Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, March 07, 2019

The IHRA definition of antisemitism could solve this entire mess

J-Street tweeted this:

No to anti-Semitism. No to efforts to silence legitimate debate about #Israel. Strong statements from 2020 contenders @BernieSanders @KamalaHarris @ewarren

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statements via @aterkel & @danielmarans pic.twitter.com/u56GKDtjW1
— J Street (@jstreetdotorg) March 7, 2019

Here's what the candidates said:

Elizabeth Warren:We have a moral duty to combat hateful ideologies in our own country and around the wortd--and that includes both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. In a democracy, we can and should have an open, respectful debate about the Middle East that focuses on policy. Branding criticism of Israel as automatically anti-Semitic has a chilling effect on our public discourse and makes it harder to achieve a peaceful solution between Israelis and Palestinians. Threats of violence -- like those made against Rep. Omar -- are never acceptable.

Bernie Sanders:“Anti-Semitism is a hateful and dangerous ideology which must be vigorously opposed in the United States and around the world. We must not, however, equate anti-Semitism with legitimate criticism of the right-wing, Netanyahu government in Israel. Rather, we must develop an even-handed Middle East policy which brings Israelis and Palestinians together for a lasting peace. What I fear is going on in the House now is an effort to target Congresswoman Omar as a way of stifling that debate. That's wrong.”

Kamala Harris:We all have a responsibility to speak out against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and all forms of hatred and bigotry, especially as we see a spike in hate crimes in America. But like some of my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, | am concerned that the spotlight being put on Congresswoman Omar may put her at risk. We should be having a sound, respectful discussion about policy. You can both support Israel and be loyal to our country. I also believe there is a difference between criticism of policy or political leaders, and anti-Semitism. At the end of the day, we need a two-state solution and a commitment to peace, human rights, and democracy by all leaders in the region -- and a commitment by our country to help achieve that.

As far as I can tell, there is no Jew or Zionist that suggests that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, the way that J-Street and these candidates are saying or implying.

Even the most right-wing Zionists accept the IHRA Working Definition of antisemitism. from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. It was adopted by the US State Department. It says this about criticism of Israel:

Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.

...Contemporary examples of antisemitism could include:

Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.

The IHRA defines legitimate criticism of Israel as the type that would be leveled at any other country. This is quite fair.

The question is, who would oppose this definition?

Who wants to say that singling out Israel for special criticism when other countries are worse is not a form of antisemitism? Who wants to defend an Electronic Intifada/Mondoweiss worldview where obsessive focus on Israel out of proportion to its actions is considered legitimate debate? Who wants to claim that boycotting Israel, and only Israel, is not antisemitic in practice?

Who wants to say that accusations of dual loyalty is not antisemitism?

Who wants to say that equating Jewish self-determination with racism is not antisemitism?

Either these candidates accept the definition set here, or they don't. If they don't, they should explain the exact problematic part of the definition that they believe is not true - and be prepared to defend that.

No one, and I mean no one, is shutting down debate over Israel when the criticism is legitimate according to this definition. Which means that these candidates, and J-Street, have a completely different definition of what "legitimate criticism" than the IHRA.

What is it?

When politicians talk about how much they are against antisemitism, they aren't saying what that means to them. If the IHRA definition is not to their liking, they must explain what specifically they disagree with.

The Democratic Party can make all this mess go away by adopting the eminently reasonable standard that the IHRA created. And if they did, it is obvious that Ilhan Omar really did spout Jew-hatred and must be censured.

If they don't want to do that, then it is their responsibility to come up with their own definition - and to defend it.

The IHRA should be the baseline for the discussion. It would add clarity to everyone's positions. And that is exactly why the Democratic Party will stay away from it - because it would expose a small but vocal minority of their members as engaging in antisemitic speech, and the party is too frightened to do anything to rein them in.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Balagan: chaos, total disorder, huge mess. Borrowed from Russian.

The incendiary and explosive balloons continue to be sent across our southern border, and the Hamas special “night unit” continues to burn tires and throw explosives over the fence, as well as to cross over into Israel, attack soldiers, and try to get at civilians. We continue to “respond” by bombing or shelling empty installations.

We are careful not to kill them, because we are told that if we kill them, their honor will require that they kill us in return; this will lead to an escalation. They want that, we are told, because there is humanitarian crisis in Gaza, primarily because their rivals in the Palestinian Authority have been cutting salary payments to PA officials in Gaza who either work for Hamas or don’t do anything. If there is an escalation, the crisis will get worse and the UN or other outside forces will step in and give them money, which they will spend on weapons or tunnels anyway.

Until recently, Israel has allowed Qatar to send millions in cash to Hamas, because nothing makes them madder than running out of money.

If there is an escalation, Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO, and even Iranian forces in Syria will coordinate their efforts, there will be a two- or three- front war, and we would suffer a lot of casualties although we would “win.” That would be giving them what they want, we are told.

There is a news report that is emblematic of the insanity surrounding our relations with our Palestinian Arab enemies. It seems that the Israel Prison Service has been unable to stop the smuggling of cellular phones into facilities where Hamas terrorists have been imprisoned, so they are installing jamming devices. But – get ready for this – the IDF has asked them to suspend the work because of “its possible impact on the situation in the territories.”

At the same time the Iranian regime is trying to upgrade Hezbollah’s rockets with precision guidance kits. We are acting against it, insofar as the Russians allow, but likely we are simply slowing it down, not stopping it. Iran is also working to establish Shiite militia forces in Syria and Iraq, and of course proceeding with its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. We are certainly taking action, overt and covert, in these areas too, but again these operations are only capable of slowing the process, not stopping it.

Meanwhile, here at home the waqf and radical Muslims are trying to further erode the remains of our sovereignty on the Temple Mount. We proved to them last year that we were not prepared to defend it, when they forced Israel to back down from installing metal detectors and cameras at the entrances to the Mount in order to prevent any more of our policemen from being murdered. My prediction is that we will back down over this latest provocation too.

And then there is the illegal Bedouin encampment of Khan al-Ahmar, which even the Supreme Court says should be removed, which Bibi has solemnly promised to remove, but which we apparently can’t demolish because the Europeans wouldn’t like it.

Is your head spinning? Mine is. One wonders if we have a plan, or if we only react. One thing stands out in all of this: Israel, supposedly the eighth-strongest power in the world, militarily and economically (after the US, Russia, China, Germany, UK, France, and Japan), acts like she has no better option than to lie down and take it. Little by little, her sovereignty and security erodes. We don’t seem to have the will to confront these problems when they are manageable, and they only grow more intractable with time.

There are a number of reasons for this. For one thing, there’s the normal human propensity to put off trouble. Dealing with the root of the problems today would be disagreeable, more disagreeable than accepting their manifestations. Of course, tomorrow it will be worse, but tomorrow is not today and maybe something will change before then (someone more cynical than I might say, “it will be someone else’s responsibility, tomorrow.”)

Our Prime Ministers and their cabinets and generals are not supposed to think this way. They are supposed to think like good chess players, carefully laying the groundwork for their future actions, while systematically evaluating all the paths that the enemy might take, and developing contingency plans for them. Last week I played chess with my 9-year old grandson, and I relieved him of his queen because he was concentrating too hard on what he was about to do to me. By the time he becomes Prime Minister, I hope he will know better.

We can’t just blame our leaders. They are operating in a political system that pits an Attorney General and Supreme Court with undefined and arbitrarily broad powers against the PM and his government. So when they try to do something like make a deal with private companies to exploit newly-found and highly strategic natural gas reservoirs, suddenly the Court can stick its nose in and upset everything, as happened in 2016. Or they are stymied when they try to find some solution to deal with an illegal influx of tens of thousands of migrants, as happened in 2014 (most of them are still here, having children whose first language is Hebrew).

But while the legal establishment still hasn’t intervened directly in strategic military matters, the Attorney General, State Prosecutors’ Office, and police have driven the Prime Minister crazy with criminal investigations for pretty much the past 4 years (he was interrogated by police for several hours at a time at least 12 times in connection with various accusations against him and his wife). The charges have ranged from stupidly trivial to serious, but the overall impression is that they are out to get him on something, anything. Even apart from the political aspects of the legal assault – the Attorney General announced his intention to hold a pre-indictment hearing last week, a month before the election – it’s hard to believe that the PM has had much time to ponder his next moves in the multiple geostrategic games he is playing with Hamas, Iran, and others.

Then there is the perennial problem that minor parties that happen to hold the balance of power in the coalition can paralyze or even bring down a government because of one rabbi who is angry over something.

Other pressing matters, like the massively funded European campaign to intervene in our politics and policies, and to help the Palestinian Arabs create facts on the ground in Judea and Samaria, have proven difficult to deal with decisively, possibly because too many Knesset members benefit directly or indirectly from the influx of Euros.

One thing that we do not seem to have to deal with today is the pressure from an American administration for more and more concessions to the Palestinians, for the sake of an impossible peace. This could change after our election in April, when the Trump megadeal will be revealed. But I don’t think so – my feeling is that the Trump Administration is far more sympathetic to Israel than the last few, and will not try to impose a solution that we can’t live with.

On the other hand, the American election is not so far off, and the Democratic Party in the US is less friendly toward Israel today than even in the days of Obama. If Trump is not re-elected and the next administration is headed by a left-wing Democrat, the Obama period will look like a picnic in comparison. We’d best end the balagan while we can.

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03/07 Links Pt1: How Influential Is AIPAC? Less Than Beer Sellers, Public Accountants, and Toyota; PA warns: 'Without terrorist salaries we will nix Paris Protocol'; Debating pay-to-slay at the UN

From Ian:

How Influential Is AIPAC? Less Than Beer Sellers, Public Accountants, and Toyota

AIPAC has a somewhat unique model that a simple dollar comparison might miss. AIPAC-linked activists often begin donating to future members of Congress early in their political careers, thus encouraging other pro-Israel donors to fund and otherwise support candidates with long-term promise. Pro-Israel activists are a political force, but the reasons apparently go beyond sheer spending power or the influence of AIPAC-linked networks. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, pro-Israel donors were’ the 34th largest-giving interest group to members of Congress in 2018, slightly behind the nonprofit sector and slightly ahead of building-trades unions, neither of which are generally thought of as the invisible hand guiding American policy.

Even a large and impactful donor network is fairly useless without a Washington operation that can translate its priorities into actual legislation. The way AIPAC is talked about, you’d think they’d be a lobbying juggernaut, surely one of the largest in the nation’s capital.

Wrong again: For the period between 1998 and 2018, AIPAC didn’t make a dent in the Center for Responsive Politics’ list of the top-spending lobbying groups. The US Chamber of Commerce spent $1.5 billion during that span, with the National Association of Realtors coming in a distant second, at $534 million. In 2018, top spenders included Google parent company Alphabet, which spent $21.7 million in Washington, and Facebook, which shelled out over $12 million to lobbyists that year. The third-largest spender of 2018 was the Open Society Policy Center, a project of the notably Israel-critical billionaire George Soros, which ran up a $31.5 million tab in its attempts to influence the federal government. That nearly doubled the organization’s $16 million in spending in 2017, another year that AIPAC failed to crack the top 50, unlike such notorious civic menaces as American Amusements and AARP.

In 2018, total pro-Israel lobbying spending was around $5 million, of which AIPAC accounted for $3.5 million. In contrast, Native American casinos spent around $22 million that year. By Tablet’s count, AIPAC was the 147th highest-ranked entity in terms of lobbying spending in 2018. Their expenditures were about the same as International Paper, a company which is seldom tweet-stormed or even written about. The American Association of Airport Executives and Association of American Railroads outspent AIPAC by nearly a million dollars each—sensible, given the rivalry between the respective modes of transportation whose interests they represent. It’s $2 million behind both American Airlines and the Recording Industry Association of America, entities whose malign influence has gone regrettably underexamined over the years.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Arresting, Torturing Journalists

Under both the PA and Hamas, Palestinian journalists are expected to serve as faithful soldiers and mouthpieces for both their leaders and their people. In the world of the Palestinians, a journalist who dares to criticize his leaders is typically denounced as a "traitor" or "Zionist agent." That is undoubtedly the reason Palestinian journalists living under the PA and Hamas are afraid to report anything that would reflect negatively on Palestinian leaders.

In the world of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the only "good" journalists are those who report negatively about Israel. Independent journalists therefore find themselves forced to seek work in non-Palestinian media organizations, including some in Israel. Even then, these journalists, especially those who live under the PA and Hamas, engage in massive self-censorship.

The PA and Hamas crackdown on journalists is not a new practice and does not come as a surprise. On the contrary, the surprise would be the day we see a Palestinian journalist living in Ramallah open his or her mouth concerning Abbas or any of his top officials.

What is hard to understand are the continued closed mouths of the international community and media towards this ongoing assault on the freedom of the media in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Had Nasser and Abu Arafeh been arrested by the Israeli authorities, their "plight" would have been splashed over headlines across the globe.

What Declassified Vatican Archives Might Reveal about the Church and World War II

On Monday, Pope Francis announced his intention to open in their entirety the Vatican archives of Pius XII, who served in the papacy from 1939 to 1958. Even after the publication of thousands of documents in the 1960s and 1970s, Pius’s wartime activities have remained the subject of intense controversy, with one author dubbing him “Hitler’s pope” while others have argued that he saved hundreds, if not thousands, of Jewish lives. David Kertzer, a scholar of the wartime church, explains why the archives matter:

Less noticed in initial accounts of the announcement is the fact that Francis’s opening of the Pius XII archives makes available not only the seventeen million pages of documents in the central Vatican archives, but many other materials in other Church archives. Not least of these are the archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition) and the central archives of the Jesuit order. They, too, are likely to have much that is new to tell us. . . .

In an effort to respond to critics, the Holy See commissioned four Jesuits to plow through the archives and publish a selection of documents shedding light on the controversy. The result, over a sixteen-year period beginning in 1965, was twelve thick volumes containing thousands of documents. Although skeptics suspected the Jesuit editors of selecting out documents unflattering to the Church, the volumes are far from a simple whitewash of this troubled history. . . .

[In 1999], the Vatican announced the creation of an unusual interreligious historical commission, composed of three Catholic and three Jewish scholars, tasked with shedding light on the role played by the Vatican as the Holocaust unfolded. After examining the twelve volumes of documents that had earlier been published, its members concluded that they could not draw any adequate historical conclusions without access to the archives themselves. When the Vatican refused to grant their request, the members decided to suspend their work, a decision that generated both embarrassment and polemics. . . .

Why does anyone take the idiot hypocrite Ariel Elyse Gold seriously?

Code Pink leader and anti-Israel activist Ariel Elyse Gold was on i24News yesterday defending Ilhan Omar's antisemitism.

But why does anyone take this idiot hypocrite seriously enough to even put her on the news?

Yesterday she proudly disrupted a press conference by former Muslim women who are now pro-Israel. Obviously those women must be silenced. Only some women have the right to free speech, according to this idiot.

She published an article yesterday entitled "Enjoy Your High, But Not at the Expense of Palestinian Human Rights" which is breathtaking in how little it makes sense. She claims that Israel's booming medical cannabis industry is a cover to whitewash Israeli crimes because ...some of the people involved were probably in the IDF. Like nearly very Jew in Israel.

Here's a section:

The company Together Pharma lists Guy Atia, an “expert in the security field,” as co-director and controlling shareholder, and retired Brigadier General Meir Ben Yishai as being in charge of “defense and security.” While it isn’t clear exactly what roles these two men play in the company, usually in Israel, the terms “defense” and “security” have some link to Israel’s military occupation and settlement economy.

Something bad is going on - she just knows it!

Is there any indication that buying Israeli medical marijuana products helps Israel's "occupation?" Not the slightest. And Gold doesn't bring any. She just reports "links" between people and their IDF activities because that is prima facie evidence that every Israeli industry is evil.

But links only go one way. Here she is at Representative Rashida Tlaib's office supporting Ilhan Omar:

Behind her we can see members of Neturei Karta, the fringe anti-Israel Jewish group.

Who are also anti-gay.

Gold is in solidarity with the most anti-liberal group one can imagine. She has links with an anti-gay organization - and by her logic in the cannabis article, that makes her anti-gay!

If she was "progressive" she would never agree to be linked to NK. But since NK is anti-Israel, then she is proud to be associated with them, no matter their own politics. (Miko Peled was also there.)

To Gold, wanting the destruction of the Jewish state is more important than any other so-called "progressive" principle. That is the basis of her intersectionality.

Which proves that she is not progressive at all - just a publicity hungry airhead.

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Yesterday I "stormed Al Aqsa" and "performed Talmudic rituals"

Yesterday, my wife and I were privileged to visit the Temple Mount, on a personal tour by Rabbi Chaim Richman of the Temple Institute.

I hope to make a video about the visit where you can hear what Rabbi Richman has to say about the holiest place in Judaism.

We were in a group of perhaps 20 Jews, men and women and even an infant, along with a number of police. Most of the group listened to a charismatic barefooted Israeli who described the Temple and the importance of the site in Hebrew.

At one point, though, we were able to pray the afternoon Mincha service - with a minyan, a quorum - facing the place of the Holy of Holies, from the east. Answering "Amen" to a Kaddish prayer that has a different wording when said on this holy spot.

Yes, I was one of the "settlers" who performed a "Talmudic ritual" while "storming Al Aqsa," as the Arab media likes to characterize this.

The prayers were mostly silent, but there is no way that the Muslim Waqf guards were not aware of what we were doing. After all, in years past, people would be warned and harassed for just moving their lips, pretending to be on the phone - anything that looked like prayer. And here we were, openly praying, for nearly five minutes, quietly and with utmost respect for the holy site.

Certain parts of the Amida have a lot more meaning when praying at that spot!

I'm not saying anything new that isn't already known. I posted a video of people praying only a few weeks ago from that same spot, published on an Arab site.

By the way, those stones visible in the lower picture are debris from previous building activities by Muslims on the site, and if one has time to spend (which the guards don't let one have) you can see that some are clearly parts of columns that were carved - possibly from the Second Temple itself.

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In its hatchet job on Israel released last week, the UN Human Rights Council wrote:

Some activities, such as the launching of incendiary kites, cutting barbed wire or tyre burning, began to be organized by self-declared “units”, some of them through their own Facebook pages. The commission found no evidence to suggest that they were directed or coordinated by armed groups.

The document later on referred to incendiary balloons as well, but only said that they were launched by "demonstrators" - which means civilians to them - and with no reference to such attacks being launched by armed groups.

The only problem is that Gaza terror groups happily brag about being the organizers of units to launch firebombs on balloons.

I already posted one video by Islamic Jihad about their balloon firebomb unit. They just posted another one, seemingly to mock the UNHRC report that effectively exonerated them.

The video also shows Islamic Jihad members engaging in the "demonstrations" making it very clear that from their perspective, these border riots are purely military.

The UNHRC bent over backwards to ignore any evidence that the demonstrations had a military component because then the rules that apply to them are the laws of armed conflict, quite different from the laws that govern police actions towards civilians.

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03/06 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Why the Labour party cannot deal with its antisemitism; Sanders Fills Ranks With Anti-Israel Advocates Tied to Anti-Semitism Scandal

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Why the Labour party cannot deal with its antisemitism

The left has absorbed the Marxist concept that the world is divided into the powerful and the powerless. Those with power can never be good; those without power, like the Palestinians, can never be bad. Those who make money have power over those who don’t. Those who make money are bad; those without money are good. Jews make money. Therefore Jews are powerful and bad.

Worse, Israel is militarily powerful. That is seen as its crime; and it’s also why anti-Israelism is umbilically connected to antisemitism. The fact that Jews are now equipped with military power, albeit solely to defend themselves against annihilation, breathes life into the paranoid delusion that the Jews are so powerful they pose a threat to everyone else.

Antisemitism is now surging across continents in an unholy alliance between the left, neo-Nazis and the Islamic world.

Such a derangement of reason on a global scale is terrifying and, as with antisemitism throughout the ages, ultimately unfathomable. For the west, however, support for Palestinianism has clearly destroyed its moral compass.

The left believes that it is morally unimpeachable and simply incapable of racism. Its support for the Palestine cause demonstrates and reinforces its self-righteousness.

It won’t begin to address its own antisemitism, therefore, until and unless it acknowledges that the evil it has supported abroad has seeded itself not just in the Labour party but throughout the “anti-racist” world.

Sanders Fills Ranks With Anti-Israel Advocates Tied to Anti-Semitism Scandal

Two of Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I., Vt.) top advisers have deep ties to the anti-Israel community and were chastised several years ago for their involvement in an anti-Semitism scandal that gripped a prominent Washington, D.C., think-tank.

Sanders, a self-proclaimed Democratic-socialist who has once again thrown his hat into the ring for a 2020 presidential bid, has begun to rely in recent months on two staffers: Foreign policy adviser Matt Duss and campaign manager Faiz Shakir, both of whom faced charges of promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories during their time at the Center for American Progress, or CAP, a liberal think-tank.

Sanders's dependence on Duss and Shakir has been making waves in the pro-Israel and Jewish community in recent months, given the duo's prominent role in CAP's 2012 anti-Semitism row, which saw several staffers at the organization's Think Progress blog rebuked for invoking age-old canards about Jewish control of money and politics. Duss has faced additional scrutiny in the subsequent years for publishing Nazi-era propaganda posters and steadfastly standing against the U.S.-Israel alliance

As the matter of anti-Jewish bias in prominent D.C. political circles makes its way back into the news following a series of anti-Semitic comments by freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), many in the pro-Israel community are beginning to raise questions about Sanders' choice to fill his ranks with individuals closely tied to some of the most prominent anti-Israel causes.

In 2012, Duss was CAP's Middle East director, while Shakir served as editor-in-chief of the group's Think Progress blog, which has since become regarded as a hotbed for anti-Israel activism.

During their tenure at CAP, Duss and Shakir emerged at the forefront of a scandal involving several Think Progress bloggers who accused pro-Israel Jews and members of Congress of being "Israel firsters," a term implying that those who support the Jewish state have dual loyalties.

The scandal rocked CAP for several months and drew condemnation across the board, including from the Obama administration, which distanced itself from Duss, Shakir, and the rest of Think Progress's former staff.

Bernie Sanders staffer fired for anti-Netanyahu rant hired to run B’Tselem USA

The Israeli human rights organization B’tselem said Tuesday that former Bernie Sanders adviser and long-time anti-occupation activist Simone Zimmerman has been appointed the new director of its American operations.

Zimmerman is an “American Jewish anti-occupation activist” who will “work to amplify B’Tselem’s voice among US policy makers and the broader public,” the rights group said in an official statement.

“As a Jewish activist who has worked for years to challenge my own community’s denialism about the reality of the occupation, I am excited to take on my new role,” the statement quoted Zimmerman as saying. “I hope to deepen the partnership between the anti-occupation movements working on the ground and those working here in the USA.”

In 2016 Zimmerman was suspended from her role as adviser to US Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign after reports surfaced of her harsh and foul-mouthed criticism of Israeli policies and of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

After Zimmerman, a former J Street student activist, was hired by the Sanders campaign, it was discovered she previously wrote on Facebook, “Bibi Netanyahu is an arrogant, deceptive, cynical, manipulative asshole,” according to the Washington-based Free Beacon.

Honest Reporting: Boycotting Israel – Is it Free Speech?

Boycotting Israel and other Western countries
Most of the Western world treats boycotts similarly to the United States. For example, courts and legislative bodies in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Chile, and others have struck down local or private BDS activities or even passed anti-BDS laws, on similar principles.

The Irish senate advanced legislation banning products originating from Israeli settlements in disputed territories, yet Ireland’s attorney general opposes passing the measure into law, warning that it may violate European Union trade rules, which supersede the individual laws of EU member states.

Indeed, even the less onerous measure of applying special labels to settlement goods has been struck down in other EU countries, such as Greece.

While EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, declared that boycotting Israel constitutes “free speech,” this is merely a talking point which does not constitute binding law. By contrast, the EU’s 2016 Report on Competition Policy interprets the EU trade law as including, “the need to fight against unfair collective boycotts.” The chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Israel confirmed that this language was indeed intended to prevent private boycotts against Israel (as well as others) as a matter of EU trade law.

EU law is evolving, but its underlying philosophy appears to be that no party should be allowed to interfere with the trade priorities set by the EU itself.

In conclusion
There was indeed an American boycott against South Africa: enacted by the United States Congress under the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986. The United States also enacted an embargo against Cuba, waged economic warfare against Japan, imposed sanctions on Iran, and more. The common denominator among them is that they were imposed by the United States federal government. The Constitution does not hold that boycotts are illegal, only that private, concerted boycotts of foreign nations are illegal.

Once we strip away the slogans and propaganda we see the truth: a boycotting Israel has never been “free speech,” by any laws. Open debate is essential to democracy, but taking illegal, private actions against foreign nations undermines our entire system of government.

70 years of transcripts from UK’s parliament show clear ‘obsession’ with Israel

Using a new analytics tool, researcher David Collier picks up 17,667 parliamentary references to the Jewish state — more than Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine combined

By expending so much energy discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, West Bank settlements or Gaza, parliamentarians – who have only a finite amount of time to spend in debates – grapple less with issues around Islamist extremism, terrorism, corrupt and undemocratic governance, economic weakness, and Iranian expansionism which lay at the root of the Middle East’s ills.

Collier also notes the rise in mentions of anti-Semitism in parliament in recent years.

“It is part of a trend. It isn’t tied to a single individual, nor can accusations of anti-Semitism simply be a plot to unseat Corbyn,” he asks. “If the anti-Semitism ‘smear’ exists to unseat Corbyn, why were there spikes of discussion in 2004, ‘8, ‘9, ’11 and ’14?”

“The rise of Corbyn is linked to the rise of anti-Semitism, in that extremist ideologies have entered the mainstream … Corbyn is a symptom of a problem that is getting worse,” he writes.

Collier argued to The Times of Israel that the increasing preoccupation with Israel and rising anti-Semitism were “absolutely connected.”

“Whilst not all anti-Israel activity is rooted in anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism is part and parcel of anti-Israel activism,” he said. “Any rise in one, will inevitably bring about a rise in the other.”

Cartoon of the Day: Fine wine

Continuing my re-captioning of single-panel cartoons....

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Democrats Relax On Global Warming After Ayatollah Issues Fatwa Forbidding Climate To Change (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Tehran, March 6 - A group that, in its efforts to persuade the public to support a treaty governing Iran's nuclear program assured the public of a religious ruling by a leading Iranian Islamic scholar against the development of atomic weapons, announced today that the same Islamic authority has issued a ruling that bars earth's atmosphere from increasing in temperature to any degree that threatens ecological stability, obviating international efforts to prevent climate change. As such, the group declared, climate change will no longer occupy a place in the group's ideology, campaigns, or rhetoric.

Leaders of the Democratic Party and former Obama administration officials told reporters at a Washington, DC press conference that the inviolate nature of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's fatwas renders further efforts to forestall atmospheric and oceanic warming pointless, just as an earlier fatwa they claimed he had issued rendered unnecessary any meaningful enforcement measures to ensure Iran complies with the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry urged his Democratic colleagues to free up organizational resources and time for other important areas of concern now that Khamenei had solved the climate crisis. "Just a few short weeks ago our own Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez raised the alarm that we have only twelve years to address climate change," he noted. "But that's no longer the case. My friend Foreign Minister Javad Zarif assures me the ayatollah has now put out a fatwa forbidding the climate to change, and whatever his fatwas say, Javad tells me that's what happens. A Democratic refocus on other issues such as Israel-Palestine will bring significant benefits, in addition to shutting down right-wing criticism of our sincere efforts to avert crisis."

Obama thanked Iran's Supreme Leader for the fatwa. "I wish to express my gratitude to His Excellency Ayatollah Khamenei for yet another important step in making the world a better place," he declared in a written statement. "Just as I referred to an anti-nuclear-weapons fatwa that [former adviser] Ben Rhodes and I promised Americans definitely exists, and definitely means we can trust Iran, I am gratified that we now have another reason to say wonderful things about our partners in Tehran."

Obama and Kerry made sure to note that President Donald Trump, by contrast, had made no such pronouncement barring the climate from change, a fact that they claimed calls into question his administration's willingness to tackle the real threats facing the country and the world.

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03/06 Links Pt1: Ruthie Blum: Nothing new in Ramallah; Honest Reporting: Debunking the ‘Disproportionate Force’ Charge; Germany’s celebration of Iran’s murderous regime is nothing new

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Nothing new in Ramallah

Abbas clearly intends to adhere to this fatwa, as he made clear during a trip to Egypt in January.

"I will not end my life as a traitor," he told reporters in Cairo. "I can say 'no,' and I have a people that can say 'no' beside me. … The doors are closed to the U.S. As long as it does not retract its decisions against the Palestinian people, no Palestinian should meet with the American leadership, no matter what their role is."

More recently, on a visit to Iraq on Monday, Abbas told leaders in Baghdad that the Trump administration "is encouraging Israel to be a state above the law," as well as "biased and not suitable to be a sponsor of peace talks."

So much for the "deal of the century," whose details have yet to be revealed. So much for the fantasists in Israel and abroad who continue to harbor any hope.

Honest Reporting: Debunking the ‘Disproportionate Force’ Charge

It’s unequivocal that greater numbers of Palestinians than Israelis have been killed or injured during periods of intense conflict. This has repeatedly led to accusations that Israel has employed “disproportionate force” for security measures and during military operations over the years.

The term has has been abused by activists, journalists, non-governmental organizations and politicians who have employed it without bothering to research precisely what disproportionate actually means in terms of international law. One thing it does not mean an imbalance in casualty figures proves Israeli disproportionate force.

So what does it mean? Here are some explanations.

Operation Cast Lead

The UN’s Goldstone Report into the 2008-09 Operation Cast Lead, later recanted by its author Judge Richard Goldstone, asserted that Israel had launched a “deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”

Back in 2011, former commander of UK forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp stated in response:

no one has been able to tell me which other army in history has ever done more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone.

In fact, my judgments about the steps taken in that conflict by the IDF to avoid civilian deaths are inadvertently borne out by a study published by the United Nations itself, a study which shows that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza was by far the lowest in any asymmetric conflict in the history of warfare.

The UN estimate that there has been an average three-to one ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in such conflicts worldwide. Three civilians for every combatant killed.

That is the estimated ratio in Afghanistan: three to one.

In Iraq, and in Kosovo, it was worse: the ratio is believed to be four-to-one. Anecdotal evidence suggests the ratios were very much higher in Chechnya and Serbia.

In Gaza, it was less than one-to-one.

Critics of America's Support for Israel Cannot Escape History

Certain of our recently elected congressional representatives view U.S. support for Israel as inexplicable. They are dismissive of explanations of shared values or strategic importance. They ask what reason other than a malignant influence could possibly explain why the U.S. has supported Israel and Zionism.

They fail to appreciate the extent to which the restoration of the Jewish people to sovereignty in their ancient homeland has been deeply ingrained in the religious, political and social fabric of America.

Even before there was a U.S., our Founding Fathers and even their forefathers longed to restore the Jews to their ancient homeland. The Puritans saw themselves as a "New Israel." Increase Mather, the Puritan leader, taught his followers that one day the "Jews would return to their homeland and establish the most glorious nation in the world." The Yale University coat of arms is adorned with the Hebrew words meaning "light and perfection."

Benjamin Franklin recommended that the Great Seal of the United States be an illustration of the Hebrews fleeing Egypt for their homeland. John Adams wrote in 1819: "I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation." This all occurred when the Jews in America numbered only in the thousands.

Abraham Lincoln wrote of "restoring the [Jews] to their national home in Palestine" and that relieving their oppression was "a noble dream and one shared by many Americans." This support was echoed by Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover.

While recent congressional critics of America's support of Israel might dismiss this history, they cannot escape it.

Gallup: Americans still overwhelmingly support Israel, antisemitic conspiracy mongers hardest hit

The Democrat Party is trying to come to grips with the antisemitic agitation by Minnesota Rep. Ihlan Omar, backed by Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that Americans who support Israel do so for money and have pledged allegiance to Israel.

These dual-loyalty and disloyalty accusations are echoed by left-wing and Islamist Democrat activists.

We have made the point in the past that support for Israel was at historical highs, as measured by Gallup. When Gallup released its results in March 2018, Gallup: Americans’ support for Israel increases to historical high:

These findings reinforce a point I’ve made many times. The so-called “Israel Lobby” is the American people.

Gallup just released its 2019 report, and finds that support for Israel over the Palestinians has dropped slightly, returning to the level in 2009. This drop was largely due to a drop in support among Republicans, which is hard to understand. So we’ll have to see if this is a blip, or a long-term trend. As other polling has showed, the weakest support for Israel comes from liberal Democrats.

Gallup reports, Americans, but Not Liberal Democrats, Mostly Pro-Israel:
The majority of Americans remain partial toward Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with 59% saying they sympathize more with the Israelis whereas 21% sympathize more with the Palestinians. While still widespread, sympathy toward Israel is down from 64% in 2018 and marks the lowest percentage favoring Israel since 2009. Meanwhile, the 21% sympathizing more with the Palestinians, statistically unchanged from a year ago, is the highest by one point in Gallup’s trend since 2001.

These results are based on Gallup’s annual World Affairs survey, conducted each February. The 2019 poll was conducted Feb. 1-10 prior to Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s recent remarks questioning U.S. support for Israel and suggesting that some supporters of Israel are pushing for “allegiance to a foreign country.” ….

This story is from AFP but variants of it are all over Arab media.

A Moroccan atheist of Jewish descent but who describes himself as Arab and Berber is telling the world what the Israel-haters want it to hear:

For rights activist Sion Assidon, a Moroccan of Jewish descent who also describes himself as Berber and Arab, Zionism breeds anti-Semitism in today's Arab world but aversion to Israel's policies is not a form of racism.

"Anti-Zionism is a political position and if declaring oneself to be 'anti-Zionist' is seen as a racist act, that is serious," said the 70-year-old campaigner who opposes French President Emmanuel Macron proposal to turn anti-Zionism into a crime.

A keen historian and business owner based in Mohammedia, a city on the Atlantic between Rabat and Casablanca, Assidon believes "anti-Semitism is above all a form of Judaeophobia within the European space linked to the view of the (Catholic) Church" over the centuries.

There is of course a long history of Arab and Muslim antisemitism, Not nearly as bad as in Europe but not trivial, either, with blood libels, pogroms and rampant discrimination. "Jews are descended from apes and pigs" is hardly a Catholic church doctrine.

"Coexistence between communities has worked quite well, but today there's a dangerous slide: the Jews, far fewer in number, are becoming an abstraction and their image, in the minds of the young, tends to be reduced to the one who is imposing the brutal occupation of Palestine," said Assidon.

As a result, according to Assidon, anti-Semitism in Morocco and other Arab countries is fed in part by the resurgence of conspiracy theories born in 19th century Europe and reinforced by "the total impunity granted to Israel" despite its policies of "bloody repression" censored on numerous occasions by the United Nations.

Assidon, ironically with the first name of Sion (Zion), is Jewish by an accident of birth but it is enough for him to make headlines "as a Jew" and to act as an apologist for Arab antisemitism, blaming it all on Europe - as if Arabs deciding to hate Jews is somehow less disgusting because part of it comes from the influence of Christian antisemitism.

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The Arab Organisation for Human Rights in Britain republished a report from Middle East Monitor late last year complaining about Lebanese Palestinians who are leaving terrible conditions in Lebanon for Europe.

One wonders what "human rights" actually means in Arabic.

The depopulation of Lebanon’s refugee camps, which is happening at an alarming rate, should worry Palestinians more than any other current issue.

I spoke to Samaa Abu Sharar, a Palestinian activist in Lebanon and the director of the Majed Abu Sharar Media Foundation. She told me that the topic of conversation among refugees has changed in recent years. “Whereas almost everybody from young to old once spoke about their wish of returning to Palestine one day,” she explained, “at present the majority, particularly the youth, only express one wish: to leave for any other country that will accept them.”

It is common knowledge that Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are marginalised and mistreated more than most when compared with other refugee populations in the Middle East. They are denied most basic human rights enjoyed by Lebanese citizens or other foreigners in Lebanon, and even rights granted to refugees under international conventions. This includes the right to work, as they are denied access to 72 different professions.

Apparently abandoned in a hopeless situation, with a life of neglect and utter misery in 12 UN-registered refugee camps and a number of unofficial “gatherings” across Lebanon, Palestinian refugees have striven to better themselves for many years, driven by the dream of going back to their homeland one day.

However, the refugees and their Right of Return are no longer a priority for the Palestinian leadership. In fact, this has been the case for nearly two decades, and now the situation has worsened. Since the start of the Syrian war in 2011, tens of thousands more refugees have flooded the camps, which already lacked most basic services. Their misery was accentuated further when UNRWA, under intense US pressure and funding cuts, was forced to cancel or downgrade many of its essential services upon which refugees depend.

A suspiciously-timed census, the first of its kind, by the Lebanese Central Administration of Statistics and conducted jointly with the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics last December, resolved that the number of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon stands at only 175,000. The timing was interesting because the survey was conducted at a time that the US Administration was keen to reduce the “official” number of Palestinian refugees in anticipation of any future agreement between the PA and Israel. According to UNRWA statistics, though, there are more than 450,000 Palestinian refugees registered with the agency in Lebanon alone.

Clearly there are those who are keen to rid Lebanon of its Palestinian population....

“There is more than one organised network facilitating the migration of Palestinians at prices that have recently gone down to make it more accessible to a larger number of people,” Abu Sharar told me. The conclusion that many of these young men and women refugees now draw is that, “There is no future for them in Lebanon.”

This is not the happy, triumphant ending that generations of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have hoped and fought for over the years.

Ignoring the miserable plight of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is now coming at a heavy price. Relegating their plight to “final status negotiations”, a pipe dream that never materialised, is now leading to a two-fold crisis: the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people is getting worse, and we are witnessing the systematic destruction of one of the main pillars of the Palestinian struggle — the refugees’ inalienable Right of Return.

While the article makes it clear that Palestinians in Lebanon have it really, really bad, to the AOHR the real problem is that when they leave they may no longer be pawns to pressure Israel for "return."

Which is an amazing stance for a supposedly human rights group to take.

Somehow, they are claiming that the exodus of Palestinians from Lebanon, which has been going on for decades, is connected with Trump's "Deal of the Century."

If the US was really behind finding new homes for oppressed Lebanese Palestinians, it should win a Nobel Peace Prize!*

A supposedly human rights group is upset that Palestinians are leaving a hellhole to find a better life elsewhere, The entire reason is because the fewer Palestinians in UNRWA camps, the less of a problem they are for Israel.

It is a breathtakingly cynical thought process that prefers that their human rights be abused daily just for the tiny extra amount of symbolism that comes from pointing to their miserable conditions and pretending that it is Israel's fault.

* (Not in 2019, though - I want to maximize my chances...)

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