Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, November 27, 2017

How 13th century Jewish scribes disparaged the names of Christian saints

The british Library has digitized about half of its amazing collection of Jewish manuscripts.

The commentary on this page in the Miscellany section, which is a Hebrew depiction of the secular calendar with Christian holidays noted, is simply fascinating:

Christian calendars in Hebrew are not unique. They are found in a few medieval Hebrew manuscripts from 14th-16th-century CE Germany, France and Provence, but the Northern French Hebrew Miscellany is the earliest that is known. Its design is highly unusual as it is laid out in the centre of the page in the intriguing shape of a spiral. The calendar provides a selection of Christian Saint days for every month of the Julian year.[1] The months are given their French name (in Hebrew writing) as well as a Hebrew equivalent. For example, January is identified with the Hebrew month Shevat. We are told it has 31 days, before its Saint days are listed. However, the Jewish authorship of this Christian calendar is never lost on the reader. The names of Saints are often negatively distorted and the title of Saint (in Hebrew qadosh, meaning holy) is hardly ever used, no doubt a deliberate omission.
Critical language exists throughout this calendar. It begins with the title: ‘The months of the non-Jews and their abominations’. The first Saint Day that is listed for January, St Simeon (of the Stylites), is rendered not as Shimon (the Hebrew equivalent name) but as Ṣimaon, which in Hebrew means ‘thirst’. The days of St Mary appear at several points in the year. For example, the Purification of Mary on 2 February, under the name of ḥariah, a distortion of Mariah, which sounds like the Hebrew for excrement. The days of St Peter, for example St Peter’s Chair on 22 February and St Peter and Paul on 29 June, are regularly given as Peṭer ḥamor. The latter means donkey, which is not merely intended as an insult, but as a clever pun on the Biblical Hebrew phrase for first born ass (Exodus 13:13). St John the Baptist, whose birthday is on 24 June, is depicted as Yaḥoram, ‘may he be destroyed’, from Exodus 22:19. It is a distortion of the Hebrew name Yoḥanan, the Hebrew equivalent of John.
All these derogatory names and words have been blackened out in the manuscript, presumably by one of its later Christian owners. But they are still legible behind the ink. The distortion of the names of Christian Saints and feasts was common practice among medieval Jews, and the scribe of this manuscript was most probably following common usage. This usage undoubtedly reveals deep-seated anti-Christian feelings. But its intention was to neutralise the religious significance of Saint Days and feasts, and to avoid the use of what medieval Jews considered to be idolatrous names, whose utterance is forbidden in Exodus 23:13.

There is a lot of great stuff at that site.

(h/t Yoel)

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Der Stürmer has enduring appeal for Israel-haters

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

I just came across a tweet by Andrew Bennett about the notorious “historian” and ardent Israel-hater Ilan Pappé, who claims that “a shadowy Jewish elite deceives the world with a false ‘peace process’ to mask its true intent: the imprisonment of Palestinians.” Indicating his disdain for Pappé’s views, Bennett added a quote from the Nazi publication Der Stürmer: “This is the freedom they promise us/The freedom we see where Judah rules/Behind prison walls and bars/Within a dark prison sits/A humanity that longs for true freedom/And longs for rescue and release.”

I found the quote striking because of the line “where Judah rules.” Of course, the Nazis imagined the oppressive rule of “Judah” everywhere; but all too obviously, today’s anti-Israel activists remain indebted to the Nazi idea that Jewish rule is intolerable, even if it extends only over a tiny sliver of the Middle East.

When I looked up the quote, I found that it had appeared in the issue of 17 June 1943 of Der Stürmer, together with an image of a (white/”Aryan”) prisoner behind bars; the image and the original German text can best be seen here.

It is arguably a particularly chilling image, given that at the time it was published, hundreds of thousands of Jews languished as prisoners in Nazi concentration camps.

In our time, it’s of course Palestine that is imprisoned by “Judah”/Israel – here are two examples from Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff; the image on the right won him second prize at Iran’s 2006 “International Holocaust Cartoon Contest,” and tellingly, he shared this prize with far-right French cartoonist Françoise Pichard.

However, while the Nazis vividly imagined the viciousness and cruelty of Jewish rule, even they might have shuddered to learn from Rutgers professor Jasbir Puar that these days, “Judah”/Israel doesn’t just claim the “right to kill” its hapless prisoners, but also insists on “the right to maim” in order to “enable the mass debilitation of Palestinian bodies.”

Another motif from Der Stürmer that remains very popular is the idea that the Jew is behind – and benefits from – violence and bloodshed anywhere the world, as Der Stürmer reminded its readers in the 18 May 1944 issue.

Pretty much the same idea is behind the “Deadly Exchange” campaign of the Orwellian-named Jewish Voice for Peace, which – as Andrew Bennett has shown in a detailed analysis – “alleges a moneyed Jewish conspiracy to kill innocent Americans.”

But of course, people who always find a way to blame the Jews are a dime a dozen: a reporter interviewing an Egyptian who had lost several relatives in the recent terror attack on a mosque found that “he blames Israel for the massacre, saying that Israel created and controls #ISIS.” Palestinian religious leaders in Gaza also quickly concluded that the “Zionists” were somehow involved, while ardent Israel-hater Miko Peled offered a slightly different version, insisting that the terrorist atrocity was “a direct result of the regional instability caused by #Sisi and his criminal collaboration w #Israel.” Veteran anti-Israel propagandist Ali Abunimah liked Peled’s take and promptly re-tweeted it.

However, no worries: as you can learn later this week at The New School, it’s not antisemitism if you change the old Der Stürmer slogan “The Jews are our misfortune” to “The Jewish state is our misfortune.”

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11/27 Links Pt1: Libel in official PA daily: Israel and the US behind terror attack in Egypt; PA opposes Jews' visits to Temple Mount

From Ian:

JCPA: 70 Years after UN Resolution 181: An Assessment

Seventy years ago, on November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 calling for the partition of Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The Jews accepted the plan with a mixture of joy and hesitation, while the Arabs rejected it and launched a war to forcibly prevent its implementation.

The Arabs denied the Jews any right whatsoever in their ancestral homeland, and a large majority still maintains this view to this day.

Since the Arab states rejected the resolution upon its adoption and prevented its implementation, the Palestinian leadership can neither logically nor legally claim today that Resolution 181 can serve as a basis for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Moreover, the partition plan refers to the creation of an Arab state, not a Palestinian state. Indeed, nowhere does it indicate the creation of a Palestinian state for the Palestinian people. There was never any such designation as “Palestinian” for the Arab population residing in the area.

Finally, according to the UN Charter, General Assembly resolutions are simply recommendations and are not legally binding. Only resolutions adopted by the Security Council under Chapter 7 of the Charter may be obligatory. Thus, Resolution 181 cannot in any manner be considered to be a basis for a Palestinian claim to statehood.

Israel to re-enact historic UN vote that led to its establishment

The Israeli delegation to the U.N. will mark 70 years to the historic vote on Nov. 29, 1947 that resulted in the establishment of a Jewish state in Israel with a festive re-enactment of the vote, to be attended by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and dozens of ambassadors from around the world.

The re-enactment, the initiative of Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon in collaboration with the World Jewish Congress, will kick off a series of celebrations in honor of 70 years to the Jewish state's founding. The event will be held at the original hall where the vote was held in 1947. The hall, which is now located inside the Queens Museum in New York, has been decorated to look as it did on the day of the historic vote, with wooden tables, a stage and a world map hanging on the wall. At the conclusion of the vote, dancers will break out in the hora, just as they did in the actual vote in 1947. Israeli singer Ninet Tayeb will then perform "Jerusalem of Gold."

Pence will be a guest of honor at the ceremony and will be accompanied by U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who is Jewish. Dozens of diplomats and ambassadors will also attend the event, including World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder as well as representatives from the 33 countries that voted in favor of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine, as well as local Jewish community leaders.

"We are proud to celebrate with our heads held high the definitive event that led to the establishment of the state and present the achievements and the vast support that Israel has around the world," Danon said. "It is a great honor for Israel to host Vice President Pence at the festivities. The president of the United States 70 years ago, Harry Truman, was the first leader to recognize the State of Israel with its founding. Ever since then, Israel has had no better friend than the United States."

On Tuesday, New York's Times Square will show clips from the historic vote alongside Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel as well as footage of modern-day Israel on its megascreens. Dancers waving Israeli flags and wearing shirts saying "I love Israel" will dance in Times Square at the event, the initiative of the World Zionist Organization and the Zionist Organization of America.

Amb. Danny Danon: We fulfilled the dream

Seventy years have passed since the moment that will forever be engraved in the history of our people, and since then, every one of us can picture themselves listening to the radio, tense with anticipation, during that historic vote on Nov. 29, 1947.

Every time we watch or listen to the long minutes of the vote, which seemed to last as long as our 2,000 years in the Diaspora, we get chills.

In 1897, Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl imagined the unimaginable when he wrote, "At Basel, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today l would be greeted by universal laughter. In five years perhaps, and certainly in fifty years, everyone will perceive it."

Fifty years later, the Zionist dream came true. Reality eclipsed anything we could have imagined and the U.N. recognized the establishment of the Jewish state in the land of Israel. Today, 70 years after the vote, we stand with our heads held high, proud of our extraordinary achievements, and continue to believe and dream.

Looking back from where we are today, in a strong, thriving and independent Israel, it might be hard to fathom the tense atmosphere that preceded the vote, how momentous it was or the herculean efforts on the part of the Jewish leadership, which realized that the fate of their people rested on their shoulders.

Today, we are grateful to the 33 nations that voted in favor of founding the Jewish state, thereby changing history.

Last time, I discussed how perfectly reasonable decisions by the American Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) to minimize issues that divide (notably doctrine) in favor of matters that could unite (fighting for secular political causes) had negative (and linked) unintended consequences.

Most significantly for PCUSA: these choices led to an acceleration of the membership decline the new priorities were supposed to stem. But for the Jewish community, the elevation of politics made the church vulnerable to the blandishments of BDS, a propaganda campaign ready to demand (for years and decades if necessary) that anyone claiming to fight for “social justice” must embrace their anti-Israel hysteria – or else.

Another Protestant group – the Quakers – have also embraced religiously inspired anti-Israel animus, with far more vengeance than their Presbyterian brethren. In fact, outside of Muslim organizations or fringe front groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, there are few institutions in the country more dedicated to BDS than the Quakers. But their trajectory towards this position was different than that of the Presbyterians in several subtle but significant ways.

To begin with, Quakerism already experienced membership collapse in the US centuries ago when it moved from serious Protestant contender in Colonial times (when as much as a third of Colonial Americans may have been Quaker) to the tiny sect it is today with fewer than 80,000 members in the country.

Quakerism also reinvented itself in the early 20th century, becoming the religious focal point for political Pacifism, a position that put the group at odds with the American government and public in the run up to World War I. In the face of this hostility, church organizations and members showed courage in standing up for their Pacifist beliefs, volunteering for alternatives to military service that put individual Quakers in harm’s way without requiring them to kill.

But something happened to this pacific sect as the Second World War gave way to the Cold War. For, as this piece describes, Quaker politics (always presented as religiously inspired) moved from condemning all violence from all sides anywhere and anytime, to becoming a critic of US foreign policy and champion of Left Wing causes – including causes whose members refused to give up the gun.

Given this evolution, it’s easy to see how the obsession of today’s Quakers with Israel fits the church’s postwar political framework. But the church’s direct involvement in the Middle East also lent elements of religious bigotry (in the form of Supersessionism) to the brew.

Supersessionism was originally a widespread Christian belief which held that the covenant God gave the Jews at Sinai was passed on to those who accepted Christ’s divinity. This is what allowed generations of Christians over the Millennia to treat Jews among them not as forerunners to the faith, but as has-beens whom God has rejected in favor of believers in the new creed.

Both Catholicism and Protestantism wrestled with their own church’s Supersessionist history and theology, especially given the contributions that belief system lent to historic anti-Semitism and, ultimately, the Holocaust.

Mainstream rejection of Supersessionist beliefs left this theology confined to the religious/political fringes. For the straight-on anti-Semitic Right, mouth-breathing shouts of “You will not replace us!” carry the irony of accusation against a people (You = Jew) whom Identity Christians believe they have already replaced in God’s eye.

On the other end of the political spectrum, chants of “Palestine from the River to the Sea,” spell out who is to succeed whom in the Holy Land, with all the dark consequences for the Jewish state and the Jews who make it up one does not have to imagine. Yet this is the very goal Quakers routinely defend with religious language and fervor, oblivious to the violent history of those they support and the bloodshed their vision of “justice” would unquestionably entail.

If the notion of a Pacifist religious organization enthusiastically supporting (and sometimes leading) the propaganda arm of a violent war against the Jewish state strikes you as incongruous, keep in mind that the leadership of today’s Quaker organizations have nothing to do with the courageous men and women from a century ago who struggled to balance their personal moral beliefs with their commitment to the wider society.

Rather, today’s church is led by partisan charlatans who live off moral capital produced by their forefathers, capital they have chosen to spend by handing the organization’s name and reputation over to violent bigots.

When the self-righteous sell their souls, they tend to inflate the evil of those they fight against in order to justify the corruption they have let loose within their own institutions. So it should come as no surprise that Quakers fearful of the devil they must confront in the mirror put so much effort into convincing themselves and others that the Zionist enemy they have invested so much in attacking must represent not God nor man, but Satan.

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The past 8 months prove (again) that "pro-Palestinian" really means "anti-Israel"

The Palestinian Authority knowingly put thousands of Gazans' lives at risk starting in March of this year - and the world didn't care.

Even the UN knows, and buries, the truth.

From the latest OCHA (UN) Gaza Crisis paper:

A series of measures implemented by the Palestinian Authority since March 2017, following an escalation in the internal Palestinian divide, have led to a deterioration in the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. ....These measures have exacerbated Gaza’s energy crisis, resulting in increasing outages from 12-16 to 18-20 hours a day, worsened the salary crisis in the public sector, increased the shortage of essential drugs from around 33% in March to 45% in October and delayed the referral of patients for medical treatment outside Gaza. These developments have impacted the availability of essential services and the livelihoods of Gaza’s two million residents. The following indicators were identified by the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) to monitor the evolution of the crisis, trigger humanitarian action and prevent further deterioration. Despite an agreement signed in October 2017 between Fatah and Hamas, most of the measures that triggered the recent deterioration have not been reversed.

The graphs that UN-OCHA provides show a sharp deterioration of the quality of life in Gaza starting in March when the PA started cutting off electricity and medicine:

In black and white, one can see the stark results of the PA's cutting off essential services to Gaza. And these statistics were known for 8 months.

Where were the protests in the streets of London? Where were the peace activists? Where were the "human rights" NGOs? This year, Gaza plunged from a bad place to live into an impossible place to live, and it is all because of decisions made by Gaza's own fellow Palestinian Arab leaders.

The lack of media attention to this is, frankly, criminal. The only protests about Gaza are aimed at Israel. No one blames Hamas for violently splitting with the PA; no one blames the PA for collective punishment of two million people. The things that Israel is routinely blamed for are totally ignored when Arabs do much worse.

These past eight months are all the proof you need that all those protesters, all those NGOs and all those politicians who pretend to care about Gazans are full of crap.

Just like they don't care about thousands of Palestinians killed in Syria, and hundreds of thousands who became refugees. Just like they don't care about explicit discrimination against Palestinians in Lebanon and Jordan and Egypt. Just like they don't care about legal disenfranchisement of Palestinians in every single Arab country.

If Israel isn't involved, the world's concern for Palestinians is virtually zero.

When Israel can be blamed, rightly or wrongly, the world's concern for Palestinians far outstrips its concern for every other group whose suffering is far worse.

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Earlier this month I wrote that a Haaretz article about the Palestinian rejection of John Kerry's framework for peace accepted by Netanyahu - and its ignoring a sweetened version of the plan - is the biggest story about Israel that everyone has ignored. The timeline is shown to the right.

Part of what is so maddening about the story - a story that destroys the stereotypes both of an intransigent Netanyahu and of a moderate, flexible Abbas - is that Kerry knows the truth, and even so he continues to primarily blame Israel primarily for the failure of the Obama-era peace push. The recently surfaced recording of Kerry in Dubai last year blaming Israel alone is but the most recently publicized example.

The reporter of the Haaretz story, Amir Tibon, has been reporting on the failed talks for years. He co-wrote a very comprehensive article for the New Republic on the same topic in 2014.

In that article, he described a scene where Obama presented Erekat and Abbas with the sweetened plan that would give them a capital in Jerusalem:

The next day at the White House, Obama tried his luck with the Palestinian leader. He reviewed the latest American proposals, some of which had been tilted in Abbas’s direction. (The document would now state categorically that there would be a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem.) “Don’t quibble with this detail or that detail,” Obama said. “The occupation will end. You will get a Palestinian state. You will never have an administration as committed to that as this one.” Abbas and Erekat were not impressed.

What happened next crystallizes the entire Palestinian position towards peace and having a state perfectly:

After the meeting, the Palestinian negotiator saw Susan Rice—Abbas’s favorite member of the Obama administration—in the hall. “Susan,” he said, “I see we’ve yet to succeed in making it clear to you that we Palestinians aren’t stupid.” Rice couldn’t believe it. “You Palestinians,” she told him, “can never see the fucking big picture.”

Erekat is proud of Palestinian intransigence. He says that accepting a peace plan from the most pro-Palestinian president in history is "stupid." He and Abbas want more, far more, and will always respond with a "no."

And their favorite person in the Obama administration calls them on it. Susan Rice tells them that, once again, they are the ones who have sabotaged peace.

What more proof does one need that it is Abbas and his team who are the obstacles to peace?

Yet this richly documented story, like the Haaretz story, is ignored by a world that is emotionally invested in the lazy memes of "intransigent Likud" and "moderate, peace seeking Abbas."

The truth is right here. But no one wants to open their eyes.

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Where is Benjamin's grave?

I saw an Egyptian article that says that some Egyptians claim that the gravesite of Benjamin, son of Jacob, is in the west side of Cairo.

According to the article, residents around the building (which is naturally a mosque) have egarded the site as sacred for decades. The Egyptian government has never officially recognized it, though.

The sign on the room that supposedly contains the tomb says "Here lies our master Benjamin, the brother of our master Joseph."

Interestingly, the Arabic article calls Joseph "Joseph Siddiq" which I believe is cognate with his Hebrew appellation, Yosef HaTzadik, or "Joseph the Righteous."

Pilgrims come from India and Iran and some Gulf countries besides Egypt. Residents say that some Jews come there as well.

There is no tradition in Hebrew scriptures as to where Benjamin is buried. The midrash in Sefer HaYashar says he was buried in Jerusalem.

But there is a site in Israel in Kfar Saba that is claimed to be Benjamin's gravesite:

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From Petra, the official Jordanian news agency:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, on Friday said that Jordanians and Palestinians are "one people living in two states", appreciating His Majesty King Abdullah II, who spared no occasion to defend the Palestinian cause and Jerusalem before the world.

If any Western leader would say this, there would be incredulous op-eds castigating him or her.

If Netanyahu would say this, the UN would call for a resolution condemning him.

When Abbas says something that puts into question whether there ever was a "Palestinian people" that was distinct from the rest of the Arab world - crickets.

(h/t This Ongoing War)

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11/26 Links: Dershowitz: Dems' double standard on terrorists murdering Israelis; The “Black Friday” Massacre in the Sinai Mosque

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: Dems' double standard on terrorists murdering Israelis

Palestinian terrorist leaders often use teenagers to commit acts of terror because they know the Israeli legal system treats children more leniently than adults. Now 10 Democrats belonging to the Congressional Progressive Caucus are trying to give terrorist leaders yet another reason for using young people to murder even more innocent civilians.

Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., introduced legislation Nov. 14 – co-sponsored by nine other Democrats – calling on the State Department to “prevent United States tax dollars from supporting the Israeli military’s ongoing detention and mistreatment of Palestinian children.”

In a news release about the proposed legislation, McCollum said: “This legislation highlights Israel’s system of military detention of Palestinian children and ensures that no American assistance to Israel supports human rights violations …. Peace can only be achieved by respecting human rights, especially the rights of children. Congress must not turn a blind eye the unjust and ongoing mistreatment of Palestinian children living under Israeli occupation.”

It is well established that recruiting and using young Palestinians to wage terror on Israeli civilians is part of the modus operandi of Palestinian terrorist leaders. For decades, members of the radical Palestinian political and religious leadership have been stirring up young people to wage war against the Jews and the Jewish State.

This was seen in the gruesome intifada that began in 2000, in which Palestinian teenagers committed dozens of attacks against Jewish Israelis on buses, in cafes and at nightclubs.

More recently – in what has become known as the “lone-wolf” intifada – children as young as 13 have stabbed Israelis with scissors, screwdrivers and knives.

Legislation proposed by the 10 Democrats is titled the Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act. The bill does not explicitly define at what age a person moves from childhood to adulthood.

While noting that children between the ages of 12 and 17 are held and prosecuted by Israeli military courts, the bill fails to acknowledge that some of the most barbaric terrorist attacks against Jewish Israelis have been committed by Palestinian teens.

Richard Millett: Students at SOAS told that Zionists paraded dead and mutilated Arab bodies through Jerusalem.

There is currently a hate-filled anti-Israel exhibition in the library at SOAS. It has been up since October 25th and finishes on November 30th. During this time thousands of SOAS students will have been subjected to sick lies about Israel.

One exhibit is a cake filled with M16 bullets supposed to represent the time an Arab girl baked a cake for her sister in “Fawwar refugee camp near Hebron” in 1967.

The exhibition is called Memory Metamorphosis: An Exhibition of Palestine Remembered. The exhibits are based on interviews with Palestinians.

On Thurdsay night I went to a discussion at SOAS about this exhibition chaired by SOAS lecturer Rafeef Ziadah. On her panel were two of the artists; Jacqueline Reem Salloum and Suhel Nafar. Also on the panel was Hazem Jamjoum from New York University.

Jamjoun explained that someone they tried to interview for the exhibition had lived in Deir Yassin. Jamjoun told the audience what apparently happened there:

“There was a retributory attack on Deir Yassin. The bodies of the people who were killed and mutilated were then paraded around the Zionist neighbourhoods of western Jerusalem. It was a very intentional psychological warfare of getting stories of murder, rape and killing pregnant women to go far because it would scare and was extremely effective.”

A new book describes there being nothing of the sort having happened at Deir Yassin.

JCPA: The “Black Friday” Massacre in the Sinai Mosque

The Struggle between the Islamic State and the Sufis

Residents of the Al-Rawdah village said the terror attack on the mosque began during Friday prayers a short time before the sermon. Explosions ripped through the mosque, and hundreds of worshippers were then shot at from close range for 10 to 20 minutes. Some 25 to 30 terrorists fired with automatic weapons after arriving at the mosque in four-wheel-drive vehicles.

The residents say the mosque was attacked because it is a Sufi place of worship; Al Qaeda and the Islamic State regard Sufi Muslims as heretics. In addition, the terror organizations operating in the Sinai Peninsula view residents of the village who belong to the Al-Sawarka Bedouin tribe as collaborators with the Egyptian police and army.

Sufism is a mystical trend in Islam that deals, among other things, with the doctrine of the “hidden.” The Al-Rawdah mosque belongs to the Sufi stream, and the Islamic State had made threats to attack it. However, no special security measures were taken there.

The mosque itself was established by the Sufi Sheikh Eid Abu Jarir, founder of the Sufi community in the Sinai Peninsula. About 90 percent of those living in the Al-Rawdah village are Sufis, and they have good relations with the Egyptian security establishment.

As noted, the Islamic State sees the Sufis as heretics against Islam. In 2013 Islamic State terrorists blew up both the tomb of the Sufi Sheikh Salim Abu Jarir in the village of Mazar and the tomb of Sheikh Hamid in the Al-Mughara region, both of which are located in Sinai.

In November 2016, Islamic State terrorists murdered 90-year-old Sheikh Sulaiman Abu Haraz, the senior figure among the Sufi sheikhs in Sinai.

40th anniversary of Sadat's visit ignored by "pro-peace" groups

J-Street has a page dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, including criticism of the document by this supposedly "pro-Israel" organization.

[T]he Declaration didn’t explicitly mention the rights of the indigenous Palestinian people who had inhabited the land for centuries and, most importantly, failed to recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination in a national home alongside the Jewish state. In many ways, these omissions laid the groundwork for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Jeremy Ben Ami adds:

As we mark 100 years since the Balfour Declaration and even celebrate the first international recognition of the cause of Jewish national independence in the modern era, there seems to me to be good reason to take equal notice of the century of violence and the ongoing conflicts that trace their origins to the mistakes and gamesmanship of the Balfour era.

Really? There was no Arab violence against Jews in Palestine before 1917?

Idiot.

But what is more interesting is that this "pro-peace" group did not say a word about the most successful peace event of the past century for Israel - the 40th anniversary of Sadat's visit to Jerusalem, which happened this month.

Similarly, "Jewish Voice for Peace" tweeted over a dozen times against Balfour, but didn't mention Israeli-Egyptian peace.

The only peace group I could find that mentioned it was Peace Now, which mentioned it in a weekly interview with Yossi Alpher - and not wholly supportively.

There are at least two reasons the "peace camp" doesn't like to mention the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement.

One is that they want to paint Israel as the party that doesn't want peace, and the fact that Israel has shown that it really does want peace and is willing to make sacrifices for real peace contradicts their entire basis for existing.

Two is that not only did Israel make peace with Egypt, but it was a right-wing Likud government that made peace. That is something they cannot stomach.

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Islamic Jihad and Hamas, both offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, and ideological cousin to ISIS, is blaming Israel for the horrific terror attack against a Sufi mosque in Egypt.

Gaza clerics held a meeting to respond to the attacks, and Gaza terror groups are very sensitive to upsetting Egypt, since the Rafah border crossing is important to them for travel and Egypt has blamed Gaza terror groups for arming Sinai terror groups. It appears that Islamic Jihad and possibly Hamas was involved in putting this emergency meeting together to distance those Islamist terror groups from Sinai Islamist terror groups.

The main theme of their statements was that the purpose of these attacks was to '"establish chaos in the Egyptian Republic and turn it into separate entities to serve the enemies of the Islamic religion, especially the Israeli entity."

Sheikh Abdul Fattah Hajjaj, head of the Iqra Charity Association, said "this murder and terrorism that targeted Egypt raises questions about the objectives of those terrorist groups that serve only the Zionist enemy."

Sheikh Nimer Abu Aoun said on behalf of his fellow Islamist sheikhs that "We are absolved of the criminal act that targeted Egypt and Arabism and this terrorist act is forbidden in Islam" and called for "Love, cooperation, harmony and tolerance among the sons of the Arab and Islamic nation because the Islamic religion is one religion for all people." He said the attack was "a conspiracy run by the enemies of Islam against Egypt and its people and its army."

Sheikh Samih Hajjaj, the General Director of the Azhar Institutes in Palestine, said the attack was meant "to weaken the great army feared by Israel, and rid Egypt of any economic and social plans."

Keep in mind that the media in Gaza, including religious media, is filled with calls to violence and murder. But not usually against other Muslims.

A mark of maturity is the ability to take responsibility for things. ISIS, Al Qaeda and other terror groups didn't appear out of a vacuum - their founders were all members of the Muslim Brotherhood, as were the founders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. There is no difference in their interpretations of the Koran that I am aware of. By claiming that these ISIS and ISIS-inspired attacks are really done on behalf of Israel (or, as Iran says, the US,) the Muslim world is not doing anything to actually solve the problem. On the contrary, they are trying to distance themselves from these groups - because they know that their own support for terror is not very far from that of ISIS and al-Qaeda and they do not have an ideological leg to stand on.

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Saturday was the "International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women."

The Palestinian Authority noted the day, in its usual way: by using it as a platform to blame Israel.

While one in four married Palestinian women report physical abuse, this is not mentioned in the official PA commemorations of the day. They brush aside any hint of those problems and only admit gender discrimination as a result of Arab heritage.

Instead, they say that all of the problems of Palestinian women are a result of the "occupation." At a conference last week, PA officials and ministers talked about how Palestinian women were fighting for Jerusalem against Israeli violence, how Jews are supposedly taking off their headscarves, and it called on the international community and international NGOs "to stand up against the violations committed against women in Jerusalem in particular and in Palestine in general through implementing United Nations resolutions on ending the occupation and recognition of the Palestinian state."

The PA knowingly avoids the very real problems of domestic abuse, honor killings, women who are raped who are then accused of adultery, and the majority of Palestinian wives who report psychological abuse from their husbands. Instead , it uses the day as yet another way to blame Israel for all its problems.

Which means that it isn't the "occupation" that hurts women - it is the politicization of the topic that allows the Palestinian Authority to avoid actually dealing with its own issues and problems in its own society because of its single-minded desire to attack Israel by any and all means.

It should be noted that the only time the PA pretends to care about domestic violence against women is when outside agencies give it money earmarked specifically for that purpose. On its own, however, women are just another bullet to try to hurt Israel - and in the end the only people being hurt are the women themselves, who are doubly victimized, both as victims of abuse in their own society and then as pawns in the PA's never ending campaign to use any topic, no matter how far fetched, as a reason to bash Israel.

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