Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, February 21, 2019

02/21 Links Pt2: Why should we hate Israel?; Did UNC Promote Sarsour Talk by Using Photo of Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial?; Israel's first moon mission set for liftoff from Florida

From Ian:

Gallant said the vandalism at the Jewish cemetery was “reminiscent of dark days in the history of the Jewish people.”

“Last week, I visited the French Jewish community, which faces antisemitic attacks and a process of assimilation,” he said. “The State of Israel is the safe, national home for the Jews of the world. I strongly condemn the antisemitism in France and call on Jews [to] come home; immigrate to Israel.”

Meyer Habib, a Jewish member of France’s National Assembly, said the recent spate of antisemitic attacks raised “serious questions over the future of Jews in France.”

While aliyah is clearly an option, a report from Paris by Bernard Edinger in The Jerusalem Report indicates that immigration to Israel from France is on the wane rather than the rise.

After reaching a record 24,000 immigrants from 2013 through 2016, according to the Jewish Agency, annual immigration from France dropped in 2018 for the third year running, to only 2,660 (down from 3,500 in 2017, and 5,000 in 2016).

Despite the rise in antisemitism, according to Daniel Benhaim, outgoing head of the Jewish Agency in France, “French Jews feel that the situation is less oppressive than it was in the past, and there is less of a feeling that they should accelerate their departure to Israel.”

While we commend French leaders for speaking out against antisemitism, we urge French authorities to take aggressive action to combat all signs of it, and bring the offenders swiftly to justice.

As for French Jews, they must be on the alert – but should be assured that Israel stands by them, and will always be here for them.

Why should we hate Israel?

Back in 1994, I was still a middle school student in a small Kurdistani town called Amadiya, which had been under the control of Saddam Hussein until 1991. I recall our history teacher stepping out of the curriculum line and saying, “Although the books favor Arabs over Jews, history indicates Jews lived in Jerusalem prior to Muslims.”

The teacher got away with this statement because Kurdistan was then outside the control of Saddam. Otherwise, he could have easily been executed for making such a comment to students.

The comment made by our teacher stuck in my head, so I always questioned whether the Arab media conveyed the truth regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

This month, I was fortunate to visit Israel. Understanding and analyzing a nation requires profound knowledge. While Israel is far from perfect, I learned there are many reasons to respect the country, and that the portrait of Israelis as portrayed by the Arab media is misleading.

When I arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport, the passport control officer separated me from the rest of the travelers and asked me to walk to a corner office where I should wait to be called. I was questioned about my visit to Israel. The officers were very professional and respectful. I did not feel any racism or ill treatment that suggested a predetermined suspicion because of my background. At the end of the questioning, an officer stepped forward with my password and entry permit, saying, “Mr. Amedi, you are good to go.”

When I entered the airport’s main terminal, I noticed many signs in Arabic. “Perhaps it is an international facility, and that could be why Arabic is used,” I thought. One of the first steps in foreign travel is to buy local currency, and I was intrigued that the Israel shekel is printed in Hebrew, Arabic and English!

Did UNC Promote Sarsour Talk by Using Photo of Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial?

As I recently reported in the Tower, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) is hosting their Minority Health Conference on February 22, featuring keynote speaker Linda Sarsour. The American-Palestinian activist is known for her hostility towards Israel, having said “nothing is creepier than Zionism” and advising Muslims not to “humanize” Israelis.

Community members are now concerned that the UNC-CH Minority Health Conference may have exploited the Holocaust by using what appears to be a picture of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial to promote the conference on social media. A number of Jewish community members confidently informed me that the image in question, posted to Facebook by the Minority Health Conference on February 19, is of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial.

Michael Abramson, Chairman of the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust, a state agency organized under the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, said, “The Holocaust or any Holocaust Memorial commemorating the Holocaust, should not be used as an advertising tool to promote a political event. When an organization invites Linda Sarsour to speak, the organization is opening itself to politicizing its conference.”

A UNC-CH graduate student remarked, “The conference organizers seem to have a definite fixation on Jews and the topic of Israel. One would expect an academic conference on public health to focus on public health.”

Lecture in Egypt on "Herzl, Imam of the Zionists"

There was a lecture this week at the Egyptian Opera House about Theodor Herzl, described in this article as the "imam of the Zionist."

,Dr. Adel Al-Sayyid, lecturer at the Department of Political Science and Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck, just published a book about Herzl and he discussed his findings.

In the lecture, the author said that the rush of some Arab rulers today to cooperate with Israel without solving the basic question of Palestine will not contribute to resolving the crisis and will not end the conflict and the dispute between Jews And the Arabs.

Al-Sayyid emphasized that if only the Jews would have moved to Argentina or Chile, then the Jewish problem in Europe would have been solved and there would be no Israel to cause such problems.

The lecture discussed Herzl's motivation for Zionism but does not mention the Dreyfus Affair. Therefore, the author could say that the only antisemitism was in Tsarist Russia and the Western European Zionists planned to use Russian Jews as cheap labor to build the land.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Recent hints about what might be in Donald Trump’s deal of deals indicate that it includes Israel annexing parts of Judea and Samaria containing major settlement blocks, in return for “land swaps” in which a Palestinian entity would receive land that is presently within the Green Line.

I am not sure where the idea first surfaced, but it was included in the Clinton Parameters, the offer made at the 2000 Camp David summit, which was rejected by the PLO.

Let’s consider the history.

Prior to 1948, all of the land from the river to the sea was a single entity, the British Mandate for Palestine, established in 1922 and intended to constitute or contain a “national home for the Jewish people.” In 1947, Britain had had enough rioting and terrorism from both Jews and Arabs in the territory of the Mandate, and wanted to be done with its obligation. Over the years, they had lost interest in the Jewish national home, and felt that their interests would best be served by Arab control of the area. But others supported the establishment of a Jewish state, for various reasons.

There was the worldwide Zionist movement, and of course the Yishuv, the Jewish settlement in Eretz Yisrael itself, which had already put into place the structure of a shadow state. There were Christian Zionists, who believed that the establishment of such a state would be a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy. There were elements in the US who thought that the Jews deserved recompense after the Holocaust. There were those who saw a Jewish state as a convenient destination for millions of Jewish refugees that nobody wanted. And there was Stalin, who saw in the socialist leanings of the leadership of the Yishuv a possible ally in a very strategic neighborhood.

So the UN proposed a compromise and recommended a partition of the area of the Mandate into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Jewish Agency, happy to get any kind of state no matter how attenuated, accepted it, although both Begin and Ben-Gurion were apprehensive, correctly expecting war. The Arabs – both those who lived in the Mandate and the Arab nations – rejected it. Why should the Jews get anything at all? The nonbinding recommendation (UNGA 181) of the General Assembly was never implemented. It’s important to understand that it was only a recommendation, with no legal force. Both Jews who say “the UN gave us a state” and Mahmoud Abbas, who in 2016 called for the implementation of the partition on its original lines, are wrong.

In May 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed without specifying borders (although an agent of the “provisional government” wrote to US President Truman that the state was declared “within the frontiers approved by the General Assembly… in [Resolution 181],” it’s not clear if this had any legal significance). It has been persuasively argued by Eugene Kontorovich that Israel inherited the borders of the Mandate, since there was no other entity that could have a claim on it.

Immediately after the declaration, several Arab states invaded the new state of Israel, making statements that they intended to destroy the state and massacre its Jewish inhabitants. The war ended with a cease-fire, not a peace agreement. In 1949, agreements were signed between Israel and Jordan and Israel and Egypt, which specified lines of disengagement where the armies were at the time of cessation of hostilities. The line between Jordanian and Israeli forces in the east was called the “Green Line” because Moshe Dayan drew a line on a map with a green pencil during negotiations with the Jordanians.

Neither side, particularly the Arabs, wanted to make borders out of the armistice lines, and there is language in the armistice agreements that specifically states that the lines have no political significance. The agreement with Jordan states,

Article II

1. The principle that no military or political advantage should be gained under the truce ordered by the Security Council is recognised;

2. It is also recognised that no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations. …

Article IV

1. The lines described in articles V and VI of this Agreement shall be designated as the Armistice Demarcation Lines and are delineated in pursuance of the purpose and intent of the resolution of the Security Council of 16 November 1948 [UNSC 62].

2. The basic purpose of the Armistice Demarcation Lines is to delineate the lines beyond which the armed forces of the respective Parties shall not move. …

Article VI

9. The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in articles V and VI of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto.

During the fighting and after its end, Jordan occupied the territory of Judea and Samaria to the east of the Green Line, committing numerous war crimes – massacres of prisoners and civilians; ethnic cleansing; unnecessary destruction of civilian property, especially including religious sites; sniping civilians, and more. A year later, in 1950, Jordan officially annexed the territory, calling it (for the first time) “The West Bank.”

The annexation violated the UN charter, and was considered illegal by most of the world. It was only recognized by the UK – which had helped the Jordanians in the 1948 war and which still hoped to replace the Jewish state with an Arab one – Iraq, which was an ally of Jordan in that war, and possibly Pakistan.

Jordan, which had opposed the partition resolution in 1947, did not try to create an Arab state in Judea and Samaria in 1949. Its objective was to add to its territory.

Nineteen years later, in 1967, King Hussein of Jordan ignored Israeli warnings, listened to the fake news coming out of Egypt and joined the war – yet another Arab war to destroy Israel. As a result, Israel gained control of Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem, ending the Jordanian occupation, and arguably finally obtaining the borders it should have had with the declaration of independence in 1948. Later, treaties with Egypt and Jordan established recognized borders between Israel and those countries.

But the Green Line and the name “West Bank,” artifacts of the nineteen-year illegal Jordanian occupation never went away. Despite the clear declaration by all parties that the Green Line was not a border, the PLO – by wishing it so – has decided that it is one, between Israel and the non-country of “Palestine.” The Israeli presence between the Green Line and the Jordan river is considered by the European Union and others, following the lead of the PLO, to be a “military occupation,” and Israeli Jews living there are called – based on an egregiously wrong interpretation of the Fourth Geneva Convention – “illegal settlers.”

How this happened is a long story, but a simplified explanation is that a lie can become accepted as true when it is repeated enough times by enough people. And that’s what happened here, starting with the KGB’s creation of the Palestinian people in the 1960s, through the extended blackmail of Europe by Palestinian terrorism, bolstered by Western leftist guilt, and sealed by resurgent European and Islamic Jew-hatred.

The idea of swaps ought to be unacceptable to Israel, because it presupposes Arab ownership of all of Judea and Samaria. Why should Israel be required to compensate the Palestinians for taking its own land?

The next time someone tells you that the “West Bank” is “Arab land,” ask them how nineteen years of illegal Jordanian occupation made it so.

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02/21 Links Pt1: U.S. envoy Friedman knocks Oslo, says hand open to Palestinian people; Polish norms helped Nazis wipe out local Jewry; Eight Bernie Sanders Anti-Israel Outrages

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: "The Slap of the Century"

Under the current circumstances, when Arabs are being widely shamed and condemned for sitting in the same room with an Israeli prime minister, it is hard to see how the Trump administration will be able to convince Arab states and leaders to normalize their relations with Israel. Some of these Arab leaders may be privately telling US administration officials things they like to hear about peace and coexistence with Israel. The very same leaders, however, are fully aware of the opposite sentiments, not only in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but throughout the Arab world.

All that is left for the Trump administration to do is to try and persuade the Arab states to abandon the Palestinians, and to continue focusing on the regional threat from Iran. If the US completes its pullout from Syria, Iran will successfully complete its long-desired "land-bridge" to the Mediterranean through Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. This encirclement of the area will position Iran, via its proxies, to be the hegemon controlling the region, as it has clearly been trying to bring about. Russia, of course, is standing in the wings, thanks to the gift that then US President Barack Obama handed Putin in 2011 by pulling American troops out of Syria.

For decades now, not only Palestinian leaders but Arab ones as well, have been radicalizing their people against Israel. Using every available platform, including mosques, media outlets and United Nations organizations, these leaders, with the collaboration of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, have demonized Israel. They have poisoned the hearts and minds of their people with the hate that exists towards Israel all over the Arab world. To promote normalization with Israel, a leader must prepare his people for the possibility of peace with Israel. Meanwhile, Arab leaders are doing the exact opposite -- which is why some of them are currently being denounced as traitors and pawns in the hands of Israel and the US. It would be wise for President Trump's advisers, if they wish to grasp what is really going on in the Arab world, to listen to the voices of the Arab street.

U.S. envoy Friedman knocks Oslo, says hand open to Palestinian people

United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman knocked the 1993 Oslo Accords and said his hand was open to the Palestinian people, when he spoke in Jerusalem on Thursday at a joint Israeli-Palestinian business forum sponsored by the Judea and Samaria Chamber of Commerce.

“To all the Palestinian friends who are here, the US is with you, the people of the US are with you, the President of the US is with you,” Friedman said.

He spoke of his support for the grassroots initiative that brings together settlers and Palestinian in the West Bank in joint business ventures, which was started last year.

“To my Israeli friends, I say the same. We are all with you, together to support you in new out-of-the-box thinking, to build a safe and more prosperous world for Israeli and Palestinians alike,” Friedman said.

The gathering comes at a time when there are no relations between the US and the Palestinian Authority. The US has cut most of its funding to the PA, and the PA in turn has rejected all US funding, including for humanitarian projects. In a climate with few opportunities for cooperation, Israeli-Palestinian public meetings are rare.

But on Thursday, Friedman’s comments made it seem as if settlers, who are often portrayed as a stumbling block to the peace process, are now leading the way in an arena with few opportunities for joint cooperation.

David Singer: Israel jettisons PLO as Negotiating Partner on Trump Peace Plan

Israel’s decision to withhold US$138 million dollars in tax revenues collected for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – equalling the estimated annual payments made to Palestinian Arabs (or their families) carrying out random and indiscriminate attacks against Israeli civilians – marks a watershed in Israel-PLO relations.

Israel’s action will see the PLO being finally jettisoned as a possible negotiating partner on President Trump’s long-delayed peace plan – deferred yet again until after the Israeli elections in April.

The release of the Trump plan could now be further postponed as the president continues his so far unsuccessful search to find other Arab negotiators willing to replace the PLO – which had already rejected having anything to do with Trump’s plan well before Israel’s latest decision.

The law authorising the freezing of these PLO funds was passed by the Israeli parliament in July 2018 – three months after similar legislation – the Taylor Force Act – passed by the US Congress – was signed into law by President Trump.

Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked stressed the funds withheld would be used to pay “fat salaries to murderers who are in prison”.

#OnThisdAY, 50 years ago, Rasmea Odeh Murdered Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner

Today, the world has become indifferent to Ramsea Odeh’s crimes, with public figures embracing and defending her.

We won’t let the memories of Edward and Leon be forgotten.https://t.co/dLY4VWcf5i
— StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) February 21, 2019

Today's antisemitism in Arab media

From SotalIraq (Voice of Iraq):

It is known that the world consists of a group of officially numbered 195 states, each with a known border, a government a constitution and a particular system of government, but the United States of America is in fact the de facto ruling ruler of all the states of the world. Yet even its leadership is only a facade. The real leaders are the interests of a group of giant economic cartels, who control the global economy. '...

The most important of these giant institutions that control the world through its complete control over the US military and the CIA is the Rothschild Foundation, which is owned by a family of the same name. They are Jews of Germany, who succeeded over five centuries in climbing up to the summit to impose hegemony on most financial institutions in the world, including the central banks of all countries. Some say the Rothschild family alone owns half of the world 's wealth combined.

I would like to highlight a very important issue, which is that the Rothschild Foundation has control of all weapons factories in the world, and they caused the defeat of Napoleon by cutting off his arms supply.

As is well known, the arms trade is considered one of the economic activities that bring quick profit, when compared to other goods like...oil, gas and precious metals.

The weapons are expensive and quick to be used during the outbreak of wars. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the reasons that lead to wars and armed conflicts in the regions and between countries that have a surplus of money, There is no better location for that than the Middle East. Due to Iraq's important strategic location, its ethnic and ethnic diversity, its lack of political parties or political awareness among the overwhelming majority of its people, this facilitates the planting of seeds of violence and incitement. And that sectarianism, a cross-border problem, is planned, where it must lead to the outbreak of war between countries in the region, which will all need equipment and weapons, and then must resort to factories of the Rothschild Foundation to import arms and equipment, and at prices determined by the source.

The Rothschilds only own 50% of the world's wealth? I thought it was 80%!

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Who is "Progressive Except for Palestine?"

A number of years ago, Israel-haters in so-called "progressive" circles started an expression to demean Jews who subscribed to progressive principles, yet remained Zionist.

The expression was "Progressive Except for Palestine," or PEP.

Mondoweiss has been using the phrase since at least 2009, and it appears to have been mainstreamed among the far-Left Israel haters in the years since.

I only heard of it when I saw a bunch of so-called "progressives" recommend an essay by disgraced antisemitic professor-turned-bus-driver Steven Salaita who argues that the popular expression is wrong, because it is literally impossible to be progressive in any area if one supports Israel:

Accepting a Zionist’s self-description as progressive or feminist (or socialist or anti-racist or whatever) renders Palestine subservient to arbitrary branding choices. Exposing hypocrisy is satisfying, but less so if it elides the import of Palestinian liberation. It’s better to scrutinize Israel as a source of moral privation rather than situating Palestine as a void that signifies an incomprehensible lapse of morality.

Or, put more simply, a progressive or feminist (or socialist or anti-racist or whatever) with shit politics on Palestine isn’t somebody with an inconsistency; it’s somebody with shit politics in general. Supporting Israel isn’t a respite from otherwise admirable ethics; it portends ethical flaws across a range of issues.

I agree that the hypocrisy of being called a progressive while having very regressive views on Israel should disqualify one from being considered progressive altogether - but from a somewhat different angle. I posted this on Twitter last night:

Progressives would never support people who discriminate against women, gays and people of different faiths.

Progressives would never support people who celebrate violence, weaponry and attacking innocent women and children.

Progressives would never support people who base their laws on religious texts that are utterly incompatible with today's liberal thinking.

Unless those people are Palestinian Arabs.

This is what the real definition of "Progressive Except for Palestine" is. Because once you hack your way past the lies and slander about Israel that is considered sacrosanct by much of the "progressive" Left, you see a state that embraces liberal values but does not embrace suicide, squared off against a truly regressive death cult that does not hold a single progressive position on anything. (I don't use the phrase "death cult" lightly, but the overwhelming Palestinian support for the most reprehensible terror attacks shows that this characterization is accurate. And many in the so-called "progressive" community have embraced that same love of terrorists, especially by falsely claiming that murdering Jews is acceptable under international law.)

The only consistent progressives in the world are the dwindling number who support Israel. The others are "progressives except for Palestine," or, as Salaita's logic would have it, "regressives because of Palestine."

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Rare video of "Talmudic rituals" at Temple Mount this morning

Palestine Today has video of Jews "performing rituals" - meaning, praying - at the Temple Mount, apparently this morning.

You will be treated to seeing Jews standing still, or softly swaying, in absolute silence, for 52 seconds.

See the horror!

If they would, say, play soccer, that would be OK. But look how disruptive and hostile this is! Understand how this could lead to a religious war!

Of course Amnesty and Human Rights Watch won't defend the rights of Jews to pray in their holiest place, as required by international law. They are a menace who are provoking Muslim feelings!

In the end, it is not Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount that upsets the Muslims. It is Jews existing there.

And not a single international NGO will defend the Jewish right to even visit their holiest place, let alone to respectfully pray there. Because it upsets the bigots who want it to remain Judenfrei, and the human rights of racists and bigots are far more important than that of Jews.

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02/20 Links Pt2: Jews Must Not Embrace Powerlessness; Syracuse Undercover: Hamas Has ‘Done A Lot Of Good’; Galloway's Extraordinary Goebbels Rant

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: An odious political symmetry

We are being led to believe that a fearful political symmetry is developing which has to be avoided at all costs, exemplified by the seven MPs who resigned the Labour whip on Monday.

The seven MPs – Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker, and Ann Coffey — said they were resigning the Labour whip to sit as independent MPs in protest at two issues: that the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is facilitating Brexit rather than pressing for the second referendum that they want to see take place; and that he has failed to tackle the antisemitism displayed by hundreds of Labour members.

The latter is undeniably true. Luciana Berger, the Jewish MP who has endured sustained abuse and threats from both inside and outside her Liverpool Wavertree constituency with death threats and taunts of “filthy Jew bitch” and “a Zionist extremist who hates civilised people”, said the party was “institutionally antisemitic”.

As if to prove the point, the very next day Labour MP Ruth George astoundingly suggested that the seven MPs – most of who aren’t even Jews – were in the pay of the State of Israel. After an outcry, George deleted her comment and apologised, saying she had “no intention of invoking a conspiracy theory”.

But she did. You can’t just apologise such jaw-dropping antisemitism away.

That Labour is now institutionally not merely vilely antisemitic but extremist and tyrannical, having been captured by the hard left who pose a danger to the entire country if the party were ever to be elected to government, is demonstrably the case.

But astonishingly, an attempt is being made to draw a parallel with the Conservative party. Just as Labour has been captured by extremists, goes the argument, so too have the Tories from the other side of the political spectrum.

Jews Must Not Embrace Powerlessness

To many observers, Israel’s military strength, thriving First World economy, and democratic institutions seem to mark it as a conventional Western power—albeit one located in the Middle East. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Zionism that gave birth to Israel was a radical and revolutionary movement not only to return the Jewish people to sovereignty in their ancestral homeland, but to eradicate the narrative of victimhood that had come to define the Jews of the Diaspora after centuries of oppression and second-class citizenship. That is why Israel is one of the greatest progressive success stories of modern times.

Thus, it makes sense that many left-leaning pro-Israel activists are making valiant efforts to create a space for Zionist groups within the American social-justice movement. On the surface, the fit is an obvious one. Formerly disempowered Jews, who had been oppressed for thousands of years and had lost millions to the Holocaust, now have agency. No longer at the whim of tyrannical regimes, Israel is a powerful, if small, nation-state where the Jews can finally exercise the same rights and privileges as all other peoples.

Yet, as these well-intentioned pro-Israel groups are discovering, intersectionality—the new framework for social-justice movements and the religion of the progressive left—is inherently irreconcilable with Zionism. Pro-Israel groups will fail in their attempts at inclusion precisely because Israel did not fail in its efforts to reverse the condition of the Jew in history. Within the social-justice movement, there is no place for an ideology or an identity that is premised on the idea that Jews will no longer be victims.

In a recent article in the New York Times, columnist Michele Alexander suggested that the only reason Martin Luther King Jr. had been supportive of a homeland for Jews in his day was that “he recognized European Jewry as a persecuted, oppressed, and homeless people.” King would never, she argued, support Israel today.

In 2016 Bernie Sanders pushed the Democrats on Israel. Is he now mainstream?

This may be hard to remember, but three years ago it was a big deal when Bernie Sanders criticized Israel in public.

During a debate in New York City with Hillary Clinton, Sanders generated headlines when he said the United States should care about Palestinian rights. Sometimes, he added, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was wrong.

“In the long run, if we are ever going to bring peace to that region, we are going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity,” the longtime Vermont senator said at the April 14 Democratic presidential primary debate. “There comes a time when we pursue justice and peace that we will have to say Netanyahu is not right all the time.”

During the campaign, Sanders also described himself as “100 percent pro-Israel.” He spoke about living on an Israeli kibbutz when he was younger and defended Israel’s right to self-defense. But he also broke norms on Israel.

Sanders was the only major candidate not to speak at the annual convention of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby (he offered to appear on video, but AIPAC said its doesn’t do that). For a hot second, his director of Jewish outreach was a co-founder of IfNotNow, a millennial Jewish group that is deeply critical of Israeli actions (and takes no “unified stance” on Zionism, the boycott Israel movement or the “question of statehood”). He said Israel’s actions were “disproportionate” during the 2014 Gaza war and overstated the number of Palestinians who were killed.

It had been ten years since I’d been to the U.S. Consulate. And of course, that meant my 10-year passport had expired. This would be the first time I’d be visiting the new embassy, where we could now receive consular services, and I felt a little excited about that, as you do for any new and positive experience. And there could be no doubt that the longed for embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem had been a positive deed by Donald J. Trump that brought lots of joy to Israel.

How different than the last time I renewed my passport, at the old U.S. Consulate in “East” Jerusalem. How different, in fact, from any other time I had to visit that awful place. The consulate had been dingy and gloomy and gray. The wait was long. You felt afraid as one of the few Jews in a waiting room, surrounded by Arabs. The clerks, too, were Arabs. They were, in general, impersonal, patronizing, and unhelpful to the small number of expat American Jews there to receive consular services.

I had particular reason to be afraid when visiting the old consulate. Especially after what happened to me on a visit there during the early 80s.

I was 22 or so. The U.S. Consulate wasn’t a place a Jewish woman went to on her own. It was place with a significant Arab presence and a Jewish woman doesn’t go to a place filled with Arabs, on her own. Not then. Not now.

But my husband couldn’t go with me and I really had to go right then, on that day. So we decided I’d go by cab, and come back by cab. I’d literally step out of the cab straight into the entrance of the consulate, and then call a cab to do the same in reverse once my business was accomplished. I’d never be outside on the street in that all-Arab, therefore dangerous-for-Jews neighborhood. Neither my husband nor I were thrilled, but we really had no choice.

I called for the cab and made my way to the consulate. I paid the taxi driver, and stepped into the entrance of the consulate, as planned. But as I began to go through the security check, the guard decided it was time to take off for lunch. He asked the Arab gardener, who’d been pruning rosebushes in the consulate courtyard, to spell him while he took his break.

It happened so fast that I had no time to react or protest. I didn’t have time to process what this meant: to feel the shock and enormity of what had happened, the lax laziness of the U.S. Consulate security, the lack of caring for Jewish American citizens seeking services there in the early 1980s.

And then it got worse. Much worse.

The Arab gardener gestured to me to hold my arms up, indicating that he wanted to pat me down. This had certainly never been a part of going to the consulate, as scary as it always had been. And that’s when I got the hell out of there, my consular business be damned.

As luck would have it, a young Jewish man was leaving right as I was hurrying out of the building, my heart pounding, flushed and upset. Seeing my distress, this kind person offered his assistance. Because he was wearing a crocheted skullcap, and because of his kindness, I decided to trust him. Seeing how shaken and upset I was, he insisted on driving me all the way to my home.

I couldn’t avoid going back to the consulate, after that, no matter how frightening it was to go there. It was a necessary evil as a dual American Israeli citizen. But I never went there alone, again.

It wasn’t only women that were in danger at the old consulate. It was small children, too. We used to have to bring our children there, in person, in order to register them for social security numbers when they were born. Ditto for passports. Eventually, the consulate waived that requirement and we were able to do these things for our children by mail, but it was just a frightening place for Jews to be, in general.

What a difference, this time, going to the new U.S. Embassy. It is a bright, clean new building in a wide open part of Jerusalem. The security guard, an Israeli Jew, was friendly, and spoke to me in Hebrew. There were no long lines for services where I had to stand outside in a hostile neighborhood, or sit in a waiting room surrounded by hostile people who likely itched to kill me. The clerk who waited on me was polite and efficient, rather than patronizing and cold.

My business there took fewer than ten minutes and then I was outside once more, looking at the modest dedication plaque announcing the date of the embassy opening, and adorned with the names of the president, the vice president, and Israel’s U.S. ambassador.

I have never been a fan of Donald Trump. But looking at his name on the plaque at that moment, I thanked him in my heart for following through on this particular promise—the promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem—after the failed promises of so many presidents before him.

I feel I have to say this: the current political climate is so bad that you can’t say anything good about Trump or his administration in public without being misunderstood and viciously attacked. People say the worst sort of things about Trump. They say he’s responsible for what happened at Tree of Life. They say you can’t believe him when he says or does good things because of the bad things he has said and done. They say that even if he is good for Israel, we have to hate him because of all the bad stuff he has done.

But I don’t care about these vultures and the things they say. I don’t care about their vicious attacks on me, and I’m completely unaffected by the plethora of mainstream media articles that use any old thing to smear Trump—the silliest, most baseless accusations possible.

I don’t live in America, and I don’t have to play that game. I don’t have to be on this team or that. I can use my head and judge each action for what it is.

I can recognize that when Trump talks about grabbing women by the pussy or says there are good people on both sides, he’s being ugly, crude, loutish, and worse. I get that the pussy comment is abusive and exploitative of women. I get how wrong it is to suggest that there are good people among far right white supremacists, that he said what he did because these men are part of his voter base.

There is no doubt that Donald Trump’s vast wealth has corrupted him to a large degree. That he uses people for his own ends. I don’t even like everything he has done in regard to Israel.

But I don’t believe in damning the good.

Here is what I believe: all those in public office are corrupt to some degree. The only thing we can do then, is support their actions when they do, in fact, do good. Because if politicians want to stay in power, they must bend to the will of the people. And so it is in their best interests to fulfill that will, to do what we, the people, want them to do.

Since this is what I believe, deep down, I don’t care how many far left liberal Jews and non-Jews castigate me for speaking my mind. I will say it anyway: moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was a good and positive thing. I am grateful that I never have to go that scary place in “East” Jerusalem ever again, where I feared for my life and safety, every time I had to access the services I am entitled to receive as an American living in Israel.

What happened to me in the early 80’s should not have been the case. I should never have been made afraid to access my civil rights, then or on subsequent visits. No American should be scared to spend time in what is, essentially, a little piece of America. It made me feel ashamed of America for treating its citizens in such a shabby manner, for treating Israel like that, all those years.

It is a Jewish principle to have hakarat hatov, to recognize and acknowledge the good. It is a lot more important than the phony protestations of “tikkun olam” that leftist Jews and Jewish organizations bandy about, a complete misunderstanding of a kabbalistic term. They wrongly presume the term has something to do with social justice, which it most emphatically does not.

Hakarat hatov, is not a kabbalistic term. It is an everyday kind of thing, a part of your demeanor. You watch for, and actively acknowledge the good things in your life. It may be something God does for you, or just acknowledging the goodness of creation. It may be something good that a neighbor does for you, a small kindness. It’s a way of life. A watchfulness: always watching for and recognizing when something good happens.

I have hakarat hatov to Donald Trump for the embassy move and that is a very Jewish attitude to take.

We don’t have to hate everything Trump does because we hate some or even most of what he does. It’s fine to acknowledge the good, and there is good to acknowledge. It’s more than fine to acknowledge these things. It’s necessary. And it’s Jewish.

And so I thank you, Donald J. Trump, for moving the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, to a part of the city that is safe for all its citizens, Jews, Muslims, and Christians, alike.

This is the true spirit of America, and the true spirit of America’s greatest ally in the Middle East, Israel.

No one should fear to come to the embassy.

And now, no one ever will.

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Divorce Refuser Also Demands Qatar Give Him Fuel, Cash (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Bnei Brak, February 20 - A local man has followed the lead of the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, insisting that unless Doha agrees to supply him with all his petroleum needs and with suitcases full of currency, he will not grant his estranged wife a Get, news reports indicate.

Menashe Nussbaum, 38, increased his demands in ongoing negotiations over a religious divorce from his wife Miriam, 35, this week, in addition to custody of the couple's four children and possession of most of their joint assets as conditions of granting the Get, or document of severance. An attorney for Mr. Nussbaum told reporters that upon seeing the success of Hamas's threats to inflame the situation in Gaza further unless supplied with fuel and cash, and the Israeli government's accession to that demand, his client decided to take a similar tack. Under Jewish law, a divorce must have the husband's consent; without the Get, Mrs. Nussbaum is still legally married, and may not remarry, leaving her in personal limbo. The couple wed in 2005.

"It only makes sense to play the hot hand," explained advocate Oded Sheister. "Regardless of the merits or, even success, of my client's other demands, if the Israeli government is going to cave to extortion and allow Qatari funds and resources to reach a genocidal terrorist organization, well, why can't he have a piece of that action? He might as well try, considering his moral standing, despite the less-than-ideal tactic of holding out on giving a Get, is still better than that of Hamas. So we're waiting for Bibi's answer on this."

A spokeswoman for Mrs. Nussbaum stressed that although withholding a Get, even as legal leverage, constitutes psychological and emotional abuse, she and Mrs. Nussbaum have no objections to the husband demanding Qatari largess as part of any final arrangement. "We don't mind that a bit," stated Rina Lazarus. "If he can shore up his ability to pay alimony and child support by such methods, that's fine. The Israeli government has shown it's willing to provide cash conduits to even the most heinous parties, so as far as this tactic is concerned, more power to Mr. Nussbaum."

Experts called the move legally sound but setting a troublesome precedent. "The next recalcitrant husband might take this as a green light to be even more like Hamas, given how Netanyahu treats them," cautioned Natan Flywheel. "And I can't fault the reasoning, but I'm wary of Get-refusers launching incendiary kites at Israeli communities as a tried and true method of getting Bibi to facilitate shipments of cash to them."

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02/20 Links Pt1: Breaking the Silence’s Discredited Spokesman Slanders the IDF; World Council of Churches exposed as biased, anti-Israeli group; Swedish and Norwegian MPs to seek funding cuts to PA

From Ian:

Honest Reporting: Breaking the Silence’s Discredited Spokesman Slanders the IDF

The Journal.ie, an Irish media outlet published an opinion piece by Dean Issacharoff, the spokesperson for Breaking the Silence, a highly politicized organization that collects anonymous testimonies of Israeli soldiers of alleged and most often unsubstantiated misdemeanors or “war crimes” that it presents to a mainly foreign audience as a means of fighting Israel’s “occupation.”

As journalist Jake Wallis Simons recounted back in 2013 when he conducted interviews with BtS staff:

It was only a hunch at first. But later, the bias of the organisation became clearer. During a break between interviews, I asked Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of the organisation, how the group is funded. It was with some surprise that I learned that 45 per cent of it is donated by European countries, including Norway and Spain, and the European Union. Other donors include UNICEF, Christian Aid and Oxfam GB. To me this seemed potentially problematic.

As is the case in all democracies, the IDF is an organ of the state, not a political decision-maker. If the goal of Breaking the Silence was simply to clean up the Israeli military, it wouldn’t be such a problem. Instead, the aim is to “end the occupation”, and on this basis it secured its funding.

It appeared, therefore, that these former soldiers, some of whom draw salaries from Breaking the Silence, were motivated by financial and political concerns to further a pro-Palestinian agenda. They weren’t merely telling the truth about their experiences. They were under pressure to perform.

Indeed, I later discovered that there have been many allegations in the past that members of the organisation either fabricated or exaggerated their testimonies.

Issacharoff himself was found to have fabricated his own testimony in 2017 after an Israeli legal investigation concluded that his claims that he assaulted a Palestinian man during his military service were false.

PMW impact: Swedish and Norwegian MPs to seek funding cuts to PA

Following Palestinian Media Watch Director Itamar Marcus' recent briefings before members of parliament and government officials in Norway and Sweden, MPs from both countries said they would seek changes in their governments' funding to the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Marcus provided numerous examples of the PA's escalating antisemitic messages, and its hate education to children, and detailed the PA's policy of financially rewarding imprisoned terrorists and families of purported "Martyrs."

Marcus discussed the PA's payments of salaries to Palestinian terrorist prisoners and allowances to families of dead terrorists, the so-called "Martyrs," with government officials. He called on MPs in Norway and Sweden to follow the example of their Dutch counterparts and set the stage for a Europe-wide uniform 7% reduction in donor funds to the PA, unless and until the PA stops its "Pay-for-Slay policy" of paying salaries to terrorist prisoners, released prisoners, and families of dead terrorists.

Appalled that Norwegian humanitarian aid could be used to reward terrorists, Norwegian MP Ingjerd Schou commented:
"I do not think it's a good idea to give any funding to prisoners... We have to use Norwegian money to make peace. We should reinforce all the good activities."
[Norwegian Parliament, Jan. 29, 2019]

Upon seeing Marcus' documentation, Swedish MP Mikael Oscarsson immediately responded:
"We want to do as they've done in the Dutch parliament to cut the funding to the PA [by 7%], because we need to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority." [Swedish Parliament, Jan. 31, 2019]

Amazon Drive is hosting terrorist content. Here's what Jeff Bezos should do about it.

Terrorist groups usually find ways to exploit the ever expanding services offered by major online platforms and tech companies, and Amazon Drive is no exception. Designed for storing and sharing photos, videos, PDFs and other forms of content, it has been adopted by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other organizations as a stable and reliable platform for disseminating their content. They upload it and then share the links to it with followers and sympathizers, primarily using the encrypted messaging app Telegram — terrorists' "app of choice."

Amazon Drive, established in 2011 and previously known as Amazon Cloud Drive, can store subscribers' photos, videos and other files for access from mobile devices, desktops or Amazon Fire devices. According to the Amazon website, "All photos, videos and other files you upload to Amazon Drive are securely and privately stored in your Files and your Amazon Photos library."

While Amazon has guidelines for its many platforms, including specific bans on terrorism, "bigotry, hatred, or illegal discrimination," or the use of its services by anyone who is "the subject of U.S. sanctions or of sanctions consistent with U.S. law imposed by the governments of the country where you are using Amazon Services," it has not been proactive in removing terrorist content.

Terrorist activity and content on Amazon Drive is the subject of a new report by my organization, the Middle East Media Research Institute and its Cyber & Jihad Lab, documenting how ISIS and other groups like it have been using this free service. The examples in the report include Amazon Drive links to content such as videos by ISIS, audio messages by its leaders, and official newsletters and other content created by the group, its secondary media organizations and its supporters.

Houthi leader Mohammed al-Emad attacked the people of Yemen and their origins.

Al-Emad called the non-Houthi people of Yemen donkeys, and said they should go to their ancestors in Israel, because the donkeys are Jews.

Al-Emad claimed that the true people of Yemen are those whose ancestors came from Muhammad He said: "You are a donkey race, the race of the Jews, and you have no honor, dignity, or pride."

The video was widely condemned and denounced by a number of different members of Yemeni society and Yemeni and Gulf activists and media.

But no one was bothered by the antisemitism. No, they were truly insulted by being called Jewish, beyond being called donkeys.

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