Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Palestinian Teachers Fear Students' Murderous Hate For Jews Will Atrophy Over Summer

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Jenin, June 28 - Educators in the Palestinian Authority school system and in the parallel institutions run by the United nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees voiced concern this week over the impending two-month summer break from formal studies, during which the hard work they invested inculcating in the children vengeful animosity toward Jews might dissipate.

With the school year reaching its formal completion this Friday, teachers and other staff members at schools across the Palestinian Territories expressed anxiety over how successful they had been at instilling lasting Jew-hate in their students during the last ten months. Summer camps will provide some of the same treatment to the children during July and August in informal settings, but the educators can only hope the hard work they have put into growing the next generation of stabbers, bombers, vehicular homicide perpetrators, hijackers, and inciters to murder does not go to waste once their young charges leave behind the school walls for the summer.

"I know summer camp can provide some of that content, but I still worry," admitted Jenin sixth-grade teacher Sobbi Bor. "When the kids move up to seventh grade in September, will they retain the same level of murderous ill will, or will their new teachers have to go over some of the ground I was supposed to cover, just to get them up to speed? It's a real worry of mine - basically, was I good enough? Am I good enough?"

For veteran Palestinian educators, the feelings are all too familiar. "Man, not a year goes by that I don't dread the summer for this reason," concurred Mustafa Massikr, who teaches fourth grade in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah. "It doesn't get any easier. My mind fills up with visions of the children losing what I've tried to teach them, and actually starting to see Jews as human, or at least deserving of compassion or respect. Only through mindfulness training have I managed to overcome those nightmares and push forward."

He added that he had yet to be disappointed in any of his classes. "I'm happy to say the nightmare has never come true," he boasted, but with relief visible on his face. "I mean, it's possible there were former students who may have gone astray like that, but you never find out about those cases directly. Their colleagues or neighbors always make sure to kill them off for collaborating, but there are enough personal vendettas or 'family honor' killings disguised as vigilante justice for 'collaborators' that you can never be sure, and I'm OK with that."

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The Chicago Dyke March Collective issued a statement on their telling a lesbian marcher with a rainbow flag with a Jewish star to leave.

It is a truly amazing statement.

On June 24th, 2017, a small group of individuals were asked to leave Chicago Dyke March for expressing Zionist views that go directly against the march’s anti-racist core values.
...Zionism is an inherently white-supremacist ideology. It is based on the premise that Jewish people have a God-given entitlement to the lands of historic Palestine and the surrounding areas.

Yes, the Chicago Dykes are saying that people who believe in the right of Jews to national self-determination are white supremacists.

These paragons of intersectional virtue say that of all the people of all types that attend their events, only Jews have to pass an ideology test to make it acceptable to them.

The Jewish state has about 125,000 black Jews from Africa as full citizens. It also has millions of Jews from Middle East countries whose non-Jewish neighbors are not considered "white" by these people.

What do you call people who automatically consider all Jews from any background who live in ISrel to be "white supremacists"?

This is pure, unadulterated antisemitism.

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06/28 Links Pt1:Whatever Happened to the Term “Palestinian State?”; Iran's flag on Israel’s border: ‘We are coming’

From Ian:

Iran targeted Star of David in ballistic missile test

Iran used a Star of David as a target for missile test last year, according to satellite images of the site distributed by Israel to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday.
“This use of the Star of David as target practice is hateful and unacceptable,” Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon wrote in a complaint to the Council.
Photos provided to UN members showed the Jewish and Israeli symbol as the target in a test of a ballistic missile carried out in November with the impact crater visible next to it.
“The missile launch is not only a direct violation of UNSCR 2231, but is also a clear evidence of Iran’s continued intention to harm the State of Israel,” Danon said, adding that “the targeting of a sacred symbol of Judaism is abhorrent.”

'The next war will be bloody' A trip along Israel’s tense northern border

Israel’s northernmost village of Metulla with a population of close to 2,000 people sits on the Lebanese border and despite the ever-present risk of conflict with Hezbollah, the community continues to grow. Metulla is one of the communities that is expected to be evacuated in the event of a war between Israel and the Shiite Lebanese terror group.
“The next war will be pretty bloody for both sides. Israel will evacuate its population and I suggest the Lebanese do the same,” Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, the head of Alma, an organization that gives briefings on Israel’s security challenges on the northern border told The Jerusalem Post. As Lebanesefarmers worked a field in the distance, and tractors waddled down the streets of Metulla, the situation seemed quiet, but threats overshadow the border.
Israel has never carried out a mandatory evacuation of any community since the founding of the state. However, the IDF is now concerned about the very real possibility of ground attacks by the terror group against Israeli civilian communities in border communities in addition to the threat posed by Hezbollah’s stockpile of more than 100,000 rockets.
“Hezbollah knows how to fight and how to move large forces,” Zehavi said, stressing that the group will likely not “occupy” any Israeli villages but aims to create fear by massacring Israeli civilians.
“It will be a totally new battlefield than what we saw in 2006,” she said i reference to the Second Lebanon War, explaining that the group has significantly increased its battlefield knowledge due to its fighting in Syria for the regime of Bashar Assad.
“Everything they learn in Syria, including from the Russians, is being brought here.”

Iran's flag on Israel’s border: ‘We are coming’

Lebanon seems to be having a flag sale. Iranian flags, Hezbollah, the UN, Spain, Palestinian flags. They are all flying provocatively along the border with the northern Israeli community of Metulla. Just meters from the fence that separates the countries, not far from the site of a 1985 terror attack, Hezbollah has festooned the roads with signs of its presence. It’s purposely done so Israeli residents can see the flags and the billboards next to them. In Metulla there is a memorial for the 12 Israeli soldiers killed in the 1985 suicide bombing, while just across the border a huge billboard celebrates the same killing.
I spent Tuesday touring the Lebanese and Syrian borders with Israel to see the tense situation in the north of the country. The flags across the border seemed representative of the situation that prevails today. Next to the Hezbollah flags is a small post that has a UN logo. Near it the Amal Shia Lebanese movement has erected a large banner reading “to he of pure hands and a generous soul, thank you speaker of parliament Nabih Berri.” On the banner is the Iranian flag. Here is a visible presence of Iran just a stone’s throw from Israel. It’s not the only Iranian symbol here. On a hill overlooking new houses being constructed in Metulla is another huge poster with a photo of the Dome of the Rock. The face of Ayatollah Khomeini glowers down over the dome and Hezbollah has written “we are coming” in Hebrew and Arabic. They’ve put a giant Palestinian flag next to the poster.
The message is clear, as it is disconcerting. Here is Iran glowering down on Israel from the north. As we toured the border area with Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, the head of Alma, an organization that gives briefings on Israel’s security Challenges on the Northern Border, what should be a tense situation seemed quiet. This area has known war for many years. There is an old British police fort here from the 1930s when terror also struck at Jewish communities. Zehavi stresses that the situation along the Lebanese border has not affected tourism or housing prices, and the new construction is evidence of that.

In response to a Haaretz article yesterday (highlighted here) showing that the Palestinian Authority has nearly stopped paying for Gaza medical patients to get treatment in Israel, the PA has responded exactly how one would expect:

They blame Israel.

They claim that it is Israel, not them, who are restricting patients from being treated in Israel. A spokesman for the PA health department explicitly denied that there was any change in their own policies.

However, the Haaretz article was well sourced. Physicians for Human Rights - Israel documented that some 90% of requests to the PA for medical treatment were being ignored and a number of family members of sick children who had routinely been able to get treatment in Israel were interviewed about their frustration on the sudden change in policy.

It is of course no coincidence that the PA policy towards patients in Gaza coincides with its policy limiting medicines, anesthesia and electricity to Gaza hospitals.

They are literally complicit in killing their own people. But they are embarrassed when that fact is publicized.

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"Human rights" organizations have created a new rule that applies to Israel and Israel only:

Israel must provide free electricity to its enemies.

B'Tselem says "The PA’s wrongful actions towards Gaza residents do not mean Israel can shirk its responsibility for their fate." Meaning, if the PA refuses to pay for electricity, Israel must shoulder the costs.

Gisha says the same: "Even if the PA asks it to do so, Israel has its hand on the switch and would be complicit in and accountable for the certain devastation that would occur in the Strip as a result of further interruption in supply."

And Human Rights Watch says, "Israel has legal responsibilities to civilians in the territory. ...International law – and basic decency – require Israel to not further cut the supply of electricity to Gaza."

But Israel has no problem supplying Gaza with electricity when it gets paid. This is what it's done for well over a decade.

In other words, "human rights" organizations have created an entirely new rule of human rights law that applies only to Israel.

If these "human rights' organizations were truly so concerned over Gazans having so little electricity, they could appeal to the Arab world to pay the electricity bill. They could appeal to oil-rich Arab countries to provide fuel for Gaza's power plant. They could lobby EU nations to pay the PA's electric bill. They could insist that Egypt allow Palestinians to move across the border.

All of these things would help lessen the problem.

But for some reason they aren't insisting that anyone in the world do anything to help Gazans except the one nation that Gaza has attacked with rockets thousands of times.

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Last week reports started coming out that the Palestinians were furious at Jared Kushner:

Here's how The Hill reported it but similar coverage was widespread:

President Trump will reportedly receive a report about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process following a "tense" meeting between White House senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and leaders about the issue.

The London-based Arabic daily al-Hayat reports that Kushner's meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was “tense,” according to a translation from the Jerusalem Post, and Abbas was reportedly furious at Kushner relaying the demands of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz also reports that Palestinian officials were “greatly disappointed” by their meeting with Kushner and Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt.

"They sounded like Netanyahu's advisers and not like fair arbiters," a senior Palestinian official told the newspaper. "They started presenting Netanyahu's issues and then we asked to hear from them clear stances regarding the core issues of the conflict."

The report also claims that the Trump delegation was also upset with Abbas for refusing to denounce a recent stabbing attack in Jerusalem.

Swallowing a report from an unnamed person in an Arabic newspaper is not exactly great journalism.

Technically, the media cited where they got the report from, but the average reader does not know how to interpret such a story.

And now the State Department denies much of it:

The State Department rejected claims that a meeting last week between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and senior White House official Jared Kushner went awry and an unconfirmed report that US President Donald Trump was ready to pull the plug on efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

In a press briefing on Tuesday, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert reiterated that Trump has made Mideast peace “one of his top priorities,” adding that allegations that Abbas left his meeting with Trump’s son-in-law fuming were “false,” while conceding that “some meetings and conversations may be a little bit more difficult than others.”

So what really happened?

There is no doubt that Kushner went to the meeting and presented the Israeli side in negotiations. That's one major purpose of negotiations, after all.

It is also widely known that the US and the EU have been pressuring Abbas over the twin issues of incitement and paying salaries to terrorists, which are also the two major Israeli issues. (Similarly, they constantly pressure Israel on settlements, the major Palestinian issue.)

None of this would have surprised Abbas, and none of those would have left him fuming.

The entire report was manufactured for one reason: to pressure Kushner.

Kushner is a neophyte at international diplomacy. The Palestinians are masters at pushing their agenda in any venue possible. They see Kushner as a person who can be pressured via the media because he is not a hardened diplomat used to being publicly criticized. They know that media pressure can translate to Kushner being less likely to push them on these issues that they are most vulnerable to in the future. These are the issues that they have no answer to, after all - the issues that prove that they directly encourage terrorism in an era when even moderate Arab governments are turning against all kinds of terrorism.

Here's where the media's irresponsibility comes in. They should knowm and reported that this is the PLO's modus operandi. Any story that mentions an unnamed Arab source, especially coming from an Arab newspaper where the source cannot be questioned, should be prefaced with (at the very least, informed speculation about) the possible motives for such a "leak" to occur.

Otherwise, readers assume that all unnamed sources are the same. But (in theory at least) Western media has some checks and balances before running a story from an anonymous source that Al Hayat is unlikely to have.

Of course, governments will fake-leak information to the media all the time for political purposes. Yet the media should be aware that they are being manipulated. Often the reporter that is leaked to is chosen for being sympathetic to the story that the leak supports, so he or she would be less likely to question its veracity to begin with. Even so, it is the editor's job to minimize this sort of thing.

In this case the "leak" was fake through and through. There is nothing strange or wrong with the US bringing up in private the exact same issues that it has mentioned in public.

This is all about ensuring that Kushner's next meeting with Abbas is more to Abbas' liking.

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06/27 Links Pt2: British Academia is rife with anti-Semitism; The Failed Practice of ‘Jew-Washing’

From Ian:

JPost: Intolerance parade

What is intersectionality? It is a vogue theory – particularly on the Left – that essentially posits a hierarchy of oppression. It first appeared in the feminist movement when black women complained that their unique struggles were not adequately addressed by the elitist white women (many of whom Jewish) who dominated the movement. But it has since developed into a form of discourse in which one’s identity determines the extent of one’s suffering and, therefore, the justness of one’s grievances in isolation from reason.
In the cases of Grauer and Shoshany-Anderson intersectionality works to their disadvantage because in addition to their sexual identity they also share a Jewish or Israeli identity.
There is no contest in the clash between the pro-Palestinian gay and the Zionist gay. In the parallel universe of intersectionality, Israel is not the only place in the Middle East where the rights of homosexuals are protected and where Palestinian homosexuals can find refuge from repression in an intolerant Palestinian society. It is a place where colonialist, white Jews oppress an indigenous Palestinian population. No matter that the State of Israel was a refuge for Jews after the Holocaust, that Jews’ connection to this particularly land is undeniable and that most Israelis have roots in Muslim countries.
Reason does not apply in the parallel universe of intersectionality.
And that’s why it has become such a congenial environment for antisemitism. Certain dogmas must be accepted: America is evil; whites are privileged; Israel is evil; Muslim countries cannot be held to the same moral standards as the West (therefore, capital punishment for homosexuality in Iran or Saudi Arabia does not spark indignation in the LGBTQ community). Anyone who does not accept these axioms deserves the severest rebuke and shaming.
And so we have come full circle, back to the era of Stonewall when individuals were made to feel they must hide aspects of their identity for fear they would be derided or worse. But this time those expected to enter the closet are whites, Jews, Zionists and other purportedly “privileged” groups. Gay pride parades or dyke marches were conceived to be celebrations of LGBTQ identity. Sadly, they have become venues for bigotry and intolerance.

Dykes vs. Kikes

Last weekend’s outrage in Chicago is but the latest example of Jews being written out of progressive movements. Whether Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party or Linda Sarsour’s #Resistance, Jews are not only being made to feel unwelcome in left-leaning spaces, but anti-Semitism—masked as anti-Zionism—is becoming a marker of virtue. These episodes of ostracism are almost always undertaken to appease Muslims, which makes no sense under any circumstances, least of all for the LGBT community, which is welcomed and celebrated in the world’s only Jewish country and subject to state-sponsored harassment, imprisonment, and murder in nearly every Muslim-majority one.
It’s also cruelly ironic that Jews, of all people, would be subject to this sort of discrimination, given the disproportionate role they have played in LGBT politics and culture. The first homosexual advocacy organization, the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, was founded by a German Jew, Magnus Hirschfeld, whose pioneering work made him an enemy of the Nazis. The grandfather of the modern American gay rights movement, Frank Kameny, was Jewish, as is our most famous AIDS activist, Larry Kramer. Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay people elected to public office in the United States, was a Jew, as is, of course, Barney Frank, one of the first openly gay congressmen. I could go on and on and on.
Watching this American LGBT movement infighting must seem strange to those from the many parts of the world where gay communities are fighting just for the basic right to exist. The notion of banning fellow gays from inclusion based solely upon their religious-ethnic identity must seem so preposterous, so strategically self-defeating that it could only be the work of a community too comfortable to realize its own good fortune. That, as well as the product of a commitment to a rancid political dogma known as “intersectionality,” which mandates one group of people, Jews, be stigmatized as the price of adherence to a victim hierarchy that imparts varying levels of virtue to individuals based upon their identity, with Muslims ranking highest.
“I was here as a proud Jew in all of my identities,” an Iranian Jewish lesbian told the Windy City Times about being forced to leave the festival. “The Dyke March is supposed to be intersectional. I don’t know why my identity is excluded from that. I felt that, as a Jew, I am not welcome here.” This is, alas, the ineluctable logic of intersectionality as defined by contemporary progressives: Judenrein gay pride parades.

Jewish Groups Condemn ‘Antisemitic’ Exclusion of Marchers From Chicago LGBT Rights Parade Over Star of David Flags

Leading US Jewish organizations on Monday excoriated the organizers of a gay rights march in Chicago this past weekend whose stewards ejected a group of women carrying Jewish Pride flags on the grounds of their opposition to “Zionism.”
On Monday, the Chicago Dyke Collective defended its decision to prevent the women from participating by saying that anti-Zionist Jews were welcome — a rationale slammed as “heinous” by Arthur Slepian, founder of the Israeli-North American LGBTQ organization A Wider Bridge, in an interview with The Algemeiner.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called on the organizers of the Chicago LGBTQ pride march to apologize.
“It is outrageous that while celebrating LGBTQ pride, Jewish participants carrying a rainbow Star of David flag were asked to leave the Chicago Dyke March,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said. “The community of LGBTQ supporters is diverse and that is part of its tremendous strength. Both the act and the explanation were anti-Semitic, plain and simple.”
Greenblatt — whose organization has produced a set of materials to mark Pride Month — called on “leaders from LGBTQ and progressive communities to join us in condemning this exclusion.”
Greenblatt praised the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national LGBTQ civil rights organization, for offering its support.

The Israel Speaks Arabic Facebook page posted this video showing a Haredi man dancing on top of his car to a song that he was blaring during an unusually long red light.

Arab media picked up on this, calling it "shocking," because the song is a very popular Arabic song by an Emirati singer. It apparently is being used in Egypt as a song of support for Egyptian president Sisi.

The man dances until the light turns green when he goes back into his car.

The graffiti on the car says "simcha," or "happiness." Chances are the driver is a Breslov hasid.

I'm not sure what this signifies - except that Arabs really do read the official Israeli Arabic hasbara media. The video has received 202,000 views so far.

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We are a tiny tribe.
Threatened from all corners of the earth, from near and from far.
We are Jews.

So few. So threatened.

So brilliant and yet so very stupid.

Our enemies laugh while, instead of uniting against them, we fight amongst ourselves.

I follow the religion more correctly than you!

I am more modest than you!

I am more studious than you!

I am more Zionist than you!

My physical strength protects you!

My spiritual strength protects you!

It goes on and on…

Our friends shake their heads in wonder.

And our enemies laugh.

The Jew says: “I am modern! I belong to the world! I am first German/American/Gay and Jewish second.”

The enemy responds: “You don’t belong to the world, you belong to Israel and we feel Israel is vile. You can march with us, but only if you utterly reject your Jewishness.”

I have heard Olim tell diaspora Jews that they are superior because they are “true Zionists”.
I have heard diaspora Jews tell Israelis that we should be grateful to them, do as they say, because they contribute money to Israel.
(I have heard both tell non-Jews that they cannot be Zionists because they are not Jewish)

How do any of those attitudes help?!

There are so many of them and so few of us.

We are the Jews.
Together we are indestructible.

Of course, our enemies want to divide us. They would much prefer that we stay weak.

But why do so many Jews collaborate, participate eagerly in this damaging and dangerous game?!

Our enemies laugh, knowing that there are those amongst us, working from within to weaken the tribe.

History has shown that the Jewish people are invincible – accept against the enemy from within.
Baseless hate. Jealousy. The desire to receive credit for achievements. The desire for political gain.

All somehow couched in terms of “I do this because I care…”

Pushing someone else down to make yourself feel superior is the action of an inferior personality.
Jew working against Jew is, in the long run, suicidal and potentially genocidal.

It is time for every Jew around the world, and every friend of Jews, to call for unity.

We must stand together. Opinion may differ but family is an unbreakable bond.

We are the Jews.

Our tribe is small and every member is needed.

Those who live in Israel must protect Zion from within. Those who live abroad must protect Zion from without. Each does what he or she knows how.

We can all do more, do better.

If only we would all be decent people first.
“Decency precedes the Torah”. Of all the enlightening revolutionary ideas, our tribe has brought to the world, if we only learned that one lesson, dayenu.

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06/27 Links Pt1: The Fallacy of Israeli Intransigence; UN’s worst despots take aim at Israel

From Ian:

The Fallacy of Israeli Intransigence

It is a fallacy that Israeli intransigence is the key stumbling block in Arab-Israeli relations, and that, therefore, Israeli concessions are the key factor that will create the conditions for a solution. The Israeli withdrawals from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005 should have dispelled this idea forever. Rather than having a calming effect, however, those withdrawals only served to increase the bloodlust of Hizbullah and Hamas.
Any withdrawal from territory on the West Bank, therefore, must come with ironclad guarantees of Israeli security. Given the unsettled state of the region in general, the advances of the Iranian alliance in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, the persistence of al-Qaeda and ISIS, and the split among the Palestinians between Hamas and Fatah, no Israeli government could take severe risks with respect to Israeli security on the West Bank and still hope to remain in power.
Israelis are already intensely aware that in a very short period of time they might find themselves peering across the Golan Heights at Iranian soldiers ensconced in Syria. How can the world ask them to take steps that could potentially lead to the Iranian penetration of the West Bank as well?
The writer, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, was a senior director at the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration. These remarks are from his address at the UN Security Council on June 20, 2017. (Hudson Institute)

Caroline Glick: The PLO's IDF lobbyists

In contrast, and again against the wishes of the government, the Civil Administration has repeatedly acted to block Israeli construction in Area C. For instance, the IDF insists that no land deal between Israel and Palestinians is final until the IDF approves it. The policy harms Israeli construction in two ways.
First, it gives the Civil Administration the power – which it uses – to delay Israeli construction indefinitely.
Second, by forcing parties to land deals to come forward publicly, the Civil Administration intimidates Palestinian land sellers. They know that if their land deals with Israelis become public they will face execution by the PA.
Returning to Abbas for a moment, the PLO chief may have overplayed his hand by insulting Trump and his senior envoys. All the politicized retired and currently serving Israeli generals together cannot convince Trump to send US tax dollars to a terrorism supporting leader who trashes him and his senior officials. Consequently, there is every reason to believe that the Taylor Force Act will soon be signed into law and the US will end its financing of Palestinian terrorism.
But even if Washington cuts off funding to the PA, Israel is still left to deal with its radicalized generals who exploit their rank to undermine the government.
The best way to end this situation is for the government to shut down the Civil Administration and get the IDF out of the governing business in Judea and Samaria. So long as the government continues to empower unaccountable generals to administer civilian areas instead of its accountable, civilian bureaucracy, we will continue to be confronted with the surreal spectacle of Israeli generals lobbying for Palestinian terrorists.
If the government applies Israeli law to Area C, it can still negotiate with the PLO, just as it has negotiated about the Golan Heights and Jerusalem. But in the meantime, it will remove one of the most corrupting and corrosive forces preying on our generals and our democracy for the benefit of the Israeli and Palestinian residents of Area C alike and indeed for Israel as a whole.

'Breaking the Silence has been forced to look in the mirror'

Avichai Shorshan, founder of “Ha’emet Sheli” (“My Truth”), an organization of combat reserves soldiers that has taken upon itself the task of telling the real story of IDF soldiers, told Arutz Sheva that the investigation against “Breaking the Silence” Spokesman Dean Issacharoff and the voices of protest against the investigation raise questions about the the sincerity of the radical left organization.
“[Breaking the Silence], since its founding, has tried to create an image for itself as the guardian of morality in the IDF, and now [that image] is exploding in its face. A soldier [in the organization] testifies about himself, admitting that he beat a Palestinian and as a result, the authorities want to investigate him. Suddenly they say there’s no need to investigate him - it’s the fault of the ‘occupation.’ To shake off responsibility is the most disgusting thing you can do.”
Shorshan called on Breaking the Silence and all the leftist organizations to focus on facts rather than invent them. “As far as we’re concerned, every soldier who acted against protocol needs to be investigated and, if he is guilty, needs to pay the penalty. Woe upon us if we know of soldiers who use force in an unauthorized way. Every one of us is obligated to report to his commander and check if he sees something not acceptable.”
He said that the incident concerning Dean Issacharoff places a mirror in front of Breaking the Silence. “From this incident, they can see themselves as they really are. They don’t really want the IDF to be more moral - they are politically motivated. They tell all sorts of tall tales about the' war crimes' of the IDF; some of these stories are taken out of context, and some of them never happened at all.”

The incomparable Dexter Van Zile wrote an excellent piece about how the current spreading campus culture of censorship and violent intimidation to enforce ideological conformity had its origin in the ways Israel and her friends have been treated on college campuses for more than a decade.

To understand the full impact of what Dexter is talking about, it’s worth considering his insight in the context of another phenomenon first articulated by the late Senator and former UN Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan which he called “defining deviance down.”

When Moynihan first introduced the concept, he was referring to mainstreaming behaviors once considered taboo.

Clearly not all changes to societal norms should be considered bad. Replacing contempt for women, minorities and gays with open mindedness and respect represents obvious improvement, for example. But toleration of other behaviors (like drug use and casual sex), while liberating for the individual, have personal and societal consequences (addiction, AIDS, etc.) which are hard to even discuss (lest one come off as “reactionary”) before their full negative consequences emerge.

With regard to campus shout downs and censorship, the targeting of Jews with those tactics clearly preceded their current much-wider expansion. But correlation does not mean causation. So might we be able to identify a mechanism (and historical precedent) whereby starting with one group (the Jews) served as a similar warm-up act for a much wider (and sinister) agenda?

Because the BDSers are such a reactionary bunch, it’s easy to dismiss any progress they make as the result of ruthlessness and relentlessness vs. innovation. But this would be a mistake. For the community of which the BDSers have always been a part has proven itself to be remarkably inventive when it comes to thinking of ways to either seize power or get others to relinquish power to them.

Seizing control of human-rights machinery created to make the world a more peaceful place and turning it into a weapon of war, while ghastly and immoral, is also a remarkable breakthrough in propaganda “technology,” as is the rhetoric needed to convince progressives that supporting a repressive society (the Palestinians and their Arab allies) aligns with their principles better than supporting an open one (Israel).

The Prophetess Ruth Wisse, in her analysis of anti-Semitism as a political ideology vs. one of many forms of bigotry, identifies the reason why totalitarians first targeting the Jews on their way to terrorizing and ultimately controlling or destroying everyone else.

As described in this piece (which is part of this longer series), the gap between Jews’ perceived power (or omnipotence, in the eyes of the anti-Semite) and their highly limited actual power (and willingness to use what power they have) becomes an open invitation to the would-be tyrant. For if you want to convince the public that you are arming yourself against an all-powerful threat with near 100% certainty that this “threat” will not hit you back, your best choice of target are the Jews.

We’ve seen this kind of behavior with the last century’s totalitarian movements. Think of Hitler arming his supporters and organizing secret police forces to ferret out the Jews controlling the planet, creating machinery that was later used to set that planet ablaze. Or Saddam Hussein who hung Jews in the public square to demonstrate his resoluteness with regard to this urgent Zionist “threat,” after which he got around to placing that noose around the neck of the entire nation of Iraq.

So what we have seen over the last several years is not just an attempt to shut down voices of just one opinion (support for Israel) but an experiment to see how far the system can be pushed in allowing a small, loud minority to control discourse and, eventually, the campus as a whole. And because not enough people did anything when the problem was just “the Jews” the brutes have now come for all of us.

With that in mind, the one place where I diverge from Dexter’s commentary is his use of the phrase “canary in the coal mine,” an image that comes up frequently in discussions on this topic. For the coal-mine canary (which alarms miners of deadly gas by graciously dying before humans can be harmed) is just an early warning system. In contrast, the role we Jews play in this ugly game of tyrants is that of experimental lab animal.

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Yesterday I noted a Haaretz article about how Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority has essentially shut the door for Gaza medical patients to be treated in Israel.

Today, the Gaza Health Ministry announced the death of 9-month old Ibrahim Samir Tubail as a direct result of his not being able to travel to Israel for treatment.

He had a type of fibrosis.

Two other babies, both with heart problems, also died in the past 24 hours in Gaza after being denied permission to go to Israel for treatment by the PA.

According to Al Quds newspaper, 12 patients have died in Gaza this year from being denied permission to leave the sector. Six of them were children.

But a Ukrainian doctor who lives in Gaza, married to a Palestinian, managed to get her rare Persian long-haired cat to Israel for treatment who broke her jaw from a fall.

After she couldn't find any veterinarians in Gaza, Tatiana Zaqout contacted the Brigitte Bardot animal foundation who eventually connected her with Israeli pet experts who helped her arrange for the transfer of her cat, Sonia, to Israel.

Sonia's treatment is costing about $3000 and Zaqout is raising the money to pay.

Sonia is the daughter of "Bessie" and..."Vladimir Putin."

The babies dying in Gaza don't get as much consideration as a cat.

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.

The English language page of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has a short synopsis of his "Quds Day" speech last Friday.

In it, he reiterates his opposition to Israel, but unlike how the Western media usually portrays it, his speech was in purely religious, and not political, terms.

He stated, "Palestine is the first important issue of the Muslim world. According to the Islamic Fiqh (jurisprudence), when an enemy dominates Muslim lands, Jihad is the duty of all, in any form possible. Today, the fight against the Zionist regime is obligatory for the Muslim world. Why do some abandon this job?"

Arabs aren't impressed with Khamenei's religious ruling. In response to his tweet, one answered this way:

Your troops are in Syria killing Muslims. They are a short way from Israel. If you want to fight them use Google maps to show you the way.
— سنجرستاني (@Singari10) June 27, 2017

The full version of his speech should be posted soon.

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06/26 Links Pt2: Europe must stop funding demonization of Israel; We could all be Otto Warmbier

From Ian:

Cinnamon Stillwell and Michael Lumish: Professors Spin Antisemitic Conspiracies at Cal State-Fresno

California State University, Fresno (CSUF) is the last place that one would expect conspiracy theories about Jewish power to proliferate — because Jews make up less than one percent of Fresno’s population. But leave it to the academic world to provide fertile ground for this ugly trope.
It began last year, when CSUF sought to hire someone for an endowed professorship to be named after the late Columbia University professor Edward Said. When the hiring committee failed to appoint one of the final four applicants — all of Middle Eastern heritage — and CSUF canceled the search, an acrimonious battle ensued.
It didn’t take long for anti-Israel CSUF professors to push the antisemitic canard that Jewish faculty members and outside groups had interfered in the hiring process based on the job candidates’ ethnicity.
Joe Parks, the Equal Employment Opportunities representative on the search committee, told the Fresno Bee, “The search was canceled because when the finalists came to campus, the Jewish faculty complained.” Elsewhere, Parks singled out “the Jewish community” as being responsible for the school’s failure to hire one of the applicants.
In solidarity with Parks, Vida Samiian, the semi-retired director of CSUF’s Middle East Studies Program and dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, quit. “I have decided to resign in objection to the unethical and discriminatory cancellation of the Edward Said Professorship,” she wrote. “The administration carried out the vicious and discriminatory attacks launched by Israel advocacy groups against the search committee and the four finalists who were of Middle Eastern and Palestinian ethnicity [emphasis added].”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan Faces Criticism for Refusal to Back Hezbollah Terror Designation

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has come under fire for refusing to confirm that he would petition UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd to designate all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
The question regarding the terror group’s status was raised last week by London Assembly member David Kurten (UKIP) in response to the presence of Hezbollah flags during an anti-Israel Al-Quds Day march in London.
“That will close the loophole to stop people marching through the streets of London with a flag with a gun on it,” Kurten said in support of the terror designation during a London Assembly meeting.
At the same meeting, Assembly member Andrew Boff (Conservative) accused Khan of not doing his job, saying the mayor seems to be “avoiding saying, ‘Yes I’ll [confirm the designation with the home secretary].’”
Rudd said she would explore the possibility of banning the annual Al-Quds Day march and designating all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
In the past, the European Union has come under scrutiny for making a distinction between the so-called “military” and “political” wings of Hezbollah, only giving the “military” wing a terror designation.
The grassroots group North West Friends of Israel amassed 20,000 signatures on a petition advocating for the Hezbollah terror designation.

Seth Frantzman: We could all be Otto Warmbier

Otto Warmbier’s tearful confession still haunts me. There is something awful in it. The crying out of a young man who knows he faces a ruined life based on accusations of a regrettable act that he cannot undo. Warmbier faced injustice after injustice in North Korea. A sham trial, a coerced confession, a life-destroying 15-year prison sentence of hard labor, sickness and then death. He was 22 years old.
His last few days were spent back in the US after he was released on “humanitarian” grounds by the very regime responsible for his incarceration and the illness that led to his death. His supposed crime? He was accused of trying to take a government sign as a souvenir. The North Korean government claimed this act undermined the foundations of the state.
He is not the first or last to receive an unspeakable punishment while being innocent of any real infraction. Men, women and children have been executed throughout history for minor infractions. Le Miserables is based on the story of a man sentenced to harsh labor for stealing bread. Nor is the North Korean regime unique in handing down these kinds of punishments in our time. In Thailand people are sentenced for insulting the monarch. In other places they are caned or beheaded, as happens in Saudi Arabia. Women are stoned to death or murdered by their families for looking at a man the wrong way or dressing “immodestly” in countries such as Pakistan.
Albinos are lynched in east Africa. Tourists are sentenced to death, accused of smuggling drugs, in countries like Indonesia.
In discussions about the murder of Warmbier, many excuses have been made and some writers have gone so far as to blame the victim. Time magazine callously titled their story “How Otto Warmbier Made It Out Of North Korea,” and pretended his treatment was due to “the latest grim chapter” in US-North Korea relations, as if bad relations between countries excuses the arrest and death of a young man.
Other hate-mongers claim Warmbier is an example of “white privilege” and his death was deserved because of his skin color. But the only privilege he asked for was not be sentenced to decades in prison and then killed by maltreatment over accusations of stealing a small sign. That’s not privilege, that’s a basic human right.

Antisemitic events June 2017

From an email I received from the World Zionist Organization:

UNITED STATES / 20-06-2017
In Samford someone used fecal matter to smear a swastika and the Star of David near the entrance of the Rich Forum Media Center. The theater is where filming of the “Jerry Spring Show,” “Maury Show,” and “Steve Wilkos Show” takes place.

UNITED STATES / 19-06-2017
Someone vandalized the sidewalk outside a popular Jewish deli in Naperville. The phrase "Free Gaza" was spray painted in black on the sidewalk near the front door at Schmaltz Deli and the restaurant owner released a statement saying that he is angry and surprised by the vandalism.

BRITAIN / 19-06-2017
Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters marched through the streets of central London on Sunday on the annual “Al Quds (Jerusalem) Day” demonstration convened by the Islamic Human Rights Commission. At a rally outside the US Embassy following the march, one speaker blamed the tragic fire at west London’s Grenfell Tower public housing project on “Zionists.” Many of the marchers brandished signs calling for a boycott of the State of Israel. A number of flags of the Lebanese Islamist terror organization Hezbollah were also in evidence, including one at the front of the protest that was tied atop a Palestinian flag.

GERMANY / 16-06-2017
Tombstones of anti-Nazi resistance fighters and Jews were desecrated with the inscription of profanities. The desecration included a commemorative stele near the Gottschalk family’s gravesites. Joachim Gottschalk, during the Third Reich, refused to be separated from his Jewish wife and their son; following considerable oppression by the Nazis for this choice, the family member committed suicide.

BRITAIN / 15-06-2017
A Jewish couple were walking in Hackney and were subjected to vicious anti-Semitic abuse at the hands of a group of teenagers, two of whom approached them shouting abuse about Jews and swearing. At one point they grabbed the Jewish man’s hat and continued to shout abuse when he asked them to give it back.

UKRAINE / 14-06-2017
For the fourth time, vandals desecrated the grave of Sary, the eldest daughter of the Holy tzaddik, Rabbi Nachman of Brastslav. Vandals set fire to the house of burial in the town cemetery and the monument is completely broken.

BRITAIN / 12-06-2017
A 16-year-old Jewish boy was resting on a park bench when he was approached by two younger teenagers who grabbed at his bicycle and hat, which is of the kind traditionally worn by charedi Jews. When the Jewish boy asked them to stop, the two teenagers threatened to “beat” him. Members of the public came to the boy’s defense.

GERMANY / 7-06-2017
Tombstones at the Jewish cemetery outside of the German city of Gotha were desecrated with Antisemitic graffiti. About 18 swastikas were spray-painted on the tombstones throughout the cemetery.

UNITED STATES / 6-06-2017
Antisemitic signs were placed above a Portland highway on a pedestrian bridge. The signs were hung on both sides of the bridge and read, “Jews did 9-11”.