Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, September 19, 2016

Abbas justifies new wave of knife attacks, saying kids "have no hope"

Mahmoud Abbas, speaking to Palestinian students in Venezuela, said that the newest wave of stabbing attacks comes because Palestinian kids "have no hope."

During a meeting with 80 students Abbas said that every day there are martyrs and children carrying knives -but that kids carrying knives do it on their own. They aren't incited, Abbas, said, but they have lost hope and they try to stab Jews as a result.

An example of "no hope" came yesterday, as a woman who tried to run over Israelis was found out to havepushed for the attack to atone for her premarital relationship with her boyfriend, the driver, who was killed.

Abbas' claim that there is no incitement is too bizarre to even take seriously. He is the person who said one year ago that Palestinians should resist Jews visiting the Temple Mount by doing everything in their power and "We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every Martyr will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah," as he encouraged the stabbings in the name of Jerusalem.

Abbas is the one who warmly hugs killers released from prison and who names schools and sporting events after mass murderers.

The kids pick up knives because they have "no hope"? No, they have lots of hope - hope of becoming heroes that Mahmoud Abbas and others can lionize.

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From the FBI:

The FBI is asking for assistance in locating Ahmad Khan Rahami. Rahami is wanted for questioning in connection with an explosion that occurred on September 17, 2016, at approximately 8:30 p.m. in the vicinity of 135 West 23rd Street, New York, New York.

Rahami is a 28-year-old United States citizen of Afghan descent born on January 23, 1988, in Afghanistan. His last known address was in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He is about 5’ 6” tall and weighs approximately 200 pounds. Rahami has brown hair, brown eyes, and brown facial hair.

SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS

If Rahami is from Elizabeth, then he might also be involved in the bombs found this morning in that city.

Yesterday, the New York governor said that the bombing appeared not to be linked to international terrorism.

That may need to be re-thought.

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Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, speaking at a conference in New York for Lebanese expatriates, said that he believes that children of Lebanese women should become Lebanese citizens just like children of Lebanese men can.

With two exceptions.

"We heard applause in this hall when requesting a bill to grant citizenship to children of Lebanese women married to foreigners, and I also applaud it, and say that this is right, because women do not differ from men," he said. "But, because of our Constitution, (and biology?) and so on, we cannot give citizenship to 400 thousand Palestinians. We know that for Lebanon to survive there must be exceptions".

He reiterated his position on Twitter, saying "I support granting citizenship to children of women under the law with the Syrians and the Palestinians as the exception to preserve our land."

Many on social media are calling Bassil racist. Even Lebanese who are against the naturalization of Palestinians who have lived there for three generations say that if they are children of Lebanese women they should become citizens. Only a few support him.

Children of Palestinian women who marry Lebanese men do become Lebanese citizens, so his statements are being interpreted as misogynist as well as racist.

Bassil is a Maronite Christian the head of the Free Patriotic Movement which is allied with Hezbollah.

Official Lebanese discrimination against Palestinians rarely makes it into Western media, and this case is no exception. The only English language site I've seen that mentions this is The New Arab blog. Sky News Arabic reported this story but not its English version.

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Palestinians accuse Israel of visiting Africa to take over the Nile

In July, after Binyamin Netanyahu visited several African nations including Ethiopia, Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki claimed on Egyptian TV that the purpose of the visit was to threaten Egypt with cutting off the supply of water upstream of the Nile with the Renaissance Dam being constructed in Ethiopia.

It turns out that this is only the tip of the iceberg for the conspiracy theories coming out of the woodwork in the wake of his visit.

Several newspapers published the research of a supposed expert in Jewish studies and Hebrew from Qena University. Faraj Kadri Fakharani seems to say that Ethiopian Jews reached great prominence in their nation in the 19th century and have worked ever since to take over the Nile, one of the most important rivers in the Torah and one of the borders of the Land of Israel mentioned in the Torah.

Fakharani says that Yemen's Jews, who are untainted in their lineage as pure Jews, exported their religion to Abyssinia in modern-day Ethiopia over 2000 years ago. The current Ethiopian leaders, he seems to say, are really Jews who will do anything necessary to wrest control of the holy Nile river from Egypt. The Jewish Ethiopian leaders, we are told, hate Egypt because of their enslaving the Jews in the Hebrew Scripture, as well as saying that God promised the Nile to Abraham but not to Ishmael's descendants, the Arabs.

Oh, and they threaten to block the Nile altogether.

It may sound like a nutty conspiracy theory to you, but a large number of Arabs believe this idiocy.

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Saeb Erekat published a statement on the 34th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in which he does not say one word about the Christian Phalangists who actually murdered hundreds of Palestinians in Lebanon in 1982. Instead, he blames Israel and only Israel.

In his statement, he makes a claim that he has made before:

Erekat said that Israel was accepted as a United Nations member under the commitment to honor partition of Palestine resolution 181 and right of return of refugees resolution 194 as well as the UN Charter.

While the UNGA resolution that gave recognition to Israel mentioned the earlier UNGA resolutions, nothing in its language says that Israel's becoming a member of the UN is contingent on its acceptance of those non-binding resolutions. On the contrary, it explicitly notes that Israel had its own interpretation of them and took note of that.

Here is the text of UNGA 273 that shows Erekat is a liar:

Having received the report of the Security Council on the application of Israel for membership in the United Nations,
Noting that, in the judgment of the Security Council, Israel is a peace-loving State and is able and willing to carry out the obligations contained in the Charter,
Noting that the Security Council has recommended to the general Assembly that it admit Israel to membership in the United Nations,
Noting furthermore the declaration by the State of Israel that it "unreservedly accepts the obligations of the United Nations Charter and undertakes to honour them from the day when it becomes a member of the United Nations",
Recalling its resolutions of 29 November 1947 and 11 December 1948 and taking note of the declarations and explanations made by the representative of the Government of Israel before the Ad Hoc Political Committee in respect of the implementation of the said resolutions,

The General Assembly,
Acting in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its rules of procedure,
1. Decides that Israel is a peace loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations;
2. Decides to admit Israel to membership in the United Nations.

There is no caveat to the UN's acceptance of Israel as a member. Erekat lies again.

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09/18 Links: Lord of the Lies reigns over BDS; Did Netanyahu Get a Bad Deal?

From Ian:

J Street, Americans for Peace Now urge Congress not to obstruct Iran deal

Two dovish pro-Israel groups joined a letter to Congress urging it not to obstruct the Iran nuclear deal.
The letter delivered Friday to the congressional leadership and copied to all members of the US House of Representatives and the Senate counsels against any “poison-pill provisions and measures that would seek to re-impose sanctions lifted under the JCPOA, albeit under a different justification.”
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is the formal name for the deal reached last year between six major powers, led by the United States, and Iran, exchanging sanctions relief for a rollback of nuclear development in Iran.
The letter was initiated by NIAC Action, a lobbying group affiliated with the National Iranian American Council. Among the signatories are J Street and Americans for Peace Now, liberal Jewish Middle East policy groups.
The letter is aimed at proposals by Republicans to add new sanctions to the Iran Sanctions Act, the current sanctions law which lapses at the end of this year.
Democrats in Congress want to reauthorize the Act as a means of warning Iran that the United States will remain vigilant in overseeing the deal, but oppose adding new sanctions.

Lord of the Lies reigns over BDS

Re-enter Ilan Pappe, now holding a comfortable Chair at Exeter University in the UK. He comes down from the ivory tower to be interviewed. After promoting the boycott by proclaiming that the “society under occupation” called for it, Pappe now begs that society to do something for itself for a change. The interviewer feels quite upset.
“Well, the Palestinians launched BDS,” Ruba Salih reminds Pappe.
“Yes,” Pappe says, pulling a face. “Not really, but yes. For historical record, yes.”
“It’s important!” exclaims the startled interviewer.
Reluctantly Pappe agrees. “It’s not true, but it’s important.” At which awkward point he skips to a different subject. in the words of David Collier of Beyond the great divide “What Pappe seems to be suggesting is that the Palestinians did not call for boycott, but rather were told to call for boycott.”
A belief in the good and necessary lie is embedded in the anti-Zionist system of thought. Pappe has been faithful to the belief throughout a rattled career. “I am not as interested in what happened as in how people see what has happened,” said Pappe in 1999. “My ideology influences my …writings. The struggle is about ideology, not about facts. Who knows what facts are?”
Indeed the Lord of the Lie has never known. During his tenure at Haifa University he moderated a thesis on a purported massacre of 200 Arabs by a Jewish unit in May 1948. After the veterans of that unit won their case in a Tel Aviv court, the student was ordered to apologize for defaming them. And Pappe? The academic, to give credit where credit is due, never puts on a facade. Ideology rules, not integrity. He never lets facts get in the way. Zionists and their colonial implant are irredeemably bad. Full stop.

Fred Maroun: Lebanon's Hatred of Israel

Lebanon has many problems, including sectarian divisions, Iranian influence, spillover from the Syrian civil war, the weakness of its army, the ineffectiveness of its politicians, and the very existence of Hizballah, but Israel's existence next door is not one of them.
The animosity of Lebanon towards Israel continues today only because it provides a convenient excuse for Hizballah to maintain a formidable arsenal that it uses to control Lebanon and to help its allies in Syria.
Lebanon has a law forbidding its citizens from interacting with Israeli citizens. As Michael J. Totten wrote:
"Lebanese citizens aren't allowed to have any communication of any kind with Israelis anywhere in the world. If citizens of the two countries meet, say, on a beach in Cyprus or in a bar in New York, the Lebanese risks prison just for saying hello."
The Lebanese online news source NOW explains that law in detail. Even a dual citizen (of Lebanon and Canada for example) could be jailed for interacting in the most innocuous way with an Israeli.
The Lebanese delegation, for example, recently refused to share a bus with the Israeli delegation at this year's Olympic Games in Rio, prompting the Israeli minister of culture and sports to describe the incident as, "anti-Semitism, pure and simple, and the worst kind of racism." The incident was, however, hardly surprising, considering the history of Lebanese animosity towards Israel.

{This is dedicated to Shirlee of Jews Down Under fame. It was in conversation with her that I came up with the idea for this piece and she is currently recovering from some very serious spinal surgery, so please send good thoughts and prayers her way. - ML}

Those of us who care about the well-being of Israel are part of a movement.

We no longer generally think of it in such terms because Zionism fulfilled itself in 1948 and over the decades Jewish supporters of Israel have lost that sense of solidarity - that movement sensibility - that made the reestablishment of Israel possible to begin with.

What I am calling the "Movement for Jewish Freedom" is an attempt to reengage Zionism as a political movement grounded in solidarity with other groups who share common interests.

I imagine it as a subset of the movement for indigenous rights which, itself, is a subset of the international movement for the maintenance of liberal-democracies.

The Movement for Jewish Freedom is highly individualistic, fiercely idiosyncratic, and entirely non-partisan. It includes people as diverse from one another as Pamela Geller is from Alan Dershowitz.

Because the ideal of liberal-democracy is, by necessity, at the core of the Movement for Jewish Freedom it must oppose Islamic jurisprudence (al-Sharia). The reason for that is because al-Sharia is non-democratic and, according to its central precepts, must strip women, Gay people, and Infidels (kuffar) of their most basic civil liberties... often in a grotesquely violent manner.

Jewish Freedom Under the Umbrella of Liberal-Democracy

and Indigenous Rights

Many people who come out of the progressive-wing of the movement will squirm at notions like the necessity to "maintain liberal-democracies throughout the world." It will resonate as right-wing in a sort-of vaguely amorphous manner for many people. The word "neo-con" will quickly come to mind for some.

When I poke around the alleys and byways of the pro-Israel movement, however, I do not see much desire to impose liberal-democracy onto parts of the world that do not want it. This is a matter of culture. Some cultures are open to liberal-democracy and some are not. Liberal-democracy cannot be imposed upon cultures that do not want it, because then it would no longer be liberal democracy, now would it?.

Nonetheless, under the larger umbrella of liberal-democracy stands the movement for indigenous rights.

The movement for Jewish rights, in our ancestral homeland, is just one part of the much larger series of indigenous struggles throughout the world. The movement for the maintenance of liberal-democracy is key to indigenous rights because it is only through liberal-democratic systems that indigenous rights can be pursued as a matter of social justice. While the wheels of justice may grind slowly in the liberal-democratic West, at least they grind. In non-democratic systems, such as those bowing to Islamic law, submission is enforced through state violence. You get no discussion under these terms.

What you get are cracked skulls, wretched prisons, and torture.

A rising star within the Movement for Jewish Freedom, and a stalwart defender of indigenous rights, is Ryan Bellerose. Bellerose, a Métis from Canada - and the lone, sole American-style football playing, Native-American Zionist in the history of the universe - makes the point that Jewish people who care about the well-being of Israel would do well to embrace our own sense of indigeneity because we are, in fact, the only people on the planet with anything resembling a claim to indigenous status in that tiny part of the world.

Indeed, our ancestors lived and built and fought and made families in the Land of Israel for at least 3,500 years.

Our presence there well precedes the development of formal history. Thus to refer to the Arab invaders, who marched upon Judea and Samaria millennia later, as "indigenous" is to spit in the face of history.

I would submit to you that in order for the Movement for Jewish Freedom to advance toward its goal of Jewish autonomy on historically Jewish land - free from perpetual jihadi harassment and the constant screeching for genocide that so often comes out of the mosques - then we need to embrace our own sense as an indigenous people, among other indigenous people, fighting for rights of autonomy upon our own land.

As Bellerose has written, and I paraphrase, it is not merely a matter of standing on our tippy-toes, waving our hands in the air, and saying, "Hey! We're indigenous, too!" Instead, we need to politically engage with other indigenous peoples in a direct manner.

This will be difficult for many pro-Jewish / pro-Israel advocates because we do not generally think of ourselves in such terms and because the Palestinian-Arabs have already claimed that slot. But they have done so in a demonstrably false manner and we need always be ready to point this out.

In short, we need to stand with other indigenous peoples struggling for autonomy within liberal-democratic systems.

Our political opponents often seem comfortable with non-democratic forms of government. We, however, cannot afford to be. Nor, from any ethical perspective, would we want to be.

The Movement for Jewish Freedom is diverse.

It includes Democrats and Republicans and those unregistered with any political party, such as myself. It includes hard-right conservatives and even a few hard-left progressives. (Difficult to imagine, I know.)

We are across-the-board, politically, ethnically, and across religious identities. Most activists in the movement naturally tend to be Jewish people, but some movement activists are not Jewish. Bellerose is clearly not Jewish and neither is another great friend and activist within the movement, Chloe Valdary.

But those who are friendly toward the movement come from all religious backgrounds. The most prominent of these, of course, are American Evangelical Christians who are earnest about Genesis 12:2 and 12:3, which reads:

And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

There are also, of course, plenty of Catholics who believe in Jewish autonomy in the Land of Israel. Plenty of Hindus and Buddhists and Theosophists and Rastafarians and even the random Muslim, or two.

One of the reasons for pro-Israel diversity around the world is disapproval of the jihadi tendencies among some within the Muslim faith. Our friends and supporters often recognize that al-Sharia is not only non-democratic, but highly fascistic in its implementation, thereby creating at least some sympathy for the Jewish people in the Middle East.

Jews and Christians lived as second and third-class non-citizens under the imperial boot of Islamic rule for thirteen centuries until the demise of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. That, I think, was probably more than enough.

Furthermore, of course, al-Sharia is not some noxious, but irrelevant, relic from the past, but is the reality of life for hundreds of millions of people from North Africa to the Arab world, on the continent of Asia, all the way to Jakarta.

Throughout the world all sorts of people from all sorts of different faiths and backgrounds and politics recognize this and are potential allies because they, too, understand that there is something deeply sadistic about any religious legal tradition that advocates, for example, the chopping off of a hand and a foot, from opposite sides of the body, as a form of "justice."

There are also ex-Muslims, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who oppose Qur'anic law, not to mention self-identified practicing Muslim reformers who acknowledge that Sharia seriously impinges upon the civil liberties of women, Gay people, and all "unbelievers."

Those of us who actively promote the movement for Jewish rights or Jewish liberty or Jewish freedom (whatever you want to say) include academicians like Cary Nelson and Gabriel Noah Brahm who edited The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel, which, as an aside, includes a piece by Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, of the AMCHA Initiative, entitled, "Interrogating the Academic Boycotters of Israel on American Campuses" that I well recommend.

The movement also includes prominent bloggers, such as the Elder of Ziyon, who - when he isn't plotting with the other Elders to take over first the world and then the rest of the universe - can be found exposing media hypocrisy and the kind of general nonsense that usually swirls around coverage of the Long Arab War Against the Jews.

The movement includes prominent legal analysts, such as Eugene Kontorovich, and journalists, like the Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh or Italian journalist Giulio Meotti, who is published in the Arutz Sheva and the Gatestone Institute, among numerous other venues.

It also includes artists and musicians, such as Matisyahu, and even much loved cartoonists, like Yaakov Kirschen, the creator of Dry Bones.

But, most importantly, it includes just regular Jews, and regular friends of regular Jews, who do not like the entirely unjust way that Israel is treated by the international community and who do not very much appreciate the kind of long-standing, Koranically-based, hatred and violence that gave us 9/11 and the recent destruction of the ancient city of Palmyra, by the Islamic State (IS), in Syria.

The Enemy

Diaspora Jews, particularly of the left-leaning variety and for perfectly understandable reasons, are deeply uncomfortable with even the notion of "enemy."

No normal people want enemies. Normal people do not want war or to be forced into a position where they must take action against another people.

Unfortunately, the Jewish people, generation upon generation, century upon century, faced grinding hostility by both Europeans and Arab-Muslims. Thankfully, the Christian peoples have moved beyond institutionalized Jew Hatred and today some of our best friends on the planet come out of the western churches.

Sadly, the same cannot be said of the mosques.

Our enemies include virtually every single Arab government and much (if not most) of their religious leadership.

Our enemies do not include Muslims, in general, but merely those who would subject the rest of us to the mercies of Islamic law.

Furthermore, much of the western-left, almost the entirety of the United Nations, the European Union and the Obama administration, have proven themselves consistently hostile to the well-being of the Jewish people through being consistently hostile to the well-being of the Jewish State.

This hostility is justified on the grounds that Israel is a racist, colonialist, imperialist, apartheid state that has pushed the innocent indigenous population off of their land, while refusing to allow them autonomy in a state of their own on that land.

And that is the "Palestinian Narrative" in a concise form.

In truth, Palestinian-Arab nationalism emerged out of the larger Arab nation as a weapon. At the very core of "Palestinian" identity is the cruel goal of eliminating the Jewish State of Israel. It is their very reason to be as an allegedly distinct people. Hostility toward Israel, and towards Jews, is the glue that binds them and allows them to claim a distinct ethnicity, of sorts.

Why?

Because Israel is the Dhimmi that Got Away and the Arabs don't like it.

Jewish sovereignty on the land of our ancestors is understood not only as a terrible humiliation to the entire Arab nation, but as a direct violation of the will of Allah. Thus Jihad is both obligatory and sacred.

The very existence of Israel flies in the face of Qur'anic imperatives to maintain and expand Dar al-Islam at the expense of all non-Muslims. The dhimmi is supposed to be humiliated upon paying the Jizya - they had to crawl - but it is Israeli Jews who have humiliated their former social superiors, through surviving and thriving in freedom from dhimmitude within the State of Israel.

Meanwhile almost the entire Muslim world wallows in poverty and ignorance, violence and genocide against Zoroastrians and Christians and Yazidis and the Ba'hai, and the constant intra-Muslim warfare between Shia and Sunni... and almost all of this they blame on the West or on the insidious, international "Zionist conspiracy."

The Arabs, "Palestinian" or otherwise, are not the victims of the Jews.

On the contrary, it is the Jewish minority in the Middle East who have been constantly persecuted by the great Muslim majority in that part of the world from the early 7th century until the present. It is not merely the Palestinian-Arabs, but virtually the entire Arab and Muslim worlds that are perpetually endeavoring to squeeze the Jews out of Israel, by any means necessary. These means include war and violence and intifada, lawfare, international diplomatic aggressions, the movement to Boycott, Divest from, and Sanction Israel (BDS), heritage theft and attempts at heritage obliteration, cognitive warfare (pdf) and Pallywood.

We can break down the contemporary phases of the Long Arab War Against the Jews as follows:

Phase 1, 1920 - 1947: Riots and Massacres

Phase 2, November 1947 - April 1948: The Civil War in Palestine

Phase 3, 1948 - 1973: Conventional Warfare

Phase 4, 1964 - Present: The Terror War

Phase 5, 1975 - Present: The Delegitimization Effort

There is a possibility that we can eventually overcome this perpetual hostility, but it will not come from Israeli concessions because those concessions are always pocketed by the Palestinian-Arabs and then used as the starting point for demands on further concessions.

Instead, we need solidarity among ourselves and among our allies within a political framework that benefits both.

And on that hopeful note, let's not forget to send some good thoughts and prayers to our friend Shirlee in Oz as she recovers from surgery.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

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Dr. Akan Malici, who teaches political science at Furman University. His syllabus for "Politics of the Middle East" includes Muslim apologetics like Dalia Mogahed's "Who Speaks for Islam", Karen Armstrong's "Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time" and also anti-Israel materials like Walt/Mearsheimer's "The Israel Lobby" which was widely criticized as being essentially antisemitic.

Writing in Greenville Online, Malici says that the only reason that the US recognized Israel was because of the Jewish lobby:

Warnings were plentiful. Yet, the United States did get involved ever further and it started arguably for electoral reasons. Political Zionism had come to play a significant role in American politics as the big war had concluded. Convinced he had to cater to it, President Harry S. Truman went against his advisers stating: “I’m sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I don’t have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.” Defense Secretary James Forrestal countered: “U.S. policy should be based on U.S. national interest and not on domestic political considerations.” Alas, it was to no avail.

This is not true.

Clark Clifford, who was an adviser to Truman, writes:

As for domestic politics, neither the President nor I believed that Palestine was the key to the Jewish vote. As I had written the President in 1947, in a lengthy memorandum proposing a strategy for the 1948 election campaign, the key to the Jewish vote in 1948 would not be the Palestine issue, but a continued commitment to liberal political and economic policies. Noting the sharp divisions over Zionism within the Jewish community, I concluded, “In the long run, there is likely to be greater gain if the Palestine problem is approached on the basis of reaching a decision founded upon intrinsic merit.”

Holbrooke also says that the opposition to Israel was not based on ethics or morality, but:

Beneath the surface lay unspoken but real anti-Semitism on the part of some (but not all) policymakers. The position of those opposing recognition was simple -- oil, numbers and history. "There are thirty million Arabs on one side and about 600,000 Jews on the other," Defense Secretary Forrestal told Clifford. "Why don't you face up to the realities?"

And Truman himself says that he burned thousands of letters written to him to boost the Zionist cause, and he made his decision to recognize Israel based on his conversation with Chaim Weizmann, whom he resisted meeting:

Truman's decision had nothing to do with the "Jewish lobby," but Malici - who uses that idea as a key part of his teaching - is not willing to look at any evidence that contradicts his thesis that the Jews are controlling America to its detriment.

UPDATE: This fascinating quote from Forrestal that shows the immorality of Malici's pretense of realpolitik: (h/t L King)

I also corrected the author of the quote above to be Clark Clifford. (h/t Joshua)

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YNet reports:

A map of the Middle East in an Algerian geography textbook that labels Israel by that name rather than with "Palestine" has evoked a public furor.

In response, the Ministry of National Education announced that the textbook would be removed from the seventh grade curriculum and that an investigation would be launched.

The offending map listing 'Israel' as opposed to 'Palestine'

The ministry explained that the publishing house responsible for the book was at fault, claiming that the version that they approved did not include the word "Israel." The publishing house's director, Hamidou Masudi, apologized "for offending the Algerian's sensitivities. This was a lapse and an unintentional mistake."

Masudi explained that the book's designer was under the pressure of a deadline, downloaded a map from the internet that labeled the Jewish state as "Israel."

Minister of National Education Nouria Benghebrit has received the brunt of the criticism. One opinion piece in the Algerian newspaper Echorouk was entitled, "Hasn't the time come for this minister to go?"

This understates the level of outrage from this unspeakable crime.

Echorouk's article about this calls the error "unprecedented" and "catastrophic" and openly wonders if this was not a deliberate act on the part of Algerian authorities.

The head of the National Association of Parents, Khaled Ahmed said that "the perpetrator deserves the maximum penalty."

Another member of the National Organization of Parents, Samir Kasuri, said that the new books were reviewed by more than 200 specialists who checked every word and line and comma and therefore there are only two possible explanations: either because there are no experts among the specialists, or they did it deliberately.

Here is the map in context:

This was reported in BBC Arabic, Al Jazeera and other major Arabic-language media.

(h/t Yoel)

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From National Geographic:

After several years of digging and study, archaeologists are revealing an extraordinary—and enigmatic—mosaic discovered among the ruins of a Roman-era synagogue at a site in Israel known as Huqoq. Nothing like it has come to light in any other building yet known from the ancient world, experts say.

Dated to the fifth century A.D., the mosaic depicts a meeting between two high-ranking male figures, one of whom appears to be a great general leading his troops. A major challenge to interpreting the scene is a total lack of identifying inscriptions.

“It’s very frequent in late antique and early Byzantine art to have figures in mosaics and other media that are labeled,” says Karen Britt, an art historian at Western Carolina University and the excavation’s mosaic expert. “The fact that these are not labeled makes it confounding for the modern viewer.”

The scene includes elephants outfitted for battle—a detail that immediately suggests the story of the Maccabees, Judean leaders who mounted a revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the mid-second century B.C. The Seleucids, who were descendants of one of Alexander the Great’s generals, are famed for including elephants in their armies.

But excavation director Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has a different interpretation. She believes the leader of the army is none other than Alexander the Great himself. His meeting with the high priest of Jerusalem never happened, but it was a piece of historical fiction that would have been very familiar to the residents of ancient Huqoq. (Learn more about the excavation at Huqoq here and here.)

“After Alexander’s death in 323 B.C., when his fame spread and his importance became clear because of the way that he changed the face of the Near East, the Jews—like other ancient people—sought to associate themselves with him and his greatness,” Magness explains. “That’s why stories like this legend began to circulate.”

Magness believes the mosaic should be read from bottom to top. In her view, the lowest tier, or register, depicts one of the many battles that Alexander the Great fought as he expanded his empire into the eastern Mediterranean.

The middle register shows Jerusalem’s high priest—the older, bearded man in the center—accompanied by nobles or other priests. All are at the city’s gates, presumably as Alexander approaches.

The importance of those men dressed in white is clearly shown by the symbol that looks like an H, the Greek letter eta. Experts don’t know what that stands for, but it often appears on garments as a sign of high status in the art of this period.

In the top register the high priest and his companions meet Alexander and his troops. Alexander has all of the attributes of a Greek king and military commander, such as a purple cloak and a ribbon around his head, called a diadem. The latter insignia was first taken up by Alexander and then worn by all his successors.

As expected for a leader on the march, this figure is accompanied by soldiers as well as battle elephants, which are also associated with Alexander and his successors.

For Magness, the fact that the figures in this mosaic aren’t identified by inscriptions is a key piece of evidence in favor of Alexander. “There was only one Greek king in antiquity who was so great that he didn’t need a label,” she says.

In her interpretation, the mosaic would have delivered a message of affirmation. “The whole point of the Alexander legend is to show that even Alexander the Great, the greatest of the Greek kings, acknowledged the greatness of the god of Israel,” says Magness, whose research is supported in part by the National Geographic Society. “He’s so awed by the appearance of the high priest that he bows down before him and brings a sacrifice to offer at the temple. If even Alexander the Great himself acknowledged the greatness of the god of Israel, then surely the god of Israel must be great.”

The legend goes like this, as mentioned in the Talmud:

"When the Samaritans had obtained permission from Alexander to destroy the Temple in Jerusalem, the high priest Simon the Just, arrayed in his pontifical garments and followed by a number of distinguished Jews, went out to meet the conqueror, and joined him at Antipatris, on the northern frontier. At sight of Simon, Alexander fell prostrate at his feet, and explained to his astonished companions that the image of the Jewish high priest was always with him in battle, fighting for him and leading him to victory. Simon took the opportunity to justify the attitude of his countrymen, declaring that, far from being rebels, they offered prayers in the Temple for the welfare of the king and his dominions. So impressed was Alexander that he delivered up all the Samaritans in his train into the hands of the Jews...

Far more details of the legend come from Josephus:

Now Alexander, when he had taken Gaza, made haste to go up to Jerusalem; and Jaddus the high-priest, when he heard that, was in an agony, and under terror, as not knowing how he should meet the Macedonians, since the king was displeased at his foregoing disobedience. He therefore ordained that the people should make supplications, and should join with him in offering sacrifice to God, whom he besought to protect that nation, and to deliver them from the perils that were coming upon them; whereupon God warned him in a dream, which came upon him after he had offered sacrifice, that he should take courage, and adorn the city, and open the gates; that the rest should appear in white garments, but that he and the priests should meet the king in the habits proper to their order, without the dread of any ill consequences, which the providence of God would prevent. Upon which, when he rose from his sleep, he greatly rejoiced, and declared to all the warning he had received from God. According to which dream he acted entirely, and so waited for the coming of the king.

And when Jaddus understood that Alexander was not far from the city, he went out in procession, with the priests and the multitude of the citizens. The procession was venerable, and the manner of it different from that of other nations. It reached to a place called Sapha, which name, translated into Greek, signifies a prospect, for you have thence a prospect both of Jerusalem and of the temple. And when the Phoenicians and the Samarians that followed him thought they should have liberty to plunder the city, and torment the high-priest to death, which the king's displeasure fairly promised them, the very reverse of it happened; for Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed with fine linen, and the high-priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with his mitre on his head, having the golden plate whereon the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself, and adored that name, and first saluted the high-priest.

The Jews also did all together, with one voice, salute Alexander, and encompass him about; whereupon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind. However, Parmenion alone went up to him, and asked him how it came to pass that, when all others adored him, he should adore the high-priest of the Jews? To whom he replied, 'I did not adore him, but that God who has honored him with his highpriesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dion in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians; whence it is that, having seen no other in that habit, and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the Divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind.'

And when he had said this to Parmenion, and had given the high-priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him, and he came into the city. And when he went up into the temple, he offered sacrifice to God, according to the high-priest's direction, and magnificently treated both the high-priest and the priests. And when the Book of Daniel was showed him wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended. [3] And as he was then glad, he dismissed the multitude for the present.
But the next day he called them to him, and bid them ask what favors they pleased of him; whereupon the high-priest desired that they might enjoy the laws of their forefathers, and might pay no tribute on the seventh year.[4] He granted all they desired. And when they asked him that he would permit the Jews in Babylon and Media to enjoy their own laws also, he willingly promised to do hereafter what they desired. And when he said to the multitude, that if any of them would enlist themselves in his army, on this condition, that they should continue under the laws of their forefathers, and live according to them, he was willing to take them with him, many were ready to accompany him in his wars.

This explains why Alexander is giving the bull to the High Priest in the mosaic, as a sacrifice.

There is a further extension of this legend that Jews vowed to name their sons Alexander in honor of his sparing the Temple. Indeed, it is one of the very few Hebrew names that have been used through the centuries that did not have a Biblical or Hebrew language origin.

(h/t Yoel)

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