Friday, July 12, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
Friday, July 12, 2019Elder of ZiyonTour leaders policed language and opinions. In ways that could be considered public shaming, they corrected neutral terms like “West Bank” and “settlements,” replacing them with terms in the lexicon sympathetic to the occupation: “Judea and Samaria” and “Jewish communities.”"Judea and Samaria" and "Jewish communities" are in fact neutral terms - and far more accurate than "West Bank," terminology that didn't exist before Jordan illegally annexed the lands (even the UN used those terms), and "settlements" which now have a pejorative meaning.
Guides and guest speakers spoke of anti-occupation, Zionist organizations like J Street and Americans for Peace Now with derision; they questioned explicitly the Zionist, and even Jewish, identity of supporters of such groups.The Forward in this very article calls these tours "reprehensible and even dangerous". (And racist, as we will see.) Are strong opinions not allowed, or only one one side? I question the Zionist identity of these groups since they are entirely dedicated to turning Jews against Israel's policies as chosen by the people who live there. (I do not agree with saying that their supporters aren't Jewish, my guess is that in reality the words used were that the groups did not adhere to Jewish values.)
Right-wing, pro-occupation, and even racist content filled most of the presentations we attended. “Make Greater Israel Great Again” was the title of the opening presentation on the ZOA trip, just weeks after the election of Donald Trump.Right wing and pro-occupation, certainly. The groups make no pretense of being otherwise, and Boxer certainly knew that when he went on the trip. But "racist?" He has not mentioned anything in this paragraph that could be considered that.
The trips included substantial time in settlements as a means of normalizing them and building bonds with their residents.Why is that bad, but J-Street's bringing students to an illegal building in Susiya where they get served lunch from the family that lives there not considered equally bad?
During meetings with settler leaders in Hebron, both tours featured talks by Rabbi Simcha Hochbaum, who called mass murderer Baruch Goldstein a righteous man.While Hochbaum's words reported here could be considered technically accurate, it is wrong in any way to contextualize Goldstein's massacre as anything but pure evil. This is the only part of Boxer's criticism that I agree with.
Rabbi Hochbaum told us that the murderous Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea made Goldstein’s 1994 massacre of 29 Muslims during prayer pale in comparison. I was stunned the first time I heard this. The second time, I confronted him. He insisted that the good Goldstein had done in his 11-year medical career far outweighed the moment in which he gunned down Palestinian Muslims in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque.
We didn’t only meet settlers, though. Unlike on Birthright, these tours included meetings with Palestinians in the West Bank, though they were very carefully curated to convey a particular narrative.Literally every tour of the region, ever, has been "carefully curated to convey a particular narrative." There is only so much time and every group has an agenda, whether they admit it or not. This cartoon I captioned several months ago used the same term when describing the B'Tselem, Break the Silence and J-Street tours of Hebron:
We went to the new Palestinian city of Rawabi, home to luxury apartments and high-end stores, and met with its founder Bashar Masri. The message: How could occupation be bad if one can buy Coach handbags?
We also visited a settler-owned factory near the settlement-city of Ariel and engaged in a discussion with its Palestinian workers, a conversation heavily curated by the factory owner. Surely, occupation is good if it provides jobs for Palestinians, right?Again, is this a bad thing? Isn't this showing a side of the conflict that rarely gets reported? In short - why would anyone be against speaking with Palestinian workers in a Jewish owned business? I've done it myself and I was able to ask whatever I wanted.
Few thinkers have had so enormous an impact on the humanities as Edward Said, an English professor whose 1978 book Orientalism argued that all Western scholarship of the Middle East—indeed, all European writing about the Islamic world—was inherently suspect, reflecting only stereotypes and fantasies. Accompanying this argument was vituperation against Israel, to which Said dedicated much of his subsequent public life, inspiring multiple generations of academic Israel-haters. William D. Rubinstein examines Said’s distortions and tortured logic:
[I]n films and popular culture, every identifiable group is depicted initially in stereotypical terms: upper-class Englishmen are depicted as plummy-voiced toffs, American army sergeants as martinets, Australians as beer-swilling ockers from the outback. So what? But Said presents only the most negative views of the Islamic world as representative of its depiction in the mainstream West, ignoring any more positive views.
[For instance], the academic and scholarly “orientalists” who wrote about the Islamic world between about 1750 and 1940 were seldom hostile to Islam or to Muslim culture; quite the opposite. Typical was Gottlieb Leitner (1840–99), born in Budapest to Jewish parents who became Protestants. Leitner lived in India and was a renowned linguist. . . . In 1889 he published a pamphlet, Muhammedism, which defended Islam against its critics, and, in the same year, established the Woking Mosque in Surrey, the first mosque in Britain.
Dozens of other scholars and anthropologists throughout the West, normally termed “orientalists,” were highly sympathetic to Islam and its culture. These scholars were ignored in Said’s works, as were modern scholars who studied the politics, economy, and religious culture of the Islamic world in a serious way.
It appears that Said became an ardent supporter of the Palestinian cause and, by extension, of the Islamic world, following the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and the Arabs. At the time, Israel enjoyed the virtually unanimous support of the Western world’s left intelligentsia. . . . Said effectively—and, it seems, deliberately—provided scholarly backing for the reverse of this former consensus, and for whitewashing the culture and lifestyles of the Islamic world.
UK Charity Commission InvestigationDavid Collier: The Guardian newspaper: Decades of baiting British Jews
On June 6, 2019, the Charity Commission for England and Wales released a statement on their investigation into “Viva Palestina,” a charity led by former Member of Parliament and former War on Want General Secretary, George Galloway. The Charity Commission concluded that Viva Palestina “was not properly governed, managed or administered by its trustees – as a result of those failings its reputation, that of the wider charitable sector, and charitable funds donated by the public to the charity were put at risk.”
The Commission paid special attention to Viva Palestina’s failure regarding “the basic requirement to keep receipts and records of income and expenditure and so be able to properly account for charitable funds raised and spent. These basic requirements are all the more important when charitable funds are raised from members of the public and used for humanitarian needs in conflict zones.” Viva Palestina reportedly claimed to have raised over £1 million in 2009 alone.
Viva Palestina’s Material Support for Hamas
In addition to the concerns cited by the Charity Commission, Viva Palestina has had significant contact with leaders of the Hamas terrorist organization, including providing them with cash, vehicles, and other items.
For example, during a March 2009 “aid convoy,” George Galloway met with then Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and directly provided him with three cars and £25,000 in cash. Galloway claimed, “Just in case the British government or the European Union want to face me in any court, let me tell them live on television: I personally am about to break the sanctions on the elected government of Palestine…By Allah, we carried a lot of cash here… But I, now, here, on behalf of myself, my sister Yvonne Ridley…are giving three cars and 25,000 pounds in cash to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh”
What changed at the Guardian?
This isn’t difficult. The ‘rational left’ lost its soul when it became infected by the very viruses it used to be able to identify. It saw Islamic antisemitism until it became infected with it. So too Soviet antisemitism. Today those people writing these letters to the Guardian support the same ideology as those the Guardian quickly dismissed back in 1953. They started to use these media outlets to push their obsession. This is a map of the increase in mentions of the word ‘Israel’ from 1947-2003:
1966-1967, which includes the six-day war and its aftermath, saw 960 articles. 2002-2003 was to reach 3,402. I can only imagine how bad things are today. To put this in perspective. Israel’s 3,402 came over 24 months. ‘Congo’ did not even make 1,500 articles over the whole five years of the Second Congo War that cost millions of lives. Adding Rwanda to the search terms didn’t make much difference. Israel has become a Guardian obsession.
It becomes even more interesting when we search for ‘anti-Zionism’. Beyond criticism, until the 1990s there were no references to the words in the Guardian archives and a whole year could pass without a single article using it. In 1998 there was one article. Another two in 1999 and 2000. In 2001 that double to four and in 2003 it tripled to thirteen. Since then it has risen to a tsunami.
The only reference in 1998 was to a book from the 1930s. In 1999 the play ‘Perdition‘ was on the theatre pages as it enjoyed a short run at the Gate Theatre. January of 2000 saw David Ceserani used the term when he was critical of Norman Finkelstein. In June, John Fordham wrote a Jazz column about Gilad Atzmon. Then in August 2001, there was a mention in article about the Woodcraft folk, and the complexities of global politics. In September it was another Jazz advert for Gilad Atzmon.
Thursday, July 11, 2019Elder of ZiyonThe article says in part:
Muhammad AlZanati and Muhammad AlBuhaisi are natives of Gaza who have fled to Europe and are members of the Palestinian Opposition Coalition that is under formation.
Now is the perfect time for the Palestinian populace to stand up and follow new leaders. We propose the creation of a new organization that can provide that leadership: the Palestinian Opposition Coalition.Everything they say seems almost too good to be true.
We, the writers of these lines, are two Gazans who have fled Hamas’ hell to Europe. Both of us are computer geeks with good jobs in the EU. We have made it.
Why would Gazans choose to run an article in an Israeli newspaper? The answer is simple: No one but Israel cares what Gazans think and what Gazans want.
When UN officials open their mouths before the world’s media to speak about Gazans' suffering, they don’t know what they are talking about nor do they know what we are striving for as human beings.
When Arab dictators bleat about our rights and how Israel is allegedly crushing us, they don’t care for us. In fact, those very Arab rulers have played the greater part in creating suffering for Gaza.
When European officials talk about the need to help Gazans, it is, in most cases, a sugarcoating of their deep-seated anti-Semitism.
We will tell you what we Gazans want.
We want Hamas out. We voted for Hamas almost 14 years ago because we had enough of the corrupt Palestinian Authority. Even Christians in Gaza voted for Hamas as the lesser of two evils. Gazans have been historically more liberal and less religious than other Palestinians. This has been known since the British Mandate for Palestine was created.
We thought our lives could improve a little under Hamas. And what did we get? Hamas is more corrupt than the Palestinian Authority thugs. Even worse, Hamas labels anyone who opposes it an "infidel." At least the PLO would not do that.
And Hamas itself is not self-governed. It is common knowledge in Gaza is that Hamas is the Palestine chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan.
...We are Hamas’ biggest victims. The parades you see in support of Hamas are staged. Schoolchildren are threatened: If they don't attend, their parents will be arrested.
Except for the 5,000 people who comprise Hamas' leadership and their children, we Gazans would love to see Israel taking over Gaza again and running it under the Civil Administration, as it did before the Oslo Accords.
We do not want the corrupt Palestinian Authority to take over Gaza again. And as much as we love Egypt and its president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, we don’t want Egyptian rule, either. We want things to return to the days before Oslo.
For those who wonder what our identity and citizenship will be: Most Gazans are educated and well-read. We know Jordan’s regime stands on shaky ground. A change in Jordan would result in an extension of Jordanian citizenship to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and then, we would have peace based on facts and reality on the ground as US President Donald Trump said when he addressed the UN in September of last year. We are willing to hold Jordanian citizenship and connect administratively to Jordan, but that will require a change of the status quo in Jordan first.
This is the truth that could set all of us free.
Thursday, July 11, 2019Elder of Ziyon
humor, Preoccupied
Ramallah, July 11 - The longstanding assumption governing human conception of the solar system and beyond must undergo revision, insists a group of West Bank and Gaza scientists who accuse the scientific mainstream of ignoring definitive evidence that they and their people, not the Sun, occupy the center of everything.
“It has nothing to do with religion, it is fake,” Erekat told journalists at his office in Ramallah. “It’s a settlement project. It’s based on a lie that has nothing to do with history.”PMW: Abbas’ advisor praises Nazi collaborator as “role model”
We beg to differ. It has everything to do with history: Jewish history. Clear evidence – which no archaeologist denies – that this road was used by hundreds of thousands of Jewish pilgrims ascending to the Second Temple three times a year.
It was found by happenstance when a pipe burst, to everyone’s good fortune, for it is a visual manifestation of Jewish practice 2,000 years ago. To continue to deny that Jews were here, that Jews started here – and that Jews are deeply connected to the land beginning with Jerusalem – is to declare perpetual war between Jews and Arabs, between Israelis and Palestinians.
“The region is not interested in leaving the Palestinians behind,” Greenblatt told CUFI, “but I think the region is also tired of the Palestinian leadership preventing progress in the region.”
The Pilgrimage Road is part of Jewish history, and as Friedman said, Israel is as likely to give up that heritage site as the United States would surrender the Statue of Liberty. Soon it will be open to all, allowing visitors to walk in the footsteps of ancient pilgrims along a 350-meter stretch of the main thoroughfare that ran uphill to the Jewish temple.
What Pilgrimage Road does is uncover truth. Without an acknowledgment by Palestinians and the Arab world of the veracity of Jewish history – which is starting to happen – there can be no peace agreement that will include the “end of conflict” clause – which means no peace agreement.
We applaud Greenblatt’s statement – “You cannot possibly build peace without a foundation of truth” – because it confirms the absurdity of continuous Palestinian denial of Jewish history. One cannot “Judaize” Jerusalem.
“Stand up to this garbage, this nonsense,” Greenblatt told Evangelical Christians. “Let’s push back – and no longer should we tolerate their myths and their falsification of history.”
Known Nazi collaborator, the former Mufti of Palestine Haj Amin Al-Husseini, was openly honored by Abbas' Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations, Mahmoud Al-Habbash.BBC Panorama’s exposé of Jeremy Corbyn’s meddling in antisemitism cases is further evidence that he is racist and unfit for office
During World War II Al-Husseini moved to Berlin, where he was an associate of Hitler and gave active support to the Nazi war effort. Al-Husseini was on Yugoslavia's list of wanted war criminals, and was responsible for a Muslim SS division that murdered thousands of Serbs and Croats. When the Nazis offered to free some Jewish children, Al-Husseini fought against their release, and as a result, 5000 children were sent to the gas chambers.
Amin Al-Husseini meeting with Adolf Hitler (December 1941)
This week, on the anniversary of his death, Abbas' advisor posted Al-Husseini's photo and praised him as a "role model":
Posted text: "On this day, on July 4, 1974, the great Palestinian national leader, [former] Mufti of Palestine and Head of the Arab Higher Committee Haj Amin Al-Husseini - who for many years led the Palestinian struggle against the British and Israeli occupation - passed away; our leaders are our role models."
[Facebook page of Mahmoud Al-Habbash, July 4, 2019]
But Al-Habbash's praise is not an isolated example. The PA has named at least one school after the Nazi collaborator - the Amin Al-Husseini Elementary School in El-Bireh, the current PA Mufti has honored his predecessor by laying a wreath on his grave, and the PA National Security Forces have highlighted Al-Husseini on Facebook.
Former Labour Party employees have spoken out publicly on the BBC’s flagship investigative documentary programme, Panorama, to reveal Jeremy Corbyn’s personal meddling in disciplinary cases relating to antisemitism.Panorama: New revelations on UK Labour antisemitism (July 10, 2019)
The documentary lays bare the scale of the interference by agents of Mr Corbyn in the process. The programme is peppered with unconvincing denials from Labour’s press team.
The programme explains how senior Labour Party staffers, some of whom Campaign Against Antisemitism has known for years, used to independently run Labour’s disciplinary process, but soon after Mr Corbyn’s election as Party leader found themselves contending with his most senior aides.
The programme shows how brazen Mr Corbyn’s staff were in their efforts to subvert due process.
Early in the Party’s antisemitism crisis, Seumas Milne, often referred to as the ‘brain’ behind Mr Corbyn, is described as laughing by Mike Creighton, who led the Party’s disciplinary team, when Mr Creighton suggested means of improving the Party’s response to antisemitism. In a statement, Labour claimed Mr Creighton was lying.
However during the programme, one staffer after another described how gradually Mr Corbyn’s agents increased their interference in the disciplinary process. According to the former staffers’ testimony and e-mails shown to Panorama, Mr Corbyn’s team and his ally, General Secretary Jennie Formby, intervened to reduce the punishment for antisemites, and even to try to alter the composition of a disciplinary panel of the Party’s National Constitutional Committee.
One staffer described how a member of staff in Mr Corbyn’s office said that there was a “Jewish conspiracy” against Ken Livingstone, after Mr Livingstone said that Hitler was “supporting Zionism”. Another official said that a new leader of the disciplinary team installed by allies of Mr Corbyn claimed that there was no problem with an image shared by a Labour member from a far-right website depicting an alien parasite emblazoned with a Star of David smothering the Statue of Liberty.
Isn’t it likely that an exasperated current or former staffer who knew the password sent this tweet? The hacked line is invariably a lame excuse.
Thursday, July 11, 2019Elder of Ziyon
BDS is a failed political movement, and the Israeli government stalks a tiger that walks on paper feet.Like so many others, Hoare misses the point of what BDS is about.
While BDS supporters are still able to muster enough people to gather outside stores selling Israeli products, underwrite letters to the Guardian, or pressure this or that artist into not stopping in Tel Aviv on their world tour, these are but demonstrative acts that, together, constitute a carnival sideshow.
In fourteen years, BDS has failed to attract support beyond those who were already inclined to dislike Israel to begin with ...and has made no perceptible impact on the Israeli economy.
In a first-of-its-kind incident, a European academic association has reportedly canceled a planned conference in Israel due to fear that it will come under pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.ENMESH didn't choose to boycott Israel because it is anti-Israel; it chose to boycott Israel because it didn't want to hassle with two years of anti-Israel idiots harassing its members.
Two weeks after the European Network for Mental Health Service Evaluation (ENMESH) last month concluded its 2019 meeting with a decision to hold its next biennial conference in Jerusalem in 2021, the chairman of its executive committee unilaterally canceled that resolution, Haaretz reported Sunday.
In a letter sent to board members, Mike Slade said his decision came after several members complained about the location, and that he was trying to preempt the resulting outcry from boycott supporters, the report said, citing sources who had read the letter.
Had he gone forward with the plans to hold the next conference in Israel, Slade contended, ENMESH’s work over the next two years would have been dominated by dealing with the controversy and the pressure from anti-Israel activists.
"It's much more difficult to get people to support Friends of the IDF and Israel, even those who are Jewish," says Hollywood attorney and Friends of the IDF board member Marty Singer. "Sometimes people are afraid that it could have an adverse impact on them. It's not politically correct."That fear is the biggest BDS victory, and it is not (yet) being effectively countered.
Thursday, July 11, 2019Elder of Ziyon
Thursday, July 11, 2019Elder of Ziyon
Thursday, July 11, 2019Elder of ZiyonOpinion, Vic Rosenthal
Israel at age 71 is strong enough to address the moral failings of its past. The Nakba won’t go away. It’s still there in the landscape, in the rows of pear cactus of the abandoned villages, in the many arched houses of Jaffa and Haifa, and in the memory of the Palestinian community in Israel, and in the territories and across the border.
Instead of censoring and concealing things, the history of Israel’s establishment and the Palestinian society that was uprooted should be studied and taught. Commemoration signs should be put up at the sites of destroyed villages, and the moral dilemmas that have accompanied Israel since 1948 should be faced. Such recognition won’t resolve the conflict, but it will place dialogue between Jews and Palestinians in Israel on a foundation of truth instead of lies, shame and concealment.
The Council’s lack of true concern for human rights violations around the world and its single-minded focus against Israel became most conspicuous in June 2007 when its members voted 46-1, to make Israel’s actions a permanent item on the Council’s agenda. From that point and onward, every meeting of the UNHRC includes Item #7 on the agenda: Israel and its “human rights violations.” The United States, Australia, and numerous European countries have been critical of the Council for this fixed agenda item, noting that the Council does not scrutinize countries with far worse rights records than Israel. (In June 2018, the United States pulled out of the UNHRC because of its anti-Israel bias, labeling the organization as “a cesspool of political bias.”)
The final dimension of the UNHRC farce are the countries which have been allowed to sit on the 47-member council. Just to give one example, in 2017, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola were given seats on the Council. Angola and the DRC are countries known for gender-based violence, restrictions of freedom of expression, harassment of opposition leaders, lack of fair and free elections, suppression of freedom of assembly, discrimination against women, minorities, and people with disabilities, and persecution of the LGBT community.
Part of the mandate of the UNHRC is to “address important thematic human rights” such as “freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of belief and religion, LGBT rights, and the rights of racial and ethnic minorities.” How can they have been given the reins to monitor and condemn human rights violations around the world if they are in constant violation of those rights as outlined by the UN itself?
This stands in stark contrast with Israel where there is complete freedom of speech, freedom to protest, religious freedom, full equal rights for women, LGBT rights, open and fair democratic elections, and laws protecting women, minorities, and people with disabilities from discrimination.
The ancient Pilgrimage Road in the City of David is one of the most sensational archaeological discoveries to be made in Jerusalem since Israel’s establishment. On this road, remarkably preserved under the ashes of the Roman destruction, many thousands of Jews in Second Temple times, after a ritual bath in the Shiloah Pool, walked about 700 meters up the hill to the Temple Mount.July 1938: The evil Evian Conference on the Jews
The site was first excavated more than a hundred years ago by French, British, and American archaeologists, at a time when the State of Israel did not exist and Jerusalem was under Muslim rule.
The City of David, which is under archaeological examination, covers about 15 acres – or about 6 percent of the Arab Silwan neighborhood. The Israeli Supreme Court has rebuffed claims that the digging endangers the homes of Silwan residents and has clarified that it is done under strict engineering supervision and in line with professional standards.
Hundreds of Arab residents of Silwan have been employed in the excavations under the houses of the village – so much so that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority threatened them and forced them to leave their jobs.
The excavations are being done in the vicinity of the Temple Mount and not under it. That has been true of all the excavations Israel has carried out over the years in other parts of the Old City and the Temple Mount vicinity. Al-Aqsa is not in danger; what is in danger is the freedom of scientific archaeological research in this area.
Exactly 81 years ago the Evian Conference on the Jews, took place from July 6-15, 1938
Helpless in the face of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed an international conference to rescue Jews who no longer wanted to live in Germany.
The so-called cvilized world gathers from 6 to 14 July 1938 at the Royal Hotel Evian, on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Several factors determine the ebb and flow of the emigration of Jews from Germany at different times. These include the degree of pressure on the Jewish community in Germany and the willingness of other countries to admit Jewish immigrants. With the intensification of legal repression and physical violence, many Jews wish to flee Germany.
Until October 1941, German policy officially encourages Jewish emigration. Gradually, however, the Nazis sought to deprive Jews fleeing Germany of their property by levying an increasing emigration tax and limiting the amounts that could be transferred abroad by German banks.
In January 1933, there are about 550,000 Jews in Germany, less than 1% of the total population of the country.
Wednesday, July 10, 2019Varda Meyers Epstein (Judean Rose)Judean Rose, Opinion, Varda
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| (sketch on bottom right by Mark David Cherney) |
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PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
