Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, March 10, 2018

03/10 Links: Putin suggests ‘Jews with Russian citizenship’ behind US election interference; Dershowitz: What Is a "Refugee"? The Jews from Morocco versus the Palestinians from Israel

From Ian:

Putin suggests ‘Jews with Russian citizenship’ behind US election interference

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the NBC network over the weekend that Russians who sought to influence the results of the 2016 presidential elections could have been “Jews, but with Russian citizenship.”

In the interview, a full transcript of which was released by the Kremlin on Saturday, the Russia president said “I do not care at all, because they do not represent the government.

“Maybe they are not even Russians, but Ukrainians, Tatars or Jews, but with Russian citizenship, which should also be checked; maybe they have dual citizenship or a green card; maybe the US paid them for this. How can you know that? I do not know either,” he said.

Putin insisted such efforts could not be tied to the Kremlin.

“Why have you decided the Russian authorities, myself included, gave anybody permission to do this?” Putin asked in the often-combative interview.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is conducting a wide-ranging investigation to determine whether President Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Moscow to help elect him.

Last month Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies for allegedly backing Trump’s campaign, maligning his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and engaging in other election interference.

Alan M. Dershowitz: What Is a "Refugee"? The Jews from Morocco versus the Palestinians from Israel

Approximately the same number of Jews were displaced from their Arab homelands during this period. Nearly all of them could trace their heritage back thousands of years, well before the Muslims and Arabs became the dominant population. Like the Palestinian Arabs, some left voluntarily, but many had no realistic choice. The similarities are striking, but so are the differences.

The most significant difference is between how Israel dealt with the Jews who were displaced and how the Arab and Muslim word dealt with the Palestinians who had been displaced by a war they started.

Israel integrated its brothers and sisters from the Arab and Muslim world. The Arab world put its Palestinian brothers and sisters in refugee camps, treating them as political pawns — and festering sores — in its persistent war against the Jewish state.

It has now been 70 years since this exchange of populations occurred. It is time to end the deadly charade of calling the displaced Palestinians "refugees." Almost none of the neatly five million Arabs who now seek to claim the mantle of "Palestinian refugee" was ever actually in Israel. They are the descendants — some quite distant — of those who were actually displaced in 1948. The number of surviving Arabs who were personally forced out of Israel by the war started by their brethren is probably no more a few thousand, probably less. Perhaps they should be compensated, but not by Israel. The compensation should come from Arab countries that illegally seized the assets of their erstwhile Jewish residents whom they forced to leave. These few thousand Palestinians have no greater moral, historic or legal claim than the surviving Jewish individuals who were displaced during the same time period seven decades ago.

In life as in law there are statutes of limitations that recognize that history changes the status quo. The time has come – indeed it is long overdue – for the world to stop treating these Palestinians as refugees. That status ended decades ago. The Jews who came to Israel from Morocco many years ago are no longer refugees. Neither are the relatives of the Palestinians who have lived outside of Israel for nearly three quarters of a century.

Melanie Phillips: The Right Is Sticking by What They Think Is Right

Although Women’s March leaders said Farrakhan’s statements were “not aligned with the Women’s March Unity Principles,” other progressives have supported Mallory. New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Donna Lieberman called her “a fearless fighter against racism.”

According to The Daily Caller, at least seven Democrats had meetings with Farrakhan while in Congress, with Rep. Danny K. Davis calling him an “outstanding human being.” And in 2013, Democratic National Committee Vice Chairman Keith Ellison, who worked for the Nation of Islam for 18 months (although he subsequently damned its antisemitism), dined with Farrakhan and Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani when the latter visited the United Nations in 2013, and was said by Farrakhan to have dined with him again in 2016.

In Britain, transgender activist Munroe Bergdorf was appointed by the Labour Party as an adviser on LGBT+ issues, even though the previous year she had made a number of offensive comments, including claiming that all white people were racist and calling the suffragettes “white supremacists.” When this was revealed in the press, it was another week before she resigned.

Not surprising: Such black-on-white racism is common on the left. And its open antisemitism is now a running sore. This week, the Labour Party launched an investigation into claims by the blogger David Collier that party members posted antisemitic comments on a closed Facebook group run by Palestinian activists, which included discussions of conspiracy myths about the Rothschilds and supposed Israeli involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as well as links to material produced by neo-Nazi groups.

Trump and Netanyahu supporters may hold their noses for the greater good. But on the left, bad people are supported because the left believes bad things.

Dry Bones, December 20, 2015

I spoke for a short while with a European who works for the US Consulate in (east) Jerusalem. His role is to help train PA security forces.

From the State Department:

A three-star officer serves as the United States Security Coordinator (USSC) to assist the PA to transform and professionalize its security sector; engage with the Israelis and Palestinians on security initiatives that build trust and confidence; and support U.S. and international efforts that set the conditions for a lasting and peace agreement. INL (US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs) works closely with the USSC to implement security assistance programs for the PA, and provides the funding necessary to support the PASSTP and related U.S. efforts. The U.S. also coordinates with the Government of Israel in order to implement this program.

Goals: The INL program began in 2007 with a key goal to establish at least nine special battalions within the PA National Security Force (NSF), a gendarmerie-like force with the mission to provide a rapid reaction capability to support the Palestinian Civil Police (PCP). After attaining this milestone in 2012, the program’s overall focus shifted from build, train, and equip to one focused on assisting the PA to develop further the institutional capacities to maintain these gains. The program now continues to assist the PA to professionalize its security forces, and assist the PA to build, maintain, and sustain security and justice sector institutions necessary for a future Palestinian state.

I wasn't aware that the US was still actively working with the PA on security training. I was aware of a similar initiative by the EU called EUPOL-COPPS.

I asked this man whether the PA has stopped coordination with the US program since the Trump declaration of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, as they claimed they would. He answered with an anecdote.

One day, when he and his coworkers - most of them not US citizens - drove up to Ramallah, they were stopped by the PA police. This had never happened before; up until then the PA police would just be hanging out and not doing anything. But this time they were hostile and not letting them through, even though the group has diplomatic plates.

The PA policeman asked what country they were from, and one of them answered honestly that he was Canadian. Suddenly, the PA officer became very friendly, and said that Canadians are his favorite people, and let them go.

I'm not quite sure how to interpret this story. It seems that the coordination and training is still happening but in a lower-key way where the American source of the training is being downplayed.

This is a very honor/shame type story, where for honor purposes the American presence must be declared to be illegal in the PA, but as long as there can be a pretense that this training comes from the EU and elsewhere.

I do not understand why the US has outsourced this role almost completely to non-Americans.

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03/09 Links Pt2: Farrakhan and the Left; Antifa: the militant wing of authoritarianism; Caitlyn Jenner’s Love & Admiration For The Jewish People And Israel

From Ian:

TWS Editorial: Farrakhan and the Left

How strange that self-proclaimed “intersectional” feminists such as Sarsour, Mallory, and Perez would support an openly misogynistic and racist demagogue like Farrakhan. Among his more recent offerings: “When a woman does not know how to cook and the right foods to cook, she's preparing death for herself, her husband and her children.” He’s also observed that “man is supposed to have rule, especially in his own house . . . and when she rules you, you become her child.” Directly to women he asserted: “You are a failure if you can’t keep a man, no profession can keep you happy!” One wonders what it is about him that these feminists find so alluring.

More troubling, perhaps, is the recently surfaced photo of a 2005 Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) meeting with Farrakhan. It featured then-senator Barack Obama posing for a photo with the Nation of Islam leader. The photographer, Askia Muhammad, now says the CBC asked him to suppress the image because it might have derailed Obama’s campaign. Nor is that the only time CBC members hobnobbed with Farrakhan: As Jeryl Bier pointed out in the Wall Street Journal in January, several of them can be seen shaking hands and hugging in a 2009 YouTube video.

We doubt the photo with Farrakhan would have hurt Obama, who easily weathered revelations of his long association with the similarly anti-semitic and anti-American Jeremiah Wright. These associations are troubling all the same, however the preponderance of mainstream journalists may wish to look the other way. We suspect that if a photo emerges some day of Donald Trump or George W. Bush grinning with Richard Spencer, the New York Times will make room for it on page 1A.

When asked about the CBC’s meeting and his relationship with Farrakhan, Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) defended his relationship with Farrakhan by remarking that “the world is so much bigger than Farrakhan and the Jewish question and his position on that and so forth.” That phrase, “the Jewish question”—where have we heard that before?

Women's March says it loves, but spreads hatred instead

Interesting how the Women’s March claims to be “inclusive” and for “free speech” when they only allow the opinions of giddy liberal women who have no clue what’s really going on. And they are decidedly pro-Palestinian to the exclusion of every other group in spite of their claims otherwise.

“Pro apartheid” is a common statement used as propaganda by the pro-Palestinian crowd. The Jewish women were even called “Nazis” by one woman on the page a term that cuts at the heart of who the ladies are. The Women’s March claims to be inclusive, yet have thrown Jewish women out of the marches so often, that a new band of progressive Jewish women formed their own group, according to Algemeiner.

Another Women’s March organizer Carmen Perez is also a fan of Farrakhan. In this picture below from her Instagram account Perez (on the right) honored the hater as a valued elder.

When the ADL asked Ms.Perez about her association with Farrakhan, Perez refused to denounce his anti-Semitism and instead retorted: “There are no perfect leaders.” In other words, “of course he is a hater, but who cares.

The Women’s March could write 100-page manifesto declaring how they love everybody–but the truth is, the women leading the Women’s March and the organizations it associates with are haters. or people who condone hatred, and should be labeled as such by the media, and by all people who abhor bigotry.

Dem Rep Who Had Called Farrakhan An ‘Outstanding Human Being’ Releases New Statement Condemning Him By Name

Rep. Danny Davis (D., Ill.) released a new statement Thursday evening denouncing anti-Semitic Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan after an earlier, weaker statement led liberal Jewish group J Street to say it was reevaluating its endorsement of him.

A month early, The Forward reports, Davis called Farrakhan an "outstanding human being."

The congressman had also downplayed the importance of Farrakhan's anti-Semitism by saying "The world is so much bigger than Farrakhan and the Jewish question and his position on that and so forth."

After criticism from the Jewish community, Davis' statement Monday did not address his own words about "the Jewish question" and instead blamed media for asking him about the controversy, although it was titled "Statement of Danny K. Davis on Anti-Semitism."

"Recently the ultra-right propaganda site The Daily Caller attempted to impugn my character," his statement began.

"History is replete with the horrific consequences of racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, male chauvinism and other forms of hatred and bigotry and discrimination," Davis wrote, saying that those who promote those views are "pursuing an agenda which I will never accept."

03/09 Links Pt1: Glick: Achieving AIPAC’s mission; Does Hamas have the courage to admit failure?; UNRWA Textbooks Still Contain Endless Incitement

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Achieving AIPAC’s mission

AIPAC’s mission to cultivate and maintain bipartisan support for Israel in the United States is an important mission. Unfortunately, the messages AIPAC’s leaders delivered during the organization’s annual policy convention this week in Washington indicate that they are at a loss for how to achieve their mission in the contentious political environment now prevalent in post- Obama America.

Their befuddlement is not surprising. For the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, AIPAC’s leaders showed a consistent inability to understand the challenges they faced. And since they were unable to understand how or why the Obama administration was undermining AIPAC, they couldn’t protect AIPAC or advance its mission during his tenure in office.

At this week’s AIPAC convention, the message emanating from the speeches AIPAC’s senior leadership delivered was that they still don’t get what happened.

And largely as a consequence, they do not understand the challenges they face as an organization moving forward. And again, since they don’t understand what happened, or what is happening, they are incapable of meeting today’s challenges to AIPAC’s mission in a constructive way.

In a 2014 article in Tablet online magazine, Lee Smith set out precisely what Obama was doing to AIPAC and what his motivations were. Smith’s article was published shortly after Obama brutally scuttled AIPAC’s attempt to lobby Democrats to support additional sanctions against Iran for its illicit nuclear program. In the course of the Obama’s White House’s onslaught against AIPAC, administration officials were quoted referring to AIPAC lobbyists as “warmongers” for seeking additional sanctions against Iran – sanctions that enjoyed the support of huge majorities of lawmakers in both parties and houses.

In the end, Obama strong-armed Democrats to oppose the sanctions bill. Republicans were willing to pass the sanctions without Democratic support, but AIPAC – in the name of bipartisanship – told the Republicans to lay off. In other words, AIPAC sacrificed its central goal and its credibility with Republican lawmakers to placate the White House, which had just used a veiled antisemitic slur to delegitimize AIPAC.

Jason Greenblatt: Does Hamas have the courage to admit failure?

Jason Greenblatt is an assistant to President Trump and special representative for international negotiations.

Last month, a spokesman for the terrorist group Hamas dismissed our peace plan as “worthless” — even though he has never seen it — in a vain attempt to preemptively undermine any chance of a political agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. The barb was predictable; after all, such an agreement would terminate Hamas’s raison d’être.

But after ruling Gaza with an iron fist for a decade, Hamas has a pathetic track record. In response to the burgeoning humanitarian situation in Gaza, key countries and stakeholders are preparing to act: There was a meeting in Cairo on Thursday, and there will be a brainstorming session at the White House next week to find real solutions to the problems that Hamas has caused.

Increasing pessimism has led to paralysis on Gaza. Tragically, many seem to believe that Hamas’s rule is intractable and the suffering of the Palestinian people inevitable. The Trump administration, and particularly those of us on the peace team, beg to differ. Past failures do not absolve us of the responsibility to try to help. We are beholden to find a path to a brighter future for the Palestinians of Gaza.

Hamas, not the United States or Israel, has hijacked vast fortunes and spent it on weapons to terrorize Israelis, instead of spending it on hospitals, water, schools and the many other things so desperately needed in Gaza. Hamas, not Israel, has inflicted ever-greater restrictions on Gaza by repeatedly hiding materials to make weapons in shipments of humanitarian aid and other goods being moved into Gaza.

The Palestinians of Gaza have the opportunity to reject the failed policies of Hamas and turn toward a legitimate governing body that invests in them wisely and encourages their prosperity. Of course, it will take time to get there — a great deal of time — but we should start this journey today. It is a journey so critical to all of the children of Israelis, Palestinians (those in Gaza and the West Bank), Egyptians and beyond.

White House to convene ‘brainstorming session’ to help Gaza

The White House will convene a meeting next week of “stakeholders” to improve life in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, said the top Trump administration Middle East peace negotiator.

“In response to the burgeoning humanitarian situation in Gaza, key countries and stakeholders are preparing to act: There was a meeting in Cairo on Thursday, and there will be a brainstorming session at the White House next week to find real solutions to the problems that Hamas has caused,” Jason Greenblatt wrote Thursday in an op-ed in The Washington Post.

The op-ed was the first announcement of the meeting. A spokesman for Greenblatt declined to say who the stakeholders and countries are. It’s not clear who took part in the Cairo meeting, although Hamas officials were recently in the Egyptian capital to discuss reconciliation with the Palestinian Authority.

However, there are a number of possible players who might balk at participating in the talks should they be public. Additionally, there are potential parties whose participation could embarrass the Trump administration.

The Palestinian Authority, for instance, has formally retreated from efforts by the Trump administration to reconvene peace talks, citing President Donald Trump’s recognition in December of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Hamas, the group controlling the Gaza Strip, is designated by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist group. Qatar, a country that has been involved in attempts to better the lives of Gaza residents, is being shunned by a key U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia. And Turkey, which also has been deeply involved in Gaza in the past, currently has tense relations with the United States over U.S. backing for Kurds in Syria’s civil war.

To slur a pro-Israel Muslim, just call him Jewish

A truly weird article in Modern Ghana:

For Years, India and Israel has comprehensive defence cooperation agreement, under which members of the Indian spy agency Raw are being trained by Israeli Mossad. Extreme intimacy between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is no secret. It is believed that, Mossad had groomed Modi and transformed him into a seasoned politician and played key role behind Modi's rise as one of the strongest political leaders in today's world.

...Bangladesh not only considers Israel as an enemy state but also has been sending locals to Palestine to fight against Israeli occupation forces. Israel became angry when Bangladeshi Prime Minister in her speech in the United Nations General Assembly in 2016 repeated her government's solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanded establishment of an independent Palestine with Jerusalem as it's capital.

Another reason of Israeli's annoyance is because of imprisonment of pro-Israeli journalist and a self-proclaimed Zionist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, who has been in Bangladeshi prison since 2012. Israel and the Jewish policymakers in the world consider Shoaib as their best ally.

For Years, Israeli nationals as well as various thinktanks and Jewish lobby groups in Israel and the world, including American Jewish Committee (AJC) and AIPAC had no hesitations in extending support to Shoaib and AJC even issued a statement in 2014 condemning Bangladeshi authorities for convicting Shoaib Choudhury in a treason and blasphemy case. Several Jewish activists such as Dr. Irwin Cotler, Richard Benkin, Adam Simon, Daniel Pipes, David Harris and many others have been working in favour of this pro-Israel journalist, who also is believed to be closely associated with Mossad.

Bangladeshi intelligence agencies consider Shoaib Choudhury as an exposed representative of Israel and thr Jewish interest groups. Since 2003, Shoaib has written a number of books and published dozens of articles in the newsmedia condemning jihad, Palestinian people's struggle for their own country, and the Muslim nations like Iran.

Shoaib Choudhury also has been branding Muslim Brotherhood as a terror outfit and Hamas as mega-terrorist group. He has also demonized Iranian leader Ayatullah Khomeini, Malaysian leader Maharhir Mohammed and others. From the activities of this man, it seemed as if he had declared crusade against Islam and the Muslim ummah. For this reason, he enjoys unimaginable support from the enemies of Islam....

For Israel and the influential Jewish lobby, imprisonment of Shoaib seems to be a matter of annoyance.

According to the Palestinian intelligence sources, Shoaib Choudhury not only is an operative of Mossad, but he also is a Jew in disguise. He had left Islam many years ago and were getting converted into Judaism under the guidance of Rabbi Sue Levy, a native of Houston, Texas. Since his release from the prison in 2005, Shoaib was organizing reception parties during each of the Jewish festivals. He was studying Jewish Torah and Zohar. He stopped attending Friday prayers in the mosques and even didn't go to eid prayers. Shoaib began meeting the small number of BangladeshI Jews and were planning to establish a synagogue in Dhaka.

Palestinian sources claim, Shoaib got the Bangla version of Torah printed and distributed in Bangladesh. He also was wearing Jewish charm Star of David in his neck and had Jewish charm named Hamsa displayed both in his house and office.

So the best way to discredit Choudhury is to say he's Jewish. Because no one can possibly accept the existence of Jews as normal members of society.

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From "contested" to "occupied"

From the New York Times:

The diplomatic compound that will serve as the American Embassy until a permanent site is found lies partly in a contested zone known as No Man’s Land.

No Man’s Land encompasses the area between the armistice lines drawn at the end of the 1948-49 war and was claimed by Jordan and Israel. Israel won full control of it in the 1967 war, so the United Nations and much of the world consider it occupied territory.

Exactly what is the legal basis for considering land that is unquestionably disputed to be "occupied"?

The answer is, the rules don't apply to Israel. Just call is "occupied" and the label will stick.

The State Department has avoided taking a clear position on the matter but relies on the fact that Israel and Jordan had informally divided the contested enclave.

The provisional embassy site, in the Arnona neighborhood, “has been in continuous Israeli use since 1949,” the department said in a statement last week. “It is today a mixed residential-commercial neighborhood.”

I found evidence that Israel and Jordan had allowed each side to move into the zone from a National Geographic article in 1959:

(h/t Ronald)

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Does Rabbi Shmuley Boteach represent Jewish values?

Recently, "America's Rabbi" Shmuley Boteach engaged in a vociferous campaign against prominent American Jewish and Zionist leaders - especially Orthodox Jewish leaders - for meeting with Qatari's emir.

He wrote in November:

The first responsibility of rabbis is to know the difference between right and wrong.

The recent news report in The Jerusalem Post that a group of prominent rabbis and Jewish leaders, led by Rabbi Menachem Genack, traveled to Qatar to meet with the country’s emir is shocking and heartbreaking. Here you have Qatar, the world’s largest funder of Hamas—a terrorist organization dedicated to the annihilation of not just Israel, but Jews anywhere—being whitewashed by Orthodox rabbis. And not just any Orthodox rabbis, but the head of the Orthodox Union’s global kosher authority.

That’s pretty ironic.

You can kosher cheese and you can kosher steak. But how can you kosher the financing of terror? The first biblical rule of kosher food is that blood is not kosher (Leviticus 17:10-12).

How can rabbis in America condone the killing of Jews in Israel by meeting and legitimizing the government that pays for their murder?

A few weeks ago, I was myself invited to meet the emir by the man organizing the whitewashing effort. My organization responded with two full-page ads in The New York Times declaring, “If Qatar Wants a PR Makeover, Stop Funding Terror.” On the bottom we added the headline, “Meeting with Qatar Condones Murder.”

Why? Because this is exactly what Qatar wants—to finance the slaughter of Jews without paying a price in international diplomacy.

Who would have thought that Orthodox Jews would be at the forefront of this legitimizing effort?

I admit that the idea of these prominent Jewish American leaders visiting Qatar makes me uneasy. Qatar indeed has bankrolled Hamas and its Al Jazeera mouthpiece has been indirectly responsible for terrorism (it was unabashedly pro-Al Qaeda immediately after 9/11.)

The optics aren't great.

But I also know that people like Rabbi Menachem Genack and Malcolm Hoenlein, who visited the emir, know what they are doing politically. They are indefatigable supporters of Israel and the Jewish people. What they said or did in their meetings will not be made public, and it is of course possible that they were duped. But to dismiss and insult them as being automatically in the wrong without knowing what is going on is premature. And claiming that they condone the murder of Jews is sickening.

Rabbi Boteach has an organization called the World Values Network, and last night he hosted a very expensive and swanky dinner at the Plaza Hotel in New York City called the "6th Annual Champions Of Jewish Values International Awards Gala."

One of the honorees was Caitlyn Jenner.

Jenner, Boteach notes in a video on his Facebook page, has said nice things about Israel and Israel's support for the LGBTQ cause.

But there is no way to say that celebrating the LGBTQ cause is a Jewish value. It may be a secular Zionist value, but it isn't a Jewish value.

Boteach is positioning himself as the champion and arbiter of Jewish values by leading this organization and hosting these expensive fundraising dinners in the name of Jewish values.

I am not saying that there should be an ounce of discrimination against LGBTQ people. There shouldn't be. Equal rights is not up for debate. No one should look down at them. Indeed the Torah says that everyone is created in God's image and as such deserves respect. Additionally, Zionists should be proud that Israel is a bastion of liberal values in a sea of hate.

However, there is a world of difference between fighting for equal rights for all and promoting a message that is antithetical to traditional Jewish values. That is a message that Jenner represents, through no fault of [his/her] own.

Boteach has an optics problem at least as bad as those of the Jewish leaders who met the Emir. His recent actions make it appear that he is more interested in self-promotion and making money for his organzations than he is in Judaism.

These aren't the only problematic actions from Boteach recently. His recent campaign against singer Lorde also appeared to be an exercise in egoism.

How many poor people could have been fed for the price of Boteach's full page ad attacking singer Lorde for canceling her concert in Israel? Was spending that money - which accomplished nothing beyond giving Boteach more publicity - a Jewish value?

Falsely claiming that rabbis who meet with an Emir are "condoning the killing of Jews in Israel" is not a Jewish value. Celebrating a lifestyle that is explicitly against Jewish law is not a Jewish value. Raising and spending hundreds of thousands just to buy full page ads that are nothing beyond self-promotion is not a Jewish value.

It pains me to say it, but Boteach is not representing Judaism or Jewish values. He is representing himself and his own self-promotion.

Humility is a Jewish value as well. And I see none of that from "America's Rabbi."

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03/08 Links Pt2: Corbyn was part of an anti-Semitic Facebook group; Breaking the Silence…with Holocaust Deniers?; Republican Jews Call on 7 Democrats to Resign Over Farrakhan ties

From Ian:

Before elected Labour leader, Corbyn was part of an anti-Semitic Facebook group

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour party, was an active member of a Facebook group which contained Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites, it has been revealed.

Corbyn appears to have been a member of the Palestine Live group for at least a year, and left it shortly after he became head of the opposition in September 2015.

In a 280-page report released Wednesday, David Collier, a researcher and blogger, details a slew of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel material shared by members of the group.

One member said they were reading “Mein Kampf,” and suggested: “Everybody should be forced to read it, especially Jews who have their own agenda as to why they were not liked.”

Others discussed the use of the terms “ZioNazi” and “JewNazi,” debated whether the BBC was controlled by Zionists, and shared conspiracy theories about the Rothschild family and Israel’s supposed involvement in the 9/11 and 2015 Paris attacks.

Members of the 3000-strong secret group — who include Holocaust denier Paul Eisen — are also said to have shared articles by David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and links to neo-Nazi material.

New Accusations of Anti-Semitism Rock Labour

Britain’s Labour Party has been trying to get its anti-Semitism problem under control in preparation for national elections that could come sometime in the next couple of years: The party expelled the anti-Zionist activist Tony Greenstein last month, and recently extended the suspension of former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who has repeatedly insisted that there were close ties between the Nazis and the Zionist movement. But two new controversies shows just how deeply alleged anti-Israel extremists have penetrated the party, which has veered sharply left under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

This week, the Daily Mail reported that Joss Macdonald, a Corbyn speechwriter, wrote a tweet in which he appeared to characterize Israel’s actions as “genocide” shortly after the 2014 conflict in Gaza. A few years earlier, Macdonald tweeted his view that “Apartheid Israel has killed the two-state solution,” leaving “a bi-national democratic Palestine” as the only possible outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Andrew Percy, a member of parliament for the governing Conservative party, has already said that Corbyn “should reconsider his decision to employ this man,” according to the Mail.

In the annals of Corbyn-era Labour anti-Semitism rows, this ranks as a refreshingly mild one. Macdonald only wrote two questionable tweets, one of which was composed nearly a decade ago; the belief that a binational state is the only fair outcome to the conflict isn’t exactly an unusual one among left-leaning Europeans either. The “genocide” accusation came in the context of an exchange with a pro-Israel Twitter user in which Macdonald paraphrases his opponent’s argument in a way that strongly suggests Macdonald agrees with the caricatured version. A single, isolated, and fleeting reference to Israeli genocide is nothing compared to receiving $26,000 from Iran’s state television network, which Corbyn has received, or laying a wreath at the grave of one of the Munich Olympics terrorists—indeed, it would be unfair for Macdonald to lose his job when his boss is guilty of far less ambiguous dalliances with anti-Semites and anti-Semitism.

Breaking the Silence…with Holocaust Deniers?

Thanks to the work of the researcher David Collier, a secret antisemitic Facebook group called Palestine Live has been exposed. At one time, the group’s membership included Jeremy Corbyn, the man who now leads the UK Labour Party.

In this group, Holocaust denial material was shared as well as other explicitly antisemitic material, whilst the idea that there was antisemitism in the Labour Party was ridiculed.

The group has over 3,000 members, two of them are or were Avner Gvaryahu and Eran Efrati, the former and current heads of the left wing group Breaking the Silence.

This came as a blow to me personally. I’ve gone to bat for Breaking the Silence a couple of times in the past, and took their tour of Hebron, which I found to be a truly eye-opening experience.

I thought that this was a group of people with Israel’s best interests at heart. Clearly, they’ve lost their way.

Palestine Live was founded by a lady called Elleanne Green, who has shared posts claiming Israel was behind terrorist attacks in France, claiming that the Kotel isn’t Jewish, that 9/11 was a conspiracy, and on and on:

PM asks Trump to allow ex-spy Pollard to leave for Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked U.S. President Donald Trump this week to lift parole restrictions on the convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in order to allow him to relocate to Israel, Israel Hayom has learned.

Pollard was arrested in 1985 and eventually struck a plea bargain in which he pleaded guilty to spying for Israel while working as a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst. He received Israeli citizenship while in prison in 1995.

Pollard, 62, was paroled in November 2015 after serving 30 years and currently lives in New York City. Under the strict conditions of his parole, he must remain in the United States for five years, wear an electronic bracelet and submit to monitoring of his work computer and other devices he uses despite not being exposed to classified material during his 30-year incarceration. He is also barred from speaking to the press.

Netanyahu raised the issue of Pollard's parole terms when he met Trump some six months ago, but during this week's Oval Office meeting, the Israeli prime minister asked that Pollard be allowed to move to Israel as a gesture marking the upcoming 70th anniversary of Israel's founding this May.

Netanyahu said it was time the two countries put the affair behind them. The administration has yet to respond to this request.

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

AIPAC CEO Howard Kohr created a stir Sunday when he called for “two states for two peoples: one Jewish with secure and defensible borders and one Palestinian with its own flag and its own future.”

Kohr deliberately echoed the words of Benjamin Netanyahu at Bar-Ilan University in 2009. Netanyahu said then,

In my vision of peace, in this small land of ours, two peoples live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect. Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government. Neither will threaten the security or survival of the other. …

I have already stressed the first principle - recognition. Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

The second principle is: demilitarization. The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarized with ironclad security provisions for Israel. …

Regarding the remaining important issues that will be discussed as part of the final settlement, my positions are known: Israel needs defensible borders, and Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel with continued religious freedom for all faiths.

Bibi’s statement was a mistake. His enemies on the right pounced on him for giving up his historical opposition to a Palestinian state, while the Arabs and the Left derided him as insincere. He got nothing in return from Obama and lost whatever reputation he still had for principled opposition to concessions for the PLO. Most damaging to Israel was the fact that the Americans and the PLO “pocketed” his statement, making it almost impossible for him or any subsequent Israeli Prime Minister to walk it back. From then on, anyone could say “Israel officially supports a Palestinian state.”

The root of the problem is that the concept of “two states” is poisonously ambiguous. Everyone can understand it to mean something different, up to embracing diametrically opposite ideas.

Bibi’s Palestine would be a less-than sovereign autonomous entity, demilitarized, without control of airspace, borders, electronic communications or the Jordan Valley. It would not be allowed to import weapons or make military pacts with other nations. The PLO would be required to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people (which of course they would never, ever, do).

The Israeli center-left calls for “two states for two peoples,” a formula which, like Bibi’s, implies recognition. In this view, after an Israeli withdrawal from all or part of Judea and Samaria and the creation of an Arab state, “Palestine” would accept the Jewish people’s ownership of the remaining part of Israel as legitimate. There would be no further claims against Israel, and any solution for the descendants of Arab refugees would take place outside of the borders of Israel. This would not fly with the PLO either.

Finally, there is what Mahmoud Abbas means by “two-state solution:” a “Palestine” in which there will be no Jews, which will encompass all of Judea and Samaria (and theoretically, Gaza) with the exception of small land swaps, fully sovereign in every respect. Next to it will be an Israel that will be a “state of its citizens.” It cannot belong to the Jewish people, because in the view of the PLO there is no Jewish people, only a Jewish religion. This “Israel” will accept as many of the millions of Arab “refugees” who wish to “return” to it and grant them full rights. One can only speculate how long and in what condition of civil war this state would exist until it would be absorbed into “Palestine.”

Needless to say, these visions are incompatible. The dishonest J Street organization claims that Abbas accepted the idea of “two states for two peoples,” but in fact he has never added anything about two peoples to the phrase “two states.” Indeed, Abbas’ recent speech (incidentally, one of the most nonsensical orations ever) that J Street refers to as a “Palestinian peace plan” implicitly but clearly calls for a right of return for the Arab “refugees” to Israel.

The best thing that could happen would be for everyone to stop talking about the “two-state solution,” a phrase which has devolved into meaninglessness.

In 2009, Bibi may have been forced to utter the formula by the Obama Administration. But what about AIPAC today? Apparently panicked by a recent poll showing diminishing support for Israel among Democrats, AIPAC is struggling to get them back. The same day that Kohr made his remarks, AIPAC’s president Mort Fridman made it explict:

To my friends in the Progressive community, I want you to know that we are partners in this project. The Progressive narrative for Israel is just as compelling and critical as the conservative one. [Yes, he said that! – vr]

But there are very real forces trying to pull you out of this hall and out of this movement and we cannot let that happen. We will not let that happen.

AIPAC hoped to fend off attacks from J Street and similar groups without weakening its support from pro-Israel elements, by employing the time honored method of political triangulation. By adopting some of the ideas of its opponents on the Left, it hopes to bring them into the fold, while its supporters on the Right will have nowhere else to go.

But this is a poor strategy because the progressives among the Democrats no longer accept AIPAC’s primary objective, which is support for Israel. It’s not that they think, as the Israeli Left does, that “ending the occupation” will be likely to lead to peace, or that their vision of Israel will be more democratic, or that another partition of the Land of Israel will prevent a demographic crisis. They have absorbed the narratives of the international Left and are simply anti-Israel. They are not coming back to AIPAC.

This is especially true of the Jews among them. At some point, the Jewish progressives replaced their connection to am yisrael with one to the oppressed peoples and gender-groups of the world, including of course the Palestinians.

The best thing for AIPAC to do now, in my opinion, is to become unapologetically pro-Israel. The progressives are gone anyway, and it might make the organization more effective.

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03/08 Links Pt1: Pro-Erdogan Newspaper Calls To Form Joint Islamic Army To Fight Israel; To Understand Zionism, Read Herzl Not Mahmoud Abbas; Pal-Arabs are counterfeit

From Ian:

Turkish Newspaper Close To President Erdogan Calls To Form Joint Islamic Army To Fight Israel

On December 12, 2017, ahead of the summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, the Turkish daily Yeni Şafak, which is close to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling AKP party, published an article titled "A Call for Urgent Action," which also appeared on the paper's website under the title “What If an Army of Islam Was Formed against Israel?" The article called on the 57 member states of the OIC to form a joint "Army of Islam" to besiege and attack the state of Israel. It notes that such a joint army will greatly exceed the Israeli army in manpower, equipment and budget, and presents statistics to prove this. It also advocates establishing joint bases for the army's ground, air and naval forces that will arrive from all over the Muslim world to besiege Israel, while noting that Pakistan, as the only nuclear country, has "a special status" among the OIC countries. An interactive map provides information on military forces stationed in various locations and the role they can play in the potential joint Muslim attack on Israel.

The Source Of The Yeni Şafak Article: The SADAT Company Website
The main points of the article are taken from the website of the Turkish SADAT International Defense and Consulting Company, which provides consultancy on defense and warfare, both conventional and unconventional, and on military organization, training and gear. The company has an agenda of promoting pan-Islamic military cooperation. According to its mission statement, it seeks "to establish defense collaboration and defense industry cooperation among Islamic countries, to help the Islamic world take its rightful place among the superpowers by providing... strategic consultancy and training services to the militaries and homeland security forces of Islamic countries."

According to Israeli security sources, the SADAT company is involved in aiding Hamas, and seeks to assist – with funds and military gear – the creation of a "Palestine Army" to fight Israel.

SADAT Founder Adnan Tanrıverdi
The SADAT company was founded by Erdoğan’s senior advisor on military affairs, retired general Adnan Tanrıverdi, and is chaired by his son, Melih Tanrıverdi. Adnan Tanrıverdi (b. 1944) served in the Turkish army's Artillery Corps and headed the Home Front Command in northern Cyprus. He is an expert on assymetric warfare, and was dismissed from the Turkish military in 1996 for his Islamists leadnings. A former Turkish army officer, Ahmet Yavuz, described him as "an enemy of Atatürk" and stated that his dismissal from the army was not surprising.

To Understand Zionism, Read Herzl Not Mahmoud Abbas

We can see the toxic results of this in countless news reports on the conflict with the Palestinians. Israel’s perceived flaws and mistakes are highlighted, but not those of the Palestinians. Settlement building is headline news, but not Palestinian incitement to terror. The Palestinians are helpless victims, an oppressed people not responsible for their actions; infantilised and coddled at every turn, no matter what violence they commit – and no matter that their poverty and despair is as much a result of the corruption and criminality of the Palestinian Authority as it is of Israeli policies.

That’s the narrative, here’s the reality. From the very beginning, the Zionist movement envisaged a democratic Israel. Israel was established as a democracy in 1948, at a time when there were no more than twenty or so democracies on the planet. And unlike almost every other new country that emerged during that epoch of state creation after the collapse of the European empires, it has remained a democracy from day one to the present.

Israel has become a military super-power, but this is nothing to with some inherent Zionist militaristic impulse. Israel has fought multiple wars against states and, more recently, terror organisations, expressly committed to its annihilation. Israel today has Hamas on one border, Hezbollah on another, and the Iran-dominated ruins of what used to be Syria on a third. Each one of these troublesome neighbours sees the destruction of Israel as a religious imperative. When the only way to appease an enemy is to commit suicide, the situation requires sticks not carrots; military might and the willingness to exert it.

I’ll conclude with another recent news story, one that attracted far less coverage than the Abbas speech. This was the revelation that the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence had helped foil an ISIS terror attack on an Australian passenger plane last summer. European countries that so frequently wag the diplomatic finger at Israel have intelligence services grateful beyond measure for the assistance they receive from the Mossad and the IDF in thwarting terrorist plots. In today’s global conflict between free and open societies, and Islamist terrorists and the states that sponsor them, Israel is not just on the right side of the fight, it is leading the way. Meanwhile, our ‘peace-seeking’ friend Mahmoud Abbas has just increased the annual payment to the families of Palestinian terrorists to $403 million, seven percent of the Palestinian Authority budget.

Abbas and other propagandists will continue to spread lies and disinformation, and far too much of the world will continue to swallow it whole. Israel, approaching its 70th birthday, will continue to do what it must to survive and to thrive as the Jewish and democratic state that Theodore Herzl could only dream of.

Pal-Arabs are counterfeit

Recently, the Holocaust-denying head of Terror, Inc, known as the Palestinian Authority, one Mahmoud Abbas, upped his erstwhile mentor and arch terrorist, Yasser Arafat, by spewing yet another Arabian Nights hallucinatory diatribe at the United Nations Security Council. It went as follows:
“We are the descendants of the Canaanites that lived in the land of Palestine 5,000 years ago and continuously remained there to this day.”

We should remember that the grisly, blood soaked Arafat had claimed that those Arabs who call themselves Palestinians, were descended from the Philistines. But then the followers of the ‘religion of peace’ will tell you that even Adam was a Muslim. Loony tunes for loony people!

But let’s come back to reality and deconstruct the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians.

There is no such thing as a Palestinian people; no such thing as a Palestinian history; and no Palestinian language exists.

The present-day so-called ‘Palestinians’ are an Arab people sharing an overwhelmingly Muslim Arab culture, ethnicity and language identical to their fellow Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, with few if any distinctions. They are primarily the descendants of those itinerant Arabs who illegally flooded British Mandatory Palestine from Arab territories as far away as Sudan, Egypt, Syria and what was Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). They were attracted during the early decades of the 20th century by new employment opportunities provided by the Jewish pioneers, whose heroic efforts were turning the desert green again and restoring centuries of neglect that the land had endured under a succession of alien occupations.

J Street has come out with an ad in The New York Times advocating for peace talks, more specifically advocating for "a new proposal for two-state negotiations" by none other than Mahmoud Abbas.

Based on the picture used to illustrate the rest of the ad, J Street is making a not too subtle point:

The J Street ad even makes the point of listing all the people who support a two-state solution:

o US presidents from both parties
o  Veteran US foreign policy leaders
o  The majority of the Israeli security establishment
o  80 percent of Jewish Americans
o  The Arab League
o  Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who last month laid out a new proposal for two-state negotiations

That leaves out just 2 groups: the Israelis and Arabs themselves.

J Street does actually claim support for the two-state solution by both Israelis and Palestinians:

Reaching a two-state solution is vital to securing Israel’s future as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people and to advancing overall peace and stability in the region. That’s why it’s long been supported by the majority of Israelis and Palestinians... [emphasis added]

But that is not accurate. According to a poll taken in November of last year into the beginning of December, under 50% of Palestinians, Israeli Jews support the two-state solution - that's 47% of Palestinians and 46% of Israeli Jews, according to the poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research. In a similar poll conducted earlier in June 2017, 52% of Palestinians and 47% of Israeli Jews supported a two-state solution.

To put it simply, the people who are going to have to live with this "solution" are not really in favor of it.

On the other hand, what about the people who are in favor of it? The presidents and policy leaders have successfully proven themselves far from infallible. The Jewish Americans may find the idea of a two-state solution emotionally satisfying, but that is no argument - especially since they need not worry about the consequences. The Arab League? Who knows if their motivation is because they believe the plan will work. As for the Israeli security establishment, their recommendation cannot be rejected out of hand but requires explanation: are they arguing abstractly on the basis of peace being the best kind of security, or do they anticipate specific conditions being fulfilled for that peace to be effective and lasting?

And that brings us to Abbas.

Looking at the record of the man J Street insists is the only man who is pushing for peace, it is clear that J Streets omission of Abbas's spotty record in peace negotiations slants the story.

In 2008, then-Prime Minister Olmert made an offer to Abbas. Years later, in 2015, Abbas admitted he was the one who rejected Olmert's peace plan, an agreement that would have given him nearly all of the land the Palestinian Arabs wanted, an almost total withdrawal from the West Bank, a land link to Gaza, with the Old City in East Jerusalem under international control. Abbas rejected the offer, claiming he was not given an opportunity to study the map that described Israel's offer. Olmert's version is a little different. He says he showed the map to Abbas, who wanted to take it with him. Olmert agreed - on the condition that they both sign the map since Olmert considered this as the final offer and not a basis for future negotiations. Abbas demurred and instead said he would return the next day with experts. Olmert never saw Abbas again.

In 2009, Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl described Abbas's self-described waiting game. Abbas told Diehl his only role was to wait. He would wait for Obama to force Netanyahu to freeze settlements and publicly accept the two-state solution. Abbas basically waited during the 8 years of the Obama administration.

In late 2009, Netanyahu agreed to Obama's request for a 10-month moratorium on building settlements in order to facilitate peace talks. Abbas waited and did nothing until the last month, at which point he demanded an extension of the freeze. When Netanyahu refused, Abbas walked out.

Then came the peace talks in 2013-2014, http://www.thetower.org/0249-graphic-timeline-of-collapsed-peace-talks/as outlined in this infographic from The Israel Project:

Abbas did nothing to support the negotiations, instead failing to condemn a terrorist attack and announcing a unity government with Hamas terrorists.

Now, on February 25, J Street came out with the strangely named post "The Palestinian Peace Plan" -- strangely named because there is no description of the plan. Instead, part of J Street's argument for the plan is an admission of just how bad a peace partner Abbas actually is:

Let’s be clear: We have no illusions that Mahmoud Abbas is the ideal partner. His rhetoric is at times incendiary, and his frequent refusal to acknowledge the Jewish people’s historic connection to Israel or Jerusalem is troubling. His hold on leadership is tenuous and his critics are legion.

Yet we know there will never be a Zionist sitting on the Palestinian side of the negotiating table — and there doesn’t need to be to reach a lasting agreement that will make Israel safer.

As Yitzhak Rabin said, “You don’t make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.” [emphasis added]

While admitting the problems of Abbas as a peace partner, J Street leaves out:

o Abbas's hold on leadership is more than tenuous - his term as president ended in 2009
o  He has a history of pocketing concessions and then leaving negotiations
o  He incites hatred against Israel, paying stipends to terrorists and naming stadiums after them
o  Palestinians don't support the two-state solution

Even members of the Palestinian government don't support real peace, and say this openly - in Arabic:

This is not an issue of being "unsavory"; the Palestinian government does not support the idea of peace, or even Jewish right to a state, to its own people. That is not unsavory, it is dishonest.

While J Street is quick to credit Abbas with suddenly coming forward with a peace initiative for the first time, it is worth noting that he was happy to sit back and wait during the Obama adminstration and never actively pushed for peace until the Trump administration, which put an end to coddling the Palestinian Arabs.

J Street appears happy to ignore the anti-Israel actions of Abbas and other members of the government.

This is the same J Street that once bragged, “Our No. 1 agenda item is to do whatever we can in Congress to act as the president’s blocking back.”

Apparently they are blocking for Abbas now.

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Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei recently gave a speech in honor of the Syrian minister of religious endowments, a Sunni, that was ostensibly about unity of Islam between different sects. But he divided the Muslim world in a much different way:

We are by Syria's side. Today, Syria stands in the frontlines. It is our responsibility to support Syria's steadfastness. Mr. Bashar al-Assad – the honorable President of Syria – has appeared as a warrior and great resister. He did not let doubt appear in him and he stood firm. This is very important for a nation. The Muslim nations which live with disgrace are not disgraced nations, rather it is their leaders who are disgraced. If a nation has leaders who have a feeling of dignity about Islam and about their identity, that nation will become dear and the enemy will not be able to do a damn thing against such a nation.
...

Another issue is that Islam has promised us that victory belongs to the mujahid believers. If faith does not exist, victory will not be achieved completely. If faith exists without jihad and endeavor, there will not be any result. It is our responsibility to support and defend Islam and the Islamic movement.

One of the requirements for this is that we should put aside these denominational and tribal differences. Well, if we put aside these differences, there are some people who are opposed to this and who do not want to let this happen. They provoke some of us and some of our brothers and as a result, they are forced to speak, act and work against the movement of unity. If those who play this role are not affiliated with global and arrogant policies and if their activities do not stem from these policies, they should be ignored. We should not pay attention to these individuals. However, if like the Saudis and some others, this effort to create discord stems from arrogant policies, they should be confronted in a firm manner.

We do not believe in the kind of Shia which is supported by London. We do not consider those Sunnis who are supported by the US and Israel as Muslims. We do not consider them Muslims in any way. Islam is that which is opposed to kufr, to oppression and to arrogance. These are our common points.

Suddenly, Alawite Bashir Assad is a Muslim - and Saudi leaders aren't.

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