Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

01/23 Links Pt2: Tuvia Grossman and the Covington Catholic School Fiasco; Guardian’s hatred towards Israel reaches new low; Many Progressives Care About ‘Palestine’ — Not Palestinians

From Ian:

Tuvia Grossman and the Covington Catholic School Fiasco

With the release of the new videos, some in the media are now calling for restraint and introspection when it comes to interpreting events, even videos, that one sees on social media.

Why do I mention this story? What does it have to do with our niche, which is Jews and Israel?

Because of Tuvia Grossman.

Back in the year 2000, AP took a photo which the NY Times and other papers ran. The Times claimed the photo showed an Israeli policeman and a beaten up Palestinian teen on the Temple Mount.

Except that that this never happened (also, “Palestinian” never happened either, but that’s a different issue).

The beaten boy in the photo was a Jewish-American student named Tuvia Grossman. An Arab lynch mob pulled Tuvia and his two friends out of a taxi in Wadi al-Joz, in eastern Jerusalem, and brutally beat them up. They also stabbed Tuvia in the leg. Tuvia lost 3 pints of blood from the attack and was hospitalized.

The photo actually shows Israeli policeman Gidon Tzefadi running over to save Tuvia from the Arab lynch mob. (The event launched HonestReporting, dedicated to expose these distortions by the media regarding Israel and Jews.)

So when people in the news media today are calling on others to not automatically believe everything they see on social media, especially with no context around it, I keep thinking that this same media have had 19 years, since Tuvia was attacked and the event was so badly misrepresented in the mainstream media, to embrace that lesson, especially when it comes to news about Israel and the IDF…

Alas, as we all know well, they still haven’t learned a thing.

Omar Defends Black Hebrew Israelites, a Hate Group, in Falsehood-Laden Tweet About Covington Teens

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) sent out a tweet filled with falsehoods Tuesday about the viral confrontation between Catholic high school teenagers and a Native American man last week, which also included a de facto defense of a racist hate group.

Linking to a tweet by President Donald Trump criticizing "fake news" for their initial misleading reports on the Covington Catholic teenagers, Omar wrote, "The boys were protesting a woman's right to choose & yelled ‘it’s not rape if you enjoy it.' They were taunting 5 Black men before they surrounded Phillips and led racist chants. [Nick] Sandmann’s family hired a right wing PR firm to write his non-apology."

She also linked to a story decrying "white journalists" who were trying to correct the record. She deleted the tweet Wednesday morning, after the Washington Free Beacon asked her office to comment. While mainstream outlets had ignored her tweet as of Wednesday morning, other conservative outlets had picked up on it.

Omar claimed the Covington Catholic teenagers, initially vilified for taunting Native American elder Nathan Phillips before more videos and reporting painted a different picture, "were taunting 5 black men," when it was actually the other way around.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Chastened By Covington Failure, CNN To Reserve Bad Hot Takes For Israel (satire)

Three days after botching its coverage of a silent teenager confronted by a yelling, drum-beating provocateur, a major news organization has decided to cut back on its knee-jerk assumptions regarding causes it opposes, and from now on will restrict its automatic, context-free demonizing to Israeli actions.

Cable News Network, among several other major outlets such as the Washington Post, provided uncritical amplification to allegations that a white adolescent attending a demonstration in the capital had heaped verbal abuse on a Native American veteran of the armed forces, a story that accompanied partial video evidence and accusations of xenophobia, racism, and white supremacy. However, the uncut video and other recorded accounts exonerated the teen and revealed that the boy and his group behaved politely and quietly in the face of provocation by the native activist and others in the vicinity. CNN spent more than a day insisting on the accuracy of its version of the episode, but backtracked Monday and Tuesday in the face of overwhelming evidence it had botched the story. As a result, network executives announced Wednesday, the news team will bring greater discernment and prudence to its reporting, except when it comes to Israel, where immediate, uncritical acceptance of anti-Israel allegations will remain the default mode.

“We made a mistake,” conceded CNN personality Jake Tapper. “Instead of issuing immediate corrections to our account of the incident with Mr. Philips and the Covington High School teen, we continued to double down on the anti-conservative narrative even as indications mounted that our hot take was too hot to be true. Our team is now examining ways in which we can improve our coverage of emerging stories that stir controversy, at least here. As far as our coverage of Israel and the Israeli military is concerned, we’re still going to take Palestinian allegations of war crimes or atrocities at face value and maybe ask questions later, but probably not.”

Alan Dershowitz has a piece over at the Gatestone Institute website on the Women’s March and antisemitism, “Termites, Bigots, and GOATs: Rationalizing Complicity with Antisemitism.” There isn’t a thing wrong with this piece. Dershowitz is absolutely right about everything he says here. Take this, for instance:

“Marching with these supporters of an anti-Semite is the equivalent of marching under the banner of David Duke, who inspires white supremacists with the same sort of bigotry with which Farrakhan preaches Black supremacy. Hitler inspired pride in Aryans, Mussolini made the trains run on time, and Stalin spread the wealth. But would the women who marched with Farrakhan's admirers have marched with these bigots?”

And this:

“Recall that Hitler was not elected by anti-Semites or because of his anti-Semitism. He was elected as the result of his economic and other policies by people who gave him a pass for his anti-Semitism because they approved of his other policies.

“People who support Farrakhan because of the alleged good he does for the Black community and despite his overt anti-Semitism are complicit in bigotry, and those who march under the banner of such bigots are only one degree removed from such complicity.”

No rational person could disagree with these words. But those of us who remember Dershowitz’s support for Obama in both 2008 and 2012, could perhaps be forgiven for looking askance at the source and thinking, “Pot, meet kettle.”

Now it’s true that Dershowitz disavowed Obama after a 2005 photograph surfaced of the smiling former president being all chummy with Farrakhan. Dershowitz's actual words were, "If I had known that the President had posed smilingly with [Louis Farrakhan] when he was a senator, I would not have campaigned for Barack Obama."

The fact of the matter is that black lawmakers colluded with the media to keep the photo out of the public eye during both campaigns and for all the years Obama was in office. Dershowitz didn’t know about the photo. None of us did. So is it perhaps unfair to blame Dershowitz for calling the kettle, um, “black?”

He couldn’t have known that Obama was bosom buds with the raving lunatic and infamous antisemite that is Farrakhan.

Or could he?

After Photo Emerges with Farrakhan, Obama Claims He’s ‘a Liberal Jew’ in Speech at Synagogue https://t.co/4q8vJKCy2M pic.twitter.com/dJVvqNRslr
— Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) January 28, 2018

Written the same year that photo came out, “How Could We Have Known: The Jews Who Voted For Obama,” details Obama’s associations with a long list of known antisemites. At the top of the list is the man who officiated at the marriage of Barack and Michelle Obama, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright:

“We knew [Obama would] be bad for the Jews because he associated with people like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright who was outspoken in his support for both the Jew-hating Louis Farrakhan and Hamas. During an appearance at Michigan State University on February 7, 2008, Wright explained the creation of the State of Israel as ‘a political decision made in 1948 to solve a European problem of European Jews by putting them in somebody else’s country.’”

It’s certainly possible that Dershowitz, who termed President Obama a “true friend of Israel,” didn’t know that Obama was in thick with Farrakhan. But everyone knew about Obama’s friendship with the Reverend Wright. The idea that Dershowitz didn’t know about Wright’s association with Farrakhan just doesn’t pass the smell test.

Now for sure, Obama disavowed Reverend Wright’s views, in particular the Reverend's admiration for Farrakhan, early on, in 2008:

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church. But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS; when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century; when he equates the U.S. wartime efforts with terrorism – then there are no excuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced, and that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.

"It is antithetical to my campaign. It is antithetical to what I’m about. It is not what I think America stands for.”

But that disavowal falls short. Obama never actually disavows Reverend Wright. He only disavows his views and not the man.

By the same token, during her infamous appearance on The View, when pressed by Meghan McCain, Mallory refused to denounce Farrakhan, the man. From the Fox News coverage:

“What I will say to you is, I don’t agree with many of Minister Farrakhan’s statements,” Mallory said.

McCain asked, “Do you condemn them?”

“To be very clear, it’s not my language. It’s not the way that I speak,” Mallory said.

To be fair Obama used stronger language than Mallory, absolutely denouncing the content of Wright’s words, even if he was unable to bring himself to repudiate Farrakhan, the man. But both Obama and Mallory refused to say, “I condemn Wright. I condemn Farrakhan.”

As Jews, we have no way to look kindly on this, and no reason to do so, either.

Of course, it is indeed possible that Dershowitz repents his two-time support for Obama. Maybe he regrets that he, like so many other liberal Jews, looked the other way on Obama’s associations with Wright. Perhaps he's sorry, that like the rest of Obama’s Jewish base, he, Alan Dershowitz, truly believed Obama’s denunciation of Wright’s views as a repudiation of the man himself.

But that belief was only possible because he wanted to believe in Barack Obama, like the other Jews wanted to believe in Barack Obama. They looked the other way, and gave Obama a pass on his associations with known antisemites.

They gave Obama a pass just as Hitler’s supporters, in Dershowitz’s own words, “gave him a pass for his anti-Semitism because they approved of his other policies,” The difference is that Dershowitz not only gave Obama a pass, but like so many other liberal Jews, did so twice over. To Israel's detriment (and the world's).

Dershowitz’s two-time vote for Obama seems no different, from this perspective, than supporting Mussolini because he “made the trains run on time,” or Stalin because “he spread the wealth.” Dershowitz’s support for Obama, in this light, also seems no different than Tamika Mallory, the Women’s March leader, giving Farrakhan a pass, and calling him “the GOAT.”

One would hope that Dershowitz’s Gatestone piece is really just a vehicle to express his shame at having twice supported and campaigned for a man who associated with known antisemites.

A man who was the worst president the Jews and Israel have ever known.

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Labor OK With Extending Sovereignty Over Area C If New Citizens There Vote Labor (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Tel Aviv, January 23 - One of Israel's founding political parties now faces electoral decline as the country's electorate drifts rightward, but believes it can counter or stave off stagnation by compromising on what has become a tenet of its ideology in the last three decades: the party may accede to right-wing rivals over the annexation of territories now under military administration under the condition that any Arabs living there be required to vote for them.

Labor and its antecedents ruled uninterrupted from the first parliamentary elections in 1949 until 1977, but the failure of its flagship initiative, the Oslo Accords, to end Palestinian terrorism, doomed the center-left party to decline ever since. Separation from the bulk of the Palestinian population beyond the 1949 Armistice Line continues to represent an important element of Labor's platform, while behind closed doors, party operatives concede that their vision of a negotiated final status agreement remains a pipe dream as long as the Palestinian leadership incites to violence and refuses to conduct good-faith negotiations, a fact that renders the party's vision unappealing to a polity weary of rosy promises amid bloody reality.

That shrinking popularity has now led Labor stalwarts to consider backing a proposal by several nationalist lawmakers: the Oslo Accords established Palestinian self-rule over 90% of the Palestinian population in places designated A and B, but a significant number remain under Israeli military rule, in places designated Area C. The proposal calls for establishing Israeli sovereignty over Area C to make it part of Israel proper, with Palestinians there permitted to apply for citizenship. Labor would seek to forestall electoral decline by stipulating any such arrangement would guarantee that those new citizens vote Labor.

A Labor official speaking on condition of anonymity because the party has not publicly changed its stance touted the benefits of such a deal for the Palestinians fortunate enough to thus gain Israeli citizenship. "Palestinian autonomy was supposed to include democratic elections," he observed, "but there hasn't been a legislative election in the Palestinian Authority in more than ten years, while Abu Mazen just started the fifteenth year of his four-ear presidency. Granting those tens of thousands of new citizens the right to vote for us would constitute a significant upgrade in their access to democracy."

"This falls neatly in line with our democratic tradition in Labor," the official added. "We've been saying for years and years that only our political camp cares about democracy, and no system can truly consider itself democratic unless we're in power."

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01/23 Links Pt1: The Deal of the Century Has No Buyers in the Arab World; Im Tirtzu – 6 Facts You Need to Know About Israel’s Legal Rights; EU gives €5 million to NGOs that back Israel boycotts

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: The 'Political Detainees' No One Talks About

Palestinians say that Shaheen and Fattash are among dozens of "political detainees" who are being held in Palestinian Authority (PA) prisons and detention centers in various parts of the West Bank. According to some human rights organizations, the Palestinians held in PA prisons are often subjected to various forms of torture.

In a letter to Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a number of Palestinian human rights organizations recently demanded that the international agency speak out against the politically motivated arrests by the PA in the West Bank. It is highly unlikely, however, that the human rights organizations will receive any reply from the UN, whose various agencies continue to be obsessed only with Israel.

The UN does not seem to care about human rights violations committed by the PA against its own people. These are the type of stories that evidently do not interest either the UN or the international media because they lack an anti-Israel angle. The only "abuses" they see are those that can be blamed on Israel.

What is happening in the PA-controlled territories and prisons in the West Bank is a tiny taste of what life for the Palestinians would be like under a totalitarian regime that does not tolerate any form of criticism. In both the PA-controlled territories and Gaza, Palestinians must resort to the desperate measure of closing their mouths to food because they cannot open their mouths to demand decent treatment.

David Singer: “State of Palestine” set to confront Trump at United Nations

The bizarre Handover ceremony of Egypt’s Chairmanship of the Group of 77 to the “State of Palestine”for 2019 will enable this non-existent and non-member State of the United Nations to play a leading role in the 74 years old farce – “TheQuestion of Palestine and the United Nations” (PUN).

“The State of Palestine” does not meet the criteria for statehood required under the 1933 Montevideo Convention.

The Group of 77 (“the Bloc”) contains 133 of the 193 member states of the United Nations – ensuring the automatic passage of all United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions they propose.

UNGA ResolutionA/RES/73/5 – adopted on 16 October 2018 – put this illusory “State of Palestine” centre stage for PUN’s 2019 New York season – recognising it as the Bloc’s public face in all matters brought before UNGA and at meetings of representatives of other major groups.

146 countries voted for this Resolution whilst only three – Israel, the U.S. and Australia – voted against, 15 countries abstained and the remaining 29 states did not vote.

US Deputy UN Ambassador Jonathan Cohen called out the hypocrisy of the vote:
"We cannot support efforts by the Palestinians to enhance their status outside of directnegotiations. The United States does not recognize that there is a Palestinian

state.... Only U.N. member states should be entitled to speak and act on behalf of major groups of states at the United Nations."

Australia’s UN Ambassador Gillian Bird asserted:
"Australia's decision to vote no on this resolution reflects our long-standing position that Palestinian attempts to seek recognition as a state in international fora are deeply unhelpful to efforts towards a two-state solution."

The Deal of the Century Has No Buyers in the Arab World

For Jordan, the main problem is finding the solution to the refugee issue at its expense. Jordan would have to come to terms with the fact that millions of Palestinians would finally get full citizenship and participate in domestic politics – and what might be worse – would have to settle within Jordan’s territory refugees from Lebanon to help Lebanon restore its ethnic balance. While the issue remains open, an option may remain for them to return to “Palestine,” whether inside the West Bank or inside Israel itself.

Meanwhile, the Bedouin sector, which is the mainstay of the Jordanian army and administration, refuses to surrender any power to Palestinians and is currently relatively calm.

Jordan is not prepared for such an agreement, not even for the hefty funds that would be offered as part of the deal. It is concerned that if it refuses, Saudi Arabia will pressure it with regard to Jordan’s traditional tie to Jerusalem, but there are no signs that Saudi Arabia is interested in Jerusalem. However, from Jordan’s point of view, happy is the person who is always worried.

Egypt has two reservations: It does not want to take responsibility for Gaza, and it seeks to limit its connections with Hamas to security issues in Sinai only. However, its main reservation is the issue of the Arab version of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

From GDN Online:

PARLIAMENT descended into chaos yesterday over a ban on all films featuring an Israeli cast, crew or funded with Israeli money.

A majority of the MPs said amendments to the 2002 Publications Law to also ban any publication or video game that has Israeli affiliation or features Israeli content should come out of a patriotic stance towards the Palestinian cause.

However, MPs Yousif Zainal and Zainab Abdulamir pointed out that publications had nothing to do with the conflict with Israel.

“We should differentiate between a movie and a cause; if we accept this amendment then we will have to close down all our cinemas and risk losing our status as a pioneer in the GCC,” said Ms Abdulamir, who is also parliament’s youth and sport committee chairwoman.

Mr Zainal, who is parliament’s eldest member, said the amendment would prove difficult to implement since most films today are international productions.

Parliament and Shura Council Affairs Minister Ghanim Al Buainain said there were several technical difficulties in imposing a ban.

“There are multi-national companies producing movies and some are based in countries than Israel and we can’t ban them, even if they have Israeli affiliations.

In June last year, the parliament had approved the amendments after forcing the government to draft them.

MPs have been pushing for the amendments since 2016 following repeated moves to ban movies starring Israeli actresses.

An Israeli Products Boycott Office previously existed in Bahrain to ensure that no Israeli products entered the country, as part of an economic boycott in solidarity with Palestine.

However, it was closed to ensure Bahrain complied with the terms of a Free Trade Agreement with the US, which came into effect in 2006.

The Shura Council will now take a second vote and should they insist on their decision, the amendment will be shelved.

Last September, it was reported that the King of Bahrain had denounced the Arab boycott of Israel. In general, it has been assumed that Bahrain may be the next Arab country to establish relations with Israel.

Arab parliaments often adhere to a stricter anti-Israel line than monarchs (this happens a lot in Jordan.) This way they can show their official support for Palestinians without worrying about actual economic effects, and the kings often overrule the laws anyway.

It is notable that Bahrain media is sympathetic to the MPs who are against the law banning Israeli films.

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Yousef Munayyer, a BDS activist for the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, wrote an ab surd op-ed that The Forward naturally felt had merit.

Here's his main argument:

The truth is that no state has a “right to exist” — not Israel, not Palestine, not the United States. Neither do Zimbabwe, Chile, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or Luxembourg have a “right to exist.”

States do exist; there are about 200 in our world today, even though there are thousands of ethno-religious or ethno-linguistic groups.

And these states don’t exist because they have a “right” to. They exist because certain groups of people amassed enough political and material power to make territorial claims and establish governments, sometimes with the consent of those already living there and, oftentimes, at their expense.

Most people understand this. I’ve never heard anyone demand to know whether Switzerland, or even the United States, has “a right to exist.” States come and go over time; borders can change, names can change, regimes can change and yes, discriminatory systems underpinning regimes can change, too. But one state demands to be beyond reproach through a mythical “right to exist”: Israel.

Can you imagine asking indigenous Americans and indigenous rights activists — fighting for the rights of a population whose languages, societies, culture and possessions were categorically decimated in the process of erecting the United States — whether the United States has a “right to exist”?

That you can’t imagine this is testimony to the disingenuousness of the question. For this question is asked — almost always of critics of Israel’s policies — not for the purposes of debate and discourse, but rather, to create a gotcha moment, to undermine the credibility of the person questioned.

It is intellectually dishonest and intended, almost always, to silence critics and criticism of Israeli policies.

This is an amazing twisting of the truth. Israel is the only nation whose right to existence is regularly questioned, and Munayyer twists this into making it sound like only Israel insists on the right to exist!

Munayyer's assertion that no state has the right to exist is flat out wrong. The concept of a nation's right to exist pre-dates Israel, as Wikipedia notes:

The right to exist is said to be an attribute of nations. According to an essay by the nineteenth century French philosopher Ernest Renan, a state has the right to exist when individuals are willing to sacrifice their own interests for the community it represents.
... Proponents of the right to exist trace it back to the "right of existence", said to be a fundamental right of states recognized by writers on international law for hundreds of years.... The phrase gained enormous usage in reference to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. "If Turkey has a right to exist – and the Powers are very prompt to assert that she has – she possesses an equally good right to defend herself against all attempts to imperil her political existence," wrote Eliakim and Robert Littell in 1903. In many cases, a nation's right to exist is not questioned, and is therefore not asserted.

That last sentence demolishes Munayyer's core argument. (The Wikipedia article goes over other states and aspiring states that assert a right to exist, including "Palestine," which also demolishes his argument that only Israel insists on that right.)

Does anyone question Israel's right to exist? Um, yeah. Every day. Including Munayyer's BDS buddies like Omar Barghouti. But proof of Israel's right to exist can be seen, ironically, from Yasir Arafat:

In 1993, there was an official exchange of letters between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chairman Arafat, in which Arafat declared that "the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid."

The unquestioned Palestinian leader admits that he did not agree for most of his life that Israel has the right to exist, and then he claimed he accepted that right.

Munayyer is disproved by the leader of the Palestinians that he claims he is supporting.

But, since Munayyer declares the question of Israel's right to exist to be a "bullshit question," let's cut through the bullshit.

When people talk about Israel's right to exist, it implicitly means Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. That is, of course, Israel's purpose, to be a refuge for Jews around the world. (Arafat, of course, tried to thread the needle by saying he accepts the State of Israel but not its purpose.)

Munayyer emphatically rejects that right of a Jewish state to exist.

Asking the question whether Israel has the right to exist isn't a "gotcha" question - it is a question asking whether the Jewish people have the right of self determination, like all other peoples, and can say that Israel fulfills that right. Those who answer "no" are antisemites, and their refusal to accept Israel's existence is proof of their bigotry.

That is what Munayyer objects to. The question that he refuses to answer reveals that he, and the people on his side, are bigots.

It isn't intellectually dishonest to ask that question - it is intellectually dishonest to refuse to answer.

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UN Human Rights Council proves its anti-Israel bias in its own graphic

The UN Human Rights Council issued a self-congratulatory report for its activities in 2018.

One of the infographics in the report shows a count of all statements and resolutions by country with bubbles roughly proportionate in size to the count.

Resolutions involving Israel and "Palestine" (which they disingenuously count separately, even though all of them are criticizing Israel) are so numerous that the graphic artists needed to find enough empty space on the world map to fit them. So pro-"Palestine" resolutions are in Greenland and ant-Israel resolutions are in the north Atlantic and North America.

I highlighted them. Click to see the entire map full size.

Both of the largest bubbles represent not all resolutions, but only those under UNHRC Item 7, which is dedicated to bashing Israel (“Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories”.)

By separating Israel and "Palestine" the artist attempts to minimize the absurdity of how much time the UNHRC spends on Israel, but even afterwards the two bubbles dominate the map, highlighting the absurdity of how the organization is single-mindedly focused on criticizing Israel.

(h/t Petra and @DSchwammenthal)

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01/22 Links Pt2: The Persistence of European Antisemitism; The Beginning of Post Holocaust Antisemitism?; The woman and organization behind legal victories against antisemitism

From Ian:

The Persistence of European Antisemitism

Today’s public debates on antisemitism are frequently dominated by people who, while eager to express their personal opinions, are clearly ill-informed about the long history and chameleon-like character of Judeophobia. They are blissfully ignorant of the way Jew-hatred over the centuries has kept the same semantics but modified its forms and expressions according to changing circumstances.

Consequently, we hear passionate affirmations that “rightist populism is responsible for contemporary antisemitism,” or that “the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the main cause,” or that “classical Jew-hatred is in retreat” — all long-since rejected by empirical research. Completely misleading, too, is the assertion that “antisemitism and Muslim-hatred are closely related,” or that present-day Muslims suffer the same discrimination Jews once did.

A misleading, albeit common allegation is that not enough research has yet been conducted on the problem of antisemitism. In this way, the copious results of existing research on the subject are swept under the rug and the real struggle against Jew-hatred is pushed into the future. Also, in recent times we hear and read frequently that “antisemitism has reached the middle of society.” “Reached”? Jew-hatred always came from the educated social center. There sit its most representative perpetrators. It has never been otherwise.

As in the past, present-day antisemitism reproduces and multiplies Jew-hating tendencies deeply rooted in Western consciousness. It follows the age-old pattern that attributes to the Jews all the miseries of the world. Antisemitic rancor is always directed against Jewish existence per se — and today, this means the most vital symbol of Jewish existence, the State of Israel. The opposition to Israel is now the meeting point of Jew-haters of diverse political and ideological colors, the common ground of present-day antisemitism. The old Judeophobia is projected onto the Jewish state.

Here lies the critical point where European official policy should intervene. Tirades of hate against the Jewish state are found not on the margins but in the center of Western society. Rancor against Israel feeds the dissemination of present-day antisemitism more than any other factor.

The Beginning of Post Holocaust Antisemitism?

I have pasted below a submission made to the UN Special Committee on Palestine in July 1947. The text is a statement made by the Iraqi representative Fadel Jamali, it is long (a shade under 5000 words) but well worth the read.

It shows how little the anti-Zionist arguments have changed in the last 70 odd years.

It also shows the evolution of the antisemitic arguments that are now causing so much consternation in the UK and USA and includes conspiratorial beliefs that are now flourishing healthily in the West:
“The Zionists have not come only for Palestine, which is mainly a barren, rocky and sandy country. Palestine is just a stepping-stone to the economic exploitation of the whole Middle-East. In the long run, the Zionists dream of big economic returns which will make up for the temporary losses. Hence, the whole world needs critically to examine Zionist propaganda and Zionist influence on the world press if we are to achieve peace in a democratic world. Great donations of money in a humanitarian guise for terrorism and aggressive invasion of Palestine must stop if we are to achieve peace in this part of the world.”

Nazi/Zionist comparisons were being made even as the survivors were still lived in the concentration camps from which they were liberated:
Some Zionists in this War probably joined the Allied Forces with a double end in view — the defeat of Hitler and the conquest of Palestine by force. They certainly learned some of the deadliest and most treacherous Nazi methods of warfare. They are applying them in Palestine today.

The irony of calling for a single democratic state that entirely ignores the expressed desires of one third of its potential inhabitants is lost on the representatives of various Arab states addressing the committee (as are many other things).

Melanie Phillips: Exhibition of cowardice in Golders Green

Here’s a little thought experiment for you to try.

Suppose a synagogue wanted to hold an exhibition commemorating, say, co-existence between Jews and Muslims in medieval Spain.

Suppose a group of Jews who objected to anything showing Muslims in a good light intimidated the organisers of the exhibition into dropping it, threatening them with violence if it went ahead.

There would be a huge outcry by the wider Jewish community at such behaviour. It would almost certainly make the national papers which would be delighted to show Jewish “extremists” in such a bad light.

Yet when the reverse happens the reaction is… silence.

When Golders Green Hippodrome was turned into a mosque in 2017, the Jewish community voiced initial concerns. These were largely dissipated when it emerged that the mosque, called the Markaz or Centre for Islamic Enlightening, was run by a Shia sect that follows Grand Ayatollah Sadiq Hussaini Shirazi.

The Shirazi are opposed to the Iranian theocratic regime on the grounds that there should be separation between mosque and state. As a result of this conflict, writes the counter-extremist researcher David Toube on the Quilliam website, the followers of the Shirazi school have been persecuted and its leaders arrested.

The Markaz has gone to some lengths to display neighbourliness and friendship towards the Jewish community. Its Jewish supporters say its leaders have a strong history of interfaith co-existence, have generally steered away from politics and have denounced jihadi groups.

Melanie Phillips: Crazy world Women's March antisemitism, Brexit end-game

Our crazy world: Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Unwired the antisemitism infesting the US “Women’s March”, the Brexit crisis in Britain which has reached its nail-biting end game, and more.

Know How to Answer, part 18A: "Israel Targets Christians"

Latest in the series...

Nearly six years ago I gave a lecture at Yeshiva University on how to answer anti-Israel arguments. Since the lecture was over an hour and twenty minutes, I decided to break it up into 20 sections, one each to answer one popular anti-Israel argument.

Here is part 18A.

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Over the past week there have been a number of protests in West Bank Arab towns over a new social security law.

Late last week the Palestinian Authority Minister of Local Government, Hussein al-A'arj, shocked all Palestinians by referring to the leaders of the protests in Hebron as being "settlers from Kiryat Arba."

I have never seen such anger in Palestinian Arab media over an insult. Apparently you can call someone's mother a whore before you can call someone a "settler."

Fatah in Hebron demanded that al-A'arj be fired and said he would not be allowed into the city. Prime minister Rami Hamdallah ordered an investigation.

Under pressure, al-A'arj issued an apology: "My family and my dear people, our heroic people, especially in the province of Hebron. I declare to you, as your brother, Hussein al-Araj, the minister of local government. The statements I made were specific to a particular person and came in the context of public concern and the social security law. This was only meant to respond to one single person who abused, harassed and threatened the government and senior officials....If you understand my words I offer my apologies for each individual and family and the family of my family, and I regret that my words have been twisted by those who have other agendas."

Which is not a very good apology.

The ministry issued a contradictory apology, saying that he was referring to a number of protesters, not just one.

And no one is forgiving him for his unprecedented insult. Activists in Hebron are threatening to expose embarrassing information about him unless he is fired. The Palestinian NGO Network is demanding he be fired. So does the PFLP. Editorials are calling for his dismissal.

It doesn't help that al-A'arj means "the lame."

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01/22 Links Pt1: Netanyahu: Israel's crushing fist will reach any place; PA: Israel and Hamas planning to assassinate Abbas; PA ministry removes photo of officials with Israeli drinks

From Ian:

Netanyahu: Israel's crushing fist will reach any place

Israel's “crushing fist” will strike all who seek Israel's destruction, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday, during a visit to the Israel Aerospace Industries division that manufactures and develops the Arrow missile.

“Let our enemies who seek to destroy us know that Israel's crushing fist will reach all those who seek our harm, and we will hold them accountable,” Netanyahu said.

The prime minister visited the site following the successful test of the Arrow 3 missile on Tuesday. Netanyahu said that Israel has among the strongest and most advanced defense and attack capabilities in the world.

His comments came a day after the head of Iran's air force, Brig. Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh, said that Iran's armed forces “are prepared for a war that will bring the crushing destruction of Israel. We are ready for the day when we will see the end of Israel."

During his visit to IAI, Netanyahu expressed appreciation to the US for its cooperation and assistance, including in the development of the Arrow missile.

“We will continue to successfully develop the most advanced weapon systems in the world to ensure the security of Israeli citizens and the security of the State of Israel," he said.

JPost Editorial: Balancing Act

Israeli commentators and officials have stressed that Israel is not at war with Syria and does not want a war there, but Bashar Assad’s fragile state is the playground of Iranian forces, where the Shi’ite Islamic Republic is trying to establish itself on Israel’s border and continues to transfer advanced weapons to its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon.

The key to preventing a further escalation seems to be impressing on Vladimir Putin’s Russia that it needs to abide by promises to keep Iran from becoming entrenched on Israel’s border and stop weapons supplies from reaching terrorist organizations that openly threaten Israeli civilians.

Israel cannot allow Iran to act without a response. On the one hand, the Jewish state needs to take action to maintain deterrence and prevent the situation from deteriorating into a form of war of attrition – similar to the situation that has developed with Iranian-sponsored Hamas in the South, where rockets are regularly launched on the Negev from Gaza. On the other hand, care needs to be taken to avoid an escalation that can quickly get out of control.

Syria barely exists as a state, but Russia is keen to maintain the calm there to help Assad keep control – while Iran, already overstretched, also does not seem keen on an all-out confrontation with Israel.

Jerusalem has to continue to make it clear that Iran does not enjoy immunity and that Russia’s presence is no guarantee for it to act with impunity.

Israel has a responsibility to perform a delicate balancing act, weighing firm action to protect its citizens while trying its best to avoid an unwanted escalation in the conflict.

JCPA: A Single Strategy for Two Fronts

The firing of an Iranian missile from Syrian territory on January 20, 2019, toward the Hermon, which was crowded with tourists, was a particularly dangerous and serious event. According to senior IDF sources, the Iranians were preparing this response for quite a while.

IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis stated that it was a major decision taken a long time ago by the Iranians, and the firing of the missile was an Iranian attempt to attack Israel.

By firing the missile toward Israel, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards tried to give Israel the same signal that it received from the terror organizations in Gaza several months ago. Then Hamas changed the rules of the game from what they had been since the cease-fire agreement brokered at the end of Operation Protective Edge in summer 2014. Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza presented a new equation, according to which “fire will be answered by fire.”

Iran is adopting the same policy: every Israeli attack on Iranian targets inside Syrian territory will be met with an Iranian response firing toward Israel.

This is the strategy of Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard, who is trying to ignite a war of attrition on the northern border, comprised of brief clashes, similar to those Israel has been experiencing on the Gaza border since March 30, 2018.

Israel made the mistake of coming to terms with the general change in the rules of the game that was imposed upon it by terror organizations in Gaza. This mistake has been interpreted as weakness and has had ramifications on the northern border. Gen. Soleimani reckons that he will manage to change the rules of the game also on the northern border by firing missiles at Israel.

Tamika Mallory Is A Disciple of Sharpton As Well As Farrakhan -- And It Shows (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Since Tamika Mallory's connection to, and adoration of, Antisemite Louis Farrakhan is well known, her Antisemitic attacks on Jews and Israel -- and her recent refusal to address those concerns -- are not surprising.

But she is also a disciple of Al Sharpton. Mallory joined the staff of Sharpton's National Action Network when she was 15 and later became its youngest-ever executive director.

Mallory with Sharpton in 2010. Politico. Credit: Colby Hamilton Fair Use.

Like Farrakhan, Sharpton also has a history of inciting hatred.

1987 Sharpton pushed the Tawana Brawley hoax, where a 15-year-old black girl claimed she was abducted and raped by a group of white men. Sharpton deliberately singled out Dutchess County prosecutor Steve Pagones, a young prosecutor and accused him of racism and of having participated in the attack on Brawley. Pagones sued and won a $345,000 verdict for defamation against Sharpton, Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason. Sharpton refused to pay and Johnnie Cochran paid for him.
In 1991: When a Hasidic Jewish driver in Crown Heights accidentally killed Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, antisemitic riots erupted. At the funeral Sharpton blamed the "diamond merchants" (Jews) with "the blood of innocent babies" on their hands. Sharpton went further, mobilizing hundreds of demonstrators marching through the Jewish neighborhood, chanting, "No justice, no peace." Rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, was surrounded by a mob shouting "Kill the Jews!" and was stabbed to death.

But Sharpton's comments go further than that. The Forward quotes comments by Sharpton that would rival Farrakhan in their racism and history revisionism:

The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident...It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights...Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid...All we want to say is what Jesus said: if you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no kaffe klatsch, no skinnin’ and grinnin’. Pay for your deeds...It’s no accident that we know we should not be run over. We are the royal family on the planet. We’re the original man. We gazed into the stars and wrote astrology. We had a conversation and that became philosophy. We are the ones who created mathematics. We’re not anybody to be left to die waiting on an ambulance. We are the alpha and omega of creation itself...We will win because we’re right. We will win because we’re strong. God is on our side. [emphasis added]
In 1995, the United House of Prayer, a large black landlord in Harlem, raised the rent on Freddy's Fashion Mart, owned by a white Jewish owner who was forced to raise the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store. Following the ensuing dispute, Sharpton got involved and raised tempers, warning "we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." Sharpton's organization, National Action Network, set up picket lines. Customers who entered the store were spat on, cursed and accused of being "traitors" and "Uncle Toms." Going further, some protesters shouted,"Burn down the Jew store!" while simulating striking a match with Sharpton's colleague Morris Powell saying "We're going to see that this cracker suffers". On December 8, one of the protestors entered Freddy's, shot 4 of the employees and set the store on fire, killing 7 employees. [emphasis added]Like Farrakhan, Sharpton acted the demagogue, picking a target and focusing on it relentlessly, whether it was Pagones or the Jews. Sharpton fabricated accusations against Pagones and the Jews with no basis in reality -- but the hatred deliberately generated by those accusations did its job, energizing his followers and victimizing his targets.

This is what we see now from Sharpton's disciple, in the way Mallory thinks about both white people and Jews.

“Tamika told us that the problem was that there were five white women in the room and only three women of color, and that she didn’t trust white women. Especially white women from the South. At that point, I kind of tuned out because I was so used to hearing this type of talk from Tamika. But then I noticed the energy in the room changed. I suddenly realized that Tamika and Carmen were facing Vanessa [Wruble, another leader], who was sitting on a couch, and berating her — but it wasn’t about her being white. It was about her being Jewish. ‘Your people this, your people that.’… They even said to her ‘your people hold all the wealth.’ You could hear a pin drop. It was awful.” [emphasis added]

For her part, while Mallory refuses to condemn her mentors, she claims

“I don’t agree with everything that Minister Farrakhan said about Jews or women or gay people,” said Mallory. “I study in a tradition, the Kingian nonviolent tradition. [emphasis added]

Actually, she agrees with Farrakhan quite a bit, claiming that "white Jews" contribute to white supremacy.

Mallory has openly expressed her distrust white women as well:

“We’re not really interested in hearing white women talk about how much they want to work with us, and how much they want to be allies, and how much they appreciate us, and all those great things. We don’t want to hear that, because we continue to see — in places like Alabama — and as we approach the State of the Union, we’re dealing with a megalomaniac as president of this country and white women are largely to blame for that. They are largely the cause of it. White women have been voting the wrong way.”

And on the other hand, contrary to her claim of following the Kingian tradition -- Mallory seems to fall short. In 1968, Reverend King condemned the identity politics Mallory advocates:

The response of some of the so-called young militants does not represent the position of the vast majority of Negroes. There are some who are color-consumed and they see a kind of mystique in blackness or in being colored, and anything non-colored is condemned. We do not follow that course. [emphasis added]

Putting aside Martin Luther King's well known positive feelings about Israel, we can only wish that Mallory was capable of emulating Reverend King's refusal to sink to identity politics that fuel the hate and divisiveness we see today.

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