Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 27, 2020

Hipster Terrorist Insists Was Just Stabbing Jews Ironically (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Petach Tikva, August 26 - The Palestinian killer of a 46-year-old Israeli father of four claimed today that he performed his act of murder yesterday in this suburb of Tel Aviv not as a sincere expression of his desire to murder people he sees as ideological enemies, but as detached, ironic mimicry of the mainstream acceptance of such behavior in his society, which of course he finds laughable.

Dweikat Khalil Abd al-Khaliq Dweikat, 21, was apprehended Wednesday afternoon after an incident in which police allege he injured a Jewish man and an Israeli Arab in a stabbing attack; the Jew later died of his injuries. After an initial period of isolation and interrogation, the alleged perpetrator requested that his attorney assure the public he perpetrated the killing ironically, and demanded that they not make the mistake of thinking him a bourgeois mainstream drone who just does what society expects; in fact he imitates that behavior in an effort to mock it.

"I would like to stress that my client does not admit to the charges against him, at least not in the conventional sense," pronounced Nabil Aswani. "Most of you probably never heard of it, but Mr. Dweikat was engaged in what can best be described as a type of sardonic performance art, in which he takes conventional behaviors that mainstream sensibilities accept without question, and subjects them to the critical lens of doing the same thing, but with a beard, thus undermining their axiomatic status in society. I think that's what my client told me, anyway. I brought him the wrong kind of soy latte when I went to see him this morning, and he may have been less than cooperative in the communication department."

Jailers reported as well that Dweikat has made repeated requests to hear music by artists no one has heard of, only to be informed that playing music in the detention facility violates Prison Services policy. Guards recalled that the prisoner's response involved a rolling of the eyes and sarcastic inquiries whether the policy could be read from actual paper, or was that too archaic for their mainstream sensibilities.

Police and prosecution officials expect the case to go to trial, at which they will seek an ironic sentence of life imprisonment for the defendant, or at least an ironic plea bargain under which the defendant will receive an ironically reduced prison sentence in exchange for information about other terrorists' activities.

Biden/Harris And The Low Bar For Being Pro-Israel (Daled Amos) (fixed)

By Daled Amos

In a 2004 article he wrote for the Jewish Press, Rick Richman describes an experiment to evaluate John Kerry's support for Israel, in response to a reader who commented that he was going to vote for Kerry because his record on Israel was "second to none."

Intrigued by the idea of how to quantify "second to none" support of Israel, Richman got a list of Kerry's Israel voting record on 60 bills and resolutions -- and applied the following methodology:

I disregarded the 17 measures that passed with 90 or more votes (out of a possible 100), on grounds that these were not exactly profile-in-courage moments.
...Then I discounted the 18 measures that garnered between 82 and 89 votes. You don`t get a "second to none" rating by simply hanging around with the 80-plus percent crowd.
I decided the best indicator of the depth of Kerry`s support would be the instances where the pro-Israel position got 60 votes or less -- by definition the most controversial situations, the ones where Kerry's vote mattered most.

That left 10 bills, of which Kerry voted pro-Israel in six instances.

The measures Kerry did not support were:

o the pro-Israel position in the FY 2000 Foreign Aid Conference Report
o a bill calling on the president not to recognize a unilaterally declared Palestinian state
o the pro-Israel "Peace Through Negotiations Act,"
o a letter to the State Department, demanding they include Hamas in its annual report on terrorism.

That gave Kerry a 60% rating -- more 'nuanced' than Kerry's own boast that

I have a 100 percent record -- not a 99, a 100 percent record -- of sustaining the special relationship, the friendship that we have with Israel.

I was reminded of Richman's experiment while writing the first draft of this post, examining the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris record on Israel. I had written something like that on Biden last year, and thought I would update it and add details about Harris as well.

But the issue is larger than political statements of support for Israel.

These days, others have co-opted Jewish issues and grant themselves the authority to define Jewish identity (White supremacy), what qualifies as antisemitism (very little, unless the right-wing does it) and what Zionism is (evil).

And now, with the 2020 presidential election just a few months off, who is the better supporter of Israel -- Biden or Trump?

The answer is probably only academic anyway. Jews vote for Democrats. Period. Besides, while polls indicate that the vast majority of Jews claim to support Israel, Israel is not one of the top issues Jews consider when voting.

One of Biden's major selling points as a 'friend of Israel' is that his long term as senator has given him the opportunity to know various Israeli leaders and lots of stories. Those may be entertaining, but are not much of an indicator, especially when Israel is such a lightning rod for controversy and outright smears.

On the other hand, when discussing Biden it is easy to point to his gaffes and misstatements of fact -- just as easily as one can point to Trump's over-the-top statements and tweets.

There is plenty in the general behavior of both candidates to question and criticize -- their character flaws are not unknown. Having established that both Biden and Trump are human, what each of them says is not as important as what each has done -- not on the campaign trail, but while in office.

As vice president, Biden supported Obama's policies, not all of which were beneficial to Israel.

The Iran deal comes to mind. Biden not only went along with it and supported it, but has also expressed his willingness to resurrect the deal as president. Last year Biden said:

If Iran moves back into compliance with its nuclear obligations, I would re-enter the JCPOA as a starting point to work alongside our allies in Europe and other world powers to extend the deal’s nuclear constraints.

That raises a second issue -- Biden's role in the UN vote on Resolution 2334 at the end of Obama's term, declaring all Jewish settlements in the West Bank -- including the Old City of Jerusalem -- to be in violation of international law. The resolution passed by 14-0, with the US deliberately abstaining.

An article in Tablet Magazine indicates that as part of the Obama administration plan against Israel, Biden called the Ukrainian president in order to ensure that their UN representative voted for the resolution and did not merely abstain:

Tablet has confirmed that one tangible consequence of the high-level U.S. campaign was a phone call from Vice President Joseph Biden to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, which succeeded in changing Ukraine’s vote from an expected abstention to a “yes.” According to one U.S. national security source, the Obama Administration needed a 14-0 vote to justify what the source called “the optics” of its own abstention.

“Did Biden put pressure on the Ukrainians? Categorically yes,” said a highly-placed figure within the Israeli government with strong connections to Ukrainian government sources, who confirmed to Tablet that the Americans had put direct pressure on both the Ukrainian delegation—and on Poroshenko personally in Kiev. “That Biden told them to do it is 1000% true,” the source affirmed.

Even if one could claim Biden was merely "following orders," and would not consider opposing Israel so aggressively as president, it is not hard to imagine Biden being guided into doing something similar by his advisors.

Another concern is the decidedly radical change in the Democratic Party against Israel.

Last week, during the Democratic National Convention’s virtual caucus meeting for the Muslim Delegates and Allies Assembly, Linda Sarsour spoke -- confirming that the Democratic Party was their party.

When complaints were made about Sarsour, a Biden spokesman made a statement:

“Joe Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel and a vehement opponent of anti-Semitism his entire life, and he obviously condemns her views and opposes BDS, as does the Democratic platform … She has no role in the Biden campaign whatsoever.”

That was what was said publicly, but apparently, the Biden campaign apologized to Sarsour privately for that statement, as reported by Middle East Eye this past Sunday.

But that was not the end of the matter either:

On Monday, the Biden campaign disputed that the call was an apology for its reaction to Sarsour.

“We met to affirm [former] Vice President Biden’s unshakeable commitment to working with Arab, Palestinian and Muslim Americans, and to standing up against anti-Muslim prejudice, and to make clear that we regretted any hurt that was caused to these communities,” Biden campaign senior adviser Symone Sanders told JNS. “We continue to reject the views that Linda Sarsour has expressed.”

At this point, who even knows anymore where Biden stands on the issue.

But if he is going to condemn antisemites and reject their views, Biden may as well go all the way...

Biden and Sharpton. Screengrab from Facebook

And that is where Kamala Harris comes in.

Last year, Harris defended Ilhan Omar against criticism of her attack on AIPAC and accusations of Jewish dual loyalty

Harris came to Omar's defense:

We all have a responsibility to speak out against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and all forms of hatred and bigotry.

But like some of my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, I am concerned that the spotlight being put on Congresswoman Omar may put her at risk. [emphasis added]

Harris also joined Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in defending Omar, saying

“I also believe there is a difference between criticism of policy or political leaders, and anti-Semitism,

Daniel Greenfield questions how it is that Harris did not see Omar's comments as a threat to Jews, but saw the protests against those statements to be a threat against Omar.

For that matter, how is accusing people of dual loyalty to Israel a criticism of policy?

Greenfield points out that Harris's choice of chief of staff is also problematic:

Karine Jean-Pierre, was the national spokeswoman and senior adviser for MoveOn. The radical group has a long history of trafficking in anti-Semitism and attacking the Jewish state. It even opposed New York Sen. Chuck Schumer because, in its own words, “our country doesn’t need another Joe Lieberman.”

So it is not surprising that Jean-Pierre claimed:

under [Netanyahu's] leadership of Israel, according to the United Nations, Israel may have committed war crimes in its attacks on Gazan protesters.

This in addition to bashing AIPAC.
And this is Harris's chief of staff.

Putting aside that Harris's step-children call her "momalah" or that as a kid she used to collect money to plant trees in Israel, Harris appears to be part of the radicalizing trend in the Democratic party against Israel. Keep in mind that Kamala Harris has not boycotted AIPAC, has not supported BDS and co-sponsored legislation opposing UN Resolution 2334.

So why does she have a chief of staff who says Israel is guilty of war crimes?

How long can she straddle the widening chasm in the Democratic Party between those who support Israel and those who want to weaken it?

And what would 4 years of Biden, with the pressure to resurrect negotiations for a 2 state solution, mean for Israel against the backdrop of an increasingly 'progressive' Democratic Party?

As for Trump, last year, in a letter to Nancy Pelosi before the impeachment hearings, Trump listed what he considered his pro-Israel accomplishments:

o  The US recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,
o  The American Embassy was opened in Jerusalem,
o  The US recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
o  Secretary of State Pompeo announced the new US position that "the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law."
o  Pompeo also gave Israel clear support for its operations against Iran’s presence in Syria and elsewhere

We can throw into the mix that this year Trump came out with his new peace plan, which broke away from the 2 state solution model -- and he played a key role in the new peace agreement between Israel and the UAE.

And of course, Trump pulled the US out of Obama's (and Biden's) Iran nuclear deal.

Accomplishment, no matter how many, are not in and of themselves proof that they are successful and beneficial -- and Jews are still not running from the Democratic camp to vote for Trump.

But compared with where Obama -- and Biden -- left Israel at the end of 2016, Israel is in a better position, and not because aid is being thrown at it to buy US arms to protect itself from enemies like Iran that the previous administration strengthened.

Some, like The Wall Street Journal, think that Trump has made a positive difference in the Middle East in general and for Israel in particular.

The Wall Street Journal's Editor-At-Large, Gerry Baker, writes

For those of you with deficient memories, let’s review this strategic record of the two decades before President Trump took office: the ascent of al Qaeda and 9/11; the catastrophe of Iraq and the messy, bloody stalemate of Afghanistan; the collapse of U.S. authority in the Middle East in the face of civil war in Syria and Libya; the rise of Islamic State; a resurgent Russia gorging itself on Eastern Europe; and the inexorable, unchallenged rise to superpower status of China.

Part of the problem the foreign policy establishment has with Mr. Trump is that it’s hard to stomach that a dilettante has been so effective. Whatever you think of the president, his inconsistencies, his curious taste for the world’s autocrats and his bombast, his efforts have proved more consequential than those of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment that came before him. On the three biggest strategic challenges the U.S. confronts—the Middle East, China and the Western alliance—the president has radically reoriented U.S. policy.

...The Trump administration dispensed with it all: no enforced rapprochement for Israel with recalcitrant Palestinians, no American blood shed to build neoconservative sandcastles of democracy, no illusory engagement with the mullahs.

But Baker is not saying that Trump's policies are an unmitigated success -- or necessarily a success at all, (yet):

It’s too soon to assert with confidence that this Trumpian tripod of strategic innovation has irrevocably advanced America’s objectives. But at the very least it represents a sharp break from years of bipartisan failure.

It would be interesting to see what another 4 years of Trump could bring.

Who knows, maybe Trump might even avoid getting impeached a second time.

08/27 Links Pt1: Pence: Trump's Jerusalem recognition changed region; Khartoum Emerges As Place To Watch After Pompeo Visit; Hezbollah carried out border shooting under peacekeepers’ noses

From Ian:

Isaac Herzog and Michael Herzog: Israel's Right to Self-Determination Does Not Depend on the Palestinians

The historic breakthrough towards normalizing Israeli-Emirati relations demonstrates a sea change in the Arab world’s outlook on Israel. In a region plagued by failed or failing states, wars and radicalism, Israel is increasingly perceived as a beacon of stability.

It also demonstrates that offering the Middle East a brighter future can no longer wait for the truly noble goal of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israel-UAE deal is a welcome outcome for a region destabilized by Iranian ambitions, Islamist extremism and internal strife. And a comprehensive framework for normalized Israeli-Arab relations that goes far beyond a “cold peace” not only deals a blow to the enemies of peace, but also creates an essential space for keeping the two-state solution alive.

Amazingly, there are those who continue to view the region through the sole prism of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to the point of suggesting the dystopian paradigm of dismantling the Jewish state into one state for Israelis and Palestinians.

The stories of the childhood of our father, Israel’s sixth president Chaim Herzog, in civil war-torn Belfast have shaped our perspective on the need for separate political entities for Israelis and Palestinians. Our father’s earliest memory was witnessing a gunfight resulting in murder. Today, some pundits cite Ireland as a hopeful example of resolving a centuries-old conflict between rival groups within one state. Yet this paradigm does not translate to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which involves two competing national movements with bitter history and sharply different cultural and religious characteristics, espousing conflicting narratives and aspirations over the same piece of land.

Forcing Israelis and Palestinians together into one state is highly unlikely to produce a melting pot of coexistence and equality. Rather, it would trigger an endless struggle over dominance and only inflame and perpetuate the conflict, to the detriment of both peoples.

The debate over one state or two states is particularly significant in the aftermath of last month’s 20th anniversary of the Camp David Summit. One of us was there, as well as in most peace negotiations with the Palestinians since 1993. Fresh in our memory is Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat denying that there was ever a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Nor can we forget his nod to a terror campaign that took the lives of over 1,000 Israelis in the wake of Camp David.

In the decades since Camp David, the Palestinians have persistently rejected or ignored far-reaching Israeli and American peace proposals. Is Israel seriously expected to make a choice between fully accepting Palestinian demands or else dismantling itself?

Pence: Trump's Jerusalem recognition changed region

US Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday cast the re-election of President Donald Trump as critical to preserving America's safety and economic viability while claiming the administration's pro-Israel decisions helped bring it closer to the Arab world.

Amid widening protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Wisconsin, Pence and other Republicans at their national convention described the Nov. 3 contest between Trump and Biden as a choice between "law and order" and lawlessness.

"The hard truth is you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America," Pence told the crowd seated on a lawn at historic Fort McHenry in Baltimore.

Pence added that a vote for President Trump is also a vote for law and order worldwide. Stating that this administration has "Stood up to our enemies and we've stood with our allies. Like when President Trump kept his word and moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, the capital of the state of Israel, setting the stage for the first Arab country to recognize Israel in 26 years."

JPost Editorial: Pompeo is a great friend to the State of Israel

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s four-minute video clip addressed to the Republican National Convention from Jerusalem on Tuesday has triggered an avalanche of criticism.

Some have criticized him for literally using Jerusalem as a prop in US President Donald Trump’s campaign; others, for politicizing his office and being the first secretary of state in memory to address a national political convention.

Both criticisms ring somewhat disingenuous.

It is quite understandable that the Trump campaign wants to highlight its move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It views this as one of the president’s crowning achievements, and something of great importance to millions of Evangelicals who form a core component of Trump’s constituency. What better way to highlight that than for Pompeo to mention the embassy move to the convention with the domes and steeples of Jerusalem’s Old City glittering in the background?

And regarding politicizing the secretary of state’s office, c’mon! The secretary of state is a political appointment. Did anyone really fall of their chair watching that clip and discovering that Pompeo supports Trump’s foreign policies?

When did synagogues start placing the Israeli and American flags in front?

On Twitter, Ben Kurt asked me, “Why do American synagogues often have the Israeli flag next to the ark or on a pole? I've never seen it one single time in a European synagogue.”

It appears that the custom of (usually non-Orthodox) synagogues, as well as churches, to display any flag at the front of the sanctuary happened during World War I as they displayed American flags as a show of patriotism for the US war effort. Some synagogues decided to also add the Zionist flag on the other side of the ark, perhaps out of a sense of aesthetics as much as a declaration of support for Zionism.

On May 9, 1931, a writer at the Reform Advocate expressed unease at the idea of either flag in synagogue, especially the Zionist flag, worried that it would make it appear that Jews had dual loyalties – even before Israel was reborn!

Despite these misgivings by some Reform Jews, the Zionist flag became more and more popular in American synagogues (along with the American flag.) Flags would be presented to synagogues as gifts (this example from 1935):

The practice of American and Israeli flags in synagogue only accelerated during World War II.

However, after Israel was reborn some liberal congregations felt a little uncomfortable with the Israeli flag, for the same reason they were in the 1930s: they didn’t want to appear to have dual loyalties.

In 1950, Reform Rabbi Aryeh Lev suggested that instead of the Israeli flag, American congregations should adapt the flag used by Jewish chaplains during World War II as an American Jewish symbol.

Clearly the liberal congregations of every type did not show interest in Aryeh Lev’s proposal, and the Israeli flag remains at the front of many American synagogues today.

An article in JTA from a few months later describes a strong reaction against this idea by the Orthodox Union:

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, representing all Orthodox synagogues in the United States and Canada, today announced its opposition to the adoption of a separate religious flag for American Jewry as proposed recently by Rabbi Aryeh Lev, director of the Division of Beligious Activities of the National Jewish Welfare Board.

Pointing out that traditional Judaism does not recognize the existence of an American Judaism separate from the “World Community of Israel,” the statement expressed opposition to the adoption of “concepts and symbols which will divide American Jewry from Klal Yisrael, whether they hide behind the Ten Commandments or any other emblem.”

Released by Rabbi Irwin Gordon, national director of community activities of the Union, the statement reviewed Jewry’s history of rarely displaying flags in synagogues. It related the change of this custom by Jewish religious groups which broke away from the Orthodox movement and by the display of the Zionist blue-and-white-flag and the American flag in synagogues during the war.

“With the establishment of the state of Israel and the adoption of the blue-and-white flag as its national ensign, some question has been raised concerning the propriety of further display of the Zionist flag in synagogues and centers,” the statement said. “Using the fear of ‘double loyalty’ as a jumping-off point, certain sectarian groups have asked for the adoption of a new religious flag for American Jewry.

“The spectre of “dual loyalty,” we are convinced, exists primarily in the minds of those who are not loyal to their own Jewish heritage,” it continued. “As observant Jews, we have never found and do not today find any contradiction between our loyalty to our faith, our devotion to our heritage and people and our political loyalty to the land of our birth.

“Traditional Judaism, unlike the sectarian movements, which have broken from it, does not recognize the existence of a separate and distinet ‘American’ Judaism. Surely, none of this is sufficient reason for the adoption of new-symbols which will separate American Jewry from Klal Yisrael, the world community of Israel, united by its common allegiance to its Torah,” the statement insisted.

It is interesting that the Orthodox Union, most of whom’s members would not have displayed any flag in their synagogues, felt they had to weigh in on this topic because of the perceived threat to the unity of the worldwide Jewish community which, then as now, overwhelmingly sees the flag of Israel as representing their own sense of pride of being Jewish.

Abdulrahman Thaher is a Palestinian actor and film director.

On August 14, he posted on Facebook a very mild and indirect criticism of the Palestinian Authority, saying that he didn't want to comment on the Israel/UAE agreement but that the PA had no right to criticize it since they have maintained recognition of Israel for decades.

He was then promptly arrested on charges of "defaming the Authority."

Last Wednesday his detention was extended and on Sunday the Palestinian court rejected an argument that what he did was not illegal under Palestinian law.

Thaher's wife said he looked "sick and confused" during his court date and added that he was hospitalized, but she wasn't allowed to visit him.

At the same time, another Palestinian critic of corruption in the Palestinian Authority, Nizar Banat, was also arrested for the same "crime "of "defaming the Authority."

Western media and human rights groups have not said a word about these two cases, days after the Palestinian Independent Commission on Human Rights criticized the arrests.

Many Palestinian media outlets steer clear of reporting such cases, but Hamas and some independent media have been reporting it, and there is lots of interest on social media. The arrests are no secret. Reuters even reported about it in its Arabic newsfeed.

The only reason the Western media is reluctant to report on such stories is because they want to maintain their anti-Israel bias. If the Palestinian Authority is revealed to be the corrupt dictatorship it is, then public opinion would swing more towards Israel which is far better in every single metric of adherence to the law and of morality. It would upset the false "narrative" of oppressive Israel and its Palestinian victims.

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.

PCHR, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, reports an incident of the Palestinian Authority torturing a 17-year old:

A Palestinian force of the Preventive Security Service (PSS) arrested a 17-year-old boy, from Ethna village in Hebron, without showing a warrant from the Public Prosecution, assaulted him physically, and shackled him subjecting him to degrading treatment. According to his statement:

“An officer grabbed me from my shirt and took me into the head office and ordered me to carry a heavy metal chair on my head while lifting one of my legs off the ground. When I refused to do so, the officer slapped me in the face and kicked me with his leg. I did what the officer ordered me for 5 minutes. After that, an officer grabbed me from my shirt again and hit me on my head repeatedly until we reached the investigation room. Officers ordered me to strip naked and face the wall and lift one hand and one foot up. I was kicked every time I tried to put my leg down. An inspector drew a fan on the wall and ordered me to turn it on while another inspector drew a ladder and ordered me to climb it. After that, another offer came and ordered me to crawl on the ground naked and officers proceeded to step on my body and head with their shoes on. I learnt later that I was arrested to pressure my father to turn himself in, as I was released after he was arrested.”

PCHR is not always the most reliable reporter of human rights abuses. One thing is clear, though: accusations of torture by Israel receive screaming world headlines, while accusations of torture by the Palestinian Authority or Hamas get muted.

This story is from Monday yet it has been completely ignored in English.

It was published in two obscure Palestinian news sites in Arabic but no site that has an actual audience.

Of course, neither Human Rights Watch nor Amnesty tweeted about this.

Arabs abusing other Arabs, including children, are simply accepted and condoned by the “progressive” crowd, because admitting that Arabs act worse than Israel does muddies their antisemitic message of “Jews bad, Arabs good.”

Israel’s PM and Government Should Resign Today (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

I’m not looking forward to writing this, or to reading the responses that I will surely get from various quarters. But here it is.

The Breslov Hasidim venerate Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810), a kabbalist, scholar, and founder of a movement that stresses joy and the personal closeness of a Jew to Hashem. Israelis are familiar with the Breslov trucks that drive around playing loud, rousing music, sometimes stopping for the passengers to get out and dance in the street with passers-by. Some see their approach as a welcome infusion of life and spirituality into what can be a dry and forbidding faith; others see their attitude toward Rabbi Nachman as avoda zara (worship of something or someone other than Hashem).

The Breslov Hasidim have developed a tradition in recent decades of visiting Uman (in Ukraine) where he died and where his grave is located, on Rosh Hashana. This pilgrimage has included tens of thousands of Israelis and others over the years. While for most of the pilgrims the goal of the trip is increased spirituality, there is also an element that treats it like the American college students’ Spring break, lubricated by alcohol and spiced up by prostitution.

The advent of the Coronavirus pandemic has (maybe) put a damper on the phenomenon. Israel’s numbers of serious cases and daily deaths from Corona are about as high as they have ever been, and its total number of cases per million population is 19^th in the world (out of 213). Ukraine is also suffering an increasing number of new cases, although it ranks only 87^th in cases per million. Last month, Ukraine decided to bar Israelis from the pilgrimage after the EU placed Israel on its “red list” of countries unsafe to visit.

Since then, pressure has been applied to authorities in Israel and Ukraine, both for and against the event. As one can imagine, tens of thousands of visitors mean a huge amount of income for the relatively small town of Uman. On the other hand, the danger of spreading Covid-19 at this kind of happening, where there will be large crowds and little social distancing, is very great. As Prof. Roni Gamzu, the Corona coordinator of Israel’s Health Ministry, recently pointed out, travelers to Uman will have to be placed in quarantine when they return home. A few thousand could be placed in hotels, but there is no way to quarantine and keep track of tens of thousands. Gamzu wants the government to forbid Israelis from flying to Uman. He also communicated his feelings to Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In response, former Health Minister and present Housing and Construction Minister Ya’akov Litzman, himself a member of a (different) Hasidic sect, was infuriated and called for Gamzu’s resignation. The most recent development has the Ukranian President announcing that the pilgrimage would be “significantly restrict[ed]” although no precise details were given. Zelensky said that he was responding to a request made by PM Binyamin Netanyahu, but the PM’s office denied that he had made such a request, and said only that travelers should follow health instructions (proving yet again that at least in the case of Bibi, physical courage in youth doesn’t necessarily translate into moral courage in maturity).

I don’t know what will come out of this for Gamzu, who recently implied that he would resign if “not given the tools to bring down morbidity.” Gamzu, who has been properly trying to balance the medical demands of the epidemic with the need to protect the economy, has been stymied at almost every turn by politicians.

Why is an advanced, small country like Israel doing so poorly in managing the epidemic? There are several reasons. One is the fact that government decisions are being made on the basis of political interests, and not from medical or economic considerations. The pilgrimage to Uman is only one example. Another is that the Haredi and Arab sectors, where the virus has spread the most, institutionally resist authority, and ignore the rules. And finally, last but definitely not least, is the lack of leadership from the one person that should pull everything together, the Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu is more concerned with keeping the support of Litzman’s Haredi faction to keep him in power and out of jail, than with the threat of a major outbreak of the virus and concomitant economic disaster. Netanyahu has systematically kept his rival Naftali Bennett on the political margins. Bennett is one of the few politicians who has demonstrated real creativity in dealing with the present crisis, but he was forced out of the Likud by Bibi, reportedly because Mrs. Netanyahu dislikes him.

Recently the government managed to avoid falling and precipitating yet another election when it negotiated an internal compromise to delay voting on a budget. This is the best thing this pitiful government is capable of accomplishing: saving itself by not doing something essential.
Thanks to the irresponsibility of our politicians, people are dying of the virus. And the ones who don’t die are out of work.

After three elections in one year, Israelis have no appetite (or half a billion shekels) for another one. But the people have had it. We are sick of the endless crises of their own making, while the country misses opportunities like the application of sovereignty to the Jordan Valley, while the southern part of the country absorbs blow after blow from Hamas (yesterday their incendiary balloons started 30 fires), and while the number of seriously ill increase daily as the politicians dither.

Recently the entire government of Lebanon resigned, after an ongoing economic meltdown was followed by a massive explosion that destroyed large chunk of their capital. I don’t envy the Lebanese their economy or their explosion, but our government should follow their example.

08/26 Links Pt2: Whither the BDS Movement?; Only 4% of American Jews consider Israel most important voting issue; Tel Aviv synagogues get go-ahead to hold High Holiday services in public spaces

From Ian:

Only 4% of American Jews consider Israel most important voting issue

Ahead of the US 2020 presidential election, most American Jews remain pro-Israel but do not define Israel as their most important voting issue, according to a new study by the Ruderman Foundation.

Only 4% of Jewish voters identify Israel as their first or second-most important election issue. Some 43% prioritize health care, 28% prioritize gun violence and 21% prioritize Social Security and Medicare.

The paper, entitled “The Jewish Vote 2020: More Empowered than Powerful,” states that analysis of Jewish American voting patterns “tells us more about why they vote than about what their vote achieves,” and examines voting patterns to draw conclusions on shifts in American Jewish identity and values.

The failure to vote primarily on the topic of Israel is not due to a shift away from pro-Israel sentiments but rather a reflection of Jewish liberal identities, according to the study.

One of the finding in the paper is that “in the voting booth, most American Jews are actually more pro-choice and anti-Trump than pro-Israel.”

The three part position paper examines defining issues of what it calls a “watershed seemingly dividing pro-Trump Israeli Jews from anti-Trump American Jews,” and was co-authored by the Ruderman Family Foundation and Prof. Gil Troy.

Should Jews be angry about Pompeo’s speech from Jerusalem?

Republicans did their best last week to highlight the presence of a pair of anti-Israel figures at the Democratic National Convention. But in a stroke of irony, this week the Democrats are, among other things, complaining about the way the Republicans are trying to highlight their pro-Israel credentials.

There’s no real symmetry between the dustups over the Democrats’ flip-flops over their relations with radical BDS activist and prominent anti-Semite Linda Sarsour, and the GOP’s decision to have U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speak to his party’s convention in an address taped in Jerusalem. Nor should either be compared with the fact that, to their credit, the Republicans bounced a scheduled speaker from their program who had been found to have tweeted out anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. The contrast between these kerfuffles is interesting because it raises the question of whether and how concerns about Israel and anti-Semitism should impact the decisions of voters.

Sarsour’s presence, as well as that of an Islamist imam, at a DNC daytime forum was outrageous. The real problem, however, was that Joe Biden’s campaign tried to have it both ways—first condemning and disassociating the candidate from her and then apologizing to her supporters for being “insensitive” to their feelings.

Nevertheless, Pompeo’s speech raises legitimate questions about a sitting cabinet member engaging in political activity and doing so while using an allied country as a backdrop.

The Hatch Act broadly prohibits government employees from playing politics while on duty. That law has often been observed in the breach by previous administrations with, for example, members of President Barack Obama’s cabinet appearing at the 2012 Democratic Convention.

The New York Times claimed that it had been at least 75 years since a secretary of state spoke at a national party convention, but since I haven’t found any record of Cordell Hull—President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of state appearing at either the 1940 or 1944 Democratic conventions—Pompeo’s speech might be a first.

Democrats are arguing that posts like secretary of state ought to be above politics, and to some extent, that’s true. It’s equally true that these posts are usually filled by politicians who often use their exalted platform for purposes that advance their political interests, such as the way Hillary Clinton helped the Clinton Family Foundation, a billion-dollar slush fund masquerading as a charity that existed mainly to promote her interests and future presidential candidacy while doing little in the way of philanthropy.

Too many American Jews are turning a blind eye to Antisemitism

Chutzpah layered on top of chutzpah. Morton Klein the President of the National ZOA had the audacity to answer those very questions, pointing out in tweets what should have been obvious to all: “BlackLivesMatter is an anti-Semitic, Israel hating, Soros funded, racist, Israelophobic hate group.” He followed up with: “I urge the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) to immediately put BlackLivesMatter on their list of hate groups. BLM is a Jew hating, White hating, Israel hating, conservative Black hating, violence promoting, dangerous Soros funded extremist group of haters.”

For expressing what only the willfully blind could deny, Klein was subjected to his sworn enemies giving voice to an anguished outcry of hate Vociferously, he was denounced as a “racist,” “bigot,” and xenophobe.

If you think the recriminations were coming from BLM, you’re sadly mistaken. Sixteen of the fifty one member organizations of the Conference of Presidents issued a separate letter on June 12th condemning Klein’s comments, and called for the removal of the ZOA from the Council of Presidents.

Unsurprisingly, not one word about the antisemitic riots just days earlier was mentioned by any of Klein’s sixteen disparaging groups. It’s not surprising because with the exception of the ZOA no other Jewish organization in the United States has the intestinal fortitude to publicly confront and maintain pressure on egregious acts of antisemitism.

This past December, a black man named Grafton Thomas crashed a Hannukah party at the house of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg in Monsey, New York. Brandishing a butcher knife, he immediately began stabbing five people, one of whom, Rabbi Josef Newmann, succumbed to his injuries. Investigators found handwritten journals expressing antisemitic views, including material about Adolf Hitler, "Nazi culture", and drawings of a Star of David and of a swastika among Thomas's possessions.

With so much evidence of it being a hate crime and over a hundred guests at the party recognizing him as the assailant, you would think it was a slam dunk case. Guess again. This past April 20th, a federal judge ruled Grafton was incompetent to stand trial and ordered him to be hospitalized in a mental facility. He certainly was competent enough to research Nazi culture, cross state lines, seek out the Rabbi’s address, and commit murder, but not enough to stand trial. This dastardly event came on the heels of a 30 year old Hassidic kollel student was stabbed multiple times on his way to Synagogue in Ramapo, New York, two months earlier.

There isn’t a person on the planet that hasn’t heard of George Floyd, so why aren’t the names of Rabbi Newmann and that kollel student equally familiar? I think all unbiased, serious minded people know the answer to this question.

BDS response to UAE is pretty funny

I love this headline from the BDS movement in response to the announcement of the UAE normalizing relations with Israel.

bds uae2

“Dictatorship,” “despotic,” “police state.” It really sounds like the BDSers care about repression, doesn’t it?

Three years ago, the BDS movement attempted to start an anti-normalization initiative – in the Gulf.

They chose that human rights paradigm, Kuwait, to host.

For some reason, the BDSers didn’t have any moral qualms with dealing with the representatives from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and – yes – the UAE in 2017.

They have nothing bad to say about any dictatorial, repressive Muslim states today as long as they share BDSers’ insane Jew-hate disguised as “anti-Zionism.”

But as soon as a Muslim state talks to Israel – suddenly, it turns into a terrible violator of human rights.

It’s almost like the BDSers only pretend to care about human rights and they are really just using that topic as a means to attack the one state in the region that actually gives a damn about human rights.

08/26 Links Pt1: Israeli Shai Ohayon stabbed to death in terror attack; UAE-Israel deal exposes true face of Palestinian Authority; Israeli aircraft strike Hezbollah posts after shots fired at troops

From Ian:

Israeli Shai Ohayon stabbed to death by Palestinian in suspected terror attack

A Palestinian man stabbed an Israeli man to death outside the Tel Aviv suburb of Petah Tikva in a suspected terror attack on Wednesday afternoon, police said.

Police said the suspect was arrested near the scene shortly after the attack at the Segula Junction.

“The results of the investigation raise the suspicion of a nationalistic motive,” police said.

The victim, who suffered multiple stab wounds, was identified as Rabbi Shai Ohayon, a father of four and, according to Ultra-Orthodox news outlet, a member of Petah Tikva’s Haredi community, who studied full time at a religious institution known as a kollel in the nearby town of Kfar Saba. Police said he was 39 years old.

The suspect — identified by Israeli authorities as Khalil Abd al-Khaliq Dweikat, 46, from the northern West Bank — was in Israel with a legal work permit, according to the Shin Bet security service.

Dweikat, a father of six from the Nablus area, had no history of terrorist activities, the Shin Bet said.

Upon his arrest, officers searched the suspect and found a blood-stained knife that was apparently used in the attack, police said.

The police handed over Dweikat to the Shin Bet for interrogation. The security service said it was looking into the possibility that he had a history of mental illness, but that it was “too soon to tell” if that could explain the attack.

The victim sustained multiple, fatal stab wounds to his upper body, doctors said.

Netanyahu vows to raze Palestinian suspect’s home after fatal attack

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Wednesday evening to demolish the home of a Palestinian who stabbed an Israeli man to death earlier in the day in an apparent terror attack.

The prime minister also sent condolences to the family of Rabbi Shai Ohayon, who was killed in the stabbing attack in the Tel Aviv suburb of Petah Tikva.

“My wife Sara and I embrace the family, the wife and four children who were left today without a father. We will work to demolish the home of the terrorist and seek the most severe punishment,” Netanyahu tweeted.

Ohayon, according to Ultra-Orthodox news outlets, was a member of Petah Tikva’s Haredi community and studied full time at a religious institution known as a kollel in the nearby town of Kfar Saba. Police said he was 39 years old.

Moments before the attack, Netanyahu had tweeted an article celebrating the first time in 56 years that no Israelis had been killed in a terror attack in over 365 days.

“First and foremost, I’m here to protect your lives. We will continue to bring security and from it also bring peace,” the prime minister, who has regularly pushed to demolish the homes of the perpetrators of terror attacks, wrote in his tweet.

Israeli Man Stabbed to Death by Palestinian in Central Israel

Iranians aren’t nearly as fundamentalist as they are portrayed in the West, according to a new survey:

According to a new poll, four decades after the establishment of the Islamic regime, only 32% of the population consider themselves Shia Muslims.

The new poll by the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN), a non-profit institute in the Netherlands, asked Iranians about their “attitude toward religion”.

90 percent of the 50,000 Iranian participants in the survey reside in Iran. GAMAAN claims the results of the survey to be 95% accurate and generalizable to the entire Iranian society.

According to the results, 78% of Iranians believe in God, but only 26% of them believe in "the coming of the Messiah (Imam Mahdi)", which is one of the main beliefs of the Twelver Shiites.

While only 32% of Iranians consider themselves Shia Muslims, 9% have claimed to be atheists and 22% do not align with any religion. Half of the population used to believe but does not anymore and 6% have converted to a new religion.

Out of 61% of the people born into religious families, 60% do not say their daily prayers. 68% of the participants believe that religion must not be the basis of legislation, 71% believe that religious institutions must be self-funded, and 42% believe that promoting any kind of religion must be banned from the public sphere.

The results also indicate that 73% of the population disagree with the compulsory hijab while 58% do not believe in hijab.

37% of Iranian drink alcohol regularly or occasionally, despite its prohibition after the revolution. Prohibition and price have deterred only 8% of Iranians from consuming alcohol.

This is very encouraging. It indicates that the majority of Iranians do not agree with living in a theocracy, meaning the regime is far less stable than it portrays.

(h/t Yoel)

Not just fires: Hamas sending floating bombs to Israel

Yesterday, Anna Ahronheim of the Jerusalem Post tweeted, “An explosive balloon landed on a basketball court in the southern #Israeli city of Netivot earlier tonight and exploded near children. There were no injuries but damage to the court.”

The photos are chilling.

The bomb caused a crater on the concrete, and as you can see if you expand the photo, when it exploded it shot out at least a hundred potentially lethal projectiles over at a ten foot radius that also were powerful enough to penetrate the court.

Incendiary balloons are bad enough – forest and brush fires can kill and have destroyed thousands of acres of land. But these are bombs, deliberately sent by Hamas and Islamic Jihad to kill Israeli civilians. The damage looks to be not much less than what a mortar would do.

No nation would tolerate being attacked from the air with bombs that could land anywhere – schools, homes, playgrounds. And Israeli residents don’t have sirens to protect them from these explosives.

UPDATE: Footage of the explosion.

Sometimes Iran’s propaganda gets positively humorous.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday that the United Arab Emirates cannot become more secure through buying security from Israel, according to a Press TV report.

…“Undoubtedly, the agreement will result in fortification of the resistance axis in the region,” the ministry said in a statement.

So Iran will get stronger. Isn’t that what Iran wants?

“History will reveal how this strategic mistake by the Zionist regime and this act of backstabbing by the Emirates against the Palestinians and, by extension, the entire Muslim community, will conversely result in fortifying the resistance axis,” the ministry added.

Shouldn’t he be celebrating Israel’s strategic mistake?

And isn’t it nice of him to care enough about Israel to warn her that it is making such a mistake? I mean, Israel would have to be stupid not to take his friendly advice, am I right?

08/25 Links Pt2: We need to talk about the ethnic cleansing of Middle Eastern Jews; The Mind-Bendingly Insane, Completely Craven, Utterly Unconscionable Redemption of Al Sharpton

From Ian:

We need to talk about the ethnic cleansing of Middle Eastern Jews

One million Jewish refugees were driven from nine Arab countries and Iran during the 20th Century. The governments and peoples which pushed them out did not just aim to destroy their lives. They aimed to destroy the brilliant history of Jews in the region. Jews had lived in Iraq ever since Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonians exiled them from their homeland in the 6th Century BCE. There, the Farhud, a bloody Nazi-influenced pogrom in 1941, was an early episode in an ever-mounting persecution. The Farhud slew nearly 300 Jews and injured more than 2000. Sporadic violence made it impossible for Iraqi Jews to stay and initiated their flight to Israel.

When, in 1948, Iraq went to war with the new State of Israel, Zionism was criminalized, leading to further state-sponsored persecution. Yet more Jews fled to Israel in great numbers, until, in 1952, Iraq banned emigration. In 1969, nine men were hanged as an alleged “spy ring”. Today, there are fewer than ten Jews in Iraq. That is the story of just one community. Similar stories unfolded in communities across the region, ruining lives and desecrating a unique culture. These were stories of thorough dispossession, usually sponsored and promoted by antisemitic states, hellbent on ridding themselves of the Jews.

This is the story of Yemen too, a story of a once vibrant Jewish community, smashed to pieces in the 20th Century. For millennia, perhaps as early as the time of King Solomon, Jews flourished in Yemen, despite prejudice and oppression. They developed a rich culture of their own. The 17th Century’s Rabbi Shalom Shabazi, for example, wrote a celebrated canon of 850 poems. He was revered by Jew and non-Jew alike.

As early as 1922, the flames of hatred were being fanned in Yemen: an old law was invoked, forcing all Jewish orphans under 12 to be converted to Islam. When the UN partition plan for a Jewish and Arab state in the British Mandate of Palestine was announced in 1947, a pogrom swept through the port of Aden. It killed an estimated 82 Jews, destroyed nearly all the Jewish shops and four synagogues.

From 1949-50, Israel airlifted the vast majority of the Yemeni community to safety. There, the Yemeni community remain a cultural powerhouse. Now, in the 21st Century, the minuscule remaining fragment of Yemen’s Jews is being crushed, using the same excuses as seventy years ago. Yet again, the same “anti-Zionist” antisemitism is fulfilling its evil role.

Yet again, Jews are being put to flight by hateful zealots and murderers in one of the cradles of Jewish civilization and history.

There is a vile irony to the Houthis’ actions, and those of their predecessors in the 40s and 50s: the same hatred which says that a Jew cannot be a loyal citizen in the countries of the Diaspora, and does not deserve to be an equal citizen, also claims that Jews have no place in Israel, the land of our indigenous roots and the birthplace of our nation. The handful of Jews who, if these terrifying reports are to be believed, are being hounded out of Yemen, are the latest victims of this murderous catch-22. They are the victims of the pernicious hatred which says that there can be no refuge, no rest, no human kindness for a Jew.

When the brothers and sisters of these Yemeni Jews were being expelled all those decades ago, the world did not care. This time, as the latest chapter in the persecution of Mizrahim is written in plain sight, it is time to end the erasure which says that Jewish suffering began and ended in Europe and forgets the Jews of the Middle East.

The Mind-Bendingly Insane, Completely Craven, Utterly Unconscionable Redemption of Al Sharpton

This past weekend, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella group uniting 125 local Jewish communities and 17 national Jewish organizations, sent an email to its followers proudly announcing that it has signed on as a partner in the Virtual March on Washington this week, an event organized by Al Sharpton.

Because last week also marked the 29th anniversary of the Crown Heights riots, it’s worth it to stop and recall that among his many distinctions—MSNBC pundit, and an adviser who reportedly regularly speaks to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, collector of innumerable sateen suits—Al Sharpton is also currently America’s only living pogrom leader.

After a car driven by a Hasidic Jew accidentally swerved and struck a young African American boy, killing him, hundreds of the neighborhood’s Black residents rioted in the streets, chanting “death to the Jews!” as well as looting stores, attacking anyone who was visibly Jewish, and ripping mezuzot off of door posts. Sharpton was quick to arrive on the scene, leading a march in which participants burned an Israeli flag and called to kill all Jews. At the young boy’s funeral a few days later, Sharpton delivered a eulogy that borrowed heavily from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, saying that the Jewish residents of the neighborhood practiced “apartheid” and were there only to further the Jewish global grip on money and power. He ended by ominously shouting: “pay for your deeds.”

At least one Jew had already paid the ultimate price for Sharpton’s incitement: A few days earlier, 20 Black men surrounded Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year-old student, stabbing him in the back and beating him so badly they smashed in his skull. Rosenbaum succumbed to his wounds later that night. Sharpton showed up on the scene soon after, ensuring that the rioting continued for days.

As the years went by, Sharpton was given ample opportunity to apologize for his prominent role in this modern day anti-Semitic bloodletting. He never did.

Why, then, is this unrepentant hater being supported by a major Jewish organization? Why, barely a year after a spree in which visibly observant Jews were violently attacked in record numbers, are Jewish organizations sidling up to kiss Sharpton's ring?

What is Europe funding?

According to a report by the research institute NGO Monitor, the EU and other European governments gave the Refugee Council, and through it to the local organizations, more than $20 million between 2016-2020. An official document of the British government claims that between 2013-2016 the British have transferred £1.4 million "directly for legal cases against house demolitions or evacuations. 2,541 evacuations or demolitions were delayed as a result."

European intervention is not limited to the funding of legal procedures. Official documents of various countries show an attempt to change Israeli policy and create facts on the ground in strategic areas, using the legal system. The program's goals include "litigation of cases that are of public interest and challenge Israeli policy, through Israeli courts and international bodies"; "change of policy and practices", and "a lobby in the EU and UN." The program is executed in coordination and tight cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, which directs the cases of illegal building to the organization and its partners.

The discussions in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the European-funded battle for land in Area C are the first and important attempt to deal with the issue, but it's only one example of many. Europe has for years funded radical groups disguised as humanitarian NGOs, involved in campaigns against Israel such as BDS and the campaign against it at the Hague.

The Europeans even fund organizations that are connected to the Popular Front terror group. Just recently it was revealed that a few senior officials from Palestinian "human rights" groups funded by Europe were charged with the murder of Rina Shnerb. The person accused of her murder and his commander in the terror cell acted as financial managers in the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), which is largely funded by Europe, under the title of humanitarian aid, to execute agricultural takeovers in Area C.

No country in the world would be willing to accept the fact that against any diplomatic norms, friendly governments would transfer millions of dollars to organizations trying to hurt it under the guise of aid and humanitarian groups. It's time the government and lawmakers act directly against these funding governments and parliaments, in order to bring a fundamental change in the policy of how groups are funded by European governments.