Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, June 08, 2018

We won’t play that game anymore (Forest Rain)

There was an old man who used to sweep the area next to the Kotel, the Western Wall. When asked why he, such an old man, was working, doing menial labor he explained that in Auschwitz a Nazi pointed to the smoke billowing up from the crematorium and told him: “You see that smoke? That’s your family going up in ashes and soon you will also be there!” His response was to answer: “No. I will live and I will see Jerusalem.”

By a miracle he did live and to him sweeping the plaza and picking up other people’s trash was a glorious gift from heaven because he was blessed enough to do it at the Kotel, in the heart of Jerusalem.

For 3000 years Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish Nation. Even in exile, when the Jewish people lost sovereignty over Jerusalem, she was still the heart of the Nation.

Jerusalem was, and still is, the place Jews turn to in prayer, three times, every day. Jerusalem is upheld in every Jewish wedding as more important than the happiness of the union between bride and groom. The Passover Seder, marking the exodus of the Children of Israel from slavery, is complete only when we recite: “Next year in Jerusalem, rebuilt!” because THAT is the true end of the journey from slavery into freedom.

The Jews of Ethiopia dreamt of Jerusalem as did the Jews trapped in Soviet Russia. Jerusalem is the heart of Zion, always has been and always will be.

Interestingly this well-known fact is now being put forth as something that is debatable. The simple statement that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel is “controversial.” Why?

For centuries the nations of the world have been ambivalent about the Jewish people. On one hand they enjoyed the benefits we brought to their lands (education, medicine, inventions) on the other hand they were disturbed by our “otherness,” the unwillingness to adopt their religions, worship their Gods, become like them.

The Jewish people rejected ancient Greece, ancient Rome, Christianity and Islam thus providing impetus to find fault with the Jewish people which quickly morphed into outright persecution. Modern Jew-hate is no different, that too is a reaction to a people who retain their “otherness”, sticking to their morals, values and nationhood when socialist/globalist influences imply that it is wrong to do so.

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorned."

The Jewish people began returning to Zion as soon as they could.

My grandmother grew up in British Mandate Palestine (a name given twice to this land in attempt to disconnect the Jews from Zion, a name that is now being used again, for the same reason). As a young girl she felt the cruel ambivalence of British soldiers who laughed as she, just 12 years old, was running for her life, trying to escape an Arab lynch mob. Instead of helping her, they took bets on the odds of the child being able to outrun the men chasing her with knives in their hands.

The day after the State of Israel was officially declared the Arabs of the land rose up in attempt to destroy the newly birthed country. Everyone was surprised when they did not succeed.

In 1967, Egypt, Jordan and Syria rose up in a coordinated attack, certain that together they could destroy the Jewish State. The world watched with baited breath, certain that there was no way the Jewish people could survive. Instead of being overrun, Israel stunned the world by, in just SIX days, not only beating back three combined armies but also recapturing the Jordanian occupied Old City of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and the biblical heartland of Israel – Judea and Samaria.

This week Hamas has planned large demonstrations (riots) in protest of Israel’s return to what is most sacred to the Nation of Israel (Jerusalem), to protest that Israel did not disappear in ’67 and actually regained what was stolen from us centuries before.

Or to put it more simply, they are protesting that they lost the battle to destroy Israel in ’67.

This is the same reason Hamas planned their “March of Return” which was supposed to culminate in an enormous riot that would overrun Israel’s borders and wreak havoc on the day America opened their embassy in Jerusalem – May 14^th, the date when the State of Israel was officially declared in 1948.

In other words, Hamas planned an enormous protest on the date Israel’s independence was declared, on the date America acknowledged that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people.

Or to put it even more simply, Hamas planned an enormous violent riot in protest of Israel’s existence and America’s acknowledgment of that existence.

Israel’s Prime Minister just returned from a trip visiting Germany, France and the UK.

French President Emmanuel Macron had the audacity to tell Netanyahu that moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem caused Gazans to die. This statement is very revealing.

Opening the American embassy in Jerusalem was a symbolic recognition of reality. It did not create reality, it did not change reality. What it did do was declare that the United States would no longer participate in the game of ambivalence about the existence of the Jewish people and the return to our ancestral homeland, sending the message: “Yes, we understand. The Jews are in Zion and they are not going anywhere.”

Macron’s statement means that the acknowledgement of the eternal Jewish bond to Jerusalem forced Arabs to riot and thus be killed. That it is wrong to accept as fact that Jews belong in Jerusalem, that Jerusalem has always been and always will be the capital of the Jewish State.

In his mind it is better to continue to play the game of ambivalence - on one hand saying that antisemitism is wrong, on the other hand stating that one must not acknowledge Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

Maybe the Jews will go away. Maybe that will appease the Arabs.

In the UK, Teresa May told Prime Minister Netanyahu that she “understands Israel’s right to defend herself but she is concerned about Gazan lives.”

There should no “but” in that sentence.

Israel would not have to defend herself if we weren’t under attack. And the Gazan lives Ms. May is concerned about? Is she unaware that Hamas is proudly claiming most of the dead as their own operatives? Not just members of the party but actual, professional militants?

With one little word Teresa May negated Israel’s sovereign right to protect the lives of her citizens and maintain her borders. “But” created an equation where terrorists hell bent on killing Israelis are the same as Israelis who want to live in peace in their homes without being murdered.

How is this different from the British soldiers laughing and taking bets on my grandmother’s life? They knew that to live the little girl needed to escape the lynch mob BUT they weren’t about to intervene, maybe the mob would catch the Jewish child and the soldiers would have their afternoon entertainment…

The American declaration did not cause violence. It did not “trigger” violence. What it did do is rip off the mask behind which Jew haters hide, denying the validity of excuses used to sustain the cruel ambivalence that, in its silence, encourages violence against the Nation of Israel.

It was a declaration that: “We aren’t playing that game anymore.” And THAT is what is forcing all other nations on earth to chose sides. Will they recognize that the Jewish people have returned to our ancestral homeland, never to leave again? Or will they continue to maintain their ambivalence, secretly hoping that the Jewish people will disappear?

The riots Israel is currently experiencing, the attempts to attack us from the ground and from the air are not a product of Israeli or American policy. They are a reaction to Israel’s existence, Arab frustration that the Nation of Israel is home to stay, that all of their efforts to make us disappear failed.

What fuels the violence is leaders like Macron and others who send the message that Arab violence is only to be expected because Arabs feel wronged by the existence of Israel and her eternal ties to Jerusalem.

This is not a pleasant picture but there is actually hope here. We must make it impossible to continue to deny reality. It is up to each and every one of us to openly declare that we will no longer play the game. There will be no more attempts to appease violence by not acknowledging Jewish connection to Jerusalem. There is no room for debate. No room for question. Zion is home to stay.

When it becomes no longer possible to deny reality, peace will become possible.

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A few Jews reportedly joined Iran's anti-Israel rallies

Iranian media is reporting that a group of Jews joined the annual Al Quds Day anti-Israel rallies today.

The Jewish member of the Islamic Shura Council, Dr. Siamak Moreh Sedgh, bragged that there were twice as many Jews rallying for Israel's destruction compared to last year.

It is possible that this means that the number increased from 2 to 4.

Sedgh said, "When there is an external threat against our country, we must all unite among ourselves and declare our attachment as followers to the leader of the revolution so that the enemy can not imagine that he can have the slightest chance of stirring internal differences."

In other words - Sedgh is practicing job security. Whether he believes anything he is saying is not the point: he has been given a role as the token Jew in Iran's government and he must be called upon to say the right words when called upon. Saying anything else would mean jail at best, being murdered at worst.

I didn't see any photos of the Jews supposedly demonstrating.

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Gazans claim Israel deliberately set "return" tents, tires on fire

Gaza media is quoting "witnesses"claiming that a fire that broke out at one of the sites of today's planned riots was deliberately set by an Israeli aircraft.

According to these claims, an Israeli drone fired on a tent and a pile of tires near the fence east of Rafah this morning, hours ahead of the planned riots.

The media says that the fire was large before Gaza firefighters could extinguish it.

Photos don't seem to show such a large fire.

It seems more likely that some Gazan accidentally set the fire and decided to blame Israel. Yet even if for some reason Israel decided to go after a single set of tents out of scores of such tents near the border, it is ironic to see Gazans complaining about someone deliberately setting fires, or complaining that Israel burned their tires before they had a chance to do it themselves.

Other news reports indicate that incendiary balloons and kites will be a major part of Friday's planned riots in Gaza - along with a play saying that Israelis are like Nazis.

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06/07 Links Pt2: Argentine FM: Threats to Soccer Team for Game in Israel Worse than Those from ISIS; No, Islamophobia is not the new anti‑Semitism; Lumish: Democratic Party Anti-Jewish Trends

From Ian:

Burning money: the urgent need to rethink UNRWA

Bureaucratic, badly managed, constantly overspending, UNRWA is almost always in a state of crisis and in the need of a bail out. And not only does it get one every year, but it receives its yearly lifeline without being obligated to restructure or reform. This is not to say that UNRWA does not do good work. It does plenty. Shelter, healthcare and education benefit millions not only in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but also in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. There’s also emergency relief, sanitation and psychological support for the 1948 Palestinian refugees (and to some extent 1967 refugees), and their descendants.

But here lies the problem. Instead of weaning refugees from dependency as was originally intended, over the course of decades Palestinians became reliant on UNRWA, whose operational definition of a ‘refugee’ includes the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the original refugees. In doing so, instead of encouraging the resettlement and rehabilitation of descendants of the original refugees, UNRWA, with the support of western nations, has perpetuated their misery.

And then there’s UNRWA’s less than savoury activities. During Israel’s 2014 war against Hamas in Gaza, for example, there were several cases of UNRWA facilities (schools or hospitals) being used by militants to hide missiles to be fired at civilians in Israeli towns. There have been cases of UNRWA summer camps being named after terrorists and numerous occasions of UNRWA teachers inciting anti-Semitic violence. This led the government of Canada’s then Prime Minister Stephen Harper to cease funding UNRWA, a policy reversed by his successor Justin Trudeau in 2016.

And here lies the dilemma. While UNRWA provides essential services to millions of Palestinians and the humanitarian consequences of ceasing such work would no doubt be dire, UNRWA is also an obstacle to peace as it perpetuates one of the most intractable aspects of the Arab-Israeli impasse, the Palestinian refugee problem. Not only is the institutional reform and restructuring of UNRWA essential, but so are its very aims and objectives. The international community should reappraise the role of UNRWA before other countries follow Trump and Harper and cut funding.

Michael Lumish: Democratic Party Anti-Jewish Trends

The Democratic Party and the progressive-left is becoming increasingly hostile toward the nation-state of the Jewish people.

This has been coming for decades.

If you look at this 2018 poll from the Pew Research Center you will see that currently, about 79 percent of Republicans favor Israel, while the great majority of Democrats do not. Only 27 percent of Democrats favor the Jews in the Middle East versus their racist, misogynistic, theocratic Islamist enemies, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, if not the Palestinian Authority.

And we might keep in mind that many those same people are not just hostile toward Israel - for "social justice" reasons, no less - but toward the United States, as well.

In a recent Facebook comment, I referenced the fact that "it is definitely true that Republicans are more supportive of Israel than are Democrats. It's not even close." And I used the Pew Research Center image above as significant evidence of that fact.

Brendan O’Neill: No, Islamophobia is not the new anti‑Semitism

It is the definition of historical illiteracy to compare Islamophobia to anti-Semitism. And yet that is what is happening. People who feel put out by the discussion of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, and possibly even envious of the attention that anti-Jewish prejudice is receiving in comparison with anti-Muslim prejudice, have taken to saying: ‘What about the cancer of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party? When are we talking about that?’ They fail to realise the fundamental difference between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: the former is one of the world’s oldest hatreds and has caused the deaths of millions of people; the latter is a word invented by the Runnymede Trust in 1997 to demonise criticism of Islam.

The speed with which public attention has been dragged from the serious problem of a new anti-Semitism in certain left-wing circles, and focused instead on what a Guardian writer describes as Britain’s ‘foundational corruption’ of Islamophobia, has been extraordinary. And telling. It speaks to a tendency among Muslim community leaders – not ordinary Muslims – to muscle in on Jewish suffering. Self-elected spokespeople for Britain’s Muslims have a tendency to bristle at any suggestion that hatred for Jews might be a specific, pronounced problem. So when Holocaust Memorial Day was set up in 2001, it was boycotted by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) on the basis that it wasn’t ‘inclusive’ – that is, it didn’t refer to Muslim suffering, such as at Srebrenica. And now the same MCB has responded to the public discussion of left anti-Semitism effectively by saying, ‘What about Islamophobia?’.

Any public focus on Jewish pain seems to invite from the MCB and other Muslim leaders the almost Pavlovian response of: ‘What about Muslim pain?’ It’s a creepy competitiveness, almost identitarian jealousy, that has the impact, intentional or not, of downplaying the problem of anti-Semitism. I mean, if you are going to balk even at the idea that the Holocaust was a uniquely horrific crime, the greatest crime of the 20th century, then you have signed up, whether wittingly or unwittingly, for an effort at least to relativise anti-Semitism.

Algerian Intellectual Rachid Benaïssa: The West Has No Alternative But Islam pic.twitter.com/8e0JuCcyHR
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) June 7, 2018

Saudi writer says Israel is subjecting Palestinians to a "Holocaust"

From Saudi Gazette, an op ed by Tariq A. Al-Maeena:

Every time I hear that leaders around the world gather at monuments to solemnly remember the Holocaust of the previous century, I want to scream about another Holocaust that has been going on before our eyes for the past 65 years and more.

This one is orchestrated by none other than the descendants of the first Holocaust, who today form the Israeli government. Israeli occupation forces have been systematically murdering and maiming the innocent in Palestine for over seven decades now.

The Free World could be forgiven during World War II for the crimes Hitler committed against various groups. News did not travel very fast in those days, and neither were there instantaneous broadcasts of live pictures and film illustrating the viciousness of the Nazi occupation.

However, today we should not forgive ourselves for keeping quiet. For we have been witnessing live some of the events as they have unfolded. Who can forget the tragic image of a father shielding his eight-year-old son, as Israeli forces callously shot him dead while the cameras were running? Or the image of Rachel Corrie, an American from Seattle who defiantly stood in the face of Israeli bulldozers, only to be violently crushed to death by the Caterpillar’s blades?

In the past three years, Saudi Arabia airstrikes have killed more civilians in Yemen (about 5000) than Israeli airstrikes have in Gaza in the past three wars.

Once again, the reason this article is newsworthy isn't because a clueless Arab newspaper chooses to publish the opinions of a hateful, ignorant columnist.

The reason this is newsworthy is because not a single Arab reader will publicly criticize Al-Maeena by telling him that his accusations are false and offensive to every human being. Not one will explain that comparing the Holocaust to anything Israel does is an insult to Jews, to Holocaust victims and to anyone who has a brain and knows seventh-grade level history. No one will point out to him that he would never compare the actions of any country, including Saudi Arabia, to the Holocaust - except Israel which is the only country in the region that actually tries to minimize civilian casualties.

It is the Arab world's silence in the face of such perverted and sickening accusations that damns the entire Arab world, which has killed and expelled more Palestinians alone - let alone hundreds of thousands of other Arabs - than Israel can ever be accused of.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

As you probably know, Gaza Arabs have been launching kites and helium balloons across the border with fiery payloads, and they have set huge blazes in nearby agricultural fields, nature reserves, and even the campus of Sapir College (just south of Sderot and 4.5 km from the border of the Gaza strip). Large areas have already burned, and new fires are being started all the time. Farmers have lost millions, and plant and animal life in the region will not recover for years. Nobody has died in the fires yet, but firefighters imperil themselves regularly trying to put them out.

There is a debate about how to stop these attacks. Shoot them, some say. Well, it seems that there is a legal problem. You can’t just shoot civilians for possession of a kite or a balloon. And after it is in the air, the terrorist that released it is a criminal that has to be apprehended, not summarily executed. So the only way you can shoot them is to catch them precisely at the moment that they are about to launch the incendiary device, so as to stop them from doing it. And best shoot at their legs. Good luck with this.

So the talk turns to technology. Drones to cut the kite strings and similar ideas. Some model airplane hobbyists already took down a few of them with fishhooks attached to their planes. But hundreds have still gotten through.

Recently Israel sent a shipment of Tamir interceptors, the projectiles used by the Iron Dome system, south to the Gaza envelope area. The Iron Dome not only intercepts the Hamas-produced Qassam rockets, but it can even take out a tiny mortar shell. The Tamirs are expensive (though it can be argued that the true marginal cost of a Tamir, after spreading the development costs over a large number of units, is more like $5,000 than the oft-quoted $50,000) and usually two are fired to intercept a Qassam, which costs Hamas a few hundred dollars to build. Mortar shells can be had for as little as $6 each!

All this has a familiar ring. As Bret Stephens said, “Why is nothing expected of Palestinians, and everything forgiven, while everything is expected of Israelis, and nothing forgiven?”

We have built a multi-tiered missile defense system which includes Iron Dome, but also several other components designed to intercept medium and long-range missiles. The complete system is fabulously expensive, but will provide a level of defense that no other country in the world can match. Of course we need this. Israel’s small size and concentrated population make it vulnerable to missile attacks, and our enemies know it and have invested heavily in this area.

That doesn’t mean that we can sit back and let our enemies throw everything they have at us. None of these systems promises 100% success, any defensive system that doesn’t involve science-fiction technology can be overwhelmed by a massive enough attack, and the economic imbalance inherent in using a Tamir – no matter how low we make the marginal cost – to kill a $6 mortar round becomes painful.

But there is another issue here, which is surfacing in connection with the incendiary kites, and in general with the “great march of return” and our response to it. Israel loves technology, because it makes it possible to win wars without hurting anyone. We love defensive technology that enables us to bat away enemy rockets, and we love offensive technology that allows us to precisely take out a military target with no collateral damage. Nothing is cooler than sending a missile through a window to kill a bunch of terrorists without upsetting their wives and children on the next floor.

This kind of warfare supposedly protects us in today’s hyper-litigious world where we are attacked by brigades of lawyers working for “human rights” NGOs, paid by our sophisticated European enemies – the descendants of the pogromists who murdered our ancestors, and now, in the name of humanity, try to prevent us from defending ourselves.

Except that it doesn’t protect us. The exquisite care with which the IDF repelled the popular invasion from Gaza did not prevent us from being accused of war crimes by the media and by the NGOs. If Hezbollah should launch its tens of thousands of rockets from South Lebanon, and we are forced to destroy the launchers embedded in civilian houses, all of our warnings and all of our precision strikes will not prevent the accusations and attempts to impose international sanctions against us.

There are two reasons for this. One is that the international deck is stacked against us, either because the players don’t think Jews should be sovereign anywhere in the Middle East (the position of most Muslim nations) or because – like French President Macron – they cynically pursue their economic or political interests, even if it should be obvious to them that their actions make war or even genocide more likely.

That isn’t news, and it isn’t likely to change. The other reason is that Israel’s policies over the last few years have taught our enemies that appeals to “morality” and international law (real or imagined) actually affect Israel’s behavior and limit our defensive responses, even to murderous attacks directed at us.

With our Iron Domes, our “roof knocks,” our exaggerated care when authorizing snipers to shoot at Arabs trying to breach our borders, our use of low-yield weapons in targeted killings, our tolerance for continued low-level terrorism like rock-throwing, and our bombing of empty military installations, we are training our enemies. We are teaching them one basic principle: it’s normal for you to try to kill Jews.

Do Gazans hate us? Let’s build them an artificial island. Could anything be crazier?

Oh, we’ll defend ourselves, either passively or with minimal offensive force. But we won’t get mad and really try to hurt you. These are not the Jews of Kishinev or of Hebron c. 1929. We will fight back if necessary. But we understand your need to kill us.

As a result of our restraint, demands are placed on us to restrain ourselves further. And as a result of the message of “understanding” that we send to our enemies, they keep devising and trying out new ways to kill us. Why shouldn’t they? In the Middle East, being good to your enemies is perceived as weakness, which invites attack.

The final answer to the kites won’t come from technology, because if we could push a button and bring them all down, Hamas would just come up with a new weapon, a new delivery system for their boundless hate.

No, the solution to this and other problems requires a fundamental change in our way of thinking. I believe that the present defensive mentality is based on cowardice and the internalization of the pervasive antisemitism of our enemies, both the “hot” ones in Gaza and the “cool” ones in Europe. To some extent, we ourselves believe that it is acceptable to shoot at Jews.

The question shouldn’t be “how can we stop incendiary kites?” Rather, we should ask “how we can hurt the Gazans – both the Hamas leadership and the people that support them and share their hatred – so badly, so disproportionally, that they will be very sorry that they tried to burn our country.

Deterrence doesn’t only come from threats, Mr. Lieberman. The enemy has to believe that you will carry them out. A truly brutal response to the kite attacks could be a place to start.

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06/07 Links Pt1: Palestine- failing the test of history; Hamas wants Gaza border protesters to die; Sohrab Ahmari: Anything for the Ayatollah; America’s Cash-for-Genocide Program in Syria

From Ian:

Palestine- failing the test of history

Merit is no qualification for freedom…. Freedom is enjoyed when you are so well armed, or so turbulent, or inhabit a country so thorny that the expense of your neighbour's occupying you is greater than the profit. -From a letter by T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a.”Lawrence of Arabia”) published July 22, 1920, in The Times of London setting out a case for the political independence for the Arabs in the Middle East.

Despite being written almost a century ago Lawrence’s diagnosis is still extremely pertinent in assessing the validity of the frequently aired view that "the Palestinians deserve a state of their own."

Indeed, such views have been explicitly expounded by US Administrations for well over a decade from George W. Bush to Barack Obama ,who both incorporated the idea into their "visions" for the Middle East.

Cannot condition national sovereignty on regime type
In the past, several pro-Israeli pundits have tried to dispute the widely accepted contention that "the Palestinians do indeed deserve a state" Some, like author Naomi Ragen, have warned of the unsavory nature that such a state would take – devoid of any semblance of law and order and due process, tolerance of religious diversity, right of political dissidence, freedom of expression, or regard for the status of women. Others, like former Israeli government minister Natan Sharansky, have argued that Palestinian statehood should be conditioned on the emergence of Palestinian democratization.

Regrettably, despite factual accuracy and moral validity, objections of this ilk cannot serve as a binding political criterion for national independence.

Sohrab Ahmari: Anything for the Ayatollah

The full history of the Obama administration’s nuclear dealings with Iran has yet to be written, not least because many of the details remain shrouded in secrecy. The bits of the story that do seep out into the public sphere invariably reinforce a single theme: that of Barack Obama’s utter abjection and pusillanimity before Tehran, and his corresponding contempt for the American people and their elected representatives.

Wednesday’s bombshell Associated Press scoop detailing the Obama administration’s secret effort to help Tehran gain access to the American financial system was a case study. In the months after Iran and the great powers led by the U.S. agreed on the nuclear deal, the Obama Treasury Department issued a special license that would have permitted the Tehran regime to convert some $6 billion in assets held in Omani rials into U.S. dollars before eventually trading them for euros. That middle step—the conversion from Omani to American currency—would have violated sanctions that remained in place even after the nuclear accord.

That’s according to the AP’s Josh Lederman and Matthew Lee, citing a newly released report from the GOP-led Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Lederman and Lee write: “The effort was unsuccessful because American banks—themselves afraid of running afoul of U.S. sanctions—declined to participate. The Obama administration approached two U.S. banks to facilitate the conversion . . . but both refused, citing the reputational risk of doing business with or for Iran.”

Put another way: The Obama administration pressed American banks to sidestep rules barring Iran from the U.S. financial system, and the only reason the transaction didn’t take place was because the banks had better legal and moral sense than the Obama Treasury.

America’s Cash-for-Genocide Program in Syria

Agents of Influence: Obama and his advisers, now seeking to shape his legacy, say they are proud they ditched the ‘Washington playbook’ and decided to stay out of the Sunni-Shia conflict in the Middle East. Only they didn’t. They intervened on behalf of Iran.

Like the president he served, Ben Rhodes wanted to stop Bashar al-Assad from gassing little children. But it was complicated.

In an excerpt from his new book, The World As It Is, published in The Atlantic, Barack Obama’s former deputy national security adviser explains the decision-making that led Obama to choose against bombing Assad targets in late summer 2013. Among other issues, writes Rhodes, the White House didn’t know if it could trust the assessment coming from the American intelligence community claiming that Assad had used chemical weapons against his own people. U.S. spies got Iraq wrong. Obama was elected because he got Iraq right.

With that in mind, Obama told Rhodes that “it is too easy for a president to go to war.” Also, the White House could find no legal basis to strike Syria. The Europeans backed off at the last minute, and Senate Republicans like Marco Rubio, who talked a tough game, refused to vote for the authorization of military force.

Endowed with a tragic sense of life, Obama knew that in the end there was little he or anyone could do to stop the slaughter in Syria. As Rhodes writes: “I was also wrestling with my own creeping suspicion that Obama was right in his reluctance to intervene militarily in Syria. Maybe we couldn’t do much to direct events inside the Middle East; maybe U.S. military intervention in Syria would only make things worse.”

Obama himself has said that his decision not to bomb Assad was the moment that he broke with what he derisively called the “Washington playbook.”

It is all about Israel

As I was looking at articles in Argentina about the soccer controversy, I came across a pithy anecdote mentioned by a writer for La Nacion, Andrés Malamud:

"The problem in the Middle East is that Israel is a racist state." With the theater full, the phrase is received without ovations or whistles. After all, Portugal is "a country of gentle customs". Here they never shout much, neither in favor nor against. Ilan Pappé, an Israeli historian who is self-exiled in England for being a critic of his country, finishes the speech and begins the round of questions. I raise my hand before anyone else and inquire if there is any state in the Middle East that is not racist. His response deafened an audience that was already silent: "that's not the problem".

The problem is not racism. The problem is Israel. It is understood.

There you have the entire arena of double standards, delegitimization and demonization against Israel in a single sentence.

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Argentina pretty much admits that death threats against players prompted quitting Israel match

The Argentina newspaper La Nacion has covered the story about their team planning to play in Israel and how they changed their minds - and it is pretty clear that the death threats against the players, primarily Messi, is what caused the country to cave.

A noisy but small protest outside where the players were practicing was the subject ofa story on Tuesday, before the decision. Bloody team jerseys and loud horns dominated the protest that the players could hear. The paper pointed out that some of the protesters were Muslim.

The bloody shirts were an obvious threat.

The foreign ministry came out with a statement after the Argentina Football Association made its decision, distancing itself from the decision, but mentioning the threats:

"It is always the fact that it is not good when a sporting event awakens a situation of animosity....the players of the selection faced a series of threats that came by way of Internet giving them a negative image by the fact that they were to play in Israel, they have felt restless and therefore they preferred not to do this match... It is not good whenever a decision arises from threats or a situation of discomfort".

An op-ed writer, Gabriel Chocron, was more explicit:

A political leader thirsty for publicity managed to turn this sports party into a victory for fear, threats and terrorism. Jibril Rajoub, current president of the Palestinian Football Federation, unscrupulously threatened Argentine players - and Lionel Messi in particular - that they would become enemies of Muslims around the world for participating in the friendly against Israel. Rajoub drove a sad campaign of intimidation and threats to the players and their families, to the point that they felt fear for their physical integrity.

Chocron ends off with:

Beyond the opinion that each one may have in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the cancellation of this party is a victory for hatred, fear and terrorism. The World Cup has not started yet, but the Argentine national team has already lost its first points.

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For the second day in a row, Palestinian workers at the Kerem Shalom crossing have gone on a partial strike, closing down the only major route for goods to enter Gaza for half a day.

The strike is over not being paid their full wages by the Palestinian Authority and over benefits.

On Wednesday, they stopped work from 8 AM to 1 PM, and only worked for four hours. It looks like the same thing is happening today.

There are no negotiations going on with the PA so the strike looks like it is open-ended.

I could not find a single story in English about this.

When Israel closes the crossing for security reasons or even for holidays, there are inevitably stories about how Israel is punishing Gazans.

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Review: Ten From The Nations (Judean Rose)

Hat-tipping my source for a story about the appointment of Christian missionary Hananya Naftali as Netanyahu’s new media advisor landed me in hot water with some of my readers back in April. Dr. Rivkah Lambert Adler, they said, was part of the problem. By acknowledging her as the source of my story regarding one Christian missionary, they felt I sanctioned others.

That’s because Dr. Adler works closely with non-Jews who seek their personal truths in the Torah, or so they say. Adler shares their stories in her book Ten From The Nations: Torah Awakening Among Non-Jews. She also has a blog that continues where her book left off.

Besides offering a platform for these non-Jews, both book and blog offer a voice to the Jews involved in working with them. These are Jews helping non-Jews who express an interest in Torah find their way, whatever that way may be.

To be clear, Dr. Adler places Hananya Naftali squarely in the box of Christian missionary, as do I. But in many respects, this is where we part ways. We talked about this, and she asked if she could send me her book. Unhappily, I said yes.

I wasn’t thrilled to read the stories of non-Jews I believed to be missionaries infiltrating my country and stealing Jewish souls. But I respect Dr. Adler as a colleague and as a person. She is a wonderful writer and a good person. I know this from my dealings with her over the years and from watching the way she uses her writing to help organizations and individuals.

I decided I would at least try to keep an open mind regarding her book.

The book arrived. I started to read. It wasn’t pleasant. There is a lot of Jesus talk in this book. As a religious Jew, it makes me nervous to read this stuff. You surround yourself with this invisible shield of “NO” as you read, so that none of it enters your heart. And still, you worry it will have an effect.

I felt that I had a grimace pasted on my face the entire time I read. It made me that uncomfortable, this book. It made me feel dirty.

Though she writes her own preface and a chapter relating her own story, Dr. Adler mainly serves as editor here. Her book gives voice to the various people in this world she has encountered in which non-Jews have rejected the established norms of Christology. Some of the people in her book embrace Judaism and convert. Others reject Jesus but adopt the 7 Noachide laws as Bnei Noach, rather than convert. Finally, there are the Ephraimites who believe in Jesus but use the framework of the Jewish bible for their religious context.

There is no doubt that all of these people bucked the worlds they came from. They risked their relationships with family, friends, and community for their unusual beliefs. Some of them lost their jobs because they worked as clerics and once they rejected mainstream Christianity, they lost their careers and their churches.

And of course you might say that all of the people featured in this book are strange ducks. They don’t fit into normative society. So you’re suspicious. You wonder how much you can credit them, knowing they’re all odd men (and women) out: iconoclasts. Are they the kind of people that must always buck trends? Or are their journeys a sincere awakening?

You don’t mind and are even inspired by the stories of those who convert or become Bnei Noach, but wonder why Ephraimites are lumped together with those who renounce Jesus and embrace the Torah as if the three groups are monolithic. This, to my mind, is a major fault of this book. If someone is a seeker and finds Torah, bravo. But if someone is a seeker and still sees Jesus as the answer, cherry-picking from the Torah to round things out, then NO. I don’t need to know about you. It’s just another false, manmade ideology. It’s a distortion of the truth.

The Ephraimites are problematic, even dangerous, from my point of view. They seem to see themselves as rivals to the Jews. They think they’re from the biblical Kingdom of Israel as opposed to the Jews, who are traditionally associated with the biblical Kingdom of Judah. Some of the Ephraimites are living in Israel as part of HaYovel, an organization that helps Jews plant and harvest their vineyards. Others are living as close as they can get to Israel, in Aqaba, Jordan.

The Ephraimites still believe in Jesus. They just think the New Testament gets it wrong, having discovered some of the inconsistencies between the bible and that book, as well as the internal inconsistencies of the New Testament.

The grapevine, if you’ll excuse the pun, tells me that the Ephraimites are trying to raise money for a large center in Gush Etzion. This is very disturbing to me as a believing Jew. I don’t think these people belong in my country, which is a Jewish State. I don’t think they should be able to preach Jesus and missionize in the heart of my neighborhood.

I didn’t move to Israel for more of that.

I don’t understand why some rabbis and religious Jews support their endeavor.

I don’t understand why any Jew wants to help these people, instead of their own people, as a calling. I think that’s bizarre.

I don’t understand why Jews want to help non-Jews learn Torah. I have always learned that it is forbidden to teach non-Jews Torah (except in regard to the 7 Noachide commandments, which non-Jews have to know and follow). The fact that it is forbidden to teach non-Jews Torah outside of the Noachide laws isn’t even touched on by any of the Jews cited in Ten From The Nations.

And if it isn’t as much of a problem as I think it is, teaching Torah to non-Jews, then why doesn’t the book contain a letter of approbation as is common practice in a book meant to be read by Torah Jews? Why don’t some of the Jews in the book write about this and explain why they think that teaching Torah beyond the Noachide laws to non-Jews is permissible?

Dr. Adler sees the process of non-Jews seeking the truth through the vehicle of the Jewish Torah as a fulfillment of the prophecy, the coming of the Redemption and Messianic times. She sees this work as holy work.

I do not. I see it as a misdirection. This is not what Jews are supposed to do. Being a “light unto the nations” doesn’t mean preaching Torah to them. It means being a good and moral example. No more, no less.

I couldn't care less if these people find their way to the truth as I see it. That isn’t and shouldn’t be a focus of the Jewish people. Our goal should be to do the commandments and strengthen our own people. This makes the world in general a better place. What non-Jews do, on the other hand, is up to them.

We aren’t supposed to teach, persuade, or work with non-Jews in a Torah context.

If they, on the other hand, manage to push past this very traditional Torah attitude and actually convert, well, that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame.

If they become Jewish, they ARE Jewish. They were with me at Mount Sinai when we received the Torah. It takes a fight and a lot of difficulty, a lot of pushing away, to get to the point of conversion. If they make it, they’ve passed the test and I fully embrace them.

I also very much respect the Bnei Noach, those who have rejected Jesus and embrace the 7 Noachide laws as a lifestyle. I have to say I never understood why they don’t convert to Judaism. That is until I read Ten From The Nations, which is the main value for me in reading this book. I now understand that the Bnei Noach see the Jews something like the way we see Cohanim, as a priestly caste. Or as my husband put it: why would they want to convert—they get to eat bacon!

And it’s not even a sin for them!

Prior to writing this review, I wrote to Dr. Adler, outlining my objections to her book, while praising the understanding it gave me of the Bnei Noach movement. She said there are many rabbis that approve this work, pointing me to this "ask the rabbi"article: https://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Judaism/Ask-the-rabbi-May-a-Jew-teach-Torah-to-a-gentile and citing Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, whose views have sometimes been regarded as controversial. I personally would need approbation to come from more mainstream rabbis in order to come on board with this sort of focused work.

Dr. Adler also tells me her views have altered in some ways since the book was published. She says that her understanding of Jews being a “light unto the nations” has, for instance, changed. She also tells me that some of the holy-rolling Ephraimites in her book have since renounced Jesus.

But again, I really don’t care what they do (and don’t trust it, either). From my perspective, this has no bearing on my life or on my people. In fact, if I were looking for signs that the end times are near, I’d look at Iran inching ever closer to the bomb before looking at this very small number of people feeling their pulse about the gospel.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

06/06 Links Pt2: Sirhan Sirhan, Forgotten Terrorist; Argentina soccer match canceled over terrorism, not a boycott; Rockefeller Fund gives to groups funding Palestinian terrorism

From Ian:

Sirhan Sirhan, Forgotten Terrorist

Because the assassination came just over four years after his brother President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, and just two months after Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in Memphis, the nation focused on gun violence and hatred of the Kennedy family in its aftermath. Many blamed right-wing racists, since the Kennedys had supported the civil-rights movement. I was in school back then, and I remember the most common phrase: “They killed another Kennedy.” The “they” was generic. It wasn’t an individual; it referred to a supposed violent streak that ran through American culture and mythology all the way back to our frontier days.

But a single individual killed Kennedy for very specific reasons. Sirhan was obsessed with both Israel and Jews. He was born in British Mandatory Palestine in 1944 and emigrated to the United States in 1956, attending school in Los Angeles. Yet even though the California economy of the 1950s and 1960s was one of the strongest in the world, Sirhan never took advantage of what surrounded him: He worked as a stable boy and never became a U.S. citizen.

The shooting took place on the one-year anniversary of Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War. This was no coincidence. When Kennedy was 22 years old, he traveled to Palestine, writing articles for the Boston Post about his admiration for the country’s Jewish inhabitants. As a senator from New York, Kennedy continued his strong support of Israel. Shortly before the assassination, in a televised debate with his chief Democratic rival, Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy, Kennedy said he supported the sale of fighter jets to Israel.

Indeed, Kennedy was a consistent and staunch supporter of Israel — which infuriated Sirhan. In a 1989 interview with David Frost, Sirhan said: “My only connection with Robert Kennedy was his sole support of Israel and his deliberate attempt to send those 50 bombers to Israel to obviously do harm to the Palestinians.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center Is Indifferent to Muslim Antisemitism

Muslim antisemitism receives scant mention from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization that is supposed to be dedicated to “fighting hate and extremism.” Its website has 1,327 articles on non-Muslim antisemitic actions, statements, or hate crimes. But less than 10 articles out of thousands mention Muslim antisemitism.

Instead, the SPLC aligns with Islamist groups and leaders — including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) — while giving their antisemitism a pass.

The SPLC’s credibility has already been questioned. It took down its media guide this year after Quilliam Foundation co-founder Maajid Nawaz pointed out that it contained fabrications about him.

While the report may be gone, SPLC Intelligence Project Director Heidi Beirich has yet to correct a false accusation she made against Nawaz, claiming that he was placed on a list of anti-Muslim extremists in part because he supported vast surveillance of Muslims.

Beirich has produced no evidence to support the claim, which Nawaz insists is a lie.

“The SPLC says it fights hate. Yet it criticizes groups that call out Jew-hating Islamists and ignores groups packed with Jew-hating Islamists,” Center for Security Policy Executive Vice President Christopher Hull told the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

U.N. Accused of Doctoring Video to Erase Leading Pro-Israel Speaker’s Credentials

The United Nations is facing accusations it doctored an official video to remove all mention of a leading pro-Israel speaker's credentials ahead of a scathing speech accusing the international organization of promoting anti-Semitism and hatred against Israel, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Professor Anne Bayefsky, the director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and president of Human Rights Voices, was recently invited by the Israeli government to speak at an event at the U.N. on anti-Semitism about the harmful impact of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS, a global campaign to economically isolate the Jewish state that has widely been discredited as anti-Semitic in nature. Bayefsky specifically addressed anti-Semitism at the U.N. itself.

In an official video of the May 30 event posted on the U.N.'s website, all mention of Bayefsky's credentials and longstanding status as a leading expert on anti-Semitism was initially erased, leaving a confusing gap that she claims diminished the speech's impact.

Bayefsky, a vocal critic of the U.N.'s anti-Israel bias, alleged in a subsequent video highlighting the U.N.'s deletion that the international body was engaged in an attempt to revise history and weaken a speech that called out in stark terms the entire U.N. for its promotion of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic policies.

U.N. officials who spoke to the Free Beacon admitted the original video deleted all mention of Bayefsky's credentials, but explained this was due to a technical issue that was rectified soon after the Free Beacon began its initial inquiries in the matter.