Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

05/20 Links Pt2: Re-liberating Jerusalem; Anti-Semitism scholar Robert Wistrich dies at 70

From Ian:

It's been almost 50 years since Israel unified Jerusalem and turned it from a dusty and depressed backwater into a truly radiant international capital city sparkling with energy and creativity.
There is more to come. The dynamic vision for Jerusalem 2020 in the transportation, cultural, recreational and business fields unveiled this week by Mayor Nir Barkat is exciting and uplifting.
Yet as we approach Jerusalem Liberation Day this Sunday, hefty question marks hang over the city's future. These uncertainties stem from government hesitations in the face of international and Arab pressure for re-division of the city (Heaven forbid).
Instead of acting decisively to buttress Israel's sovereignty, security, economy and social vibrancy in Jerusalem, we have a stalemate in government decision-making.
In fact, the threats to Jerusalem as a living, breathing, growing, safe and open city -- and to Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state and the epicenter of the global Jewish community -- come mainly from neglect on Israel's part.
The fourth Netanyahu government, taking office this weekend, must rebuff deleterious foreign pressures, stop dithering and act to re-establish forward motion, Zionist momentum, in Jerusalem. Here's how: (h/t Bob Knot)

The state of Palestine? Still mired in Jew hatred

With the Palestinians taking Israel to the International Criminal Court and trying to kick Israel out of the international soccer league, FIFA, while still boycotting normal, constructive, personal, economic or cultural ties with Israel, their war against the Jews continues. Even if Pope Francis – whom I respect – has been seduced by Palestinian self-pity to recognize the “state of Palestine,” even if much of the world continues to blame Israel exclusively, the fact remains. Palestinian rhetoric and behavior reflect their honest intentions: their official organs and most of their leaders seek Israel’s destruction and hate the Jewish people – not just “Zionists” – so much, they keep their people miserable rather than make any accommodation with the Jewish state. The Palestinians’ self-destructive commitment to delegitimizing Israel rather than building their state or improving their lives proves they are motivated by bigotry.
Pope Francis ignored those realities, added to the Jewish people’s collective anguish, and showed he believed in ghosts by recognizing “the state of Palestine” – a phantom entity. Whether or not he called the BDS bully, stalemate king and terrorist cheerleader Mahmoud Abbas an “angel of peace” is irrelevant. The pope’s recognition discourages peace by encouraging Palestinian intransigence and extremism without encouraging Palestinian compromise and realism.
I understand the pope’s need to mollify Palestinians.
Palestinian Christians and churches are vulnerable to the whims of cruel neighbors, who have destroyed Christian religious sites, raped young Christian girls, brutalized Christian families. Flattering the Palestinian Authority is an attempt to help oppressed Christians, who are suffering en masse and leaving in droves.
Unfortunately, mollifying bullies encourages them, denying crimes legitimizes them and coddling Palestinians only feeds their all-or-nothing rigidity. Although it is fun to blame Israel’s “occupation” for all Palestinian Christians’ troubles, a 2012 report by the nonpartisan Gatestone Institute on “The Disquieting Treatment of Christians by the Palestinians” noted that the Christian Arab population plummeted between 1949 and 1967. When Jordan and Egypt illegally controlled the West Bank and Gaza, two-thirds of Palestinian Christians fled. The situation stabilized when Israel fully controlled the areas, then deteriorated with increased Palestinian autonomy since the 1990s’ Oslo Peace Accords.

Israeli national judo team detained at Morocco airport, passports confiscated

After Moroccan authorities refused to allow an armed Israeli escort
Members of Israel's national judo team were detained on Wednesday at a Morocco airport and had their passports confiscated by local officials, Israeli media reported. At the time of reporting the nature of the complication was unclear.
The seven-member Israeli national judo team flew to Morocco early Wednesday for an important tournament despite recommendations from Israel’s national security agency to avoid travel to the Arab nation without bodyguards.
According to the Ynet website, Moroccan authorities refused to grant permission for an armed Israeli security detail to accompany the 11-member delegation. The team decided nonetheless to attend the fifth annual World Judo Masters event May 23-24 in Rabat, Morocco since the event could provide the judokas with sufficient points to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics. (h/t Bob Knot)

Zion Awakening: Back! But not with a bang! Natalie Bennett BDS supporter dodges the question on 'Boycott Israel'

Been a while. But no better place to resume duties on the front line than with the 'Queen of BDS' Natalie Bennett of the green party. Watch how she dodges my question. I then proceeded to disrupt the event just to make the evening uncomfortable for her and her minions.

Triple Crown hopeful owned by Orthodox Jewish family from Egypt

From the Jewish Standard:

It took American Pharoah barely more than two minutes and two seconds to win the 2015 Kentucky Derby.

For Joanne Zayat of Teaneck, whose husband, Ahmed, owns American Pharoah (and yes, that is how it is spelled), those two minutes and barely more than two seconds stretched out and then blurred and bore little relation to regular time as it usually passes.

There she was — really, there they were, Ahmed and Joanne Zayat, their four children — all Orthodox Jews — and a small crowd of friends and relatives, in one of the owners’ boxes at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, on a glorious flowering spring Shabbat, watching as their horse won America’s most iconic horse race.

How did they get there?

It’s an unusual story.

Although most Jews in Egypt left the country in the 1950s — when its ruler, Gamal Abdel Nasser, made it clear that their lives were likely to be longer, healthier, and happier were they to live them elsewhere — “some affluent Jews stayed, for various reasons,” Joanne Zayat said. That group included Ahmed Zayat’s family.

Mr. Zayat, born in 1962, grew up in Maadi in suburban Cairo. “It was a very mixed neighborhood, with a lot of ex-pats,” Ms. Zayat said. “It looked a lot like here.” To foreshadow a bit — among his pastimes was riding horses at his country club.

When he was 18, Mr. Zayat came to the United States; he went to Harvard, graduated from Yeshiva University, and then earned a joint master’s degree with Harvard and Boston University. A natural entrepreneur, he worked in a number of fields. Among his companies was Al Ahram Beverages, which eventually he sold to Heineken. He did very well.

About 10 years ago, Mr. Zayat retired — or so he said. “He decided he needed to stop traveling,” his wife said. “He wanted to be home with my kids.

“But everyone who knows my husband knows that he can’t be retired for more than 15 seconds. So he decided to take his passion and turn it into a business.”

What did he love? Horses!

“There is a phrase — if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life,” Ms. Zayat said.

“So he decided to go into the horse business.”

...

What is it like being Orthodox Jews at the Kentucky Derby? “There is no conflict,” Ms. Zayat said. “Most of our big races are on Saturdays, so we walk to the track.”

They stay at a hotel in Louisville, which is an easy walk on race day, and get kosher meals, including full Shabbat dinners, from a caterer, “but for the Preakness and the Belmont we can’t walk from any hotel, so we rent a trailer.” It’s not just a regular old RV; “It is 45 feet long, has two bathrooms, has a full kitchen and dining area, and sleeps six to eight people.

“Shabbes is still Shabbes. You are still getting gefilte fish for dinner,” she said.

“I think that when you are true to yourself, and you have a strong value system, people respect it.

“This is a free country, and people get that.”

Read the whole thing.

(h/t Irene)

PA: Israeli Antibiotics Erasing Direct Palestinian Descent From Local Bacteria (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Ramallah, May 20 - Palestinian officials accused Israel today of using antibiotics to kill locally occurring bacteria whose genetic sequence proves that Palestinians are directly descended from the most ancient forms of life in the contested land.

Negotiator Saeb Erekat leveled the charges at a press conference Tuesday afternoon, taking up a theme he has revisited a number of times. Last year Erekat claimed Palestinians were descended from the Canaanites, apparently in an effort to forge a link to pre-Israelite civilizations, thereby establishing a claim that historically precedes the Jewish one, and he has previously invoked the Natufians, an even more ancient group that preceded even the Canaanites. The statement linking Palestinians to the first living organisms is likely a similar effort to outflank potential efforts to question the pedigree of the Palestinian claim.

"Israel is using Teva-manufactured pharmaceuticals to destroy the organisms carrying the DNA which proves Palestinian ancestry to the exclusion of the spurious Jewish claim," asserted Erekat, whose colleagues in the Jerusalem Waqf are overseeing excavation and renovation of the Temple Mount specifically to remove archaeological evidence of the Jewish temples that stood there. "We Palestinians are the proud descendant of the first microorganisms to ooze from the primordial reaches of prehistory in this land. No one has the right to dispute this."

For decades, Israelis have been using antibacterial agents to destroy such microorganisms, often millions at a time. "The massacre of our genetic cousins continues apace, and the cruelty of the Zionist oppressor usurpers knows no bounds. Even as we speak, countless bacterial brethren of the Palestinian people - brethren whose incontrovertible link to us is encoded in prokaryotic DNA - are slaughtered at the cruel hands of Israeli disinfectants, medications, antiseptics, detergents, gastric acids, and leukocytes," he said. "These killings take place with the nonchalance we have come to expect from the arrogant Zionists - on toilet seats, on human skin, in the bloodstream - everywhere. No location is sacred enough, or off limits, for the Zionists to exercise their micro-ethnic cleansing."

"Having failed to successfully prosecute genocide against us, the Zionists seek to eliminate the evidence that we were, in fact, here first," continued Erekat, whose Bedouin ancestors are documented as migrating to the land in the nineteenth century.

Other Palestinian officials echoed the charges, and promised to take action on the international stage. "We have already applied to UNESCO to have these local bacteria declared a World Heritage Organism," said Nabil Abu Rudeineh. "The impunity with which Israel acts in this regard must be stopped."

In contrast, leaders of the Hamas movement blasted Erekat. "The heresy inherent in his remarks is intolerable," said Darween Wasaful, a spokesman for the organization. "Everyone knows humanity was specially created by Allah from clay, and that the sun orbits the Earth."

05/20 Links Pt1: Fatah's Armed Militias Warn Israelis: "You Must Leave!"; Another Car Attack

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Fatah's Armed Militias Warn Israelis: "You Must Leave!"

Many in the international community often refer to the Palestinian Fatah faction, which is headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, as a "moderate" group that believes in Israel's right to exist and the two-state solution.
What these people do not know is that Fatah, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), consists of several groups that hold different views than those expressed by Abbas and other English-speaking Fatah officials.
Some of these Fatah groups do not believe in Israel's right to exist and continue to talk about the "armed struggle" as the only way to "liberate Palestine and restore Palestinian national rights."
One of these groups is called The Aqsa Martyrs Brigade - El Amoudi Brigade.
The Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is Fatah's armed wing, established shortly after the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000. Although the Palestinian Authority leadership maintains that the group has been dissolved and its members recruited into its security forces, scores of gunmen continue to operate freely in Palestinian villages and refugee camps in the West Bank.
Based in the Gaza Strip, the El Amoudi Brigade, which consists of dozens of Fatah gunmen, is named after Nidal El Amoudi, a top Fatah operative killed by the Israel Defense Forces on January 13, 2008, after he carried out a series of armed attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers during the second intifada.
During the last war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas ("Operation Protective Edge"), the El Amoudi Brigade claimed responsibility for firing dozens of rockets at Israeli cities and IDF soldiers.

US Reps. Grace Meng and Lee Zeldin: It’s Time to Give Israel the Means to take out Iranian Nukes

The negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program have engendered furious debate in Washington and in capitals across the world. But there are steps outside of the nuclear talks that President Obama can take to help ensure that the United States and its allies are stronger and more secure the day after a deal than they were the day before.
One such step would be to provide Israel with GBU-57 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs (known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrators, or MOPs) and the means to carry them, in a quantity sufficient to destroy Iran’s most deeply buried nuclear sites.
At present, Israel possesses US-supplied 5,000-pound bunker-buster bombs. But experts doubt these bombs could seriously impede Iran’s nuclear development. On the other hand, there is little doubt that MOPs, which Israel lacks, are capable of destroying Iran’s nuclear sites.
As Michael Makovsky and Lt. Gen. David Deptula noted in a 2014 Wall Street Journal op-ed, the Defense Department has MOPs to spare, aircraft in storage that could carry the MOP payload and legal authority to transfer such arms to the Israelis.

Newsweek Mangles the Green Line

A story in Newsweek includes the following paragraph:
More than 350,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements, with a further 200,000 in east Jerusalem. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, the international community considers it illegal for Israel to encroach on Palestinian land by building settlements outside the Green Line, which was set out in 1949 to demarcate the Palestinian state following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
The 1949 so-called Green Line certainly did not set out to “demarcate the Palestinian state.” The Green Line refers to demarcation lines that separated Israeli and Arab forces at the conclusion of the 1948 War of Independence. These armistice lines were never intended to set permanent borders. In addition, the West Bank that Newsweek refers to was occupied by Jordan until 1967.
Following HonestReporting’s correspondence with Newsweek, the following correction has been added to the article:
Correction: This piece was updated on May 20 to clarify the definition of the Green Line as a demarcation line set out between Israeli and Arab forces following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The Green Line was not set out to demarcate a Palestinian state, as previously reported.

From Ma'an:

The military wing of Hamas, al-Qassam Brigades, said Monday evening that a fighter affiliated to the group had been killed in a tunnel collapse in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.

Al-Qassam Brigades identified the fighter as 25-year-old Mahmoud Adel Ghaban from Beit Lahiya.

A number of fighters in Gaza have been killed by accidents during military training exercises in recent years, and the tunnel networks, which are largely used for smuggling in the coastal enclave's south and military purposes in the north, are notoriously dangerous.

A tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip? Where would such a tunnel be going to?

Sheikh Abdul Khaliq Oteify, of the Egyptian Waqf, says Jews are jealous of Muslims.

The reason?

Because Muslims "spread peace among themselves."

The learned sheikh spoke on an Egyptian satellite channel about how the Prophet Mohammed asked all Muslims to love each other. Jews, he said, are jealous at such an idea that no other people ever thought of before.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

If you needed any more proof that Israel boycotters act like toddlers

I find this article from Electronic Intifada to be unintentionally revealing.

A key figure in the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is facing harsh criticism from Palestinians over planned lectures at Israeli universities this month in violation of the growing international boycott.

The noted Egyptian-American jurist Cherif Bassiouni is scheduled to speak on Thursday at Tel Aviv University on “The role of the ICC as justice mechanism: Does it enhance the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace?”

He is also scheduled to speak on 25 May at Hebrew University, which has also faced persistent criticism for its complicity in the Israeli occupation.

Bassiouni chaired the drafting committee that wrote the ICC’s founding statute in 1998.

And then:

In response to inquiries from The Electronic Intifada, PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, said it had been “shocked to learn” that Bassiouni would speak at Tel Aviv University “in defiance of the guidelines set by the BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement for the academic boycott of Israel.”...

"There is simply no excuse for academics who count themselves among those who care about human rights to defy this institutional boycott,” PACBI states.

“Respecting our boycott guidelines is the minimal form of solidarity that we are asking for. Is it too much to ask?”

In other words, we decided to make a bunch of rules for everyone in the world - and the rest of the world isn't playing by our rules! Waaaah!

A self-appointed group of haters really think that the stuff they dream up and insist everyone else does has the force of international law, and if anyone violates their "rules" then they must be punished.

It is like they think that they live in a real life version of "Simon Says" and people must do what they say.When real people - even those who are not particularly pro-Israel - act like adults who can make their own decisions, the BDSers scream and whine and pout.

05/19 Links Pt2: Curbing self-loathing Jewish defamers of Israel; Illinois passes historic anti-BDS bill

From Ian:

Isi Leibler: Curbing the self-loathing Jewish defamers of Israel

The demonization and delegitimization of Israel by Jews funded by anti-Israeli groups abroad is neither an academic exercise nor an exchange of views. It is an act of sabotage, endangering the state and as pernicious as sabotaging IDF weapons depots. It would not be tolerated in any other democratic country, particularly one surrounded by neighbors fanatically committed to its destruction.
It is indisputable that the objective of Breaking the Silence is not merely criticism of Israeli policies.
After all, self-criticism, sometimes even extending to masochism, is a central feature of Israel’s robust democratic ethos. However, Breaking the Silence, a small group of disgruntled delusionary Israeli leftists backed by massive overseas funding, is unashamedly demonizing Israel throughout the world and undermining its government. It sends out emissaries to vilify Israel among Jewish and non-Jewish groups, particularly at universities. It is shameful that, purporting to uphold freedom of expression and maintain dialogue, some Hillel bodies even provide platforms for their representatives to defame the IDF.
To besmirch a nation by falsely portraying its soldiers as craven murderers undermines national morale. It is in this context that the proposal mooted by Ayelet Shaked, now justice minister, to require government approval for overseas NGOs to sponsor Israeli political bodies has considerable merit, despite the shrieks that democracy would be undermined.
Just as individuals can resort to legal means to remedy defamation, the state must also defend itself from demented citizens engaged in defamation of their country. This applies especially to Israel, the sole democratic oasis in a region in which barbarism is rampant and whose right to exist continues to be challenged by its neighbors.

One man goes against the flow and challenges the majority view of Israel’s role in the Middle East

One man goes against the flow and challenges the majority view of Israel’s role in the Middle East.
IT’S ALWAYS easier in life to go with the flow. Follow the crowd and keep your head down well beneath the parapet. That’s what most people do, regardless of whether or not they agree with the direction the flow is taking them.
One man who most certainly goes against the flow and challenges the majority view of Israel’s role in the Middle East, however, is Colonel Richard Kemp. The 55-year- old former commander of British forces in Afghanistan is possibly the highest profile non-Jewish advocate of Israel when it comes to defense matters and the manner in which the country’s various security services and intelligence agencies go about their work of protecting a nation surrounded by enemies.
Kemp first made headlines around the world in October 2009 when giving evidence to the UN Human Rights Council examining the controversial Goldstone Report. South African Judge Richard Goldstone had accused Israel of “war crimes and possible crimes against humanity” during the war in Gaza earlier that year.
“Of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes,” Kemp stated. “There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes… Based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in the combat zones than any other army in the history of warfare.”

Eugene Kontorovich: Illinois passes historic anti-BDS bill, as Congress mulls similar moves

The Illinois House just joined the state’s senate in unanimously passing a bill that would prevent the state’s pension fund from investing in companies that boycott Israel. Gov. Bruce Rauner has pledged to sign the historic “anti-BDS” bill.
The significance of the bill cannot be underestimated. European countries have in recent years been whispering dark threats in corporate ears about the “legal and economic risks” of doing business with Israeli companies. The vagueness of these warnings is a testament to their legal groundlessness. But such scare tactics could not help but affect, at the margin, corporate decision-making. Now, the EU will – if it is honest – have to warn businesses of the legal and economic risks of consciously refusing to do business with such Israeli companies.
More generally, the Illinois bill is part of a broad political revulsion over the long-simmering BDS movement (“Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” – the strategy of economic warfare and delegitimization against Israel). While BDS has gotten most of its successes with low-hanging fruit like British academic unions and pop singers, the anti-boycott efforts are getting an enthusiastic reception in real governments, on the state and federal level. And that is because the message of the BDS movement – Israel as a uniquely villainous state – is fundamentally rejected by the vast majority of Americans.
Indeed, a wave of anti-BDS legislation is sweeping the U.S. The most high-profile so far are the bipartisan amendments to congressional bills for Trade Promotion Authority. They establish the “discourage[ing]” of boycotts as one of the U.S.’s many goals in trade negotiations with European countries.

Politicizing saints against Israel - but not against Islam

Israel-haters are wasting no time in politicizing the two new "Palestinian" saints. From Ma'an:

Rifaat Kassis, a prominent political community activist and coordinator of Kairos, a local Christian group, says the canonization is significant on many levels, notwithstanding the recognition that Palestinians under Ottoman rule were part of a diverse, productive society, contrary to the mainstream sidelining of Palestinians from the region's history.

"This puts Palestine on the map, among not only the catholic world, but the whole world, and I think this will also help people to understand Palestine and the occupation," he told Ma'an.

Were these poor Catholic women under brutal Israeli occupation? Did anyone call them "Palestinian" before 1970?

But there is one fact in the life of one of the new saints, Sister Mariam Baouardy, that could be understood in a completely different context.

Betrothed in an arranged marriage at age 13, she refused to go along with it, insisting on a religious life. As punishment for her disobedience, her uncle hired her out as a domestic servant, making sure she had the lowest and most menial of jobs. A Muslim servant with whom she worked began to act as her friend with an eye to converting her from Christianity. On 8 September 1858, Mary convinced him she would never abandon her faith; in response he cut her throat and dumped her in an alley. Mary lived, an apparition of the Virgin Mary treated her wound, and she left her uncle’s house forever.

So this Catholic saint had her throat slashed by a Muslim because she didn't want to convert to Islam.

Perhaps Sister Mariam's canonization indicate that the Catholic Church considers Islam to be a violent, intolerant religion!

But no one will be quoted with that theory.

In previous columns I’ve touched upon hostility shown at certain times by British administrators towards Zionism and Israel. In this, a continuation of last week’s column concerning the Conservative Heath government’s arms embargo during the Yom Kippur War, I want in fairness to offer a small taste of the pro-Israel sentiment that was the other side of the coin.

I was in London at the time, and attended the Zionist Federation’s huge pro-Israel rally in Trafalgar Square on a crisp autumnal Sunday afternoon, 14 October, at which speakers denounced the Heath government, the Foreign Office, the Arab aggressors, and the United Nations. The throng – which included well-known stars of stage and screen, including such non-Jews as Donald Pleasance – was estimated by The Times (15 October 1973) as 10,000 strong, but the Jewish Chronicle (19 October 1973) put the figure at 20,000. Speakers included the Israeli ambassador, Michael Comay, the Federation’s president (life peer Lord, formerly Sir Barnett, Janner), the president of the Board of Deputies (Sir Samuel Fisher), a former president of the Liberal Party (life peer Lady [Nancy] Seear), Conservative MP Hugh Fraser, and Labour MP Peter Shore. Chief Rabbi Lord Jakobovits recited a prayer. Lending support by their presence were the 89-year-old Jewish Labour life peer Lord (Manny) Shinwell, and the 89-year-old non-Jewish Conservative peer Lord Barnby. I can see the latter clearly in my mind’s eye: standing proud and erect in a tan-coloured overcoat, this right-wing aristocrat who spoke up for Israel in the House of Lords that week; to my disgust, the Jewish Chronicle failed to record his presence, even after I wrote to remind them of it.

To cheers, Hugh Fraser expressed his abhorrence of the fact that the government “should at this time be sending arms for a parade of independence in Dubai and denying to Israel, fighting for its life, spare parts for Centurion tanks”. Peter Shore condemned the deafening silence from the nations of the world regarding the Arabs’ premeditated attack on Israel on Judaism’s holiest day, and observed that it was extraordinary that at a time when the Soviet Union was pouring armaments into Arab countries British Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home had nothing better to offer than a unilateral arms embargo which would tilt the balance against Israel.

The rally passed a resolution calling on the Heath government and the UN to condemn Egypt and Syria and to assist in the promotion of a just and peaceful settlement, negotiated between Israel and the Arabs. As soon as the rally was over, the resolution, addressed to Edward Heath, was taken to 10 Downing Street.

When the arms embargo issue was voted upon in the House of Commons (the government carried the day 251: 175 with over 100 MPs abstaining or absenting themselves from the Chamber), seventeen Conservative MPs defied a two-line whip to vote against their own side. These rebels included all but two of the party’s nine Jewish MPs (one of the two was Robert Adley – real name Adler – for whom Jewishness was clearly a burden and who ended up as an Anglican): the remainder were Andrew Bowden, Hugh Fraser, Philip Goodhart (son of a Jewish father, Oxford jurist Professor A. L Goodhart), John Gorst, Tom Iremonger, Sir Stephen McAdden, John Maginnis, Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Mitchell, Ernie Money (yes, that really was his name; he sat for Ipswich), and Dudley Stewart-Smith. In addition, the Reverend Ian Paisley, the Ulster Unionist MP, flew from Belfast to London especially to vote against the embargo.

The Jewish Chronicle (16 November 1973) revealed that during the Yom Kippur War thousands of British non-Jews had offered to help Israel. The Israeli Embassy experienced jammed switchboards in the first week of the war owing to the numbers of Gentiles phoning to offer assistance or merely good wishes. The Embassy received 1,500 supportive letters during the conflict and several hundreds more in its immediate aftermath. “Unlike previous poignant occasions – such as the Munich massacre of Olympic athletes last year – there was not a single abusive and derogatory letter or one with even a hint of antisemitism.” Those offering material help included several British servicemen: for example, a former Royal Navy officer offered his motor launch to the Israeli navy, and when the offer was politely refused begged to be allowed to take it to Israel himself; two soldiers from County Durham who wrote “It would give us pleasure and honour to serve in your country against your oppressors”; a merchant seaman from Leicester who wrote of his preparedness “to adapt myself to any circumstances to fight for the Jewish cause” and to pay his own fare to Israel to do so. Six individuals offered their own private planes, complete with pilots, for Israeli reconnaissance flights. Then there were people such as the young Scotsman who turned up at the Embassy with rucksack packed, ready to fight for Israel; there were the Londoners who answered the call to give blood at the Marble Arch Synagogue for Israel’s war wounded; there were those who sent unsolicited gifts of money, even jewellery, to help Israel’s war effort.

There was the army major who, in a letter to The Times (30 October 1973) recalled that serving under General Sir Horatius Murray in Palestine during 1948 was “the period of my army service of which I am least proud”. Murray, in a letter to the same newspaper (26 October 1973) had written that back then he was “forced to shell Tel Aviv with 25-pounders and to attack with tanks” and that “this action proved successful”. “So it should!” observed the major sarcastically. “We found that to a large extent Tel Aviv was defended by women, children, and old men, and the sight of their sacrificed bodies sickened the most hardened British troops. The Jews have always paid the full price in blood for their tiny promised portion of the earth’s surface.”

A widespread perception abounded that churchmen had not been as outspoken as they ought regarding the Arabs’ attack and its timing. I haven’t looked into this issue enough to make an informed comment, but certainly that was the view of the rabbi of Manchester’s Reform Synagogue. Certainly, too, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, in a letter to one Zionist body wrote that his church, “which has a deep affection for the Jewish people, shares in the revulsion that hostilities should begin against Israel on the Day of Atonement, when the Jewish people were at prayer.” (It is, by the way, interesting to note that in a column entitled “Friends like these” [Jewish Chronicle, 15 October 1973], the Labour MP Gerald Kaufman, now almost 85, one of the most outrageous Israel-baiters in the House of Commons, decried the attitude of most of the British media, which, it seemed to him, appeared to rejoice in the chastening effect the war had so far wrought on Israel.)

One of the well-known personalities at the pro-Israel London rally mentioned above was the author Lynne Reid Banks, perhaps best known for her novel The L-Shaped Room. She read out score upon core of messages of solidarity from notable people unable to attend in person. I remember reading a stirring newspaper article during that war in which Ms Banks wrote (I believe I quote her correctly from a distance of 42 years) that the Jews of Israel – “their tiny sliver of a country” – deserved support from non-Jews “for all that we let them suffer in Europe”. It was a beautiful article and most welcome. More recently, however, Ms Reid Banks, although observing on her website that she is not a Jew, has, like her Jewish husband, Israeli ex-pat sculptor Chaim Stephenson, signed statements critical of Israel under the auspices of “Independent Jewish Voices”. IJA is an organisation which would appear to include a number of persons who are Jewish only by some accidental quirk of ancestry or other tenuous association. I wonder whether, were he alive now, Robert Adley would sign that body’s statements criticising Israel. There are certainly Jews who do so for whom such activity under those auspices is their only association with matters Jewish.

It seems to me that at the root of much of the pro-Israel sentiment that was being voiced at the time might have been rooted, to a greater or lesser extent, consciously or subconsciously, in an identification of modern Israel’s struggles against the Arabs with ancient Israel’s struggles against Pharoah, a remembrance of school scripture lessons. There were, of course, other factors at work: support for Israel in remorse for Jewish suffering down the centuries culminating in the Holocaust, and admiration for the Jews and what they had achieved not only in exile but in Israel too; the perception of Israel as an ally of the West, which contrasted with older perceptions that an independent Jewish State would be a tool of the Soviet Union. I’d like to discuss these matters more fully in later columns, but for now I’ll conclude on this note: traditionally taught “religious knowledge” is no longer on the British school curriculum, and comparatively few children imbibe the scriptures at home or at Sunday school. Therefore fewer and fewer have the opportunity to identify the trials and tribulations of modern-day Israel with the trials of ancient Israel or to perceive an organic historical link between the old Israel and its miraculous modern successor. It’s a problem, especially at a time of encroachments by so-called “Chrislam,” another topic that must await a later column.

Daphne Anson is an Australian who under her real name has authored and co-authored several books and many articles on historical topics including Jewish ones. She blogs under an alias in order to separate her professional identity from her blogging one.

05/19 Links Pt1: PA accuses Israel of conducting “secret medical experiments” on prisoners

From Ian:

PMW: Israel conducts “secret medical experiments” on prisoners

One of the ways the Palestinian Authority demonizes Israel is by spreading libels. One such libel claims that Israel conducts medical experiments on Palestinian prisoners, poisons them and deliberately kills them.
Last month, the official PA daily stated that Israel carries out medical experiments and speculated that it “perhaps” poisons them as well:
“The occupation authorities conduct medical experiments on the prisoners, giving them medicines and perhaps poison.” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 12, 2015]
Director of the PLO Prisoners’ Affairs Commission and PA Parliament Member Issa Karake often reiterates this libel. Recently, after visiting a released prisoner, Karake stated that sick prisoners “are victims of severe crimes committed against prisoners in prisons, which expose them to deadly, chronic diseases resulting from secret medical experiments on their bodies, and their deliberate negligence.” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 31, 2015]
He has also claimed that:
“[Israeli] prisons have become the source of an epidemic, a source of death and a source of dissemination of diseases in the bodies of the prisoners.” [Official PA TV, April 13, 2015]
The official PA daily has claimed that Israeli prisons have a “system called ‘slow death’” to do away with prisoners, and has compared Israeli treatment to the medical experiments of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, who experimented on Jews in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
“[There is] an entire system called 'slow death,' which the Israeli establishment uses against Palestinian prisoners, from the moment of their arrest until they are released... The 'experiments' stage is perhaps one of the most dangerous stages in the slow death of released prisoners, who suffer from diseases, which they contracted in prison. This way, the Israeli jailers attempt to imitate the German Nazis, who were the first to use prisoners as guinea pigs, for testing the weapons and the deadly drugs, which they developed. The Nazi German doctor, Josef Mengele, was the most famous among them." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 17, 2011]

JPost Editorial: Nonproliferation

A centerpiece of US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy agenda has been nonproliferation. But with Saudi Arabia more than just threatening to acquire nuclear capability “off the shelf” from Pakistan and with other Sunni states sure to follow, his dream of a nuclear-free planet seems more out of reach than ever.
Obama’s pursuit of nonproliferation goes back at least to his short tenure in the Senate. As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, he traveled to Russia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine to inspect nuclear facilities and developed an idea of international diplomacy. It was at this time that he began talking about initiating conversations with Iran.
In 2009 Obama, in a speech in Prague, made sweeping promises proclaiming that the US has a “moral responsibility” to lead the world toward a nuclear-free reality.
The following year, the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) with Russia was signed.
But the New START treaty was marred by Russia’s unwillingness to cooperate. It was barely ratified and generated no additional nonproliferation deals.
Elsewhere, the nonproliferation cause seemed to be falling apart as well. Not only did North Korea – despite diplomatic efforts – obtain nuclear capability, it began spreading its know-how elsewhere.
Where diplomacy failed, however, the use of force provided remarkable results.

Netanyahu: Jerusalem won’t be divided again

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed that Jerusalem would never be split in any peace deal with the Palestinians, and said construction throughout the capital would continue, despite international criticism.
In a Knesset speech marking Jerusalem Day, which was on Sunday, the prime minister goaded opposition leader Isaac Herzog to clarify his position vis-à-vis Jerusalem and concessions he would be willing to make to the Palestinians. The challenge prompted an angry response from Herzog, who maintained he would never divide Jerusalem, while accusing Netanyahu of calling its unified status into question.
“Jerusalem won’t be divided again,” Netanyahu said. “It won’t go back to being a frontier or a border town.”
The prime minister praised Israeli efforts to develop the capital, while conceding that “it doesn’t mean the unification is perfect.
“It doesn’t mean that there are no problems, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t tasks [ahead of us]. There is a lot to perfect, and a lot to improve, but we will not go backwards.”
Netanyahu said that, with regard to Jerusalem, “I have a clear position — we build in Jerusalem.

Did Israelis "assault Al Aqsa guards"? (updates)

From Ma'an:

Right-wing Jews and Israeli police officers physically assaulted Palestinian security guards on duty at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound early Tuesday, the director of the compound told Ma'an.

Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani said that a group of Israeli settlers was touring the compound when they began to "deliberately" provoke Palestinians near the Cotton Merchants Gate by repeating slogans calling for the removal of the Dome of the Rock.

Al-Kiswani said that "when the guards intervened, Israeli settlers assaulted and beat them. The Israeli police backed [the right-wing Jews], protected them, and clashes erupted in the area."

The sheikh said that the Islamic trust that controls the compound subsequently intervened and Israeli police escorted the right-wing Jews from the compound.

Al-Kiswani said that one of the guards, Fadi Abu Mizr, had trouble breathing after he received blows to his chest, while guard Maher Abu Isninweh had bruises on his face. The two guards were treated in the mosque's clinic.

Whenever something like this is reported, I look for video. I actually found one that showed scuffles on the Temple Mount:

I count at least 10 edits in this video.

The person taking this video didn't repeatedly turn off his video camera ten times while juicy fights were happening. No, this video was edited afterwards:

To cut out every scene of Arabs attacking Jews.

That means that there are at least ten punches and shoves that we are not seeing.

The chances that the Jews started fighting with the guards on the Temple Mount this morning are exactly the same chances that they were "repeating slogans calling for the removal of the Dome of the Rock."

More fiction from the haters, who can lie without any fear of consequences.

UPDATE: Qpress' video section has been decimated since I posted this, no idea what is going on. I didn't save it, sorry.

UPDATE 2 - Got it from Facebook (h/t Bob K)

UPDATE 3: (h/t Bob K)
An unedited video:

And from The Temple Institute:

Jews involved in the altercation say they were attacked by Muslim Waqf personnel whose 'job' is to watch the lips a nd bodies of Jews on the Temple Mount to make sure they are not praying or swaying or bowing down, all expressions of Jewish faith, which Prime Minister Netanyahu, in league with king Abdullah of Jordan, has forbidden in practice, even if he cannot say so, as freedom of worship is the law in Israel.