Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 28, 2014

How PCUSA twists history to justify their hate of Israel

I finally got a copy of "Zionism Unsettled," the Presbyterian Church USA's 80-page "study guide" to teach Presbyterians how awful Israel is that was in the news a month ago.

Others have done a good job showing how bad it is - and it is very bad. For example:

After describing how much pressure Jews are under to not say anything bad about Zionism, it goes on to quote a hundred years' worth of anti-Zionist writings by Jews.
It has a sidebar of an "unsung hero of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising" - because he was anti-Zionist.
It gives Brant Rosen, the anti-Zionist reconstructionist "rabbi," an entire chapter to describe his pseudo-theological basis for hating Israel.
It shows The Map That Lies.
It says in a pull-quote "There are similarities between Zionism, South African apartheid, and Jim Crow segregation in the Southern US."

I thought it would be helpful to reproduce the PCUSA's timeline of the region's history to show how easy it is to lie with facts and factoids - when you get to select which ones to use.

Like all anti-Israel histories of the conflict, they start with the 19th century. Jewish people living in the Land of Israel from Biblical times aren't good to mention because that undercuts the fundamental argument that the land is Arab land that Jews came and took away.

And the "First Aliya" was hardly the first wave of Jews to return to Israel. They came throughout the centuries, perhaps not in waves but there was always a desire in Jewish culture to return. Major rabbis made "aliya" from Babylonia to the Land of Israel in the 2nd-5th centuries CE. They never stopped coming.

Also not mentioned is that the large majority of Palestinian Arabs in this timeframe did not want an independent state but they wanted to be part of Syria, just to forestall the possibility of a Jewish state. Then, as now, the point was not to establish a state but to end one.

Notice anything missing?

They don't want to mention the deadly anti-Jewish attacks in 1920, 1921 and of course the pogroms in 1929 where many Jews lost their lives and many more lost their homes. Yes, Jews were driven out of their homes by Arabs (in Jaffa, Hebron, parts of Jerusalem and elsewhere) long before the "nakba." Yet only one set of people have rights according to PCUSA.

The 1936-9 revolt was not only against Jewish immigration - it was against Jews altogether. It was a violent uprising and hundreds were killed. Not worth mentioning, of course.

Here the writers are engaging in sophisticated deception. Zionism of course predates the Holocaust and by the eve of World War II there was already a functioning Jewish government in Palestine in readiness for statehood. No such parallel government existed on the Arab side.

But PCUSA wants to frame Israel's founding completely as a result of the Holocaust, with the implication that the Arabs did nothing to deserve suffering at the hands of the Holocaust victims. Of course, the Holocaust contributed to the urgency of establishing a haven for Jews (as well as Western reticence at accepting hundreds of thousands of refugees) but the timeline minimizes Zionism's pre-war accomplishments.

The last item is a lie. There were zero Arabs displaced by Zionists in mid-November, 1947. In fact, before the partition vote Jews were forced out of their homes in Jaffa in August 1947 - once again, the first victims were Jews. Arabs shot at the Jews from minarets of mosques.

Tens of thousands of Arabs did flee at the first attacks of Arabs against Jews in the hours after the partition vote. They remembered 1936-39 and those who had the means decided to flee to Lebanon and elsewhere to sit out the fighting. It was completely voluntary.

Why put "war of liberation" in scare quotes? Well, if you don't believe that Jews have a right to their historic land, then it isn't liberation, is it?

Plan Dalet is not described here, but it is certainly being misrepresented as a plan to ethnically cleanse Arabs. This is a lie.

Deir Yassin is mentioned - but not the Hadassah hospital convoy massacre a few days later which had a similar number of victims. How's that for bias?

Why is the UN adopting the UDHR mentioned here? Obviously because PCUSA claims that Jews violated it - and not Arabs.

Wars just somehow break out. Nothing about incessant fedayeen attacks on Israel in the 1950s and 1960s. Nothing about Arab threats to annihilate Israel and throw the Jews into the sea. Nothing about Yasir Arafat's first terror attack in 1965, before "occupation." Nothing about how the original PLO charter specifically excluded the West Bank and Gaza from its goals. Nothing about Israel warning Jordan to stay out of the war, but Jordan attacking anyway - and losing the West Bank. No, we cannot have Jews feeling real fear, can we?

Also missing: Black September, when Jordan killed and expelled thousands of Palestinians.

In the text of the booklet, PCUSA says "Sadat had taken the initiative by his historic trip to Jerusalem in November 1977. Begin resisted responding to Sadat's peace initiative until public pressure forced his hand." This is a flat-out lie. Israel responded to Sadat's speech in Cairo within hours with an invitation to Jerusalem. Begin had made numerous contacts with his Arab neighbors to negotiate peace between entering office and Sadat's trip to Jerusalem.

Who massacred the Arabs in Sabra/Shatila? PCUSA implies it is Israel, because they haven't said a word about Lebanese Christians, so who else could it be?

The 1994 entry shows how one can write a completely factual statement and still lie.

The first Arab suicide attack in Israel was in 1989 and it killed 16 people- but it wasn't a bomb.

There were two other suicide attacks against Israelis in 1993 - but they were in Judea and Samaria.

PCUSA mentions the Hebron massacre first to imply that Palestinian Arab terror was in reaction to it. That is clearly not true. But they only publish the facts that make their anti-Israel case.

There were dozens of terror attacks during the 1990s. Over 150 Israelis were killed in suicide bombings. Not worth mentioning. But PCUSA wants to imply that the second intifada was the result of Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount - in reality is was an excuse, not a cause.

Israel's peace offers in 2000 and 2001 (and 2007) that were rejected by the Palestinian Arabs are not mentioned. The unacceptable Arab League proposal which could have destroyed the Jewish state demographically is highlighted, so Israel alone appears rejectionist.

Notice that Hamas is not mentioned here as a terrorist or even an Islamist group. Hamas rejected the roadmap outright, but that is not worth mentioning either.

Ah, so Hamas has some militants -but they only attack Fatah militants. They never do anything bad to their oppressor Jews.

Not a single mention of thousands of Hamas rockets being shot at Israeli civilians. Not a mention of who started the war in Gaza (by calling it a war on Gaza PCUSA is purposefully ignoring the Gaza rockets during the war.)

This is only the tip of the iceberg, but the pattern is clear - PCUSA will not write up any history that makes Israeli Jews look like anything but a bloodthirsty aggressors hell bent on dominating and controlling poor, innocent Arabs. (It will not mention that some IDF soldiers, politicians and diplomats are Arab and Druze, because they want to imply that Jewish exceptionalism - a major theme of the booklet - is responsible for all ills.) If anything contradicts that narrative it must not be mentioned.

People who are not familiar with the real history of the region see a timeline and they assume that it must be an accurate portrayal of history. Yet the lies and omissions are all in the same direction - to demonize Israel and to whitewash Arab threats and terror, which are virtually nonexistent in the 80 pages of the booklet.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how Israel-haters lie with cherry-picked facts.

(h/t Ari)

Surprise! U. of Windsor BDSers violated numerous university rules in vote

A few weeks ago, the Students' Alliance at the University of Windsor in Ontario voted to divest from Israel, in a move that involved some serious intimidation and criminal activity.

It turns out that the BDSers, as usual, did all they could to rig the voting against university policy. From CTV News Windsor:

A controversial referendum at the University of Windsor was not carried out correctly according to an investigation by the school’s lawyer.

In an email sent out to students, UWindsor president Dr. Alan Wildeman released the findings of the investigation that looked at the process used by the University of Windsor Student Alliance regarding a BDS referendum.

Lawyer Raj Anand addressed five major allegations, all of which he says have been substantiated by the investigation.

“The petition to hold the BDS referendum that was submitted to the UWSA council had at most 404 valid signatures (not the required 500), and as such the BDS referendum was not properly brought to the council,” the email states.

The Palestinian Solidarity Group put forth the referendum which would have seen a boycott of products, divesting from companies that create those products and sanctions against companies that are from Israel.

On March 2, a total of 798 eligible students out 1300 voted in favour of the referendum. The vote follows a break-in at a university office, where an anti-Semitic slur was spray painted onto a flag.

Anand’s other findings are as followed:

Changes have been made to the structure of the UWSA executive group in ways that are in violation of the bylaws and the constitution of the UWSA, and those changes resulted in participation in UWSA meetings and votes by individuals who were not entitled to participate in those meetings and votes.

Over the past year the UWSA Executive and council have contained members who do not meet the criteria of membership set out in the UWSA constitution.

The motion to hold a BDS referendum occurred without legitimate quorum and involved votes cast by non-members.

The BDS referendum was unclear and ambiguous, and contained several questions rather than one question as required, and therefore was not consistent with Bylaw 85.

As a result, the university says the referendum failed to follow the bylaws and constitution of the UWSA.

Earlier this month, Wildeman requested the UWSA defer discussion on the referendum until the investigation could be completed.

(h/t Zelig)

Fatah publishes The Map That Lies

We've discussed, and taken apart, different versions of The Map That Lies, the ubiquitous and lying set of four maps that purport to show how Israel is taking "Palestinian" land.

The official Fatah Facebook page has an even worse version that they tweeted this morning:

Mahmoud Abbas is, of course, the leader of Fatah.

Every nation has some founding myths. "Palestine" has nothing but myths. And by a strange coincidence, every one of those myths are meant to destroy another state.

(h/t Judge Dan)

03/27 Links Pt2: Professors school anti-Israel divestment forum, and get results

From Ian:

Professors school anti-Israel divestment forum, and get results

The greatest contrast during the night was that while the pro-divestment speakers lashed out at Israel with great vitriol, the anti-divestment speakers — many of whom were critical of some Israeli policies — were even-tempered and rational.
This student rejected attempts to pigeonhole black students into an anti-Israel vote:
But the stars of the night were the opening guest speakers.
The pro-divestment group picked Max Blumenthal, who gave a predictably flame-throwing anti-Israel speech.
While anti-Israel advocates on Twitter and in the room were excited by Blumenthal’s tongue lashing of Israel, that excitement dimmed when two real professors took to the stage, one in opposition to the resolution and one selected to give a historical overview.
First up was Michigan State – James Madison College Associate Professor Yael Aronoff, who responded directly to Blumenthal. She spoke somewhat quickly so as to leave time for other guest speakers against the resolution, but basically destroyed Blumenthal by pointing out the one sided presentation and the resolution:

Prof. Yael Aronoff against anti-Israel Divestment

Prof Victor Lieberman U Michigan Divestment Debate 3 25 2014

Anti-Israel academic boycott turns ugly at Vassar

I began looking into these events several days ago, and have had extensive conversations with the two Vassar professors who were the target of anti-Israel rage. I also have obtained documentation not previously published.
What transpired was anti-Israel vitriol directed at Professors and students taking a course that involved travel to Israel and the West Bank, an intimidating protest outside a classroom, and a campus forum in which the Professors and Jewish students were belittled, heckled and mocked in such crude ways that it left even critics of Israel shaken. Yet the Vassar administration has done little in response, and would not comment for this report.
The bigger story is that these events at Vassar reflect how the American Studies Association academic boycott of Israel has emboldened anti-Israel students to cross previous lines of academic respect and freedom. The “anti-colonial” and other rhetoric focusing on Israel’s supposed European roots, inaccurately used by the boycott movement to demonize Israel, has injected a racial context to the protests (as at U. Michigan) which is boiling over but only in one direction — towards supporters of Israel. (h/t Alexi)

Victim Breaks Down in Footage From Aftermath of Brutal Anti-Semitic Attack in France (PHOTOS/VIDEO)

Speaking on camera a day after his assault, the victim – a 59-year-old Jewish teacher only identified as David – said he was attacked by three North African “Maghreb men” at 10 p.m. on March 20 after leaving a kosher restaurant in Rue Manin, Paris, and making his way to a subway station.
“They started to curse me out: ‘dirty Jew,’ ‘death to the Jews,’ ‘son of a b***,’ etc. Then they started to beat me up,” David says in the clip before breaking down in tears. “I was hit on my face, I got my nose fractured… And then one of them took something out of his pocket, I thought it was a knife… It was a marker… And this is what they did to me (showing his chest), a swastika as they were screaming ‘dirty Jew.’ ”

I don't think PA schools are teaching peace with Israel...

From the official Facebook page of the Qibya Girls High School:

From the official Facebook page of the Al-Zahra Secondary Girls School in Jenin:

It sure sounds like they are saying that Israel shouldn't exist.

(I looked up about 12 schools, all girls, on FB. Most of the boys' schools did not have FB pages. Of those schools these were the only political posters I found, although one school did have a photo of the funeral of a terrorist last week calling him a martyr.)

Clueless Westerners love to point to surveys saying that Palestinian Arabs want a two-state solution, but you won't find a single poster advocating peace in their school websites.

"I am the very model of a BDSbyterian" (Divest This!)

A truly brilliant music parody by Divest This!, to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Modern Major General:"

The Ballad of the BDSbyterians

I am the very model of a BDSbyterian

I’m open to all points of view (especially if they’re Syrian)

Don’t bother me if you’re a Kurd, Tibetan or Nigerian

I am the very model of a BDSbyterian

Don’t talk to him if you’re a Kurd, Tibetan or Nigerian

Because he is the model of a BDSbyterian

I’m also well acquainted too with Judith Butler’s fond advice,

I understand facts fed to me by Hezbollah and Mondoweiss

I’ll happily toe Barghouti’s line regarding stocks the Church should ban

Because I am the model of a BDSbyterian

He’ll do whatever Omar says, yet claim to be a thinking man

That shows he is the model of a BDSbyterian

I also am the model of a terrorist apologist

My power for projecting guilt would stun a trained psychologist

How could this be? I do not know! Go ask an anthropologist

I am the very model of a terrorist apologist

How could he warp his conscience so? Go ask a trained psychologist

I guess it’s cause he’s made himself a terrorist apologist

I wipe my mind of what they do to Jew or homosexual

By leveraging the force of all my powers intellectual

Hamas missiles bore me so, I’ve not regard for where they land

Because I am the model of a BDSbyterian

Once rockets launch he has no care for whom they hit or where they land

Because he is the model of a BDSbyterian

One last point which proves that I’m a BDSbyterian

The Church must do my bidding or I’ll simply make them vote again

Divestment voted down five times just a speedbump to my brilliant plan

And that’s why I’m the model of a BDSbyterian

He’ll make them vote a hundred times, or more because he know he can

And that’s why he’s the model of a BDSbyterian

My self-regard is buttressed by inflated moral vanity

My ego soaring while ignoring crimes against humanity

So IPMN writes pamphlets that are high-fived by the Ku Klux Klan

That’s not my problem cause I’m just a BDSbyterian

So what if David Duke is now his own committee’s biggest fan?

He doesn’t care because he is a BDSbyterian

This needs to be made into a video, preferably with full costume.

(h/t Barbara M)

03/27 Links Pt1: PA religious leaders say Jews must not pray at Western Wall; Is it 1947 or 2014?

From Ian:

PMW: PA religious leaders: Jews must not pray at Western Wall

The Palestinian Authority Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash and the former Chief Justice of the PA's Religious Court both recently declared that the PA's Islamic belief and political position is that Jews are prohibited from praying at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA denies Israel's history and rights in Jerusalem, but these statements by top religious leaders go even further.
The PA claims that the area of the Muslim holy site, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, includes not only the mosque itself, but extends over the entire Temple Mount and includes Judaism's holy site - the Western Wall.

JPost Editorial: Recognition

Now it is official – again. The Arab League capped its two-day summit in Kuwait with the following statement: “We express our total rejection of the call to consider Israel as a Jewish state.” This was essentially a repeat of the second of the “three noes” issued at the 1967 Arab League summit at Khartoum.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas now has all the backing he needs to continue to refuse the Israeli demand to recognize the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. Abbas has consistently opposed such recognition, presenting it as a completely new, never-before mentioned, Israeli condition for peace.
The fact is, however, that defining Israel as a “Jewish state,” if for no other reason than to differentiate it from an Arab or a Palestinian state and to ensure that at least one country in the world is set aside for the Jewish people, dates back to Israel’s very inception. Palestinian rejection of this term happens to be just as old. The 1947 United Nations partition plan, which the Arab nations and the Palestinians rejected, and which the majority of the nations of the world as well as the Jewish leadership in Palestine affirmed, called for the creation of “Arab and Jewish states.”

1947 or 2014? Arabs reject Jewish State

1947: The United Nations General Assembly approved yesterday a proposal to partition Palestine into two states, one Arab and the other Jewish, that are to become fully independent by Oct.1. The vote was 33 to 13 with two abstentions and one delegation, the Siamese, absent….
The vote on partition was taken at 5:35 P. M. Representatives of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen, four of the six Arab member states, announced that they would not be bound by the Assembly’s decision and walked determinedly out of the Assembly Hall at Flushing Meadow. The Egyptian and Lebanese delegates were silent but walked out, too.
2014: The Arab League announced on Wednesday its full backing of a Palestinian refusal to meet Israel’s demand to be recognized as a Jewish state, a condition Jerusalem says it requires for peace.
“We express our total rejection of the call to consider Israel as a Jewish state,” read a statement from the final day of the Arab summit in Kuwait.

Today, at the Brookings Institution, a report about early childhood development in the West Bank and Gaza will be discussed. The report was written by the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA.)

For the most part, the report is serious and well done. It talks about the importance of early childhood education and nutrition and where children in the territories fall short.

Yet even in a report like this, anti-Israel rhetoric manages to enter. I don't think it was deliberate; I think it is just that the authors of the report were not attuned to how anti-Israel activists will politicize facts and make up others.

The report says:

One of the most critical issues facing Palestinian preschool children (aged 3-6) is that of malnutrition. The combined effects of the Israeli siege and poverty in Gaza have resulted in the widespread development of anemia among women and children; consequently, stunting in Gaza’s children is on the rise, affecting about 31.4% of children under the age of two.16 The consequences of poor nutrition resulting in underweight, stunting, and anemia are enormous and seriously impair the child’s physical, cognitive, and social faculties.

The footnote to this statistic doesn't go to a scientific study or a World Health Organization report. No, the source is the Electronic Intifada hate site, in an interview with anti-Israel activist, terror supporter and serial liar Dr. Mads Gilbert. He said there:

As a result of the Israeli siege, there has been widespread development of anemia among children and women due to malnutrition as a result of siege and poverty. Stunting, where a child is more than two standard deviations shorter than what it should be, is sharply on the rise. In 2006, around 13.5 percent of children were stunted. In 2009, 31.4 percent under age two were stunted.

Where did these statistics come from? I have no idea. The closest I have found is this 2012 study that only discusses specific poor sections of North Gaza, which are known to be in much worse shape than the rest of Gaza. The BBC mentioned in 2009 that Gaza children have a 10% stunting rate but in portions of northern Gaza the rate approaches 30%. Gilbert, if he is not making up the numbers from thin air, seems to be comparing a study of poverty stricken north Gazans with Gazans as a whole.

In fact, the World Bank in 2011 looked at the stunting statistics of Gaza children and called the results "outstanding" compared to other countries. Indeed, Gaza is better off than most Arab countries in this regard.

Now, Gilbert says two things. One is the statistics, which seem dubious at best. The other is his opinion that this is "as a result of the Israeli siege." That is completely unsupportable, and provably false.

Because Israel has not had any restrictions on food into Gaza for years.

So this lying quote from Mads Gilbert, and his unsupported opinion, from an anti-Israel hate site, gets used as a scholarly source for a serious report on Palestinian Arab children.

To its credit, ANERA gives legitimate reasons for Gaza nutritional problems that have nothing to do with Israel. It notes that anemia in Gaza is actually significantly lower than in the West Bank which makes no sense if Israel's "siege" had anything to do with nutrition in Gaza. It mentions that giving children excessive amounts of tea to drink, a widespread practice in the territories, contributes to anemia.

Yet the anti-Israel narrative is so prevalent that no one at ANERA thought to check twice that their accusations about Israel were lies. It is simply a given that Gaza misery is associated with Israel, and not worth taking the time to verify.

(h/t Solomon2)

Video of huge Gaza terror tunnel

A couple of days ago the IDF revealed the discovery of a major terror tunnel that was dug deep into Israel from Gaza.

The military said the tunnel began near the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis and reached an Israeli kibbutz.

The tunnel, reported on March 20, was said to be the longest and deepest discovered by the Israel Army.

The source said the 2.5 kilometer tunnel, believed to have been constructed over the last six months, penetrated several hundred meters into Israel. They said parts of the tunnel, lined with cement and containing tools, reached a depth of 20 meters.

Israel's Channel 2 shows video of the tunnel, all built with that concrete that we are told is in such shortage in Gaza.

It includes electricity and phone lines.

Palestine Today says that thousands of Gazans want a referendum to become part of the new Russian empire!

According to the article, some 50,000 Gazans are actually Russian citizens (perhaps from Russian women who married Palestinian Arabs, the number seems greatly exaggerated.) They are looking at how Russia annexed Crimea with the apparent approval of its citizens. Putin used the excuse that Russians in the Ukraine requested protection from Russia, and Putin was happy to help.

Similarly, these Gazans say, they want Russia to protect them from Israel! So Gazans who claim to represent the heretofore unknown Gaza Russian community are asking Ismail Haniyeh for a referendum to become a satellite Russian colony.

The activists said "Moscow announced its intention to defend its citizens everywhere, and here we are exposed to the worst forms of torture and murder by Israel....[If the] Gaza Strip joins Russia it will provide us with protection and deter the Israelis."

I think that if there was a choice between Gaza run by Islamist terrorists or Russia, Israel would jump at the opportunity to let Russia have it.

They are rational actors, Avigdor Lieberman already has good relationships with many Russian diplomats, Israel and Russia could work together on offshore gas drilling, Russia wouldn't tolerate Islamists in their borders, smuggling of weapons would disappear and therefore the blockade could be lifted, Russians could build decent hospitals and staff them with competent doctors, and there are already a million Israelis who speak Russian for trade purposes across the Gaza border.

Of course, people who want to live in an independent state would never consider requesting such a thing. But whoever said Palestinian Arab want a state of their own? Their actions never supported such an idea since they first appeared on the scene last century.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Jordanian court rules that women without hijab are considered "sluts"

From Albawaba:

The Jordanian Women’s Union, along with lawyers across the Hashemite Kingdom, expressed shock last week after a ruling discriminating against women who do not wear the Islamic hijab was issued by the Amman Sharia Court of Appeal, according to Al Medanah News.

The court announced late last week that it agreed with one lawyer's statement - based on a fatwa - that says a woman who does not cover up or wear a hijab is considered a “slut” and shouldn't be allowed to testify in court.

In response, The Women’s Union released a statement published on Amman net that describes the court’s decision as discrimination against women and a violation of the Jordanian Constitution, which considers all Jordanian men and women as equals.

On a purely unrelated note, here is a photo of Jordan's Queen Rania:

(h/t Marc)

EoZ Interview with Benjamin Weinthal

Benjamin Weinthal is a European correspondent for The Jerusalem Post, based out of Berlin, Germany. He has also written for Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and even Haaretz. Weinthal is also a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

I caught him tonight after he gave a lecture in Manhattan about antisemitism in Europe, and I asked him a few questions. I asked him whether there were any European capitals that a Jew could freely walk around with a kippah (he also answered about whether one can walk around with an Israeli T-shirt.) I also asked him whether European attitudes towards Israel were comparable to how they viewed apartheid South Africa, what EU leaders think about Israel within the pre-1967 lines, and whether he felt that the current anti-circumcision and anti-ritual slaughter campaigns in Europe were animated by anti-Islamism or antisemitism.

Ben's a real nice guy. After the interview we had a discussion about, well, everything, from BDS to the role of trade unions in anti-Israel activity and how that can be countered, to university anti-Zionism and antisemitism, to HRW and the Marc Garlasco episode I was involved with back in 2009.

Enjoy: