Cairo, April 3 - An academic at Cairo University has sparked a tumult in national media and political circles this week following a televised interview in which he made the brazen argument that not all negative phenomena have origins in Zionist conspiracy.
Public and governmental figures from across Egyptian society called for the firing of Dr. Ziabad Bakri, whose appearance on a prime-time talk show on state-run media Monday featured his repeated claims that some unfortunate events and developments come from sources other than Jews. His incredulous host challenged Dr. Bakri to substantiate his contentions, but the producers felt compelled to cut the program short before the doctor could answer, fearing public and official backlash for airing such controversial assertions.
"Not all of society's ills, even Islamic society's ills, come from the Jews," stated Dr. Bakri, to gasps and shouts from studio personnel. "What if I told you there are some problems that predate the Jews?" The bemused host sat in stunned silence for a moment before asking his guest to repeat the statement.
"War has been with us since long before the Jews were even an idea," elaborated Dr. Bakri. "So has famine. Disease. Even greed, that most Jewish of traits, is attested to in sources that date from hundreds, even thousands, of years before anyone heard of a Jew. Argue all you want about the extent to which Jews exacerbate or exploit these and other phenomena to sow discord, but we must not fool ourselves into thinking that without the Jew we wouldn't have problems."
Calls to sack the professor came from figures in and out of the government. "Such irresponsible rhetoric has no place in Egyptian society," fumed a Ministry of Cultural Affairs official. "No one who espouses such radical views, which have the potential to spark no violence toward minorities, can be permitted to spew his unacceptable filth on our airwaves. At the very least the network must ban this so-called scholar from ever appearing on its shows again, and I understand the Minister of Education will demand that the university revoke his academic degrees."
"I've never heard anything that ridiculous," stated commentator Subhi Nasser. "Only a fool would accept that Jews aren't behind every evil. to believe otherwise would undermine one of the political, not to mention theological, axioms of our society. You can't just disregard the danger that undermining those axioms poses for Egyptian society, and for the Middle East at large. Which should already tell you who must behind any attempt to undermine them."
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Close to 40 years after he was went missing in action following the Battle of Sultan Yacoub, the body of Sgt. Zachary Baumel has been returned to Israel for burial.
Baumel’s body was repatriated to Israel via a third country several days ago aboard an El Al flight following an operation by Israeli intelligence agencies. He was identified by his DNA at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, as well as by the Chief Military Rabbi Brig.-Gen. Eyal Karim, IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis said on Wednesday.Manpower directorate head Maj.-Gen.Moti Almoz personally informed the Baumel family that he had been identified.
The battle of Sultan Yacoub, a skirmish between the IDF and the Syrian army, took place on the sixth day of the First Lebanon War in June 1982 in the Bekaa Valley.
At the end of the battle, the battalion and additional forces had suffered 20 dead and more than 30 wounded. Eight IDF tanks also remained in Syrian hands, two of which had three missing IDF soldiers who had been involved in two separate incidents about three kilometers apart: Sgt. Yehuda Katz, a gunner in one tank crew, and Baumel and Sgt. Zvi Feldman in another tank.
“This was a long-term effort by the intelligence community and the Missing Persons Division during which various operational activities were carried out to locate the missing soldiers, "the military said, adding that the military is “committed to continuing the efforts to locate Sergeant Yehuda Katz, Sergeant Tzvika Feldman and all the missing soldiers and captives, and all fallen IDF soldiers whose burial places are unknown.”
Manelis wouldn’t say where Baumel had been buried for all these years, but in September, Russia claimed that its military worked with Israel on an operation to locate the remains of the fallen IDF soldiers that were in Syrian territory, which had been under the control of Islamic State.
A Palestinian tried to stab Israelis with a knife in the West Bank on Wednesday and was shot dead by one of them, the Israeli military and a witness said.
A Palestinian official, however, questioned the Israeli account of the incident at Hawara junction, near Nablus.
The West Bank, among territories where Palestinians seek statehood, has seen surges of street attacks on Israeli residents and soldiers since US-backed peace talks stalled in 2014. Palestinians claim Israel’s armed response has been excessive.
Yehoshua Sherman, a West Bank resident, told Israel Radio that he was driving slowly through the intersection with his daughter when a Palestinian charged at their car.
“He jumped at me with a knife, trying to open the doors,” Sherman said. “I drew my handgun…wound down the window and shot at him from inside the car.”
A second motorist also fired at the Palestinian, hitting him, Sherman added.
The Israeli military said in a statement: “A terrorist was shot by a civilian and neutralized after he tried to carry out a stabbing attack.”
You forgot to mention he’s a Hamas terrorist, he entered a family’s car (father & children) and started to fire his gun hurting the father, before he was shot dead!
Advocates of intersectionality are increasingly, publicly, rejecting Jewish participation in their dialogues and activities. The idea that rejecting Jews based on their Jewish identity is becoming socially acceptable is highly disturbing.
Much has been written on this subject, particularly following examples where groups advocating for intersectional solidarity rejected Jewish participation.
Intersectionality is a theory, first conceptualized in relation to the feminist movement, in response to the exclusion of black women from the movement. The idea was that the forms of oppression experienced by white middle-class women were different from those experienced by black, poor, or disabled women. While intersectionality works to unite women with the goal of liberating all women, in practice, the combatting identities (black vs white) form an exclusionary space.
Intersectionality defines groups of people by their race, gender or other physical characteristics and measures each based on how oppressed the group is. Different groups are expected to unite to fight oppression based on the solidarity of mutual victimhood.
Ejecting Jews from the intersectional equation
Various progressive Jewish groups and individuals strive to be included in the activities of their counterparts from other elements of society. We, who have suffered, perhaps more than any other nation on earth, have empathy and are always willing to help other oppressed people. Why then, is it that other oppressed groups rarely stand in solidarity with us? What should we do about this?
For many, the answer to this question is that it is necessary to combat the lies used to eject Jews from the intersectional equation so that we can claim our rightful “place at the table.”
The most common of these lies are:
1.Jews are white colonialists (i.e oppressors) who must be fought to create justice for the oppressed (“Palestinians”).
2.Jews may have once been oppressed but now Jews have become oppressors (of “Palestinians”) and as such, must be fought
3.Rejecting Jews based on their Jewish identity is acceptable because Jews belong to the privileged class and intersectionality is for the oppressed
It shouldn’t be necessary to say this but just in case, I will clarify:
·The Jewish People originate from Judea and as people of Middle Eastern descent, we are not white.
·You can’t colonize your own land
·We are not oppressing anyone (the terrorist organizations ruling over Gaza and the PA territories ARE oppressors)
·It is unacceptable to discriminate against any group based on their racial, religious or gender identity
When these lies are accepted as fact, it is easy to eject Jews from intersectional discourse. That’s why many Jewish organizations speak about combating the lies and creating a “more nuanced discussion.”
The word “nuanced” makes my skin crawl…
Diametrically opposed identities
Intersectionality is about identities. It divides people according to individual identifying factors (skin color, gender etc) rather than their individuality (content of character). Moreover, it identifies people according to their victim status.
Identifying one’s self as a victim is diametrically opposed to Jewish identity.
Our history is one of being victimized and yet our survival has been a result of refusal to become victims. Ask any Holocaust survivor and they will tell you that they are not a victim of the Holocaust they are a survivor.
When our oppressors made it impossible to be publicly Jewish, we found ways to be Jewish in secret, to continue studying and continue fulfilling the rituals of our religion. That happened under the oppression of the ancient Greek Empire, the Spanish Inquisition and even in the concentration camps.
When our oppressors refused us certain jobs, we became excellent at other professions (which led, for example, to the anti-Semitic stereotype of the Jewish moneylender).
Without money, status or privilege of any kind, Jews worked hard and rose to positions of status and privilege (relative to what was allowed at the time). This was true in ancient times, even under Islamic rule and is true today – Jews, children of WW2 survivors who had nothing, can now be found in prominent positions in every field and industry imaginable.
Israel is, of course, the most stunning example of refusing to give up or give in. No other people survived 2000 years of exile to return and regain sovereignty in their ancestral homeland. All other peoples who were exiled, scattered and torn apart have disappeared. Only the Jews did not.
We have been victimized but we are not victims.
We are survivors. More than that – we are thrivers.
Of course, we have no place in the intersectionality discussion. Our identity is diametrically opposed to anyone who holds on to victimhood.
We have empathy for those who are suffering because we know what suffering is. It is right and good that we are willing to invest effort to help raise up others. It’s part of our “job” as Jews - being a “light unto the nations” means (among other things) serving as proof that anyone can step out of victimhood, if they so choose.
But it is a choice.
We choose life. We choose building a thriving, happy future. THAT is our identity. Others choose victimhood, anger and stewing in past offenses against them. These two positions are diametrically opposed. THAT is why we can never take part in the intersectionality equation, no matter how “nuanced” it is.
It is no wonder that Jew-haters understand this. What’s sad is that so many Jews don’t.
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Geostorm is a very forgettable 2017 disaster movie where satellites that control the weather on Earth are hacked and evil people use them to attack cities. Or something like that.
Iranian media thinks it is a blueprint for what the Jews and the US are doing to Iran.
Iran's Tasnim News Agency has an article asking "is the recent flooding (in Iran) intentional?" It starts off with:
Recently, on the advice of a friend, we have finished thoroughly examining the 2017 American GeoStorm movie. The movie is the product of Warner Bros. The company, founded 101 years ago, was founded in 1918 by four Polish- born and Jewish brothers in the United States named Harry, Sam, Albert and Jack; and many of its products have a "futuristic" look, or better, a "predictive" look. Analysts and film makers are aware that the vast majority of US programs and agenda are behind the scenes, and are aligned with these programs, and they make films for specific purposes....Apart from form and content, the Geostorm film gives us a special message: "The United States has a specific program for manipulating the climate."
Yes, the Jewish Hollywood industry is making movies to broadcast to the world their nefarious plans of world domination. What fun would it be if they kept those plans secret?
The article notes that Iranians had previously accused Israel of causing a drought in Iran by sending special non-rain clouds, and when world media ridiculed them a top Iranian meteorologist said that no one can control the weather.
But the authors of this news agency article insist that the chances of 7 consecutive days of rain on the dates that the rain occurred are an astronomical 1 in 160 trillion. So you do the math!
The author reluctantly admits that there is a tiny chance that the floods come from Mother Nature, but he says it is foolhardy not to research the probability that Israel and the US ("foreigners") are behind Iran's flooding disaster. He even shows his calculations so they must be true.
Tasnim is associated with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which were criticized by Iran's government for not doing enough to prepare for national disasters..
Interestingly, the floods came only days after Iran's president urged all Iranians to "put all your curses" on the US and Israel.
Allah has a wicked sense of humor.
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The only mention he found of the word "Jewish" in any of the many Jordanian sites that used to be part of the Judean kingdom was this reference to "Jewish oppression:"
A map (found in a hotel in Amman) of the ancient area replaces Judah and Israel with Palestine and doesn't mention that any part of Jordan was actually part of Jewish "Palestine", artificially using the Jordan River to delineate the two areas:
Sacks goes on:
At the renovated museum at Petra, one can find another depiction of Judea as a ruthless, imperialist state:
Aretas II first minted coins, during his reign Alexander Janneus was King of Judah and he was a ruthless ruler who sought to expand and strengthen the territories of Judah. Around 100 BC he took control of Gaza and though the people of Gaza asked for Aretas help it came too late.
Thus the Jewish kingdom of Judah is described not just as oppressive but also as led by a "ruthless" ruler. The echo of a beleaguered and besieged Gaza is hard to not to cross-reference against contemporary events. It would be surprising if the effect were entirely unintentional.
Describing the peaceful, wealthy and diplomatic regime of the proto-Arabic Nabatean trading peoples (who spoke a Semitic language and migrated from the Arabian peninsula over centuries) in contrast to the warlike, expansionist Herodians, the permanent exhibit at Petra goes on to recount:
King Herod the great invaded twice second time taking control of large parts of the country… Aretas IV whose daughter married Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. Herod Antipas later divorced Phasaelis in order to marry his brother’s wife Herodias, mother of the famed Salome, who danced for Herod and in return asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. The shamed Phasaelis fled back home to Petra, escorted by Nabatean guard. Aretas, IV angered by the snub, sent an army to invade Herod’s territory and captured large parts of it along the west bank of the Jordan river.
So it appears that duplicity and decadence can be added to the cycle of war, revenge and retribution between the Judeans and the proto-Arabs in the last century BCE. Added to this is a reference to the infamous tale of Salome and John the Baptist, which could plausibly be considered one of the foundational narratives of Christian and global anti-Semitism.
Jordan's peace treaty with Israel is now almost 25 years old.
Some "peace."
(h/t Yoel)
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This week’s New York Times Magazine features an essay by the veteran Israel-hater Nathan Thrall titled “How the Battle over Israel and Anti-Semitism Is Fracturing American Politics.” Employing a variety of lies, half-truths, illogical deductions, and insinuations, it draws a contrast between wealthy Jewish donors to the Democratic party who are sympathetic to Israel and minority, primarily black, activists who are anti-Israel. Jonathan Tobin comments:
Thrall’s object is to justify [boycott-Israel] campaigns that anchor the debate about the subject in “Black-Palestinian solidarity” and the effort to view the war on Israel through the “racial-justice prism.” The result is an 11,000-word essay that seeks to . . . paint Zionism as inherently racist and efforts to destroy Israel as idealistic attempts to defend human rights, [while also seeking] to portray the pro-Israel movement’s effort to push back at anti-Semitic attacks as tainted by prejudice against African-Americans and fueled primarily by the heavy-handed efforts of Jewish donors to manipulate the Democratic party.
One of Thrall’s primary sources is the former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes. . . . The article . . . amplifies Rhodes’s specious claim that President Obama’s inability to persuade Israel’s supporters to back him on the [Israel-Palestinian] issue was due to racial prejudice. He claims that supporters of Israel assumed that Barack Obama was pro-Palestinian because he was black. Rhodes’s thesis, which Thrall endorses, is that this alleged fear of Obama was the result of the pro-Israel community’s understanding that the Jewish state really was “an oppressor.” According to Rhodes, Obama’s critics were “acknowledging, through [their] own fears, that Israel treats the Palestinians like black people had been treated in the United States.”
This argument has it backward. Jewish Democrats [went to enormous lengths] to maintain their faith that Obama had been sincere in his professions of support for Israel when he ran for president in 2008, in spite of evidence to the contrary, both then and later. Far from being prejudiced against him, most American Jews stuck loyally to Obama, despite his belief that more “daylight” was needed between Israel and the United States. They even supported his efforts to appease an Iranian regime that was bent on genocide.
The assumption that Palestinians and Israeli Arabs are treated the same way as the African-American victims of Jim Crow in the pre-civil-rights-era South is a big lie. . . . The standoff about the future of the West Bank exists because the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected offers of peace and statehood. They would have attained independence long ago had they been willing to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders might be drawn.
Former British prime minister Gordon Brown announced Monday he has joined the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) as an affiliate member, in a bid to combat rising anti-Semitism within the opposition party.
In a video released by the Hope not Hate organization, which works to challenge racism, the former Labour leader says the party has “let the Jewish community and itself down” over the past two years, in a reference to the anti-Semitism accusations that have dogged the party and its leadership.
The clip was filmed at London’s Liverpool Street Station, where there is a statue to commemorate the nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children who were rescued in the Kindertransport during World War II. The children were taken out of Europe and fostered in Britain and as a result were often the only members of their families to survive the Holocaust.
In the video, Brown speaks passionately of “the promises we made following the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust to the Jewish community: that you will never walk alone and we will never walk by on the other side.”
He also notes that the party “should never have allowed legitimate criticism — that I share — of the current Israeli government to act as a cover for the demonization of the entire Jewish people.”
This is genuine solidarity. I’d heard rumours that Gordon Brown was releasing a video. No one asked him to stand up to antisemitism and to stand by @JewishLabour He just did. pic.twitter.com/wGUPj3dg7A
Harold Wilson may be less well-known internationally than Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair, but he dominated British politics for much of the 1960s and 1970s — and remains the only modern-day prime minister to win four general elections.
His return to office 45 years ago this month was as unexpected as his defeat had been four years previously when, having rewarded him with a landslide victory in 1966, the voters unceremoniously ejected his Labour government in June 1970.
But, in many regards, Wilson’s roller-coaster ride in the decade between 1964 and 1974, from victory to defeat and back again, was completely predictable.
Famously pragmatic — critics claimed unprincipled — the former prime minister’s name became for a time synonymous with the wheeler-dealing and political game-playing in which he undoubtedly reveled.
As one contemporary newspaper columnist suggested, Wilson’s image was “a dark serpentine crawling trimmer, shifty and shuffling, devious, untrustworthy, constant only in the pursuit of self-preservation and narrow party advantage.” For the historian Dominic Sandbrook, Wilson was “a brilliant opportunist.”
There was, however, a limit to Wilson’s alleged opportunism. As the left wing and veteran Zionist Labour MP, Ian Mikardo, once argued: “I don’t think Harold … [had] any doctrinal beliefs at all. Except for one, which I find utterly incomprehensible, which is his devotion to the cause of Israel.”
Wilson’s leadership arguably marked the high point of the relationship between Labour and British Jews, a bond which has today been strained by Jeremy Corbyn’s strident anti-Zionism and the allegations of anti-Semitism which continue to rock the party. It is a reminder not simply of happier times, but of the staunch support that the left once offered to Israel and the rather more ambivalent stance adopted by British conservatives.
I was going to caption the man "The Forward" but that was too obvious....
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In 1921, in The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger, Henry Morgenthau wrote an article about how Zionism was a big mistake.
Here is the beginning of the long article:
ZIONISM is the most stupendous fallacy in Jewish history. I assert that it is wrong in principle, and impossible of realization; that it is unsound in its economics, fantastical in its politics, and sterile in its spiritual ideals, Where it is not pathetically visionary, it is a cruel playing with the hopes of a people blindly seeking their way out of age-long miseries. These are bold and sweeping assertions, but in this article I shall undertake to make them good.
The very fervor of my feeling for the oppressed of every race and every land, especially for the Jews, those of my own blood and faith, to whom I am bound by every tender tie, impels me to fight with all the greater force against this scheme, which my intelligence tells me can only lead them deeper into the mire of the past, while it professes to be leading them to the heights.
Zionism is a surrender, not a solution. It is a retrogression into the blackest error, and not progress toward the light. I will go further, and say that it is a betrayal: it is an eastern European proposal, fathered in this country by American Jews, which, if it were to succeed, would cost the Jews of America most that they have gained of liberty, equality and fraternity.
I claim to speak with knowledge on this subject. I have had occasion to know the Jew intimately in all the lands where he dwells in numbers, and to study his problems on his own ground, with the intensity and sympathy which were required by my duty to help in each place to formulate the plans for his immediate assistance. I was born among the Jews of Germany, and by natural association with German Jews in New York, and by repeated visits to Germany, am familiar with their life and problems. As an American of fifty-five years’ residence, as a director of the Educational Alliance and of Mt. Sinai Hospital, as president of the Bronx House and the Free Synagogue for more than ten years, and as one who has traveled on speaking tours from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to New Orleans on behalf of the American Jewish Relief Committee, I am thoroughly familiar with the American Jews. As American Ambassador to Turkey I came into daily official contact with the Jews from all parts of the Near East, not $1111)’ the Jews of Turkey and of the Turkish Protectorate in Palestine itself, but also the Jews of Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, Rumania and Bulgaria, to say nothing of the accredited representatives of the Zionist Party in Constantinople. As the head of President Wilson's Commission, which was sent to investigate the alleged pogroms of the Jews of Poland. following the Armistice in 1919, I spent several months on the ground in Poland and Galicia, and talked with thousands of Jews in every walk of life in that greatest center of Jewish population in the world. They told me their troubles; the indignities and the perils they endured; the hatred of their neighbors because of their religion; the deliberate efforts that were being made to stifle their economic life; the political discriminations to which they were subjected; and the social barriers which did not permit them a full life as members of their Community.
I speak as a Jew. I speak with fullest sympathy for the Jew everywhere. ...
This is the earliest formulation I can find of "As-a Jew" to assert that a Jewish state is a bad thing.
Morgenthau was more involved in Judaism than most "as-a-Jews" but his hubris at pretending to know what is best for all Jews is starkly contrasted with the millions of Jews who were slaughtered only twenty years later, partially because Jews like him gave Great Britain the confidence that Jews wouldn't cause a stink when it capitulated to Arab demands not to allow Jews to immigrate to Palestine to save themselves from the Holocaust.
This "expert" first describes why it is literally impossible for Israel to ever prosper economically (in the full British Mandate area), and why Zionism is impossible politically. But then he gives his real reason to oppose Zionism - his certainty that the modern world is a tolerant, accepting place for Jews who can integrate peacefully:
I have often used a figure of speech—it was brought to my mind by a meeting with rugmakcrs in Turkey—as follows: The Jew has been content, in most lands and down the ages, to be the fringe of the carpet, the loose end over which every foot has stumbled, where every heel has left its injuring impression on the disconnected individual strands. What the Jew should do is. to become a part of the pattern of the carpet itself: weave himself into the very warp and woof of the main fabric of humanity; and gain the strength which comes from a co-ordinated and orderly relation to the other strands of human society. His peculiar beauties (his peculiar talents), which in the fringe are soiled and hidden. take on new value when they become part of the main carpet; and they find their glory in lending to the pattern a unique splendor and a special lustre.
While he decried Zionism as being utopian and unrealistic, his ideas that Jews would integrate to end antisemitism were even more utopian and unrealistic, as history has shown.
I don't know whether Morgenthau changed his mind after witnessing the Holocaust and the success of the Zionist enterprise, as he died in 1946.
His son was Treasury Secretary for FDR and ended up becoming a strong supporter of Zionism.
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A 2017 United Nations-funded school textbook for Arab students offers a revisionist history of Israel as part of its goal to incite violence against Israelis.
“Since the Zionist movement established in 1856 its first settlement, known as ‘Montefioriyyah’ [Mishkenot Sha’ananim, built by Sir Moses Montefiore before the emergence of modern Zionism], south-west of the Jerusalem city wall, the series of division [actions] in Palestine has not stopped,” according to social studies book for ninth-graders funded by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which was established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to assist Arabs who became refugees during Israel’s War of Independence the previous year.
“It [i.e., the Zionist movement] established settlements that included training centers and arms depots. After the ‘Catastrophe’ [Nakba in Arabic] of 1948 it ruled over more than 78 % of Palestine’s territory,” continues the text. “More than 850 thousand Palestinians were made to emigrate and they and their families lived in refugee camps in Palestine and in the Diaspora. Nothing of it [Palestine] was left, except the Gaza Strip and the West Bank that were occupied [later] in 1967.”
An appeals court in Berlin has ordered the deportation of the convicted Palestinian terrorist, Rasmea Odeh. The Higher Regional Court was responding to an appeal filed by Odeh’s lawyer, challenging the earlier deportation order issued by Berlin State’s Home Affairs Department, or Innensenat, ordering her to leave the country.
That deportation was promptly carried out. Odeh is out of Germany.
Odeh, feted by anti-Israel activists across the world, is the mastermind of the 1969 Jerusalem supermarket bombing that killed two Hebrew University students, Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner. She was convicted of the bombing and served a 10-year sentence, only to be released in a prisoner exchange for a captured Israeli soldier in Lebanon. She later moved to the U.S. where she applied for citizenship, concealing her terrorist past.
German authorities ordered the deportation, claiming Odeh had not disclosed her public engagements while applying for a visa at the German embassy in Jordan, where she currently resides. Odeh’s lawyers denied their client hid the real purpose of her visit. On Friday, the appeals courts accepted the version presented by the German embassy and reinstated the prior deportation order.
On Monday, the newspaper Berliner Morgenpost confirmed Odeh’s departure from Germany. “The ex-terrorist Rasmea Odeh has left Berlin. The Jordanian national voluntarily left the country, [Berlin’s] Department of Internal affairs declared,” the newspaper reported. “The police oversaw her departure from Germany.”
Odeh, member of the terror outfit Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), has a history of making false claims on visa applications. In 2017, a Michigan court stripped Odeh of her U.S. citizenship for lying on her visa and naturalization forms. She was allowed to leave the country without a prison term as part of a plea bargain.
Foreign influence in the United States is a major problem, but it might surprise you to find out just who some of the biggest players are. You would certainly think of Russia given the massive coverage of their attempts to influence the 2016 US election. But one name you probably haven’t heard is Qatar, a small country in the Middle East which wields an outsized influence through a large and well-funded operation.
The characterization of Russia as a puppet master in US politics is, of course, utterly ludicrous to anyone familiar enough with the poorly funded, amateurish, and ham-fisted operations of Russia and her allies to influence US opinion in the 2016 cycle. This is not to say that foreign influence can’t be effective or that foreign nations and their lobbyists are not corrupting the policy-making process – they clearly are. A compelling case regarding this malicious influence is made in a new documentary called Blood Money, previewed at last month’s CPAC conference and set for release this week.
To illustrate the phenomenon of Washington, as a “playground for foreign interests,” the documentary tells the story of the Qatar lobby, and how they have effectively changed the conversation with regard to Middle East policy in establishment circles during the current administration. Under the Obama administration, the US threw its weight behind the Arab Spring movement on the theory that our support for democratization would lead to both greater stability and more pro-American outcomes. It was a bad bet. The overthrow of authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya simply empowered radical forces like the Muslim Brotherhood, at once undermining stability in the region and leading to an increase in support for terror activities worldwide.
Abbas Hamideh, the Cleveland-based founder of Al-Awda - Right of Return, is prominent in anti-Israel circles. He is one of the main organizers of the anti-AIPAC rallies every year. I have a post from YMikarov detailing his antisemitism. The ADL also has a page with tons of examples of his hate.
Lately on Twitter Hamideh has been trying to discredit the idea that Jews have anything to do with the Land of Israel.
So I decided to look at his family history.
Surprise! Any connection his family had with Palestine came after Zionists started to make the land of Israel attractive to neighboring Arabs.
It was not a very distinguished tribe. As this 1873 travelogue notes, they were subservient to pretty much every other tribe and they fought among themselves.
The transition from the highlands to the mountains is very sudden. Climate and vegetation at once are changed. At first, at the bottoms of the valleys, are many patches of flat ground, covered with the richest herbage. In one of these opens we found a camp of Hamideh, into whose district we had now entered. The first sign of our proximity was a large herd of she-asses and their colts, animals not in favour with the more warlike Beni Sakk'r. The camp consisted of 14 families.
Here Zadam halted, and had a long conversation with their sheikh. The manner of both, the nonchalance of the one, the cringing deference of the other, was an amusing illustration of the great man talking with the small one. Zadam, by his contract, was bound to conduct us through the whole of the Beni Hamideh territory, and did not wish to have the expense of their sheikh accompanying us. But the poor man, who certainly had few opportunities of backsheish, urged upon him, "Why should you prevent my going with the Franghi, and getting a little present, when you get a large one?" Our sheikh consented at last, observing to the inferior magnate, that at least there was plenty to eat at our camp; and telling us that the Hamideh came at his own choice, and could not demand a gift.
Our new follower devoted himself henceforward most assiduously to me, as a profitable milch cow, doing the civil most oppressively, and kissing my hand on every possible occasion. Honest and inoffensive we found the Hamideh, one and all, but cringing and mean—in fact, with all the characterises of those who have been accustomed to be treated as an inferior race.
So far from being independent, as is generally supposed, and has been stated by some writers, there is not a single sept of the Beni Hamideh (or Hamaidi, as some of them prefer to call themselves) which is not the vassal of some greater tribe. All those north of the Arnon, are the "teba'a" (feudal subjects) of the Beni Sakk'r, while those south of it, have the worse misfortune of having two masters; being for the most part vassals of Iverak, and at the same time compelled to purchase the goodwill of their neighbours, the Beni Sakk'r, to whose marauding parties they would otherwise be continually exposed. This position has given them a servile tone and bearing, which is all the more noticeable, in contrast with the haughty bearing of the lordly Beni Sakk'r.
Again, there is no unity in the politics of the Hamideh. A number of petty sheikhs, each leading a few families, and loth to acknowledge any superior in their own tribe, are enabled, by the configuration of the country, to hold their several valleys in tolerable security. It is no easy matter to lift cattle across from one wady to another when once they have entered the mountain descents. But it is very easy for the lords of the highlands to sally down any ravine they please, and overrun the valleys. \ This position of the Hamideh partly explains the Idifficulties of most explorers of Moab. They have invariably gone to the wrong tribe; and, learning that the Hamideh possess the sites of the principal ruins, have entrusted themselves to the first petty sheikh of the tribe to whom they could get access. These chieftains were each powerless beyond their own domains; and endless squabbles over paltry backsheish, and final disappointment, have been the result.
...Their own tradition is, that they were driven from the uplands by the Belka Arabs, who in turn have been squeezed out by the Beni Sakk'r.
The family, which now falsely styles itself as a tribe of warriors, does have one notable and ignoble place in history. The Mesha Stele, one of the most important archaeological finds of all time, was found in their territory, as a single large inscribed stone. When the tribe got wind that it might be worth money, they dug it out of the ground, set a fire under it, and then threw cold water on it to shatter it so they could send pieces to family members. I'm not sure if this was out of spite or avarice, most of the pieces were purchased or recovered by scholars. Many of the fragments have never been recovered.
Now, I don't have specific information of when parts of the Hamideh clan moved across the Jordan, but it isn't too hard to guess that they, like so many other Arabs, were attracted to the Jewish capital and booming economy that Zionism brought to Palestine. And, let's face it, their lives in Transjordan were lousy - they were treated with no respect and instead of building themselves into something they relied on sucking up to the more successful clans. So sometime between 1880 and 1930, some of the Hamidehs came to Palestine and magically became "Palestinian."
In reality, they aren't.
Notice that while Hamideh's clan did live in Eastern Palestine, in what is now called Jordan, they are not claiming any of their ancestral lands from Jordan. They only want the land the Jews control, which is consistent with all Palestinian Arab demands since 1964.
When I called Hamideh on his real family history, he responded with this farcical tweet where he now claims to be descended from - Moses!
The guy can't stop lying. (HE followed with a tweet denying any Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and I pointed out one Arabic name for Jerusalem - Bayt al-Maqdis - is based on the Hebrew word for Holy Temple.)
The Israel haters, of course, aren't put off by little things like lies.
Interestingly, while Hamideh used to be friends with Linda Sarsour and there are photos of the two together, they had some sort of falling out - possibly Sarsour realized that associating with an open Hezbollah supporter was not good for her career.
But a member of Congress has no such scruples but to pose with a terror-supporting fake Palestinian from a two-bit Jordanian family.
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"We are facing very difficult days," he told the summit.
"We will have to take decisive steps, and we are confident that you will be with us in our struggle a true support."
This is not likely. Arab support for Palestinians has been going down over the years as frustration over the Hamas/Fatah split and their refusal to be flexible on peace terms with Israel.
"We are coming to very difficult days, after Israel - the occupying power - destroyed all the agreements and renounced all the commitments from Oslo until today. It continues its policy and procedures to destroy the two-state solution, and has made us lose hope for peace with it. We can no longer tolerate this situation or live with it in order to safeguard the interests of our people, " Abbas said.
Abu Mazen bragged about not accepting anything from Israel unless it continued to pay the full amount, including funds that are paid to terrorists out of the PA budget.
"Israel cut off a large part of our money, which it collects and takes a commission from, under the pretext of paying salaries to the families of the prisoners and the wounded, which is a breach of the agreements. This made us insist on the receipt of our money in full undiminished. We will not abandon our people, especially those who sacrificed themselves," he said.
Of course his dignity at not accepting Israeli tax revenues does not extend to the indignity of begging Arabs for more and more money so he can continue to pay both terrorists and regular salaries.
"In light of this emergency crisis, we call on you to activate the resolutions of the previous summits by activating the financial safety nets and fulfilling the financial obligations of the brotherly countries to support the budget of the State of Palestine. This situation is very difficult and dangerous, please do not abandon us in it," Abbas begged.
He also insulted Hamas and blamed it for the split.
He attacked the US for its moves of closing the PLO offices, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, for shutting off aid to UNRWA and for recognizing Israel's control over the Golan Heights.
He predicted that the US "will tell Israel to take part of the Palestinian territories and give the rest of it autonomy, and make the Gaza Strip a formal state for Hamas to run."
Abbas demanded that Arab states cut off relations with any state that recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital. "We urge you, my fellow leaders, to be wary of Israel's attempts to push some countries of the world to transfer their embassies to Jerusalem. This requires our countries to stand in their way and declare those countries that are in this direction to violate international law and expose that their political and economic interests with Arab countries are at risk."
Finally, he said, "We are confident that Israel's attempts to normalize its relations with the Arab and Islamic countries will not succeed before the Arab peace initiative is implemented from beginning to end and not vice versa, and normalization only with the end of the occupation of the Palestinian and Arab territories."
When he says he is "confident" that means he is frightened.
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The fishermen's captain, Nizar Ayyash, said: "The Egyptian boats surrounded a fishing boat in the sea off of Rafah, and arrested on board four fishermen."
No human rights groups have commented. Nor will they.
This week, Israel increased the area of fishing off the Gaza coast to as much as 15 nautical miles in some areas, including near the Egyptian border.
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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Elder of Ziyon
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