Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, July 09, 2017

Jihad, crusades and Linda Sarsour

Linda Sarsour recently stirred up a great deal of attention when she gave a speech where she called for "jihad" against Donald Trump but made it clear that she was not referring to anything violent. As reported in the Washington Post:

In her speech, Sarsour told a story from Islamic scripture about a man who once asked Muhammad, the founder of Islam, “What is the best form of jihad, or struggle?
“And our beloved prophet … said to him, ‘A word of truth in front of a tyrant ruler or leader, that is the best form of jihad,'” Sarsour said.
“I hope that … when we stand up to those who oppress our communities, that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad, that we are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad in the Middle East or on the other side of the world, but here in these United States of America, where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House.”

As Lee Smith noted, Sarsour knew exactly what she was saying by using the word "jihad" here, to paint those who are offended at the term as bigots.

I am a bit more interested in her story about Mohammed's use of the term.

The source for that story is a fairly obscure hadith, Musnad Aḥmad 18449. Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal merits only a small mention in Wikipedia; although the author was an early influential Muslim theologian, the veracity of his hadiths are sometimes suspect by other Muslims.

More interestingly, there is a much more famous story about Mohammed and the definition of jihad (from the English translation of the Book of Jihad):

A man asked the Prophet: What is Jihad? He (s.a.w)
replied: “To fight against the disbelievers when you
meet them (on the battlefield).” The man asked: “What
kind of Jihad is the highest?” He (s.a.w) replied: “The
person who is killed whilst spilling the last of his blood”

Yet another quote from Mohammed on jihad is this one:

The Messenger of Allah was asked about the best jihad. He said: "The best jihad is the one in which your horse is slain and your blood is spilled."

Wikipedia's article on Jihad notes that while the use of the word to refer to non-violent actions was used in some very early sources, its use was often unambiguously violent:

Of the 199 references to jihad in perhaps the most standard collection of hadith—Bukhari—all assume that jihad means warfare.[31]

Sarsour's cynical use of "jihad" is being amplified by her Muslim admirers such as the equally deceptive Dalia Mogahed who tweeted "What's #YourJihad? Maybe it's working for an America for All. Maybe it's just loving your kids. #IStandWithLinda."

This is a deliberate effort to water down the meaning of the word "jihad" to make it appear to be a liberal value. In no way is that true; even the expansive definition of "greater Jihad" refers to striving or struggle to be a better person, "loving your kids" should not be a struggle for most people.

Sarsour, taking advantage of the controversy, tweeted that "My work is CRYSTAL CLEAR as an activist rooted in Kingian non-violence." It would be most illuminating to ask her is she is therefore against jihad as holy war altogether, which everyone agrees is one of its meanings. As an avowed believing Muslim, Sarsour cannot possibly say that. It would also be interesting to ask Sarsour if she condemns the use of the word "jihad" by Palestinian terror groups like Islamic Jihad, let alone if she unequivocally condemns their use of violence, since she she claims to be so "Kingian."

There is literally no way Sarsour could condemn Palestinian jihad or the concept of violent jihad altogether. Those are bound up in her identity as a Muslim and as a descendant of Palestinians who define Israel as a place that must be destroyed by any means possible.

In this sense, the word "jihad" can be loosely compared to the word "crusade." The analogy is far from exact, because the current use of "crusade" in English vernacular is wholly outside of any Christian religious connotation except by scholars, while "jihad" is clearly used by millions of ordinary Muslims today to refer primarily to holy war. Yet when the word "crusade" is used today, Muslims take offense - how dare the speaker invoke a word that has such negative connotations to Muslims? But the word "jihad" is, by any yardstick, much more offensive, and Sarsour is deliberately using it to demonize her opponents.

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Around 2011, Egypt under Muslim Brotherhood rule briefly opened up the border to Gaza both ways, and hundreds of curious Egyptians visited the enclave expecting it to be as terrible as the news media made it sound. They were surprised to find that in many ways Gaza was better off economically than their own villages and towns.

Now as then, there is no shortage of news stories about how bad things are in Gaza. Scores of NGOs are based there, all publicizing their crucial role in helping the poor Gazans survive the "crushing siege" that Israel imposes on them.

But just across the Egyptian border, Gaza isn't looked upon as the third world hellhouse it is portrayed as in the media. For some Egyptians, Gaza is an opportunity to escape the even worse situations at home.

From Al Monitor (June 25):

Egyptian construction workers often do not earn enough to cover the basic expenses for themselves and their families, such as food, medicine and clothing.

The value of the Egyptian pound fell in half following the government’s decision to float the Egyptian currency in November and stands at about 18 Egyptian pounds to the US dollar.

This has forced many construction workers to work extra hours; some of them even sought to migrate or obtain a work visa abroad.

Strangely, however, some found jobs in the Gaza Strip, which is reeling under its own massive unemployment and harsh economic conditions due to the Israeli siege.

Since the beginning of the year, some employers, including contractors, in the Gaza Strip have noticed that Egyptian construction workers have been applying for jobs there.

At first this seemed quite odd. Many wondered how these Egyptian men crossed into Gaza and started searching for jobs there.

Contractor Mohammed Younis of the southern Gaza town of Rafah, who employs 10 construction workers, hired two Egyptians in early April.

In order to be allowed to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing, these Egyptian workers usually invoke their kinship relationship to Egyptian women who are living in Gaza and married to a Palestinian national. Egyptians, however, have to be first- or second-degree relatives of these women in Gaza to get a tourist visa to Palestine.

After getting the visa, these Egyptians are forced to wait for long periods to enter Gaza, in light of the repeated closure of the Rafah Crossing. Once in Gaza, they start their job hunt through their relatives and Egyptian connections there.

Al-Monitor met with four Egyptians working in different areas in the Gaza Strip.

Moamen Hosni, 34, is from Dakahlia governorate in northeast Egypt. ...He traveled to Gaza at the beginning of March and is now working as a construction worker with a contractor related to his brother-in-law.

Hosni told Al-Monitor, “At the beginning of this year, I was evicted from an apartment I had rented in Dakahlia because I was unable to pay the monthly rent. I had been working extra hours and taking on multiple odd jobs for two years in a crumbling Egyptian economy.”

He continued, “Then one day my sister who lives in Gaza suggested I move to the Gaza Strip despite the difficult conditions there and even though it was unlikely for me to find a job. But given the currency exchange difference between the Egyptian pound and the shekel, if I did ever find a job there, I would be able to send money to my family back home and pay the monthly rent.”

Hosni works from the early morning hours until the sun sets. He said that in the month of Ramadan he works from midnight until the time of the Suhoor (the meal consumed early in the morning by Muslims before fasting).

“I have been getting a monthly salary of about 1,300 shekels ($368) since I started working in the Gaza Strip. I transfer half of this amount to my wife through money transfer offices in Gaza to pay the rent and cover other bills.”

Mutawaa Dahlouki, 42, and Ayad Bashir, 39, told Al-Monitor that they worked in Libya from September 2014 until August 2016, but they left their jobs there for fear of terrorist groups, especially after the killing of a number of Egyptian workers in Libya and the abduction of others, whose fate is yet to be known. When Dahlouki and Bashir came back home, they found their financial situation to be much worse than when they left.

Dahlouki and Bashir entered the Gaza Strip in February. Bashir’s mother is Palestinian. She lives in the Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip with her husband, whom she had married after his father's death in the 1990s. The two men were able to work as construction workers and as porters with a local house furniture transport company.

Dahlouki told Al-Monitor, “It is currently very difficult for an Egyptian to obtain a visa for Arab countries. Illegal migration to European countries has proved to be deadly and frightening. Moving to a European country is not as easy as it may seem. Bashir and I never thought about coming to Gaza, which has been ravaged by wars. But our search for means of a livelihood brought us here, and we found it safer than Libya.”

Dahlouki and Bashir earn a monthly salary ranging between 1,200 shekels ($340) and 1,500 shekels ($425) each for working for about 12 hours a day. They send money to their families in Minya governorate in Upper Egypt. Dahlouki has a family of six and Bashir of five.

Ahmad Mustafa, 44, traveled to Gaza to stay with his daughter, who is married to a Palestinian. Mustafa works as a home electricity maintenance technician and at night he sells cellphone accessories on a cart, on Omar al-Mukhtar Street in Gaza.

Mustafa is the father of seven children living in Hadaiq al-Qubbah neighborhood in central Cairo. He is working two jobs to be able to provide for the needs of his family, not to mention the tuition fees of three of his children.

He told Al-Monitor that an electrician in Egypt often does not make more than 50 Egyptian pounds ($2.75) a day, which is not enough to cover household expenses.

There are no UN resolutions or teary New York Times articles about the terrible situation of Egyptians in the Sinai. In fact, such stories comparing Gaza to the Sinai would not be allowed -because it would retroactively show that the media is spent a hugely disproportionate amount of time and column-inches to a "crisis" that, while serious, is not bad compared to other economic crises worldwide that receive next to no attention.

Which is just another way of saying the adage - no Jews, no news.

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07/08 Links: Haley UNESCO Hebron motion ‘an affront to history’; Linda Sarsour’s Jihad

From Ian:

Netanyahu to mark 75th anniversary of roundup of French Jews

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will visit Paris on July 16 for the 75th anniversary of the Vel d'Hiv roundup, where more than 13,000 Jews were arrested and sent to extermination camps.
"On this occasion, there will be a working meeting" between French President Emmanuel Macron and Netanyahu, the French presidency said of the visit, the first by Netanyahyu since Macron's election.
The Velodrome d'Hiver was an indoor cycle track not far from the Eiffel Tower.
On July 16 and 17, 1942, authorities in occupied France rounded up in a Nazi-directed raid a total of 13,152 men, women and children in the Vel d'Hiv.
They were kept there under inhuman conditions with almost no food or water or proper sanitation for four days before being sent to Auschwitz and other camps.
Only about a 100 of those rounded up at Vel d'Hiv survived.
A total of 42,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz from France during World War II.

Protest planned for Paris Holocaust memorial event during Netanyahu visit

A Muslim website called on pro-Palestinian activists to crash a Holocaust commemoration ceremony in Paris to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attendance.
On Friday, the Le Muslim Post urged readers to show up in large numbers at the July 16 state ceremony at the Vel d’Hiv former stadium, where French police in 1942 rounded up 13,000 Jews for deportation to death camps. Its article noted the Netanyahu government’s “treatment of Palestinians in camps, deprived of freedom and liberty of movement.”
Unnamed associations were organizing the protests, it said. The article did not say whether police approved the planned protest.
Netanyahu’s planned visit to attend the 75th anniversary of the deportations is “a rare opportunity” by the unnamed organizations “to make their voice heard.”
The call for protest followed an assertion by the head of France’s pro-Palestinian lobby that Netanyahu should not attend the ceremony because Jews in pre-state Israel did not save their brethren during the genocide.
Bertrand Heilbronn, president of the France Palestine Solidarity Association, who is Jewish, made the assertion in an op-ed published Monday on the website Mediapart that he co-authored with the French-Jewish historian Dominique Vidal.

Modi, Britney and the unabating BDS threat Is Israel still diplomatically isolated

In March 2011, Ehud Barak coined a new phrase in Israel: “Diplomatic Tsunami.”
It was two years into Barack Obama’s presidency, and Barak warned that the Jewish state needed to do more to advance the peace process. Otherwise, the defense minister and former prime minister warned, the international community will unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state.
“It’s a mistake not to notice this tsunami,” he said. “Israel’s delegitimization is in sight, even if citizens don’t see it. It is a very dangerous situation, one that requires action.”
That was six years ago.
Based on the past week, it’s now clear that Barak – who has returned to the spotlight in recent weeks in what many suspect is an attempt at a political comeback – couldn’t have been more wrong.
Despite the best efforts by pro-BDS organizations, Britney Spears performed at Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park on Monday night before more than 50,000 people, who had come to see the pop princess despite the blistering heat. Then on Tuesday, Narendra Modi arrived in Israel, becoming the first Indian prime minister to visit the Jewish state.
The leader of a country with 1.3 billion people and a fast-growing economy, Modi used his trip to bolster Indo-Israeli ties, and to shower the country with love and (of course) hugs. He visited Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, but skipped over what almost all heads of state do when they get here – a stop in Ramallah to visit Mahmoud Abbas. Modi’s visit was all about Israel; Ramallah had nothing to do with it.
For a moment this week, Israel almost seemed like a normal country. Syria might be disintegrating and Hezbollah might be amassing arms, but Israelis are spending their nights like normal people – going to pop concerts instead of bomb shelters.

07/07 Links Pt2: NYTs Calls Palestinian Terrorist Murderer of Five a “Freedom Fighter”; Artists against Theater

From Ian:

New York Times Calls Palestinian Terrorist Convicted of Five Murders a “Freedom Fighter”

The New York Times published an article on Wednesday profiling Fadwa Barghouti, the wife of Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian terrorist currently serving five consecutive life terms in an Israeli prison for murder.
Written by Shaina Shealy, the article described Fadwa and Marwan’s romance and politics in uncritical terms and even compares Marwan to the late South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela. It warmly portrays Fadwa as a champion for her husband’s freedom, notably failing to mention that she also participated in a 2015 march honoring Abu Jihad, a Fatah leader who was implicated in 125 murders. Abu Jihad masterminded multiple terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians in the 1970s and 1980s, including 1978 Coastal Road massacre that claimed the lives of 38 people, including 13 children.
In defending her husband, “Fadwa repeats over and over that Marwan never killed with his own hands,” Shealy wrote. “He led, she says, but he never killed.” Fadwa’s attempted defense seems to bolster Israel’s case that Marwan helped orchestrate terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis, rather than carrying them out himself. During his interrogation, Marwan admitted that this was his role.
Marwan was ultimately convicted by a civilian court in May 2004 of his involvement in three terrorist attacks in Israel that killed five people: Yosef Habi (52, from Netanya), Eli Dahan (53, from Lod), policeman Sgt.-Maj. Salim Barakat (33, from Yarka), Yoela Chen (45, from Giv’at Ze’ev), and Greek Orthodox monk Georgios Tsibouktzakis (34, from the St. George Monastery). He was acquitted on charges of 33 other murders due to lack of evidence of direct involvement, with the court noting, “he did not have direct control over the militants but did wield influence.”
Despite this, the Times article still described Marwan as a “Palestinian political prisoner” and, in the headline, called him a “Palestinian freedom fighter.”

Linda Sarsour calls for 'jihad' against American government

In a largely self-congratulatory speech to the Annual Islamic Society of North American (ISNA) this past weekend, Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour called for the "best form" of jihad against the current American administration.
"A word of truth in front of a tyrant ruler or leader, that is the best form of jihad," Sarsour declared. "And I hope that we, when we stand up to those who oppress our communities, that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad. That we are struggling against tyrants and rulers, not only abroad in the Middle East or on the other side of the world, but here, in these United States of America, where you have fascists, and white supremacists, and Islamophobes reigning in the White House."
Sarsour has been a prominent face among left-wing activists, in particular since the election of US President Donald Trump. She was one of the organizers of the January “Women’s March on Washington” held the day after Trump’s inauguration.
But she has come under fire for many of her stances and comments, including her support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. She has said “Nothing is creepier than Zionism,” that Zionism and feminism are incompatible, and has warmly embraced Rasmea Odeh, a convicted terrorist involved in a 1969 bombing that killed two students.

Linda Sarsour Called For ‘Jihad’ Against Trump. Here Are 5 Things You Need To Know About It.

3. Sarsour Praised An Alleged Terror Co-Conspirator At The Outset Of Her Speech. Sarsour proclaims that her words regarding “jihad” should be taken in their least suggestive way — as a mere synonym for Leftist “resistance.” It’s hard to take them that way when she opened her speech by praising Siraj Wajjah, “her favorite person in the room.” Wajjah was listed as a possible unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, and testified on behalf of the Blind Sheikh. Wahhaj has a long history of speaking about jihad in the most traditional way: “I will never ever tell people ‘don’t be violent, that is not the Islamic way.’ The violence has to be selected.”
4. Sarsour Explicitly Rejected Assimilation To Western Values. In the “jihad” speech, Sarsour stated, “Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community. It is not to assimilate and to please any other people in authority. And our top priority … is to please Allah, and only Allah.” That’s no shock. She has a long history of advocating for shariah law and tut-tutting terrorism. That context must be taken into account when looking at the use of the word “jihad” as well. What is the end-goal here? Is it stock Leftism? Or is it something else?
5. Sarsour Knew What She Was Doing. Back in 2001, shortly after 9/11, President Bush gave a speech in which he called for a “crusade” against Islamist terrorism. The press went crazy, suggesting that this was the language of religious war. This was approximately a millennium after the actual crusades; the word crusade has been stripped of its religious meaning for centuries. Unlike the word crusade, the word “jihad” is alive and well as a mode of religious violence. Sarsour knows that, and she used the word anyway. Sarsour used the word “jihad” for a reason here: to seek attention, to link it with other “struggles” with which she identifies.

From India Today:

Probably peeved at the India's first ever prime-ministerial visit to Israel, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has raked up the Kashmir issue for the second time in two weeks. This time Khamenei has called Iran's judiciary to take up international issues to speak for Muslims of Myanmar and Kashmir.
According to Iran's news agency IRNA, while speaking to the officials of Iran's judiciary, Khamenei asked the country's judiciary to "enter international issues such as the sanctions, US confiscations of property, terrorism, the support for oppressed personalities like Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky (Nigerian Shiite leader) or Muslims of Myanmar and Kashmir, and to express its firm support or opposition in order to be reflected globally."
Just ten days ago, while leading the Eid al-Fitr prayers in Tehran, repeating his oft-quoted line of "Kashmir being an oppressed nation," Khamenei had exhorted the Muslim world to openly support "Yemen, Bahrain and Kashmir". He had called on the Islamic community to unite against the "injuries being inflicted on the world of Islam."

Kashmiris welcomed the statement and some even tried to parse it to see if Khamenei was officially calling for "jihad."

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07/07 Links Pt1: UNESCO declares Hebron an endangered Palestinian site; Hezbollah’s missiles will not rust

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Hezbollah’s missiles will not rust

Under the terms of 1701, Hezbollah is prohibited from operating south of the Litani River. Only the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and UNIFIL – the UN’s peacekeeping force – are supposed to be deployed in southern Lebanon.
According to Halevi, operating under the cover of a phony environmental NGO called “Green Without Borders,” Hezbollah has set up observation posts manned with its fighters along the border with Israel.
In Halevi’s words, with these posts, “Hezbollah is now able to operate a stone’s throw from the border.”
In a media briefing on Sunday, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman discussed Halevi’s revelations. Liberman said that the security community “is absolutely aware [of the missile plants] and is taking the necessary action.”
“This is a significant phenomenon,” Liberman warned. “We must under no circumstances ignore it.”
Perhaps in a jab at his predecessor, Moshe Ya’alon, who years ago argued notoriously that Hezbollah’s missiles would “rust” in their storage facilities, perhaps in warning to Hezbollah, Liberman added, “The factories won’t rust and the missiles won’t rust.”
So if we aren’t indifferent to Hezbollah’s expansion of its capabilities, what are we planning to do about it?
Whatever answer the IDF decides upon, Israel is already taking diplomatic steps to prepare for the next round – whoever opens it.

Seth Frantzman: Myths and misconceptions about Israel and Syrian rebels on the Golan

He says that if Israel really wanted a buffer against Hezbollah then it would have let Syrian rebels take Khadr in 2015 when they tried. But he characterizes Khadr as a “red line, that it shouldn’t fall to the rebels in deference to the Druze.”
In June 2015 an Israeli ambulance carrying a wounded Syrian was attacked in the Druze town of Majdal Shams and the Syrian man was beaten to death.
Druze accused the ambulances of transporting wounded Syrian rebels who were involved in attacking Khadr. So Israel tolerates the presence of hostile forces very near the border, because dislodging them would hurt Druze and create social tensions in Israel.
The concern for Israel is that one day the stalemate on the Golan will change. Al-Tamimi says that it’s likely a hostile group, such as ISIS or Iranian-backed militias will “try to test the waters with Israel, through harassment. It could happen if they decide that the rebels can’t defeat us but we can’t expand, let’s harass Israel.”
When the situation ends if the rebels are defeated, will refugees pour over the border fleeing the regime? Al-Tamimi thinks the situation isn’t like Lebanon in the 1980 and 90s, Israel isn’t trying to influence the character of Syria.” He also says that many people don’t understand that the Syrian rebels don’t like Israel, they see Israel as a lesser evil than the regime. “They would never say they are a friend of Israel.”

UK House of Lords Pays Tribute to 1917 Balfour Declaration That Promised Jewish ‘National Home’ in Palestine

British peers in the House of Lords, the UK’s upper parliamentary chamber, paid tribute to the November 1917 Balfour Declaration in a debate on Wednesday.
In what London’s Jewish News described as “one of the most pro-Israel debates heard in Parliament for years,” several peers spoke of their appreciation for the declaration — in which Britain promised to back the establishment of a “national home” for the Jewish people in Palestine — and their warmth for the State of Israel.
Opening the debate, Lord Turnberg said Israel owed “an enormous debt” to Britain for the Balfour Declaration, which he called “a hopelessly optimistic idea,” which had no legal enforcement until the San Remo conference of post-World War I allies in 1920.
He added: “Britain too has a lot to be grateful for. We should celebrate the fact that we in Britain provided the foundations of a democratic state in a part of the world where democracy is in very short supply.”
The former UK chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, declared: “The Balfour Declaration was a significant moment in history.” He continued: “No people should lack a home, not Palestinians and not Jews — which is why it’s tragic that a century after the Balfour Declaration significant groups still seek to deny the Jewish people a home, among them Iran and Hezbollah and Hamas, two groups that the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition has in the past called friends. Friends of violence and terror, yes. Friends of humanity, no.”
“It is shameful that the Jewish people still has to fight for the right to exist in the land that for 33 centuries it has called home,” Sacks added. “Yet constantly threatened though it is by missiles, terror and delegitimization, it has achieved so much in science, medicine, technology and humanitarian aid.”

Rabbi Sacks at the House of Lords on the Centenary of the Balfour Declaration

Ma'an Arabic, writing about the UNESCO vote delegitimizing the Jewish connection to the place where the Biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs are buried, says, says as a backgrounder:

The city of Hebron is one of the oldest ancient cities that are still inhabited in the world, and stretches back more than 6,000 years. It is a holy city of heavenly religions, and became the fourth holiest Islamic city after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.

Really? Because, since they believe UNESCO so much, Harar in Ethiopia is the fourth most holy site in Islam. Many argue Kairouan, Tunisia.

I found a discussion from Lonely Planet ten years ago where people were discussing just this issue of what the fourth holiest site in Islam is. Cities mentioned in the discussion include Harar, Najaf, Karbala, Mashad, and Nagash. Hebron isn't mentioned at all.

The only place I could find any mention of Hebron as one of the holiest Muslim cities are from Palestinian sources.

Just as the Mufti managed to inflate the importance of Jerusalem to indifferent Muslims in the 1920s because of his hatred of Jews, so are the Palestinians today doing the same to Hebron. There is only one reason they say this: to loosen the Jewish claim on lands that are historically, religiously and culturally the most important places in Judaism.

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This is a very important story that has not received the attention it deserves.

South Africa's TimesLive reported last week:

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) is standing by for an apology. This comes as the Equality Court on Thursday found that the Congress of SA Trade Unions' international relations spokesperson‚ Bongani Masuku‚ was guilty of hate speech against the Jewish community‚ the board said.

"In his judgment‚ Mr Justice Moshidi declared the impugned statements by Masuku to be 'hurtful; harmful; incite harm and propagate hatred; and amount to hate speech as envisaged in section 10 of the Equality Act 4 of 2000'‚" the board said in a statement.

Masuku and Cosatu were ordered to tender an unconditional apology to the Jewish community within 30 days of the order.

The case has its origins in a complaint lodged with the SAHRC by the SAJBD in April 2009. The complaint related to various statements made by Masuku against Jewish South Africans who supported Israel.

The remarks by Masuku deemed to be offensive included threats that Cosatu would target and cause harm to South African families who had members serving in the Israeli defence force.

"The SAJBD particularly welcomes the fact that in terms of the judgment‚ threats and insults against Jews who support Israel cannot be justified on the alleged basis that such attacks are aimed not at Jews but at ‘Zionists’.

At no point did Masuku say "Jews" - but the ruling noted that his statements were unequivocally antisemitic.

Here are some of Masuku's statements:

“As we struggle to liberate Palestine from the racists, fascists and Zionists who belong to the era of their friend Hitler, we must not apologise. Every Zionist must be made to drink the bitter medicine they are feeding our brethren and sisters in Palestine. We must target them, expose them and do all that is needed to subject them to perpetual suffering until they withdraw from the land of others and stop their savage attacks on human dignity. Every Palestinian who suffers is a direct attack on all of us. Cosatu is a tripartite alliance the ruling ANC party. A vote for the ANC is a vote for Bongani” (10.2.2009)
“Cosatu has got members here even on this campus. We can make sure that for that side it will be hell”
“The following things are going to apply : any South African family, i want to repeat it so it is clear for anyone, any South African family who sends his son or daughter to be part of the IDF must not blame us when something happens to them with immediate effect” (5.3.2009 PSC rally at Wits University)
“Cosatu is with you, we will do everything to make sure whether it is at Wits, whether it is at Orange Grove, anyone who does not support equality and dignity, who does not support the rights of other people must face the consequences even if it means that we will do something that may necessarily cause what is regarded as harm”

This article delves into the details:

Masuku contended his remarks were not hate speech. He was referring to Zionists not Jews, he said; a distinction which in this context the judge was later to describe as having “no merit at all”. His comments were intended only as criticism of Zionism and Israel and were either true or fair comment and thus protected free speech.

The judge ruled that the ‘impugned statements’ were “offensive and targeted at the Jewish community”. Note that this judgment was arrived at despite Masuku not even mentioning Jews specifically.
References by Masuku to “Wits” (a campus with a significant Jewish population) and “Orange Grove” (a predominantly Jewish area) also constituted hate speech again despite the word Jews not being mentioned.
The defence that the comments were true and/or fair comment had “no merit at all” and that Masuku’s stated intentions behind the remarks were “wholly irrelevant” and that these comments were “unequivocally a reference to Jews”.
The judge went on to conclude that what was done by Masuku was “to instill detestation, enmity, ill will and malevolence towards Jews in South Africa. It is distinct advocacy of hatred – nothing else”. Powerful stuff!
And finally for good measure… “the bottom line… objectively assessed… must readily be understood to be concerning Jews” and that the argument advanced on behalf of Masuku “that the statements have nothing to do with Jewish people… is without credence”.

It doesn't take much to realize that there is little difference between what Masuku said and what one can read in anti-Israel sites like Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss every day.

(h/t SpotlightingSA)

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They keep forgetting to say "Zionists" instead of "Jews"

For several decades, Arabs and Muslims have followed the rule: if you want to avoid being called an antisemite, simply replace the word "Jew' with "Zionist" and your opinion magically changes from naked bigotry into acceptable political discourse.

For example, saying that Jews control the media and the banks and world governments is antiemitic, but saying that "Zionists" have unfair influence over the media and the monetary system and nations is a perfectly valid observation.

But sometimes, people forget the rule.

So for example, yesterday the Kuwait Sheikhs and Preachers Association issued a statement that called against any normalization with Israel. (The fact that they feel compelled to issue such a statement is itself a sign of how much things have changed in the past couple of years.)

"Jews have committed massacres against the Muslims in Palestine and and are hatching plots against the Umma," the statement said, adding that "normalization exceeds the [types of] conciliation stipulated by scholars in their books when they talk about the provisions of the peace with non-Muslims. Normalization with the Jews includes recognition of their rights to claim the land of Palestine and Jerusalem as the capital of the Jews, which [they use to] justify of all the crimes they committed against Muslim peoples. "

Nothing about Zionists. Oops.

Another Kuwaiti, writer Fuad Al - Hashem, referred to Qatar as "the Gulf's Israel," saying that Kuwait will deal with Qatar as if they were the "new Jews."

And how do Arabs and Muslim treat their Jews? That part is obvious to Mr. Al Hashem and to his readers, despite the insistence that Jews were honored members of the Muslim world for centuries.

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07/06 Links Pt2: Linda Sarsour Calls For ‘Jihad’ Against Trump; The UN’s Destructive, and Self-Destructive, Obsession with Israel

From Ian:

WATCH: Women’s March Organizer Linda Sarsour Calls For ‘Jihad’ Against Trump

Linda Sarsour attends a rally to protest the executive order that President Donald Trump signed clamping down on refugee admissions and temporarily restricting travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries in New York City on January 29, 2017.
Speaking at the Islamic Society of North American Convention last weekend, Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour ripped into the Trump administration and called for “jihad” against Trump. ISNA itself has a long history of ties to Islamic extremism. As Jordan Schachtel of Conservative Review notes, Sarsour began the speech by thanking Siraj Wajjah – a man “listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.”
It got worse from there.
She ranted: Why sisters and brothers, why are we so unprepared. Why are we so afraid of this administration and the potential chaos that they will ensue on our community?...I hope, that when we stand up to those who oppress our communities, that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad....We are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad...but here in the United States of America where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reining in the White House.
She concluded, “Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community. It is not to assimilate and to please any other people in authority. And our top priority…is to please Allah, and only Allah.”
Sarsour, who was called a “Champion of Change” by the Obama White House, has a long history of speaking kindly of shariah law and terrorists. Sarsour stated that underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a CIA agent; she supports attacks on the Israeli Defense Force; she stated that “the sacrifice the black Muslims slaves went through in this country is nothing compared to Islamophobia today”; she stated that Brigitte Gabriel and victim of Islamic genital mutilation Ayaan Hirsi Ali didn’t deserve to be called women, explaining, ‘I wish I could take their vaginas away – they don’t deserve to be women.”

The UN’s Destructive, and Self-Destructive, Obsession with Israel

On Tuesday, the United Nations Social, Educational, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed a resolution condemning Israel, despite UNESCO’s being an ostensibly apolitical body. This resolution, hardly the first of its kind, typifies the UN’s perverse fixation on Israel, which, as Joshua Muravchik chronicles in a brief history, has existed nearly since the world body’s inception and interferes with its ability to do much else. The story begins with the UN’s approval of a plan to partition Palestine and the Arab world’s response: waging precisely the sort of aggressive war the body was formed to prevent:
Sadly, the UN did nothing to defeat this aggression or others that were to follow in other parts of the world. As a result, the world body grew up devoid of its intended purpose. In its place, member states have pursued a variety of other goals, chief of which have been decolonization, development, peacekeeping, and, remarkably, castigation of Israel. . . .
Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote that upon taking up his duties as chief U.S. ambassador to the UN in 1975, he was startled to discover that Israel was “the center of the political life” of the world body. Moynihan arrived just months after the first UN appearance by Yasir Arafat, chief of the PLO. The event marked a turning point in the UN’s treatment of Israel that ramifies to this day. . . . The PLO then was a long way from becoming the organization that signed the 1993 Oslo Accords with Israel and joined long-term negotiations toward [an ostensible] peaceful settlement. Rather, it was riding the crest of a campaign of international terrorism carried out not only on Israeli soil but also in skies and airports and streets around Western Europe and the Middle East.

Melanie Phillips: The radical difference between antisemitism and Islamophobia

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Watch me here explaining to Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network what I think is the crucial distinction between antisemitism and Islamophobia.

The official Syrian SANA news agency puts its propaganda out in Arabic, English French, Turkish, Spanish, Russian, Farsi - and Hebrew.

It must crush one's soul to know that the hard work you are doing to push Syria's point of view to Israelis is literally worthless. The people who translate the stories into Hebrew know that no one is reading this stuff except perhaps for amusement.

But they soldier on for their beloved genocidal dictator.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

An elephant in the room is missing here:

The High Court of Justice on Tuesday rejected a petition that sought the demolition of the homes of the Jewish killers of East Jerusalem teen Mohammed Abu Khdeir in 2014.

In response to a petition filed by the victim's parents, the state told the court in September 2016 that homes of three murderers of Mohammed Abu Khdeir need not be demolished, as is common policy with homes of Palestinian terrorists.

The judges determined that house demolitions would be ineffective [as a deterrent – vr] in this case due to the time elapsed since the murder and delay in the family's petition. They stressed, however, that contrary to the state's position, the home demolition policy is valid for both Jewish and Arab assailants.

Abu Khdeir was murdered by Yosef Haim Ben-David and two underage accomplices in an act of revenge for the murder by Hamas terrorists of three Jewish teens, Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Fraenkel, that June.

The Court (and the State, in a brief filed in June, 2016), are clear about the fact that the demolition of the homes of terrorists is not a punishment, but an action intended to deter similar acts of terrorism. The State argued that there were far more attacks by Arabs against Jews:

In the letter from the Defense Ministry’s legal adviser to the Abu Khdeir family’s lawyer Muhannad Jbara [in June 2016], the ministry argued that because cases of Jewish terror are so infrequent in relation to Arab attacks against Jews, there is no need to establish a deterrent for future Jewish attackers by demolishing the Abu Khdeir killers’ homes.

The Military Commander “should consider the deterrent effect against potential attackers that will be created by the demolition,” the letter said. “Given the scale of the phenomenon of seriously hostile crimes in the Jewish community, the need to implement this [deterrent] power does not arise.”

Lawyer Jbara argued back, citing the Dawabshe case, that there was a recent increase in attacks by Jews against Arabs, and that therefore there was a need for deterrence. But the court wasn’t convinced at the time, and neither was the Supreme Court on appeal.

Do you see the elephant? It is the fact that neither the infrequency of atrocious crimes committed by Jews against Arabs (or even attributed to Jews without proof, like the Dawabshe case) or the amount of time between the commission of a crime and the demolition of a terrorist’s house should be the most important consideration here. It is that crimes like the Khdeir case are different in a fundamental way from the murders of Shaar, Yifrach and Fraenkel – and even from “lone-wolf” terrorism in which no terrorist organization is directly involved, such as has been endemic in Israel recently.

By saying that the demolition policy could also be applied to Jewish terrorists in some cases, our own Supreme Court is implying that there is an equivalence between Arab terrorism and certain crimes committed by Jews against Arabs. Even the state’s argument that “the [smaller] scale of the phenomenon” of Jewish terrorism is the reason that it is not necessary to demolish perpetrator’s homes implies that the phenomena are similar in kind, although different in quantity. But this is wrong.

The difference, in a word, is that Arab terrorists are sent to do their evil deeds, either by organizations like Hamas, or by the Palestinian Arab culture itself as embodied by friends and relatives, media, schools, mosques and other institutions, including their PA and Hamas governing authorities.

Palestinian Arab terrorists are presented as heroic representatives of their people, role models and exemplars of piety and goodness. Jewish terrorists, on the other hand, are seen as deviants, rejected by most of their society and severely punished by its authorities. Arab media praises their terrorists while Jewish media condemns ours.

Arab terrorists and the families of “martyrs” are not only praised, they are paid for their work by their leadership. Here is a statement on the official Fatah Facebook page (July 2 2017) attributed to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, in response to reports that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked Abbas to stop paying them:

Even if I will have to leave my position, I will not compromise on the salary (rawatib) of a Martyr (Shahid) or a prisoner, as I am the president of the entire Palestinian people, including the prisoners, the Martyrs, the injured, the expelled, and the uprooted. -- [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas.

It is necessary to act against the broad social complex that stands behind Arab terrorists in order to deter future terrorism, and actions like home demolitions are only one element of this. But in the case of Jewish attackers, there is no such social complex, and both the larger society and the leadership condemn their crimes in the strongest possible way. Home demolition would therefore not be a useful response to crimes like the Abu Khdeir murder. Unfortunately, the reasons given to reject it in this case actually support the Palestinian contention that the crimes are similar.

Our government and courts do us no favor by promoting the idea that there is an equivalence between evil acts committed by criminally deviant members of the Jewish population, and systematic terrorism which is inspired, incited and paid for by the PA and Hamas – and which is applauded throughout Palestinian Arab society.

The view that there is such an equivalence is a form of moral inversion, like the false symmetry between Israel’s defensive actions and the aggression of terrorist militias and nations that wish to destroy us. Such inversions have been common in history where anti-Jewish elements have blamed the Jews for the pogroms and mass murders that they inflicted on us.

Moral inversion is one of the weapons of cognitive warfare employed by our enemies. Why do our own courts and officials help them use it?

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