators to cave in to demands, and shutting down events held by those with whom they disagree.

The marriage of such groups and organizations like SJP makes perfect sense since (1) the tactics now being inflicted on large numbers of students (such as shout-downs of speakers) were pioneered against Israel’s supporters and (2) anti-Israel activists have mastered the technique of bending other radical groups to their will through a one-sided application of “intersectionality” (which is why feminists in “the movement” must submit to the male-dominated SJP agenda, while SJP has no obligation to even mention gender Apartheid in the Middle East).

There are number of ways to meet this threat, some more productive than others.

For instance, one poor choice would be for Israel’s supporters – Jewish and otherwise – to try to find a home in newly forming radical alliances in hope to have a say when villains and victims are selected. The problem with this approach is that our side displays little of the ruthlessness that is the ultimate source of power in such “movements.” SJP, for example, is ready to cause limitless turmoil in other people’s organizations in order to get their way. For better or worse, it is unrealistic to assume our side can effectively manage similarly destructive power grabs.

Another poor choice would be to set ourselves up in opposition to the radicals, abandoning interaction across the political spectrum and throwing our lot in with those most averse to the protestor’s agenda. While there will always be a certain logic to embracing whoever seems to most vocally support Israel at the moment (which today are conservatives), a quick glance at history or the current political landscape demonstrates the folly of assuming today’s friends will always be friendly.

This is especially so since our greatest successes have come from cultivating support across the political spectrum (exempting the radical fringes), best exemplified by the ability of AIPAC to manage the community’s relationship with Congress regardless of which party is in power. In addition, the more we can separate Jewish and Israeli concerns from domestic politics (either American or Israeli) the better.

So if joining the mob or joining the mob’s enemies are not likely to be productive options, what can we do (beyond holding the usual speaking events and hummus parties and hoping for the best)?

First of all, we need to understand each challenge we face as clearly and concretely as possible. Reading stories of rampaging mobs on campuses can boil the blood, and get us fearful that any radical group we face has similar numbers and power. But if you look at any political challenge objectively, it always boils down to understanding the enemy and his or her true numbers and resources, understanding your side in similarly concrete fashion, and being aware of the battlefield on which the fight might be fought.

SJP is made up of individuals, as are the organizations they are trying to align with or corrupt. So how many people are in each of these groups, and how many of those people know what they’re doing with regard to creating and maintaining political alliances (a tricky project under any circumstances)?

Speaking of alliances, we do have alternatives (which I describe here) to throwing our lot in entirely with either our enemies or our enemies enemies and hope they play nice with us.

So first steps are to avoid panic, get a handle on the situation as it really is (as much as possible) and create the teams that can effectively country the enemies likely next steps.

Some examples of how this can work next time.

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Mudar Zahran, Khaled Abu Toameh and the "Jordan is Palestine" conference

Tal Schneider at Globes/JPost writes an op-ed that mentions EoZ and varda (a Hebrew version came out last week.)

After months of preparations, "The Jordan Option - The Ultimate Alternate Solution" conference will take place in at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem next week.

The organizers of the event, right-wing writers and bloggers, want it to carry weight. They invited Knesset member Yehuda Glick (Likud) to take part. Former Knesset member Arieh Eldad is listed among the speakers, which also includes Mudar Zahran, billed as the Secretary General of the Jordanian Opposition Coalition and the representative of six million Jordanians of Palestinian extraction.

According to past reports, Zahran, who has written for the Jerusalem Post, has pretensions to bringing about the collapse of the Kingdom of Jordan and to becoming the next leader of Jordan, replacing King Abdullah II. Hypothetically, immediately after he does so, he says he would make peace with Israel. His writings and ideas have sparked the imaginations of some columnists on the Israeli right: he was interviewed in Israel Hayom, took part in a conference at Ariel University, and had a column written about him in Ma'ariv.

He was recently featured as a commentator on the i24 News television channel broadcast from Jaffa in English and Arabic. He is presented everywhere as the leader of the Jordanian opposition.

Slowly but surely, with his media coverage broadening to English-languages publications, Zahran has consolidated his status.

Within the past six months he has even obtained a meeting with a Likud minister, to whom he expounded his ideas. Eureka, they thought on the right: there's hope and there's an opposition in Jordan with an aspiration on par with organizations in exile to turn the Kingdom of Jordan into a secular, modern Palestine. As the Jewish sages said, when someone tells you that he sought diligently and he found, believe him.

A surprising twist in the plot has, however, taken place in the past few weeks. Zahran developed a strange obsession with Israeli-Arab journalist Khaled Abu-Toameh, formerly the Jerusalem Post Arab affairs reporter. Zahran wrote articles attacking Abu-Toameh and smearing his reputation with all kinds of tales. Since Abu-Toameh is well known to many reporters and respected by columnists on both left and right, his circle of acquaintances, especially on the right, started to stick pins in the "leader of the Jordanian opposition" balloon. It was no more than a mirage.

The first was Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick, a promoter of the Jordanian option, and a personal and professional acquaintance of Abu-Toameh for fifteen years. In a long Facebook post she told how she wanted to believe Zahran, to believe that there was an opposition to the king, that there was a chance of establishing a Palestinian state in Jordan.

Glick commented how she had been led up the garden path: "I also cited Zahran and described his vision of Jordan as Palestine," Glick wrote. "I recommended that President Trump and/or Prime Minister Netanyahu meet with Zahran if Abdullah continues to protect Tamimi from extradition. After I wrote the column, I was contacted by three knowledgeable sources with whom I have longstanding relations.

"They did not coordinate their calls. Each one told me independently that Zahran is not a credible source. He is not a leader of an opposition movement. He doesn't have an organization. He has multiple websites, they said… I was disappointed because, as I wrote in my second column, I think the best way to compel Abdullah to behave responsibly, as behooves an ally in the war against jihadist terror, is to make clear to him that he isn’t the only option.

"My colleagues effectively told me that despite the fact that we could use an alternative to Abdullah, none exist today, at least none that are better than he."

Glick has been joined by other right-wing journalists: commentator and columnist Ruthie Blum, Dr Harold Rhode, and Varda Meyers Epstein on her blog "Elder of Zyon" [sic sic], considered a leading right-wing publication.

Varda certainly brought this issue to the forefront with her last two blog posts here.

Yesterday I was roped into a bizarre email thread between Zahran and his supporters and Toameh's supporters. Zahran is accusing Toameh having received an expensive car as a gift from an ex-intelligence chief in Jordan. You can see Zahran's other accusations against Toameh, filtered through his allies, here.

Toameh was also accused of secretly being anti-Israel in an Arabic-language interview. I read the interview and saw nothing of the sort. It showed that he is not a right-wing Zionist, which I don't think any intelligent person expects him to be.

Most of the email thread deteriorated into accusations and counter-accusations regarding minutiae of who accused which other right-wing Zionist of doing what first.

But Zahran did not come off looking good in this email exchange. After spraying his messages to some 20 people, he then threatened those who stood against him with legal action for sending unwanted emails to him. One scholar who asked politely, twice, to be taken off the thread was directly threatened with legal action by Zahran when he said he supported Toameh - without saying anything bad about Zahran. Even Zahran's main ally told him to cool it.

In the end, Toameh's work speaks for itself. He has legitimate questions about the conference and the idea of "Jordan is Palestine" that he has mentioned for years. That seems to be Zahran's main issue with him. But Toameh is an excellent journalist and Zahran's effort to smear him makes only Zahran look bad.

On the other hand, we cannot say that Zahran's work speaks for itself. I have yet to see any evidence that ANY Jordanian supports him. He sometimes gets written up in Jordanian media, often based on Hebrew articles, but that proves Jordan's paranoia more than Zahran's political influence in the kingdom.

It does appear that Zahran is using passionate right-wing Zionists to build up his reputation and his power, such as it is, but in reality the idea that he is a credible challenger to King Abdullah is laughable. A leader needs followers, and Zahran apparently has fewer Arab followers than he has thumbs, from what I can tell. (Apologies if he has six anonymous Arab fans.) (UPDATE: Yes, six seems to be the number: )

I have nothing against the conference, however. All options should be discussed, even if they are (as I've said before) non-starters. I like the idea of putting pressure on Jordan to take more responsibility for their Palestinian population.

This whole episode is silly, and in danger of getting ugly. Whatever we do, it must be based on reality and facts. An Arab accusing another Arab of not being Zionist enough is, frankly, ridiculous, as are the accusations from both sides on whether a supporter is a sock-puppet or on someone's payroll. Stick with the facts and the record.

I would be thrilled if a Zionist Jordanian could become the leader of the kingdom. But - I happen to inhabit the real world.

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Islamic Jihad leader on FBI Most Wanted Terrorist list - Fatah members support him

The FBI has placed Ramadan Shallah, head of Islamic Jihad, on its Most Wanted list:

Naturally, the "moderate" Fatah movement headed by Mahmoud Abbas is on the side of the terrorist, not the US.

Abbas Zaki, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, gave full throated support to the terrorist leader, saying "Dr. Shallah is a fighter for freedom and liberation of his country."

Zaki said, "Allah forbid that Dr. Ramadan Abdullah Shallah be considered a terrorist. He is a fighter for freedom, and these actors (the FBI) is working against human freedoms and national sovereignties."

Zaki said that the FBI were mere slaves of the Zionists.

He also expressed concern over the possible increased danger to Ramadan's life.

He expressed no concern over the lives of hundreds of Israelis killed by Islamic Jihad under Shallah's leadership.

(h/t Breitbart)

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Getting "Chai" at Havdalah

From Leafly:

On a warm Saturday night in July, a group of people gathered together in Los Angeles for Havdalah—a Jewish ceremony marking the end of Shabbat and the beginning of the new week. As part of the Havdalah tradition, a small silver container filled with sweet herbs was presented for smelling, only this time the usual mix of aromatic spices featured a new and pungent guest: cannabis.

Chai Havdalah is the brainchild of self-described gay Jewish stoner Catherine Goldberg, who spent 10 years envisioning a celebration blending Jewish culture and cannabis. (‘Chai’ is the Hebrew word for life—it’s pronounced ‘high’ with hard “ch” sound.)

Goldberg set her sights on bringing Chai Havdalah to legal cities around the country, and as word has spread attendance has grown. Her first event in LA welcomed over 50 guests, while her most recent event in Denver pulled in more than 100 attendees. Guests range in age from 21 to 80 years old, and represent many branches of Judaism spanning from Reform to Orthodox. Goldberg credits the authenticity of the events as the reason why attendance is increasing. “It’s the most authentic thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she says.

What exactly does a “High Havdalah” look like? The cannabis at the event is donated by producers and growers, so guests only pay for snacks, atmosphere, and music. Beyond options for smoking, the event also offers plenty of cannabis-infused food, such as cannabis challah baked by a professional bread maker.

“It was the most delicious challah I’ve ever had—period,” says Goldberg. “For every event we have in different cities, we can feature different chefs and bread makers.” She keep the THC levels low at her events to avoid anyone having a bad experience: “All the desserts were CBD infused, except for one, where the THC was 2.5 mg. I do this because I like cookies, so I want to be able to eat seven cookies without worrying if I’m going to get too high or not feel good,” she explains. “I’ve had a lot of people ask to sponsor the Chai Havdalah events, and their products might be perfect for very young stoners that want to get super high, but we have 80-year-old women coming so we really have to focus on CBD products, 1:1 ratios, sativas … That’s been a mindful part of planning these parties.”

For the record, I don't understand that paragraph as all.

Goldberg had help on the Chai Havdalah project from Shifra Zipp Klein. Klein, who is Orthodox herself, is also the owner of Mitzva Herbal, a medicinal kosher cannabis company. Her journey began two years ago when researching alternative treatments for her 12-year-old son, who was non-verbal and heavily medicated due to severe autism. She heard about cannabis as a potential treatment and despite discouragement from her doctors, decided to give it a chance. The results were immediate and the progress, amazing. “To have a child at 12 years old that doesn’t speak, saying ‘Mommy,’ … it changes everything,” Klein explains.

Soon, Klein realized she had other friends who could benefit from cannabis, such as a man receiving chemo and experiencing severe nausea. More and more people began to reach out to Klein for advice and help, so she was inspired to create her first infused chocolates.

Klein tells the story of a rabbi who was at first highly skeptical of cannabis—until late one night, she received a call from him. “He said, ‘I need relief now.’ He had just had a procedure, [and] he was desperate.” Klein told the rabbi that he needed a prescription first, and the next day helped him get a recommendation. Her actions struck a cord, and the rabbi called her again later to express his deep respect for her and for medicinal cannabis. This sort of education and shifting perspective is part of Klein’s day to day work.

“A big part of our mission is education and being sensitive to people’s culture,” she says. “They just don’t understand, [and] we want to turn that around by being positive, keeping doing what we’re doing, and evolving that way.” Today, many in her community have come around to the idea as they’ve discovered the benefits of medicinal cannabis for themselves. “I think we’re taken a lot more seriously now, when people really see the need for it,” says Klein.

Goldberg, for one, contends that the Jewish community needn’t feel limited to using cannabis for only terminal or very severe medical conditions. “Life is really stressful,” she says. “If there’s a natural plant that Hashem grew, that helps with anxiety and quality of life, that is medicinal.”

I suppose the plants would make perfectly good schach (roofing material) for Sukkot.

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Some 2014 Pallywood scenes of Al Quds University sports practice

I have finished reading The Anti-Israel Agenda, Inside the Political War on the Jewish State, edited by Alex Ryvchin

A book review is forthcoming, but I wanted to look up something that Seth Frantzman, op-ed editor at the Jerusalem Post, wrote in his chapter on media bias.

An essay by James Estrin in the Times in 2014 claimed to show a Palestinian girl throwing a javelin at Al Quds University with the Israeli security barrier in the background. This writer happens to teach at Al Quds University and in four years there has never seen javelin practice conducted in the area in which the photo was taken. The photographer created a perfect political backdrop to suggest that Palestinians cannot practice javelin except under the shadow of an Israeli wall.

Here is the article and the photo:

The story doesn't end there.

The New York Times article was written in January 2014. By March, Getty Images decided that the same wall was a perfect backdrop not only for its own staged scenes of javelin throwing, but also for shot-put and running.

Does anyone actually think that they practice running on a field with rocks and weeds that could injure them?

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10/08 Links: Fatah glorifies murderer of 3 Israelis; Gal Gadot Speaks to Her Israeli Roots in ‘SNL' Monologue

From Ian:

An insane society

Violent husband Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Jamal, who murdered three people in Har Adar two weeks ago, was the latest in a long line of depressive, mentally ill, or "whacked out" Palestinian terrorists for whom the killing of Jews blotted out the label "crazy" that Palestinian society had previously stuck on them.

By killing, Jamal, like dozens of other troubled murderers, resituated himself in his society as normative, and even bought himself a ticket into the Palestinian hall of fame as a shahid [martyr] for the price of the three people he killed two weeks ago.

The more mentally ill Palestinians carry out lethal terrorist attacks, the more people get used to categorizing their bloodfests as a separate genre of attack, which presents a problem. Even more than this approach goes easy on the attackers from the "new" group, it goes easy on Palestinian society, which embraces them.

A healthy, sane society keeps the deranged at a distance and cares for the troubled. But in Palestinian society, murdering Jews gives even the mentally ill and those in the midst of various emotional crises a place of honor in its ethno-religious pantheon.

In Palestinian society, the murder of Jews allows even the most delusional and problematic marginalized characters under the perverted canopy of the institution of martyrdom.

PMW: Fatah glorifies murderer of 3 Israelis

Since a Palestinian terrorist murdered 3 Israelis last month, Fatah, which is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, has repeatedly emphasized his status as hero. Palestinian Media Watch reported that only a few hours after the murders, Fatah celebrated the morning scented with the fragrance of the Martyrs.

Subsequently, Fatah has issued and distributed a poster glorifying murderer Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Jamal who shot and murdered an Israeli border police officer and two security guards and wounded another Israeli at the entrance to Har Adar, northwest of Jerusalem, on Sept. 26, 2017.

In a PA TV News broadcast, the murderer's children and others were seen holding the Fatah issued poster which displays a large picture of terrorist murderer Nimr Al-Jamal, together with pictures Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat, with the text:

"With all honor and pride, The Fatah Movement, Jerusalem district, Beit Surik branch, mourns the death of its heroic Martyr Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Jamal." [Official PA TV News, Sept. 29, 2017]

The poster also featured the Fatah logo that includes a grenade, crossed rifles, and the PA map of "Palestine" that presents all of Israel as "Palestine" together with the PA areas.

David Collier: In Edinburgh they are still promoting SPSC antisemitism

This highlights the difficulty of the fight we are in. Whilst we are mainly passive, these ‘haters’ are aggressive. Single actors in a variety of settings become ‘enablers’. In unions, on councils, in schools. Intersectionality drives their strategy and in every setting where just one single member of the group has been tainted, the poison is spreading.

In this example someone who shared hard-core antisemitic material was a speaker at an event held by a group known for hard-core antisemitism. Yet such poison is still allowed to spread inside a school setting, just two months after the groups antisemitism had been laid bare.

This isn’t an exception. In February, my report into antisemitism inside the England & Wales PSC threw light onto the activities of Tapash Abu Shaim. A PSC activist who had helped run the PSC stall at the 2016 Labour Party Conference. Despite this receiving national coverage, despite complaints to the Labour party. Nothing changed. As I reported from the 2017 conference last week, Tapash was there, back at the PSC stall. Once again my own research is being shared, but if people are looking to groups like the PSC or SPSC, or even Political parties like Labour, to ‘self cleanse’, they misunderstand the depth of the problem.

On every council, in almost every school, in every community centre. Wider society is not dealing with toxic groups the way that it should because of individual sympathisers who have become activists. It takes just one member of the group to have ‘fallen into the trap’ of believing that antisemitism cannot exist where a humanitarian flag is waved. Where that happens, hard-core antisemitism is promoted and allowed to spread. When left unchallenged this turns each environment into a hostile environment that sees Jews as the problem. Because of this, society is not dealing with Jew hate in the same way it does other forms of racism. We have a real fight on our hands. We cannot stop, we cannot relax. Not for a second.

Fruitvale BART Station, Oakland

Reem Assil has placed a giant floor-to-ceiling mural of recently deported genocidal Jew murderer Rasmea Odeh in her bakery/cafe next to the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland, California.

For Jewish people, it might as well be a giant Nazi Swastika.

As one of those who objected to this public veneration of an ideological killer of Jews near the entrance to a major San Francisco Bay Area transportation hub, her lawyers are dragging me into court for the purpose of obtaining a restraining order... for which they have already been twice denied by the courts.

Not that I ever came anywhere near the woman, but that is not the point... this is a matter of "lawfare."

The point is to silence pro-Jewish / pro-Israel voices in favor of antisemitic anti-Zionism.

Assil is intentionally giving the small Jewish community in Oakland a little taste of 1930s Berlin wherein promoting violent hatred towards Jews was not the least bit uncommon.

Her case against me is that I stood with a few other people who objected to this transgression on the dignity and safety of the Jewish people and I wrote about it in a piece entitled Reemed in Oakland that was published in various small pro-Jewish / pro-Israel outlets such as the Elder of Ziyon, Jews Down Under, and The Jewish Press.

This is a scurrilous court case and if the law has merit Assil and her attorneys are going to lose.

Most people who follow American progressivism are familiar with the ethnic chameleon Linda Sarsour who claims to have magically transformed herself into a woman "of color" when she put on the hijab. Fewer know about her recently deported spiritual sister, the genocidal Arab-Supremacist / faux-feminist Rasmea Odeh.

Odeh and her partners in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) murdered two innocent college students in 1969.

She and her friends - including Aisha Odeh who named Rasmea as a co-conspirator - killed those kids and injured nine others at a grocery store in Jerusalem.

I was one of the people at the vigils on July 8 and July 22 - in memory of Leon Kanner and Edward Joffee - both of whom were college students in their early twenties when Odeh thought it would be a terrific idea to blow their bones all over a grocery store for the crime of being regular Israeli Jews.

But the elevation of Rasmea Odeh from Jew killer to a hero of American feminism is going to make a fascinating story for some writer/researcher.

In the meantime, what I argue is that the case of Reem Assil's racist presence in Oakland represents an example of the deliberalization of the Western progressive-left.

That's the broader point.

The Left Has Embraced Racism and Deliberalization

Bigotry against any people including those heinous "white" people is anti-liberal.

In the United States for political-historical reasons, we tend to confuse liberalism with the Left but unfortunately what we are seeing today is the American progressive-left shedding its liberalism.

The primary method through which the Western-left embraces anti-liberal values is through the encouragement of racial agitation and the violent stomping on freedom of speech as we see in Berkeley and throughout universities within the United States.

While a discussion of the history of liberalism - from Magna Carta to the Constitution of the United States to the appearance of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the American political landscape - is well beyond the scope of this article, it must be understood that anti-racism is foremost among liberal values as they emerged out of World War II.

When I was growing up in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the American-Left primarily embraced liberalism. It stood up against racism and it championed freedom of speech as we saw in Berkeley in the early 1960s with Mario Savio.

Before I was born UC Berkeley was the heart of the Free Speech Movement in the United States.

Now UC Berkeley is the heart of the anti-Free Speech Movement in the United States.

Reem Assil's bakery and coffee shop directly at the access to the Fruitvale Bart Station in Oakland - a major transportation hub in the San Francisco Bay Area - represents an excellent example of what more and more liberals are referring to as the "regressive left."

The idea, of course, is that the Left is decreasingly liberal and increasingly authoritarian and regressive.

What Dave Rubin, formerly of the Young Turks, and others call the "regressive-left" embraces three kinds of racism.

These are anti-white racism, antisemitic anti-Zionism, and what Manfred Gerstenfeld dubbed "Humanitarian Racism."

This last is the contemporary version of nineteenth-century American imperialist notions of "white man's burden."

Reem Assil, as a neighbor is - much to my disgust - selling all three along with her flatbread.

Through promoting Rasmea Odeh at the Fruitvale BART Station - the very place where Oscar Grant was shot dead by an Oakland cop on New Year's Eve 2009 - Assil is using the concept of "intersectionality" to suggest that the Jewish minority in the Middle East, along with their supporters throughout the diaspora and in the United States, are responsible for the alleged oppression of the Palestinian-Arabs.

The fundamental idea is that just as "white" people are evil toward "people of color" throughout the world, so Jews are rotten to Arabs in Israel.

It is all alleged to be part of the same insidious racist, imperialist, colonialist, apartheid, mindset.

As someone who has been publicly outspoken in the movement against Jewish freedom and self-defense for many years, Assil joins people like Linda Sarsour and Rasmea Odeh in opposing Jewish self-determination.

By supporting Linda Sarsour and Rasmea Odeh and, now, small-time local racist Reem Assil, the Left has betrayed its own values.

And that is what is most disappointing of all.

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Essam Youssef, who is the head of a "human rights" NGO in Gaza, has declared that the kids playing soccer on the most sacred Jewish site is a "human right."

Israel's Supreme Court has ruled that soccer and other games on the Temple Mount are forbidden for desecrating the site's holiness, and the Jerusalem police are enforcing that ban, selectively, when pressured.

Youssef, who styles himself as a human rights activist, called the Supreme Court decision "ridiculous," adding how ironic it was that Israel allowed Jews to "break into the sanctities of others and desecrate the Al-Aqsa Mosque continuously" while pretending to care about the holiness of the site by banning soccer.

Youssef heads a previously unheard-of NGO, the "Integrity Foundation for Humanitarian and Human Rights (Hayat Haq)". Before that he headed a similarly sketchy organization called the International Public Foundation to Aid Gaza which seems to have done nothing to actually help anyone in Gaza.

Essam Youssef is not the first Palestinian to try to grab headlines by characterizing himself as a human rights leader when in fact he is using a fake interest in human rights as a way to enrich himself. NGOs are a big business in the territories.

But his statement was published widely in Palestinian media, including Ma'an, Felesteen and others.

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Palestinians upset that Ambassador Friedman "performed Talmudic rituals" at Kotel today

Today, thousands of Jews flocked to the Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem to participate in the "priestly blessing" performed on the holiday of Sukkot.

One of them was US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

This prompted Palestinian media to recoil in horror that Friedman was performing "Talmudic rituals" with "thousands of settlers" at the "western wall of Al Aqsa Mosque."

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The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, who express loyalty to Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, confirmed that they will never put down their weapons, no matter what.

They claim that their right to kill Jewish Israelis, which they call "resistance," is guaranteed under international law.

Abu Mohammed, a military spokesman for the group, said in a statement Saturday that "resistance is a legitimate weapon that is guaranteed by all international laws, to defend the right of the Palestinian people and the occupied territory."

The only possible place that the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades can get funding from is from Fatah, under Mahmoud Abbas. Arafat was known to have paid them directly.

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10/07 Links: LV mayor ‘Israel lives with this every day’; Glick: Hamas is the great victor

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: In this round of reconciliation talks, Hamas is the great victor

In other words, the PA will now be responsible for keeping the lights on and picking up the garbage.

And Hamas will be free to concentrate on preparing for and initiating its next terror war against Israel. It can dig tunnels. It can build missiles. It can expand its operational ties with Hezbollah, Islamic State, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Fatah.

In the wake of Hamas’s leadership’s meetings in Tehran, Sinwar told reporters that Hamas is now moving full speed ahead toward doing all of these things. Sinwar said that Hamas is “developing our military strength in order to liberate Palestine.” He added, “Every day we build missiles and continue military training.”

Thousands of people, he said, are working “day and night” to prepare Hamas’s next terror war against Israel. And indeed, two weeks ago, two Hamas terrorists were killed when the tunnels they were digging collapsed on them.

Tuesday’s surrender ceremonies tell us two things.

First, the notion that Fatah is even remotely interested in defeating Hamas is complete nonsense. For 10 years since its forces were humiliated and routed in Gaza, Fatah has faithfully funded and defended Hamas. Abbas’s only concern is staying in charge of his Israeli-protected fiefdom in Ramallah. To this end, he will finance – with US and EU taxpayer monies – and defend another 10 Hamas wars with Israel.

The second lesson we learn from Hamas’s victory is that we need to curb our enthusiasm for Sisi and his regime in Egypt, and for his backers in the UAE. Sisi’s decision to facilitate and mediate Hamas’s newest victory over Fatah shows that his alliance with Israel is tactical and limited in scope. His decision to side with Israel against Hamas during Operation Protective Edge three years ago may not repeat itself in the next war.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner: Follow Israel’s example: We must wage financial warfare against terrorists

The United States and nations around the world battle ISIS and other terrorist groups with special forces and other ground combat troops, pilots of manned aircraft and drones, police, explosives experts, intelligence agents and informers. But to win the fight we also need financial experts who can deprive terrorists of money they require to wage war against us.

Israel – a favorite target of terrorists for decades – has developed a highly effective financial warfare template to hit terrorists in their wallets. The U.S. has already used this template to fight ISIS and other terrorist groups – and now European nations should follow.
Harpoon

Money is the common denominator behind everything that ISIS and other terrorist groups do and threaten to do. Without the cash to fund fighters and leaders, there would be no global jihad against the West. Islamic fundamentalism and despair might inspire terror, but money fuels it.

Israel came to terms with this reality years ago, during the last intifada from 2000 to 2005, when a seemingly endless wave of Palestinian suicide bombers attacked the country’s towns and cities. The Israeli military and security services waged relentless efforts to end the bloodshed, and elite counterterrorist units launched daring raids to kill and capture key terrorists – but the bombings continued.

Israeli leaders realized they needed a new approach – something that could provide short-term benefits and change the long-term paradigm. So Israel shifted its focus to the money that financed everything from bomb-building factories to the cash bonuses issued to the families of suicide bombers.

The Jewish state formed a multiagency task force codenamed Harpoon to wage financial warfare against its enemies. The Harpoon unit followed the terrorist money from its source – whether it was cash raised by charities in the U.S., or multimillion-dollar transfers from Iran, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia.

Harpoon expanded its operational reach in 2002. Following the money wasn’t enough. The cash and the accounts had to be taken from the terrorists or destroyed.

Caroline Glick: Trump and Obama’s third term

The problem is that substantively, there is no real difference between the two administrations – not in the Middle East and not anywhere.

Take Iran’s nuclear program for example.

In accordance with the US Nuclear Agreement Review Act (2015), on October 15, Trump is obligated to make his quarterly report to Congress certifying or decertifying Iranian compliance with the terms of the nuclear deal it concluded with Obama two years ago.

The issue of whether or not to certify Iranian compliance has been the beginning, middle and end of all US policy discussions on Iran’s nuclear program since Trump entered office.

Despite Trump’s stated opposition to the deal, his top advisers Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have pressured him into twice certifying Iranian compliance.

On the face of it, the debate about Iranian compliance ought to be about competing interpretations of Iran’s behavior. In practice, though, facts play little role in the discourse.

The Iranians announced as soon as the deal was concluded that they would not permit UN inspectors to enter any nuclear site they define as a “military installation.”

This hollowed out the entire inspections regime.

After all, if Iran can bar inspectors from its nuclear installations, there is no way for inspectors to know if Iran’s nuclear operations accord with or breach of the restrictions it agreed to in the agreement.

In other words, neither Obama nor Trump has had any way to credibly certify Iranian compliance, because the US has no idea what Iran is doing.

And everyone knows this.

Chag sameach! Plus a Sukkah photo to upset Israel's enemies

Tonight is the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and I won't be blogging from sundown (on the East Coast of the US) until Saturday night or Sunday.

Here's a photo of Benjamin Netanyahu in a sukkah, taking the traditional lulav and etrog:

Note the pictures on the walls.

One is a panorama of Jerusalem - without the Dome of the Rock or Al Aqsa mosques.

The other is a depiction of the Second Temple.

Some people's heads might explode.

Chag sameach!

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10/04 Links Pt2: Phillips: That UN reaction to 'son of Hamas'; Collier: My name is Rachel ‘X’

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: That UN reaction to 'son of Hamas'

Please join me in this clip as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the amazing, comical and oh-so-telling reaction of UN delegates to home truths being told to them by the “son of Hamas”.

.@Facebook now blocking video from being shared—but at 2,994,885 views, it is the most watched speech in UN history. https://t.co/e8zP5gbkRD pic.twitter.com/eaLpvtGWM2
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 3, 2017

David Collier: My name is Rachel ‘X’

On 2 October 1938, Arab ‘rioters’ infiltrated a Jewish neighbourhood in Tiberias. They first cut the telephone wires to frustrate calls for help. They then set about massacring innocent civilians. According to the British:

‘It was systematically organized and savagely executed. Of the nineteen Jews killed, including women and children, all save four were stabbed to death.’

There were about 70 armed Arabs involved in the attack, they set fire to Jewish homes and the local synagogue. According to Wiki ‘in one house a mother, and her five children were killed’.

Wiki doesn’t explain that the father, Shimon Mizrachi, was elsewhere, on guard duty protecting other families. Nor does the account give you the names and ages of those five murdered children. Ezra (aged twelve), Miriam (five), Yocheved (three), Samuel (two) and Hephzibah (one).

It doesn’t give you the mother’s name either. The mother’s name was Rachel.

The Rachel of Kiryat Shmona
Kiryat Shmona is about 35 miles from Tiberias. A city in the Northern District of Israel, near the Lebanese border.

On 11 April 1974, terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) attacked civilians in Kiryat Shmona. These terrorists first tried to attack a school, but there was nobody inside. Instead they attacked a nearby residential building. Rehov (St) Yehuda Halevi number 15. They went from flat to flat in a barbaric killing spree. Eighteen people were murdered, half of them were children.

Anisa Stern (47) was one of the victims, killed alongside her eight-year-old daughter. The daughter’s name was Rachel
The Rachel of Ma’alot-Tarshiha

Just a few weeks after the massacre in Kiryat Shmona, on the 12th May 1974, a group of fifteen to seventeen year old students set out on a field trip of the Galilee. It was three days before Israel’s twenty-sixth Independence Day. It was a large student group and they had made arrangements to spend a night at the Netiv Meir School in Ma’alot.

Barry Shaw: The asymmetry of the Israel-Palestinian conflict

The international community ignores the misuse of funding to the Palestinian Authority with over $300 million allocated to terrorists and their families. Not only Hamas, but also the PA is a terror-ridden organization. Palestine Media Watch, in its latest report dated Sept. 27, revealed that the Palestinian Authority now has 75 schools named after terrorists or Nazi collaborators. One of these schools is funded by the Belgian government.

Both sides of the Palestinian political divide constantly make inflammatory anti-Semitic remarks when referring to Israel. Mahmoud Abbas has a long history of hitting at Jews as he assaults Israel.

While addressing the European Parliament on June 24, 2016, he accused rabbis of demanding the Israeli government poison Palestinian water. Prior to that, in another blatantly offensive anti-Semitic remark, he said that "we will not allow Jews with their filthy feet" to defile the Temple Mount.

Deep Palestinian anti-Semitism can be found in the infamous Hamas Charter, which quotes the hadith: "The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."

This then is the asymmetry that prevents any possible solution to the impasse between Israel and the Palestinians.

It is not about borders or territory. It is about this deep schism between the two sides that has prevented progress for decades.

Until the international community faces up to this obvious obstacle of the ideological asymmetry between the two sides, do not expect a solution any day soon.

10/04 Links Pt1: Toameh: A State Within a State?; Phillips: Has Interpol gone stark, staring mad?

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: A State Within a State?

For now, however, Hamas seems prepared to swallow the bitter pill -- because the name of the game for Hamas is survival. Isolated and cash-stripped, Hamas will collude with anyone who offers it "oxygen".

Abbas, for his part, has agreed to serve as the savior of Hamas. Why? One simple reason: he does not wish to see a concord between Mohammed Dahlan and Hamas. In Abbas's view, the "reconciliation" deal is a victory not because Hamas has surrendered or relinquished security control over the Gaza Strip, but because he managed to foil Dahlan's return to Gaza and the political arena. Backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and other Arab countries, Dahlan's return and rendezvous with Hamas would have been a severe blow to Abbas and his Palestinian Authority.

A Dahlan-Hamas alliance would have undermined Abbas's claim to be the president of all Palestinians, including those in the Gaza Strip. Moreover, such an alliance would have emboldened Dahlan, who lives in exile in the United Arab Emirates, and would have enhanced his prospects of succeeding Abbas as president of the PA.

Hamas has every reason to be satisfied with the "reconciliation" deal with Abbas. Its only concession was to dismantle its "administrative committee," which served as a shadow government in the Gaza Strip. Hamas shed no tears in this move, which absolved it from managing civilian affairs and paying salaries. Offloading this responsibility frees up Hamas to fortify its military capabilities.

Notably, the Egyptian-engineered deal does not require Hamas to make any political concessions. This in itself is a huge achievement for Hamas. Hamas is not being asked to recognize Israel's right to exist or accept any peace process.

The Gaza Strip is now headed toward a new era where it will be divided between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas – one in charge of civilian issues while the second has full security control.

This situation, if it remains unresolved, will most likely lead to the renewal of tensions between the two sides. The Gaza Strip is headed towards a situation of a state within a state. As of now, it is safe to call their arrangement a three-state solution: one Palestinian state in the West Bank and two in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah and Hamas must be laughing their heads off as, under weak and impotent governments, they see their power grow.

Melanie Phillips: Has Interpol gone stark, staring mad?

Please join me in this clip as I discuss with avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the implications of the extraordinary decision by Interpol to admit a fictional country to its ranks.