Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, August 06, 2016

08/06 Links: UN Deletes Article Calling Hamas Operative “Hero”; Hey Black Lives Matter, your anti-Semitism is showing

From Ian:

Political play in Rio: 'The Lebanese refused to board a bus with Israelis'

The Rio summer Olympics premiered Saturday night with an exceptionally large Israeli delegation - the largest in history - made up of 47 athletes. Excitement was at its peak when the delegation traversed across the Rio stadium, with rhythmic gymnast Neta Rivkin at its head. But prior to the ceremony, an awkward incident occurred between the Israeli and Lebanese delegations.
The Israelis, upon preparing to board a joint-bus, were turned down by the Lebanese who refused to share the ride. To avoid a diplomatic feud, event organizers decided to drive each delegation independently to the stadium.
Israeli sailing coach Udi Gal described the incident in a Facebook post. "2016 Olympics...shame on you," he wrote. "The Israeli delegation was preparing to board a bus to the opening ceremony, which was to be shared with the Lebanese delegation. The Lebanese, upon comprehending that they were to share a bus with the Israelis, addressed the driver in refusal and demanded that the door to the bus be shut. Event organizers then attempted to scatter us on different buses - something that is unacceptable for security and representative reasons."
"We insisted that we board the bus designated for us - and that the Lebanese should de-board if so they wish. So the bus driver opened the door. But this time, the head of the Lebanese delegation blocked the entrance to the bus with his own body. Event organizers - attempting to prevent a diplomatic incident - then organized a separate ride for us. But the diplomatic incident already occurred - shame!"
He added: "How can it be that something like this occurs on the eve of the Olympic opening ceremony? Does this not directly oppose what the Olympics represent and stand for...I cannot begin to express my feelings, I'm in shock from the incident."

Meet Lady Jenny Tonge, a leading UK anti-Semitic inciter

Tonge said in 2004 that if she were Palestinian, she would consider becoming a suicide bomber. This fits an example of anti-Semitism from the definition – “calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.”
The IHRA definition includes among other examples of anti-Semitism, “making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective.” Tonge did so when in 2006, while still a Liberal MP, she alleged that the “pro-Israeli Lobby has grips on the Western World, its financial grips. I think they’ve got a certain grip on our party.” – as well as other similar remarks in 2012 about the power of the pro-Israel lobby in the UK and US.
Another IHRA definition example of what is anti-Semitic is, “accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.” In a letter to the Independent in 2006 Tonge blamed Israel for suicide bombings in Iraq, writing, “Israel's security wall is forcing them to export themselves to another arena to fight in this ridiculous ‘war’ against terrorism being waged by the donkeys who lead us in the West.” She has also blamed the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel as “the root cause of terrorism worldwide.” This in addition to the aforementioned accusation of Israel’s responsibility for the rise of extreme Islamism and Isis”
In 2009, at an anti-Israel rally in London during the Gaza war Tonge said that “Jewish people should be totally ashamed of themselves that they are not doing more to stop Israel.” She added that it is “absolutely disgusting.” In 2015 she has called on Jewish leaders in Britain to condemn Israel. Her statements seem to imply “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.” This is another example of anti-Semitism stated in the IHRA definition.
The IHRA definition mentions as a further example of anti-Semitism, “accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.” Tonge accuses Jews of “using the Holocaust” as she questions whether Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is allowed to continue because of “Holocaust guilt.”
The IHRA definition mentions furthermore that it is anti-Semitic to deny “the right of Jewish people to self-determination.” Tonge attended an anti-Israel event at Middlesex University in 2012 where she stated that “Beware Israel. Israel is not going to be there forever in its current performance… Israel will lose its support and then they will reap what they have sown.”

The serious terror-funding allegations against the World Vision head in Gaza

However, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs put out a detailed statement giving both particulars of the allegations and a description of the methods used to carry out the alleged fraud. Furthermore, it sets out a series of admissions El-Halabi is alleged to have made under cross-examination.
El-Halabi is alleged to have admitted to joining Hamas in his youth, and been planted with World Vision by the terrorist group, having worked his way up the ranks until he controlled the multi-million dollar budget, equipment and aid packages.
The specific allegations against him include:
• Promoting fictitious agricultural associations as cover for transfers to Hamas;
• Transferring money to Hamas members fraudulently registered as employees of charity-sponsored projects;
• Issuing inflated invoices and fictitious receipts with the excess being transferred to Hamas;
• Issuing fictitious tenders for work to be done for World Vision, with the "winning" tenderer to transfer 60% of funds received to Hamas;
• Transferring directly to Hamas equipment and aid packages provided by World Vision;
• Initiating a greenhouse project to use the greenhouses to hide the sites of terror tunnels;
• Disguising Hamas warehouses as World Vision warehouses so Hamas could take materials delivered to them;
• Diverting money for injured children to Hamas terrorists who fraudulently listed their own children as wounded; and
• Diverting unemployment benefits to Hamas terrorists.
Obviously, these are all only allegations until proven in court.
As mentioned, World Vision proclaimed its faith in its audit processes, but this would be far from the first time frauds of this sort have escaped the notice of internal, or even external, auditors. For example, in a recent example close to home, in February this year, the Victorian State Director of the Liberal Party, Damian Mantach, pled guilty to having embezzled approximately AU$1.5 million from the party. This was achieved by invoicing the party and MPs for work that was never done, or at inflated costs.
Prior to the discovery of the fraud, a financial comptroller from KPMG had been installed in the party to investigate over spending on campaigns, but had reported that no fraud had been discovered, following which, the embezzlement continued.

08/05 Links Pt2: Why the Jewish Left Encourages Hate; Phillips: The unused weapon of mass instruction

From Ian:

Chloe Valdary: Black Lives Matter’s Jewish Problem Is Also a Black Problem

On Aug. 1, the Black Lives Matter coalition (BLM) of groups and partners published a platform of objectives and demands ostensibly constructed to correct heavy-handed policing, educational negligence, and economic inadequacy in black communities.
That platform did no such thing.
Instead, organizers offered up a hodgepodge of half-baked ideas in the service of creating a new world order, one in which defunding police, releasing all political prisoners from jail, and redistributing of land are imperative.
Moreover, apparently believing that societal reforms in America’s inner cities are somehow related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, BLM included a section on Israel in its list of demands. With trite talking points, the group called for a divestment from the Jewish state as it is allegedly “complicit in the genocide against the Palestinian people.”
What this means is unpleasant to contemplate. An organization formed to confront systemic prejudice against black Americans—which predates the reestablishment of the state of Israel—is now intimating that such prejudice is caused by the Jewish state’s supposed genocidal tendencies (which, according to census reports, have led to a population increase among Palestinians).
Though I find no intrinsic value in “rebutting” crackpot conspiracy theories, it’s worth demonstrating how far removed BLM is from honoring the legacy of its ancestors by reminding readers just how pro-Zionist prominent leaders in the black community have been throughout history—and how Zionism helped shape black politics in America.

Why the Jewish Left Encourages Hate

The Jewish left has a problem. Their belief that Israel is the obstacle to peace with the Palestinians has transformed itself over the last generation from a coherent political position to an obsession that is disconnected from the reality of the conflict. Many are so frustrated with this failure that they are willing to even excuse anti-Semitic comments as long as they are directed at Jews they don’t like. That is the only way to understand Peter Beinart’s recent column in Haaretz, in which he not only sought to justify the disgusting statement of a congressman that compared West Bank settlers to “termites” and criticizing those mainstream and liberal Jewish groups that spoke out against him.
The incident stemmed from a forum held at the Democratic Convention last week by an anti-Zionist group called the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation at which Representative Hank Johnson spoke. The mere presence of a member of Congress at a forum hosted by a group that promotes the anti-Semitic creed of BDS that seeks to eliminate the Jewish state should have been enough to justify condemnation of Johnson by the entire Jewish community from left to right. But taking his cue from the vicious ideology of his hosts, Johnson went further than just endorsing the group’s positions. As the Washington Free Beacon reported, Johnson described Jews living in communities in the West Bank as “termites.” The insect analogy was, as our Daniella Greenbaum noted last week, straight out of the traditional playbook of classical anti-Semitic hate. The point was not merely to oppose the existence of settlements—a position that some Israelis hold–but to delegitimize the people that live there making them, in effect, fair game for the daily terrorist attacks to which they and other Israelis have been subjected.
The ADL and Jewish leaders like Rabbi David Wolpe responded with condemnation and Johnson eventually apologized for what he conceded was “an offensive analogy.” But Beinart is unhappy with Johnson’s critics because he thinks the “truth” about settlements should override any objections to his vile language. Beinart is convinced that settlements really are functioning like insects eating away at the fabric of Palestinian life and preventing peace. Moreover, he worries that American Jewish sensitivity to anti-Semitic language is serving to suppress condemnation of settlements and settlers. From his point of view, the only way to save Israel from itself is to unleash the kind of virulent attacks that will isolate the Jewish state and force it to withdraw from the West Bank and Jerusalem regardless of whether the Palestinians have demonstrated any desire to live in peace with them. If that means making common cause with those who want to destroy Israel and kill its Jews, so be it.

Melanie Phillips: The unused weapon of mass instruction

As a result of this summer’s jihadist terrorist attacks in France and Germany, public discussion has become yet more urgent about how to combat Islamist radicalization.
Over the years, many explanations for Islamic terrorism have been advanced to show that it has in fact nothing to do with Islam.
These have included poverty, social exclusion, Islamophobia and “grievances” over conflicts such as Bosnia, Kashmir, Iraq, Chechnya, Palestine and now Syria.
To the Western mind, these “grievances” have no common factor – even while the terrorists, along with other jihadis burning Christians alive in Africa or slaughtering civilians from London to Paris to Tunisia, scream “Allahu akhbar” as they commit atrocities in the name of Islamic holy war.
The rise of Islamic State, committed to establishing a Muslim caliphate, exposed the vacuity of such thinking. Why were tens of thousands of young Western Muslims signing up to an Islamic supremacist death cult? In scrabbling for an answer, Western politicians still determined to deny the reality of religious fanaticism were sure about one thing. Islamic State was “un-Islamic” or even “anti-Islamic.” Religion couldn’t be the cause of such depravity.
In the wake of this summer’s attacks, fresh explanations have been heard. If the terrorists appear to have acted alone (which usually turns out not to be the case) they are “lone wolves” and therefore not jihadi foot-soldiers. If they appear to have a psychiatric history, they are said to be mentally ill and therefore not jihadi foot-soldiers.

Hezbollah's Al Manar quotes Sheikh Ali Damoh who stressed in his Friday sermon that there is no justification to communicate or normalize relations or have peace with the "Zionist enemy."

Damoh said thar every Muslim Scholar, both Sunnis and Shiite, in the past and the present, have all stated the inadmissibility of peace with the Jews as long as Jews control an inch of Muslim countries. He quoted Muslim scholars from Palestine, Iraq , Al-Azhar in Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and Indian Muslim scholars.

He gave examples of historic fatwas against any agreement with Jews, starting with thr first conference of Palestine Muslim scholars in 1935 down to an advisory opinion of the chairman of the Central Association of Muslim Scholars in India, an Iraqi fatwa in 1937, an Egyptian fatwa prohibiting reconciliation with the Jews and the necessity of jihad in 1956, a fatwa of the Islamic International Conference of scholars in Pakistan in 1968, and an advisory opinion of the Fatwa Committee at Al-Azhar in 1979, forbidding conceding any part of Palestine, signed by more than sixty Muslim scholars.

Apparently, no one told these Muslim scholars that the "occupation" from 1967 and the settlements" are sthe only problems, and if only Israel withdraw to its 1949 armistice lines, there would be peace. Perhaps we need to send Peace Now and J-Street and the EU and the UN to explain the issues to these guys. They clearly don't understand the real issue.

It must be that they are misinterpreting Islam.

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08/05 Links Pt1: Glick: Obama's legacy; The Next Generation of Killers; Obama Will Never Give up on Iran

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Obama's legacy

Last week’s statement demonstrates that shaping the US’s future policy toward Israel is a major component of the legacy he is building. And what is the shape he is giving to that policy through his actions? By openly employing anti-Jewish policy rationales, Obama shows that the legacy he intends to pass on to his successors is a US policy toward Israel based neither on US interests nor on American values. Rather, it is predicated on unabashed anti-Jewish discrimination.
In other words, Obama’s presidential legacy is the promotion of anti-Semitism as the guiding principle shaping and informing US Israel policy.
This is, to be sure, a stunning – indeed shocking – conclusion. It points to the depth of Obama’s hostility to Jewish national and civil rights. But as his administration’s statements make clear, the conclusion that anti-Semitism is the guiding principle of his policies is unavoidable.
Those running to succeed Obama should be urged to denounce his bigotry and renounce his legacy. By the same token, the Israeli pro-Palestinian Left and the American pro-Obama Left should be urged to distance themselves from him.
As long as they refuse to do so, as long as they continue to support Obama, they make clear that for them, anti-Jewish bigotry is no big deal. As far as they are concerned, Jewish rights should only be respected when doing so advances their political goals.
This means that Obama’s supporters can no longer claim to be liberals. Now that we understand that anti-Jewish bigotry, and the rejection of Jewish civil rights, is the rationale informing Obama’s policy toward the Jewish state, it is clear that it is no longer possible to be both a liberal and an Obama supporter.
This is his legacy. And this is their choice.

The Next Generation of Killers

At UNRWA summer camps, incitement is as normal as swimming and sports. The Times of Israel found that the staff teaches young Palestinians that “Jews are the wolf” and “with God’s help and our own strength we will wage war. And with education and jihad we will return to our homes!” A young camper told the creators of the documentary Camp Jihad that “the summer camp teaches us that we have to liberate Palestine.” A little girl eagerly asserted to filmmakers that she will “not forget my promise to take back my land.” Contributing to the culture of incitement and violence, the UNRWA and its camps have, since their inception, furthered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
No one is born a terrorist; they are taught to become one. Worse than most people can imagine, the summer camps of Gaza turn children into soldiers and violence into a way of life. Play and personal growth activities are replaced with military training, and while children elsewhere in the world are learning new skills and knowledge, the children of Gaza are learning to dedicate their lives to a violent ideology and, for some, perpetuating an armed struggle.
Searching to explain the “intifada of the knives” in 2015 and 2016, The Wall Street Journal editorial board suggested that “the taste for violence emerges from a deep-seated culture of hate, nurtured by Palestinian leaders over many years in mosques, schools, newspapers, TV channels, and social media.” Summer camps reinforce this culture; even children’s play has become an opportunity to further the Palestinian terror groups’ causes. Campers are given terrorists to serve as role models, military training as a substitute for games, and a pre-packaged, violent ideology that destroys their innocence. While it is only one component of the culture of terror in Gaza, the summer camps give children both the ideology and the technical expertise to act on it. And that’s no way to spend a summer.

Dr. As'ad Abdul Rahman is a Palestinian politician. He has been a Palestinian National Council member, member of the Palestinian Central Council and also a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, although he seems to have resigned from the PLO Central Council.

He is considered a respected analyst, a fixture on Arabic TV, being interviewed by the BBC and other media outlets.

Today in a UAE newspaper he describes "the roots of Israeli racism." He describes three reasons "Israelis" are racist, but one doesn't have to dig too deep to see that he really means Jews.

The first is that Jews believe that the Torah is the infallible word of God.

The second is that the Jews believe that the Talmud is more important than the Torah and it is filled with racism and instructions to treat non-Jews with disgust.

The third is that Ashkenazic Jews, deep down, know that they are really Khazars and not Jewish at all, so they need to cover up for this fact by acting brutally towards non-Jews.

This is once again the sort of everyday antisemitism published in Arab media and held by Palestinian leaders. And it is exactly the sort of story that the Western media won't touch because the meme of "moderate Palestinians" is too sacred to disturb.

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World Vision defense of Hamas member rings hollow

As has been reported, Israel arrested a senior member of the Christian charity World Vision on charges of diverting tens of millions of dollars meant to help Gaza civilians towards Hamas terrorists.

Israel has been careful so far not to blame World Vision itself, implying that the actions of Mohammad El Halabi were done without the knowledge of the organization.

But World Vision's statement about the incident reveals that it is not the most truthful organization:

World Vision subscribes to the humanitarian principles of impartiality and neutrality and therefore rejects any involvement in any political, military or terrorist activities and maintains its independence as a humanitarian aid agency committed to serving the poor, especially children.

it rejects any involvement in political activities?

World Vision has published a pamphlet that describes campaigns that can only be described as political.

They claim that they are not political, but their advocacy only goes in one direction:

This is a political position.

Worse, they use the term "resistance" in their work, and they describe their partnership with undeniably political organizations like Breaking the Silence and ICAHD as "co-resistance":

Indeed, there are other reasons to blame World Vision besides its apparent shocking lack of oversight on how its donors' money is spent. But this statement alone, where they claim to be apolitical, is enough to prove that the organization is not telling the truth, today.

And once you know that they lie about their very goals, it is hard to believe them about anything.

By the way, Israel says that Halabi was recruited by Hamas in 2005. This means that he was working for the UNDP at the time.

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We've been mentioning how the Arab world seems sick of the Palestinian issue.

Now that fatigue, which had been confined to behind-the-scenes decisions on funding, is starting to spill over into popular media.

From MEMRI:

During a July 24 interview on the Syrian opposition Orient News TV channel, host Dima Wannous asked her guest, Muhammad Masharqa, spokesman for the Free Palestinian-Syrian Assembly, why the Palestinian cause remained "the world's number one cause" over the years, even though the total number of Palestinians displaced equaled the number of people who fled Syria and Iraq in the past three months. Masharqa's response that the establishment of the state of Israel "was a colonialist enterprise with Western goals" did not satisfy Wannous, who said that unlike the Palestinians, the Syrians would not have forgiven Saddam his crimes against his own people merely for fighting their enemy. The Free Palestinian-Syrian Assembly, which was established in May in Gaziantep, Turkey, emphasizes Palestinian involvement in the Syrian revolution.

Dima Wannous: "Why has the (Palestinian cause) become the world's number one cause? I mean, the calamities of the other Arab nations over the years were no less tragic than the tragedy of the Palestinian people."

Muhammad Masharqa: "You can look at it from another perspective. The colonialist enterprise that brought about the state of Israel did not target only the Palestinian people but the entire Arab region. All the destruction in the Arab world can be traced back to the fact that there is an advanced post in the region for the colonialist powers, and it is called 'the state of Israel.'"

[...]

Dima Wannous: "In 1948, the years of the Nakba, the Palestinian people were driven out of their homes and their land. Approximately 750,000 people were displaced. You know the figures better than me. 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, only 150,000 of whom were expelled from Palestine. The others remained in their historical homeland, although in different places. If you take the total figure of 750,000, this is equal to the number of people who fled Syria and Iraq in the past three months. I repeat the question in another way, because you did not answer me the first time. Why is the Palestinian cause the world's number one cause?"

Muhammad Masharqa: "It is not the world's number one cause..."

Dima Wannous: "Well, after five years, many Syrians are asking why their cause has already been forgotten by most people. Moreover, the Palestinians are blaming the Syrians that their revolution is Islamic, and has failed to produce any free democratic ideology. They say that the Syrian revolution emerged from the mosques, and so on. How come yours is the world's number one cause? With all the great crimes perpetrated by the Israeli enemy - how many people were killed in the Palestinian 'Land Day?' You know better than me. Six people were killed. That's what I've read."

Muhammad Masharqa: "Look, it is important to seek answers in history. In what context was Israel established? Was the context Palestinian or did it pertain to the entire region? From this perspective... It constituted... It cooperated with the Apartheid regime in South Africa, and with other forms of colonization equipped with a myth. But it had clear political and economic goals right from the start. The centrality of the Palestinian cause stems from this. This is an objective thing. It is not because the Palestinians were good at propaganda."

Dima Wannous: "In other words, you've benefitted from the enemy being Jewish and Israeli..."

Muhammad Masharqa: "No, it was a colonist enterprise with Western goals."

[...]

Dima Wannous: "Saddam Hussein was idolized by the masses for firing 36 or 39 Scud missiles at Tel Aviv, while he was perpetrating crimes on a daily basis against his own people. The Palestinian greatly appreciated Saddam Hussein for this deed. If we want to talk about the Palestinians' approach to the liberation of the peoples, is it conceivable for them to support a murderer, an arch-killer, a dictator - all the foul terms apply to these leaders - just because he fired missiles at Tel Aviv? What about the (Iraqi) people?"

Muhammad Masharqa: "Consider this within the context of the historical culture of this nation, since the Prophet Muhammad and to this day. This culture still views the individual leader... All the people evoke the image of Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, whom we consider to be just caliph..."

Dima Wannous: "You are talking about people in general, but I'm talking about the Palestinians."

Muhammad Masharqa: "The Palestinian culture did not land from another planet..."

Dima Wannous: "It's not, but on this issue, it is different, because the Syrians would not have fallen in love with Saddam - if he were still alive - if he had started fighting the Syrian regime..."

Muhammad Masharqa: "That's just the way Arab Islamic culture is. Since the days of Omar Ibn Al-Khattab... We talk about Saladin, the savior, the hero, the inspiring leader. This is the culture of Arabs. This is the Arab-Islamic culture."

[...]

Dima Wannous: "Most of the Palestinians today support Hassan Nasrallah, considering him to be an instrument of liberation, but today, Hassan Nasrallah is doing his 'liberation' in Aleppo, not Palestine."

Muhammad Masharqa: "Who has the statistics...?"

Dima Wannous: "It's not about statistics. We watch and read what's going on. Obviously, I can't go one by one and ask each Palestinian for his opinion."

Muhammad Masharqa: "In my view, this generalization is inaccurate. Like all the people on Earth, the Palestinians are divided on these issues."

Wannous makes an important point that is all but ignored in the West: most of the victims of the so-called "naqba" were not refugees because they stayed in "Palestine," so they would have been considered "displaced persons" in today's language.

Syria has millions of those.

(h/t Yoel)

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ICRC to close office in Jerusalem after Palestinians attack

Every once in a while, Palestinian protesters attack the offices of the ICRC in Jerusalem, mostly to complain about not seeing their terrorist relatives in prison often enough.

A few weeks ago the Red Cross announced that it would cut the sponsored visits in half, causing great anger.

Apparently, a protest turned violent on Wednesday evening, although I cannot find any news stories about it. Nevertheless, the ICRC announced that they will suspend operations in their Jerusalem location as a result of the protesters breaking into their offices, and will not work until the safety of their employees is assured, starting on Sunday.

Relatives of terrorists turning violent? What a surprise.

No one reporting it? What a surprise again.

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08/04 Links Pt2: Clinton And Trump Must Honour Bush-Congress Commitments; Arabs Must Turn a New Page with Israel

From Ian:

David Singer: Israel – Clinton And Trump Must Honour Bush-Congress Commitments

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have yet to signal their readiness to honour the commitments made by President Bush in his letter dated 14 April 2004 to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Bush’s letter – overwhelmingly endorsed by the House of Representatives 407:9 on 23 June 2004 and the Senate 95:3 the next day – supported Israel’s proposed unilateral disengagement from Gaza and four settlements in the West Bank.
Bush further reassured Israel that in final status negotiations with the Palestinian Authority America would support Israel:

not returning to the 1949 armistice lines

demanding recognition as the Jewish state

refusing Palestinian Arab refugees being resettled in Israel

Bush’s assurances were absolutely crucial to Israel resuming negotiations with the Palestinian Authority – Israel’s then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert telling world leaders gathered with Bush at Annapolis on 27 November 2007:
“The negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us, UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the Roadmap and the April 14th 2004 letter of President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel.”

Fred Maroun: Arabs Must Turn a New Page with Israel

We must look at Israel not as foreign presence, which it is not, but as a unique and remarkable component of the Middle East that enriches the region.
The creation of such a Palestinian state under today's conditions is likely to result in a Hamas-dominated state that is violently hostile towards Israel. The Palestinian Authority must be transitioned into a peaceful and stable entity before it can be expected to run a state.
Binyamin Netanyahu recently suggested an approach to make the peace initiative work, but Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Arabi rejected it out of hand. This is not how harmonious relationships between nations are built.
"We must all rise above all forms of fanaticism, self-deception and obsolete theories of superiority." — Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, 1977.

UK's Labour Whitewashes Its Anti-Semitism

The Chakrabarti Report was a missed opportunity, the importance of which extends far beyond the parlous state of the Labour Party or the wider British Left. Across Europe, Islamist assassins and vandals are targeting Jewish schools, businesses, museums, synagogues, cemeteries, and kosher food establishments. It has become a cliché that a wave of anti-Semitism is washing over Europe.
Some on the Left have taken notice. Four days after the murder of four Jewish hostages during the siege of the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris, France’s Socialist Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, described “the intolerable rise in acts of anti-Semitism in France” as a “symptom of a crisis of democracy [and] the French Republic.” But such urgent and necessary diagnoses from the political Left have been notable for their scarcity.
For the most part, the Left has remained stubbornly indifferent, retreating into denial and moral cowardice or, worse, advancing boldly into outright complicity. In the name of anti-racism, anxieties about Muslim immigration and intolerance are routinely denounced as xenophobic bigotry. In the name of Palestinian solidarity, responsibility for lethal anti-Semitism is routinely laid at the feet of an Israeli government held to be insufficiently dedicated to the pursuit of peace. And in the radical Leftist circles in which Jeremy Corbyn moves, Islamists are routinely embraced by politicians and human rights activists who insist on mistaking a politics of hatred and supremacism for a principled opposition to Western Imperialism and Israeli policy in disputed territory.
The Chakrabarti Report is a paradigmatic example of this political and moral failure. As I have argued in a previous essay for The Tower, hostility to Israel and Zionism has roots in Left-wing ideologies and axioms that stretch back decades, and it is this history that ought to have been the focus of Chakrabarti’s inquiry. But its evasions and obfuscations are a product of those ideologies and axioms, a symptom of the very problem it purports to explore. It was, in short, an inquiry that was always intended to go precisely nowhere.

EoZTV: Harold Rhode: How Islam Can Reform

It won't be easy, and it may need a catastrophic event to trigger the change, but it is possible.

And Egypt's president wants to see it happen.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Hasia Diner and Marjorie N. Feld, two academics, intellectuals and Jews, recently published a manifesto of sorts, entitled “We’re American Jewish historians. This is why we’ve left Zionism behind.”

The existence of yet another two Jewish intellectuals who despise the Jewish state is not news. Their justifications for it and for the “repulsion” (Diner’s word) they feel for Israel are thoroughly eviscerated here by Richard Landes, who points out that instead of actual arguments, all they have are “Palestinian myths – which they have allowed to colonize their minds, and which they regurgitate without any critical thinking at all.” And see Elder of Ziyon’s comments here.

But what makes good scholars, which I am assured that Diner and Feld are, incapable of critical thinking in their own discipline?

For Feld and others like her (but not Diner), the answer is simple: their cowardice in the face of pressure from their friends and colleagues has paralyzed them, causing them to put aside their analytical abilities in favor of joining the herd. When faced with the need for a fight-or-flight response, they choose to fly.

Feld’s own words explicitly describe her terror at being perceived as a political outlier:

From non-Jews I met in liberal and left organizations in college, I first heard strong critiques of Zionism as Western colonialism, as a militarist project, as racism. Very smart friends of mine were articulating these critiques, and they made me terrifically uncomfortable.

A feminist scholar I met at a conference asked me directly if I considered myself a Zionist, and I gave an indirect answer. Her anger became palpable. She nearly shouted: “You’ve read Chomsky, haven’t you?” I had not yet read Noam Chomsky’s writings on Israel, I confessed. As I recall she turned away and didn’t speak to me again that evening. That might be hyperbole, or more likely my own sense of shame. [my emphasis]

She responded by volunteering for re-education, like a good Stalinist:

I reeducated myself, stopping to look at all of the facts that I had bumped up against for years. The 1947 radio broadcast of the votes at the UN that declared the Jewish people had a home and would never face genocide again: I had listened to this recording and this interpretation dozens of times in the sites of my Jewish education. Now I interpreted it anew. The founding of Israel was the Nakba, the great catastrophe, for Palestinians, with ethnic cleansing, destruction, and no right of return.

The utter irrationality of her conversion is shown by the way this historian ignores the fact that the 1947 partition resolution called for a Jewish and an Arab state, which the Arabs rejected, and that the nakba followed the invasion of Palestine by Arab armies.

Diner’s motivations are something else entirely. Her remarks in this short manifesto tell us only that she had “read too much about colonialism and racism to maintain what I now see as a naïve view…” Her romantic vision from summer camp in 1958 of Israel as a socialist paradise was dispelled not only by the acquisition of territory in 1967, but by her belief that Israel has been a colonialist and racist enterprise from its founding. There is no doubt that Diner read Chomsky, early and often. Unlike Feld, she has not been terrorized: she is more likely to be the one who terrorizes.

While she opposes an academic boycott of Israel (at least she did in 2015), she calls Israel “a place that I abhor visiting, and to which I will contribute no money, whose products I will not buy, nor will I expend my limited but still to me, meaningful, political clout to support it.” She does not see BDS as essentially antisemitic, and she is a member of the Academic Council of Open Hillel, an organization calling for university Hillel groups to partner with groups promoting BDS.

In case you haven’t read the BDS movement’s manifesto, it calls for the dismantling of the Jewish state’s defenses, its transformation into a binational state, and the entry of millions of descendents of Arab refugees into Israel. Supporting BDS simply means supporting the end of Israel, probably a quite bloody end. There are no “moderate BDSers.”

Diner does not believe that Israel has a responsibility to help or defend Jewish communities in need, nor does she feel any responsibility as a Diaspora Jew to defend Israel. She sees Diaspora Jewry as a vital entity that does not need Israel to survive, and resents Israeli expectations of support from it. She feels shame as a Jew and as an American citizen for Israel’s behavior (I presume that she means both Israel’s “racist and colonialist” character and her attempts to defend herself).

She wants “daylight” between Israel and the Diaspora, but at the same time feels responsible for Israel’s actions.

I think there is a process underway here analogous to a young adult breaking away from her parents and making her own way in the world – sometimes in a direction different from what the parent had in mind.

Israel was born of the Diaspora-based Zionist movement. The Jews that built theyishuv, then established the state and then defended it, began as indistinguishable from Diaspora Jews and totally dependent on them. They spoke Yiddish, Russian and Polish at first, and transplanted the ideology of the youth movements of Europe to the new land.

Little by little, a new Hebrew-speaking culture developed, along with a Hebrew politics. Immigration of Jews from all over the world – which Diner sees as destructive to their home Diaspora communities – enriched the Israeli culture, and created a whole which was more than the sum of the Diaspora parts. Diner prefers a multicultural Diaspora to a “homogenized” Israel, but her multicultural paradise lacks two essential ingredients for Jewish survival: the ability to protect itself and a birthrate above the replacement level.

Like any parent-child relationship, the end of dependency puts pressure on the relationship. Diner is uncomfortable with what she perceives as our value system and she doesn’t understand at all (despite her studies in Chomskyism) our security situation and relationship to the Arabs. It bothers her that we didn’t keep the collectivist economy that she prefers, and she doesn’t grasp the way Israelis relate to Judaism. Many other Diaspora Jews have similar feelings. The tension makes them do destructive things, like Diner’s flirtation with BDS.

But the child has grown up, moved out and started her own family. Israel has her own priorities, her own values and traditions, her own bank account and her own politics.

It’s time for the Diaspora to realize that, to worry about the considerable problems in its own communities and to let go of its feeling of ownership and its need to control the state that it gave birth to.

You say that you’ve left Zionism behind, and that’s fine – as long as you don’t adopt anti-Zionism in its place, and don’t assist those who want to wipe us out.

Much as it irritates the hell out of you, Israel will be here if you need her.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

08/04 Links Pt1: Hamas 'infiltrated int'l Gazan aid group,' stole tens of millions of dollars; When ‘Savage’ Is Too Kind a Word for a Palestinian Terrorist

From Ian:

Israel charges senior Gaza aid worker with funneling tens of millions to Hamas

Over the course of several years, the Hamas terrorist organization siphoned off “tens of millions of dollars” from the US-based World Vision charity for its military wing, the Shin Bet security service said Thursday.
Those funds — allegedly 60 percent of the charity’s total budget — were used to purchase weapons, dig tunnels and construct military installations for Hamas, investigators said.
Muhammad Halabi, a Hamas member and manager of operations for World Vision in Gaza, was indicted on a number of security-related charges in a Beersheba court on Thursday for his role in the alleged scheme. He was arrested in a joint Shin Bet-IDF-Israel Police operation at the Erez Crossing on June 15 as he tried to return to the Strip, the Shin Bet said.
Halabi, a member of Hamas from a young age, was handpicked to infiltrate the international charity in 2005 in order to steal money for the terrorist organization, according to the investigation.
“This was a meaningful and important investigation that showed — above all — the cynical and crude way in which Hamas takes advantage of funds and resources from international humanitarian aid organizations,” the Shin Bet said in a statement.
In a statement released following the indictment, World Vision defended Halabi and denied the allegations against him.

Israeli minister: Gaza charity likely ‘turned blind eye’ to terror funding

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan on Thursday warned that the links between terrorist organizations and aid groups in the Gaza Strip are substantial, and urged donor states to ensure that their money does not end up in the hands of terrorists.
“I imagine that in the World Vision organization, which is very anti-Israeli, they turned a blind eye,” Erdan told Army Radio after a senior Palestinian aid worker in Gaza was indicted for allegedly funneling millions of dollars in donations to the Hamas terror group.
“The connections that were uncovered today are part of a much wider and very serious phenomenon,” Erdan said.
“Israel will not permit this, and we will take action against these organizations and their activists,” he said. “We expect donor countries and international organizations to carefully check the destination of the money.”
The Shin Bet security service said earlier Thursday that the Hamas terrorist organization siphoned off “tens of millions of dollars” from the US-based World Vision charity over a period of several years, using the money to fund its military wing.