Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 08, 2019

08/08 Links Pt2: How the Jews Ruined Anti-Semitism; Al Sharpton and the Decline of the Democrats; The West Bank’s Unreported Forbidden Roads

From Ian:

Jews today are caught between competing definitions of who we are and who we must be. We are not convenient. According to taste we are colonizers and liberators, belligerents and victims, a religion and a state. The post-war obsession with the Nazis has inevitably corralled Jews into a place of significance that flatters us but that we cannot ultimately bear. That significance turns Israel-Palestine into the struggle, an object of fascination, horror and support across the world. The world can pick and choose the Jewish state that it imagines: Israel as the symbol of Western oppression, the symbol of resistance to Islamic supremacy, the symbol of redemption, the symbol of irredeemable violence.

However much the world wants to settle on the image of the Jew of their choice, something always escapes control. Some or all of us refuse to be what is required of us, causing frustration and disappointment. And that means that we have inevitably ruined anti-Semitism too, building on the Nazi’s sterling work in doing the same.

We ruined anti-Semitism for consensus anti-Semites by seeking to take control of our existence, by building up worldly power.

We ruined anti-Semitism for those who do not wish to be consensus anti-Semites by ceasing to be defensible.

We ruined anti-Semitism for Jews, by not taking the easy route, by refusing to be “Jews.”

Given the now inescapable fact that Jews as an entirety cannot be assimilated into narratives about what anti-Semitism is, non-Jews are increasingly being selective: choosing the Jews they damn and the ones they save. And we are playing along, telling the world who the real Jews are, the Jews that are worth defending. This has not only contributed to the ruination of any kind of understanding that can encompass Jews as a whole, it has contributed to our own fragmentation as a people.

What freshman members of Congress should learn on their trip to Israel

This year’s August congressional trip to Israel is different from previous years, as so much attention is focused on who is not joining, specifically the members of the pro-BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) “Squad,” Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

However, most members who come to Israel do have an open mind and can grasp the difficulties that have thwarted decades of efforts at resolution of the conflict between Israel and its enemies, some who will not be satisfied until there is no Jewish state and no Western-oriented presence in the region.

Some say the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about the occupation, and Israel for its own good should unilaterally withdraw to the pre-1967 lines, and that the Jews of all peoples, after centuries of oppression, should not be occupying another people’s land.

Yet if there is to be created an autonomous Palestinian state adjacent to Israel, is it reasonable to expect that missiles won’t be exploding in Tel Aviv, or that they won’t have to run their children into bomb shelters all the time everywhere in Israel?

Israel withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005. Its reward was three wars launched from the coastal enclave and plenty of indignant international condemnation for Israel defending itself against forces launching missiles from school yards and hospitals, and digging tunnels under borders to sneak across and murder civilians.

CAMERA: The West Bank’s Unreported Forbidden Roads

A Reuters article yesterday about a Palestinian-developed app to help West Bank drivers avoid traffic caused by Israeli checkpoints covers up select forbidden West Bank roads — those prohibited to Israeli drivers (“Palestinian app helps drivers avoid Israel checkpoint bottlenecks“).

Correspondent Rami Ayyub asserts:
Around 3 million Palestinians live in the territory along with some 450,000 settlers, who can generally drive in the area without major restriction using so-called “bypass roads” built to avoid Palestinian towns.

The notion that Israeli settlers “generally drive in the area without major restriction” is belied by the fact that West Bank roads are heavily restricted to Israeli drivers. In fact, Israeli drivers are prohibited from entering at all in Area A of the West Bank, which constitutes more than 10 percent of the territory. In other words, Israeli drivers are kept off entire roads in the areas under full Palestinian control.

As a result, Israeli drivers must take a much more circuitous, time-consuming routes to avoid forbidden Palestinian locales. So while there are surely bypass roads, their existence is not tantamount to driving “without major restriction.” Bypass roads exist precisely because of the major restrictions.

Have you ever seen a sign in Israel that says "Palestinians are not allowed to enter"?

They can enter my city, and no one will hurt them, I can not enter their city, and they call Israel an apartheid state?

Via @yankifarber pic.twitter.com/AO7PwZ2nkO
— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) April 26, 2018

Political Rivals Agree Other Must Compromise (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Jerusalem, August 8 - Parties hoping to gain positions in any anticipated coalition to emerge from next month's parliamentary elections reached accord on one of the chief issues facing any such development: that those whose demands contradict theirs should demonstrate flexibility for the sake of coalition stability and integrity.

Prominent members of parties whose requirements for membership in a coalition conflict with those of other parties competing for reelection agreed today that the other ones should compromise on those demands, lest negotiations to form a coalition break down once again and the country face a third round of elections and face a constitutional crisis.

Yisrael Beiteinu chief Avigdor Liberman told reporters that despite their fundamental differences with Haredi parties on such contentious issues as the universal military draft, his group and the Haredim see eye to eye on the need for the other to bend. "We have vastly different assumptions governing our worldviews," he acknowledged in a telephone interview Thursday, "but that does not prevent us from knowing there are certain points where our positions overlap, where we might even come together. In this case, each us of knows the other must give in if we are to make any progress for the public good."

United Torah Judaism leader Yaakov Litzman, currently the Deputy Minister of Health, concurred. "To the casual observer we and Yisrael Beiteinu - or Blue and White, for that matter - have so little in common that the thought of us finding any shared elements in our respective Weltanschauungs would be ridiculous," he observed. "Still, on one crucial point there isn't the slightest daylight between us: we insist they compromise on the points that for us are non-negotiable, and vice versa."

Even parties that have declared they would not sit together in any possible coalition agreed on this point. "Things would have to change drastically for us to be able to share positions in a government with the religious parties," conceded Meretz chairwoman Tamar Zandberg. "Obviously that's a hypothetical scenario, given all the poll numbers that foresee a right-wing majority getting elected, but still, should that shift the other way in the next six weeks, we can definitely see ourselves dovetailing with UTJ and even Shas on this. Even though we hold polar-opposite positions on such questions as the role of religion in public life and the extent to which the government should accommodate religion, if at all. It's one of those rare instances of unity in a fractured polity, and we should savor it."

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Jordanian "experts" recommend demolishing Aaron's shrine because too many Jews are visiting

From Ammon News:

An expert in ecotourism and natural and cultural heritage, Professor Ahmad Al-Malaabeh said in a lecture held by the Al-Hayat Party entitled "Mount Haroun [Aaron], the myth of the alleged tomb and the purpose of building the Mamluk Mosque", said that there is no evidence that Prophet Aaron was buried in it.

He pointed out that there are attempts to Judaize the site through the visit of the Jews to the site, such as the last visit of 320 Jews to the Mamluk Mosque in Mount Haroun.

He pointed to the absence of any archaeological or historical evidence that the Prophet Aaron was buried in the region, especially as the crossing of the Israelites was from Egypt towards the south and not north.

He stressed that no ancient Hebrew inscription in the area dating back to the 16th or 15th century BC has been discovered, and that Jews are trying to falsify history by placing Hebrew coins and newly manufactured copies of the Torah as archaeological artifacts in the region to support their claims and lies.

He cited research carried out by Jewish archaeologists, including the father of the world famous archaeologist Professor Israel Finkelstein, who works at the University of Tel Aviv and five other scientists, in which they denied the relationship of Jews with the region and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and refuted biblical texts claiming that there was any connection.

After losing the Sinai, where one of the shrines they claim belonged to the prophet Aaron, the Jews returned to try to establish their relationship with Wadi Musa and the so-called Aaron shrine.

He explained that the rituals practiced by Jews at the site, including blowing in the horn of the ram was used by Jews historically to declare war and intimidate the tribes.

He warned against Zionist propaganda trying to market Petra and the site of the Mamluk mosque as Jewish sites.

The Secretary-General of the Party of Life, Dr. Abdul Fattah al-Kilani has pointed in his welcoming speech, to the Zionist ambitions that extend from the Euphrates to the Nile.

For his part, Director of Dialogue Zahir Amr pointed to the need to pay attention to archeology by disproving the Zionist narrative and proving the Arab-Islamic narrative.

During the lecture, there was a dialogue in which speakers linked the visit of the last Jewish group to the attempt to impose the deal of the century.

They considered that the demolition of the tomb as the best response to the attempt to Judaize the site.

He is correct that there is little evidence that Aaron is actually buried at the site. And that ancient Hebrews used to blow the shofar before a war.

Everything else is pretty much fiction.

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08/08 Links Pt1: Student found stabbed to death in West Bank terror attack; manhunt launched; Hamas and Islamic Jihad praise ‘heroic’ West Bank slaying of student

From Ian:

Student found stabbed to death in West Bank terror attack; manhunt launched

The body of a yeshiva student who had been stabbed to death was discovered outside a settlement in the Gush Etzion area of the West Bank in the predawn hours of Thursday morning, prompting a massive manhunt for the killer.

The victim, who was later identified Dvir Sorek of the Ofra settlement, was studying at the Machanayim religious seminary in the Migdal Oz settlement, and had joined the military while continuing his studies, in a program known in Hebrew as hesder. Though formally a soldier, he was unarmed and not in uniform at the time of the attack, nor had he undergone military training.

Authorities were treating the killing as a terror attack. As of Thursday morning, no Palestinian terror group took responsibility for the killing.

The 19-year-old had been missing since Wednesday evening. His family and people at the yeshiva where he was studying told authorities that they’d lost contact with Sorek as he was returning to the seminary after a trip to Jerusalem. Sorek’s body was found at approximately 3 a.m. along a road leading to Migdal Oz, a settlement south of Bethlehem.

“He went to Jerusalem to buy gifts for his rabbis and on the way back there was an attack. He was found clutching the books that he’d bought,” the principal of his seminary, Rabbi Shlomo Wilk, told Army Radio.

‘Whoever didn’t know him missed out,’ says father of murdered student Dvir Sorek

The father of a yeshiva student found stabbed to death in the West Bank on Thursday remembered his son as “a kid with light in his eyes,” and said whoever killed him had “murder in his eyes.”

Dvir Sorek, who was enrolled in a program combining military service with Torah study, set out Wednesday from the Migdal Oz settlement, where he was studying, to buy a gift for a teacher in Jerusalem. His body was found with stab wounds early Thursday on the road leading to the settlement, in what authorities were treating as a terror attack.

“Whoever didn’t know him missed out; he used to help the weak around him who were in need of a friend,” a tearful Yoav Sorek told reporters outside his home.

“Our Dvir was sweet,” Sorek, editor of the conservative HaShiloach journal, said of his 19-year-old son. “Two months ago he had a karate exam and he didn’t get a high grade because his teacher said he performs the movements well, but lacks ‘murder’ in his eyes. That’s right. He had light in his eyes. Now someone with murder in his eyes has taken him.

“We received a gift for almost 19 years — for that gift we are grateful, we will carry the pain from now on,” he said.

Slain student Dvir Sorek, 19, had a ‘heart of gold,’ teachers say

Dvir Sorek, a yeshiva student enrolled in a program combining Torah study with military service, left his seminary in the West Bank settlement of Migdal Oz Wednesday to head to Jerusalem to buy books — a gift for a teacher.

The 19-year-old never returned.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, his body was discovered on the side of a road leading into the settlement, riddled with stab wounds. He was not in uniform at the time of his death, the army said. Authorities were treating the killing as a terror attack.

“He was found clutching the books that he’d bought,” Rabbi Shlomo Wilk, the head of the Migdal Oz seminary Machanayim, said Thursday morning, as word of Sorek’s murder was met with shock and sadness by those who knew him.

“He was an amazing man, very sensitive, smart, modest, who fused wisdom and quiet… This is a man who at the beginning of the year saw an Arab walking around the area with a donkey that looked unwell, sick, so he offered to buy the donkey. He bought it, treated it, and sent it away,” Rabbi Sarel Rosenblatt, who taught Sorek, told Channel 12 news.

“I wanted him to be a man of standing in Israel, who would contribute a lot of his light to Israeli society, and his light was taken from us,” he added, describing him as a “sensitive man with a heart of gold.”

Another teacher, Rabbi Yossi Fruman, said his trip to Jerusalem to buy a gift for his teacher “very much defined him.”

“He always thought about how he can express his gratitude. He returned to Jerusalem with the books on him,” he told the Kan public broadcaster. Some media outlets identified the book as Israeli author David Grossman’s latest novel.

From JTA:

A Conservative Jewish summer camp is denying that it makes personnel decisions based on politics after a senior staff member claimed she was removed from her position because of her left-wing views on Israel.

Sylvie Rosen, 22, who has served on staff at Camp Ramah in the Rockies for five summers, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that she was removed from her job as a counselor for incoming high school juniors after she clashed with her supervisor over Israel education.

She said she was prohibited from attending future Israel programming and removed from the role in early July after she talked with campers and told them she opposed Israel’s West Bank occupation and wanted to include critical perspectives in Israel programming.

Rosen said she had also clashed with her supervisor on other issues unrelated to Israel. She was offered another job at camp that would have lasted the rest of the summer, but chose to become a liaison to parents of younger campers. She left camp when that role ended this week.

The conversation that preceded her removal was initiated by campers, Rosen said. It came the day after the age group took part in a pro-Israel program. Rosen said the campers who approached her were uncomfortable with the program’s tone.

“It became clear really early on that my rosh, my supervisor, wanted our campers to form only really positive relationships with Israel, and I was interested in also talking about the occupation and critical views on Israel-Palestine,” she said.

Asked if she was intentionally testing Ramah’s policy on Israel, she said, “No, I wanted to give my campers the education I think they deserve.”

So Rosen admits that she clashed with her "rosh" on many issues, but she is claiming that her talking to campers about her hatred of Israel's policies is the only reason she was reassigned.

I have news for Rosen: Even if that was the only reason, her refusal to adhere to the camp's philosophy of instilling positive feelings towards Israel is more than enough reason to take her off of counselor duty. Ramah has a specific vision of how campers should learn about Israel and Zionism, and Rosen made her own decision to refuse to adhere to that vision. as an employee, of course she should lose her position. It is not up to her to teach anti-Zionism to her campers in a Zionist camp, just as it would be inappropriate for her to extol Christianity in a Jewish camp.

This wouldn't really be a big deal except for the fact that JTA waited until paragraph 12 to tell us that Sylvie Rosen is a member of IfNotNow.

Suddenly, this isn't a story about a counselor having a different pedagogical philosophy than her employer. Now this looks far more like a publicity stunt where Rosen is trying to embarrass Ramah the way IfNotNow tries to shame all Jewish Zionist organizations.

There is a bigger point to be made here, though.

IfNotNow chooses targets that it claims do not teach kids about "occupation." That may or may not be true, but the fact is that Israel's policies can and should be taught to everyone, in an age appropriate manner.

In 2013 I gave a lecture called "Know How to Answer" where I discuss the top twenty anti-Israel arguments, and I serialized it on this blog earlier this year. Difficult topics can be answered, but most Zionists don't know the arguments as well as they should.

Camp Ramah, and Birthright leaders, and everyone else should become familiar with what the other side claims and learn how to respond. Don't hide things that appear problematic - be assertive and act with pride rather than as if Israel has something to hide.

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The Forward fudging the numbers to pretend most US Jews support aims of IfNotNow

"Progressive Jews" were very upset at a recent article in The Forward by Seffi Kogen, the Global Director of Young Leadership for the American Jewish Committee, where he said that anti-Israel group IfNotNow is not representative of American Jews.

A response by Jonah Nelson shows how easy it is to lie with statistics.

To back up his point, Kogen relied on a single survey, from which he extrapolated that most Jews either do not support the anti-occupation work done by IfNotNow or the organization itself.

Mr. Kogen is wrong on the first fact, and likely wrong on the second.

The survey found that 92% of American Jews call themselves “generally pro-Israel.” But this same survey found that two-thirds of all respondents are also either critical of “some” or of “many” of the Israeli government’s policies.

But Mr. Kogen concludes from this survey that the majority of American-Jewish voters who are openly critical of the Israeli government’s actions can’t possibly be supportive of IfNotNow — which draws its support from those respondents who call themselves “generally not pro-Israel.”

Kogen was accurate. There is no honest way to claim that IfNotNow members are supportive of Israel as a whole. To claim that Jews, who will disagree with anyone and everyone, are on the same page as IfNotNow because they oppose some of the policies of the Israeli is ridiculous. Hell, I don't support 100% of Israeli policies.

Note also Nelson's sleight of hand to change the 59% of American Jews who are "pro-Israel but critical of at least some Israeli government policies" into "openly critical of Israeli government actions." There is a huge difference between not agreeing with everything the government of Israel does and being openly critical.

Also, the survey mentioned said that only 3% of American Jews are "generally not pro-Israel." Nelson adds to them the 5% who didn't answer to make it appear that they are 7%.

But 3% is indeed fringe, and every person who joins IfNotNow is a small subset of that 3% that actually hates Israel enough to be actively against it.

IfNotNow, by its own language, merely “seeks to end American Jewish support for the occupation.” That’s it.

This is as disingenuous as it gets. IfNotNow's members are anti-Zionist, even if the organization claims that it has no official position on BDS and Israel as a Jewish state. Jewish Voice for Peace maintained that same fiction until this year but everyone knew from reading tweets and articles from their leaders that they were never remotely pro-Israel, and IfNotNow is the same.

For example, AJC’s own survey from 2019 found that nearly two-thirds of American Jews supported an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank. In other words, they oppose the occupation.

More deception from Nelson. I am quite Zionist and I oppose "occupation." I don't believe that area A or Gaza are legally occupied, Area C should be annexed to Israel and Area B is a disputed area. No Zionist wants to control millions of hostile Arabs. You could say that the late Meir Kahane was against "occupation," too, by wanting to expel the Arabs.

I don't have a problem with a demilitarized Palestinian state that doesn't threaten Israel as long as the borders are defensible. To say that someone who wants a two-state solution, no matter how far fetched the possibility, is opposed to a Jewish presence in the territories altogether - which is IfNotNow's position - is dishonest.

He goes further:

Furthermore, more than two-thirds surveyed answered that either some or all of the settlements should be evacuated when a Palestinian state is established. The transfer of civilians from one territory to another is one element of the legal wrong of the occupation, and this survey makes clear that most American Jews agree that even beyond the purely military aspect, other aspects of the occupation need to be resolved, contrary to the Israeli government’s current position.

Put a different way, they agree that the transfer and settlement issue needs to be resolved roughly in line with IfNotNow’s position of conclusively “ending” all aspects of the occupation.

Not even close. There are settlements that are illegal under Israeli law - wanting Israel to uphold its own laws is not evidence of being "anti-occupation," as Nelson implies. Similarly, if a Palestinian leadership should emerge that is not actively seeking the destruction of all of Israel (via "right of return," for example) then, yes, other Jewish communities would either have to be dismantled or become part of the Arab majority state. This is again not at all close to IfNotNow's positions.

And just like Nelson can look at this question on the survey and conclude "more than two-thirds surveyed answered that either some or all of the settlements should be evacuated when a Palestinian state is established" one can also say that 74% of those who responded believe that a Jewish presence must remain on some of the territories even after a peace agreement.

Put it this way: IfNotNow's position is that even the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and the Kotel are Palestinian territory. If someone would poll American Jews as to whether Israel should control those "settlements," it would be crystal clear that IfNotNow doesn't represent American Jews in any sense.

Nelson, for whatever reason, is trying to mainstream a group that is indeed fringe. The Forward, for whatever reason, thinks that his deceptive arguments have merit.

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Palestinian factions this morning all responded in strikingly similar ways to the news that Jewish student Dvir Sorek was stabbed multiple times o death.

Islamic Jihad said, "The heroic operation is a natural reaction to the terrorism of the occupation and its crimes against our people, our land and our sanctities."

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine said, "The heroic operation this morning in the Gush Etzion settlement...is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people to respond to the ongoing crimes of the Israeli occupation."

Tamer Awadallah, a member of the Central Committee of the DFLP, praised the operation as "a natural response in reaction to the ongoing Israeli crimes."

The Popular Resistance Movement in Palestine "blessed the heroic operation" and said "the operation was a natural response to Israeli crimes in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip."

Everyone seems to agree that, for Palestinians, stabbing a random person is completely "natural" and "heroic."

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

I’m not a terminology freak. Sometimes you have to use words or phrases whose connotations are ideologically impure, so that people will understand you. But I draw the line at “West Bank,” “Israel-Palestine,” and “Arab Jew.”

I don’t think I need to remind my readers that there was no “West Bank” before the illegal Jordanian invasion and annexation of Judea and Samaria. With the exception of those 19 years between 1948 and its liberation in 1967, the area was always Judea and Samaria. There is no reason for anyone to call it anything else; but unfortunately the media, even most of the Israeli media, can’t seem to stop.

“Israel-Palestine,” of course, implies that there is a place called “Palestine,” and that it is as legitimate as the place called “Israel.” In reality, there is a State of Israel, there is an area that Israel seems to have ceded to Hamas, and there is the autonomous but non-sovereign Palestinian Authority. Hamas has never declared Gaza a state, because it insists that all the land between the river and the sea is “Palestine.” The PA has declared a state which encompasses all of the land Israel conquered in 1967, but does not effectively control it, so it isn’t really a state. Israel is a state; “Palestine” is a word.

But I think the one that bothers me the most is the last, “Arab Jew.” It is used to refer to Mizrahim, Jews whose last exilic homes were in Arab countries. It suggests – see, for example, this 2003 essay by Ella Shohat – that Jews who came to Israel from Arab countries were culturally more connected to their Arab neighbors than to an abstract historical Jewish people on the one hand, or to the Ashkenazi Jews that discriminated against them so harshly (and stupidly) in Israel on the other. Indeed, she sees a deliberate, even malign, attempt by Zionism to “dismember” their Arab culture and inject a false historical consciousness of being part of a Jewish nation, as part of creating the “new Jew” that was supposed to be superior in every respect to the despicable Palestinian Arabs – and also to the Arab Jews.

Except in the matter of religion, she suggests, Mizrahi Jews are Arabs, Arabs who were cruelly robbed of their true culture so they could be used as soldiers in Israel’s wars and workers in her fields and industries. Rather than “a return home,” Shohat calls their aliyah (she would disdain this word) “a new form of exile.” In this, she agrees with Mahmoud Abbas, who – in order to deny our connection to the land – has always insisted that Jewishness is simply a religion, not a nationality (Abbas, of course, believes that “Palestinians” are a nation, despite their disparate origins and lack of historical connection to “Palestine”).

This fits in with the Arab and extreme leftist understanding of Israel as an Arab territory colonized by “European” Ashkenazi Jews. All this is part of the loaded meaning of the term “Arab Jew.”

Some pro-Palestinian writers even suggest that Mizrahi Jews actually have a common interest with Palestinian Arabs, their “brown” brothers, to overthrow the hegemony of “white” Ashkenazi settler-colonialists.

But there are plenty of testimonies from Jews that came to Israel from Arab countries showing that they did see themselves as fulfilling the biblical promise of ingathering of the exiles; this wasn’t just a Zionist myth to manipulate them. Most Israelis of Mizrahi origin do see themselves as part of the great Jewish people, the people whose history and provenance in Eretz Yisrael is becoming better illuminated from day to day by archaeological and historical evidence. While they recall ill-treatment by earlier arrivals, that is a far cry from pining for their “stolen” “Arab culture.” Indeed, from a political perspective, they are more nationalistic than the descendants of Ashkenazi “pioneers.”

It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that neither Shohat nor the early Zionist social engineers understood what was happening in Eretz Yisrael, when Ashkenazi Jews from pre-revolutionary Russia and Poland, Holocaust survivors, Jews from the disparate cultures of North Africa, Iraq, Yemen, India, Ethiopia, the Soviet Union, and numerous other diasporic populations, were thrown together to experience a historical process impossible to control by any social engineering. Unlike the idea that Mizrachim could be forced to assimilate to a dominant Ashkenazi culture, what actually happened was quite different. A new culture, but with ancient roots, came into being.

Ella Shohat is proud of her Iraqi heritage. But except for having spoken Arabic, her ancestors, who came from a highly developed and relatively modern culture, had little in common with the parents of my son’s wife, who immigrated to Israel from North Africa, and even less with the Yemenite Jews who had never seen indoor plumbing until they were brought here “with wings, as Eagles.” Or the Ethiopians, who came from an even more primitive culture. For that matter, how similar are the cultural origins of Ashkenazis from the former Soviet Union to the academic and media leftists of North Tel Aviv?

According to Shmuel Rosner and the Jewish People Policy Institute, the belief system of most Jewish Israelis is a mixture of Israeli nationalism and Jewish religion which is not found anywhere else but Israel. Israel is experiencing a natural process of developing her own unique culture, a process that those who consciously wanted to create a New Jew had no power to control. It’s a modern culture, although grounded religiously and linguistically in antiquity. My son’s children don’t speak either the Arabic of their mother’s ancestors or the Yiddish of their father’s. They do speak a language that is similar enough to that of the Torah that they can read and mostly understand it.

This isn’t assimilation into a dominant culture, but the creation of a new one – or better, the creation of a modern form of a very ancient one. And it is happening by the reunification of the fragments of the once unified but then scattered Jewish people.

The idea that Mizrahim are “Arab Jews” is wrong. It is also insulting, suggesting that they lost sight of their ancient heritage during their time in exile, and assimilated to the surrounding culture. And it is pernicious, implying that Jewishness is only a religion, and not also a nationality – not membership in the Jewish nation which traces itself back to ancient times in Eretz Yisrael.

***

So yes, I will use the word “Palestinians,” although I’ll add the caveat that no Arab Palestinians existed before the mid-1960s. But I will never refer to Judea and Samaria as anything else, nor will I say “Israel-Palestine” or “occupied territories” or “pre-67 borders.” And I will never, ever, say “Arab Jews.”

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08/07 Links Pt2: State Department redefines antisemitism: Don't compare Israel to the Nazis; A Liberal Jewish Writer Takes Down the Anti-Zionist Left

From Ian:

State Department redefines antisemitism: Don't compare Israel to the Nazis

The US State Department has updated its definition of antisemitism to include "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” as an example of antisemitism in public life.

In 2018, According to pro-Israel philanthropist Adam Milstein, the State Department adopted the definition of antisemitism set by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Milstein disseminated a release about the change on Wednesday morning Israel time:

The State Dep. just updated the definition of #Antisemitism to include "Drawing Comparison of Contemporary #Israeli policy to the of #Nazis". Kudos to @SecPompeo and Special Envoy Elan Carr. It's more clear now, the BDS Movement is disgustingly Antisemitic https://t.co/6VEW9A1M1X pic.twitter.com/O0O78p6XiU
— Adam Milstein (@AdamMilstein) August 6, 2019

Most of the examples presented by IHRA were included in the State Department’s definition, except for comparisons of Israeli policies to Nazi Germany. The State Department, under the leadership of Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and Elan Carr, the U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism, determined that comparisons of Israeli policies to those of the Nazis constitute antisemitism and have added it to the definition.

The working definition of antisemitism also includes the understanding that “antisemitic acts are criminal when they are so defined by law. Criminal acts are antisemitic when the targets of attacks, whether they are people or property – such as buildings, schools, places of worship and cemeteries – are selected because they are, or are perceived to be, Jewish or linked to Jews,” according to the US government’s website. In addition, “Antisemitic discrimination is the denial to Jews of opportunities or services available to others and is illegal in many countries.”

The move comes only weeks after US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) compared the anti-Israel BDS movement to previous boycotts of Nazi Germany in a resolution supporting the right to boycott Israel.

Rashida Tlaib's bulletproof hypocrisy and hate

Never missing an opportunity to politicize a tragedy, Rashida Tlaib has joined all of the Democratic presidential candidates in spinning the mass shootings of this past weekend. And while many of the candidates were vile in their accusations (Beto O'Rourke's lovely expletive-filled rant blaming Trump ending with "What the f---?," for instance), Tlaib is particularly hateful and dishonest due to her obsession with (and dual loyalty to) "her people."

To be clear, Palestinians have been committing mass murder with guns, cars, knives, and bombs since Israel's founding. While I abhor Jake Tapper's underhanded comparison of Donald Trump's rhetoric to the very real and clear incitement to violence of Palestinian leadership from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas, he did infuriate Tlaib, so there's that.

In typical disingenuous fashion, the Palestinian congresswoman responded to Tapper attempting to distinguish the terrorists she supports from white supremacists by claiming that Palestinian jihadists are actually "human rights advocates." Yeah, right — in her sick mind, it's okay to kill innocent Jews when your goals are "equality, human dignity & to stop the imprisonment of children." Because that's worked out so well for Palestinians over the decades. In Tlaib's terrorist circles, killing Jewish children is a moral human rights crusade if your goal is to stop the imprisonment of stone-throwing, gun-toting, knife-wielding child terrorists. It is truly difficult for sane people to get their heads around this analysis from a sitting member of the United States Congress. And yet there are Americans who actually voted this hater into office.

But how do we know that Palestinian children who are arrested in Israel are a threat to Jews who live in that country? Here is where the real irony and Tlaib's abhorrent hypocrisy come in. Tlaib once again took to Twitter Tuesday to comment on bulletproof backpacks being sold in Walmart: "This gave me chills. I can't believe this is what we have become."

The anti-Zionist left is trying to get Jake Tapper, one of the most consistent opponents of bigotry across the media landscape, fired. CNN should stand by him 100%, as should the rest of us https://t.co/9DhnccDaHe
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) August 6, 2019

Akiva Fuld would like you to believe there’s nothing special about what he’s doing, and he’s right: we should all be asking each other “What can I do for you, today?” We should all care enough to ask that question.

What’s different about Akiva Fuld, to my mind, is the follow-through. And by that, I don’t mean answering a call for help with whatsoever assistance he is able to offer, though there’s that, but asking the question in the first place: “What can I do for you, today?”

Most of us would be terrified to ask that question, if it even occurred to us to ask it in the first place. We’d be afraid of getting involved with the messiness of other people’s lives, of being on the hook for more than we’d bargained. For Akiva Fuld, on the other hand, it’s a simple thing, no big deal, no daunting prospect, just a straightforward proposition. Three times a day, he just comes right out and asks the question, “How can I help you, today?”

That’s how it started, anyway, though now it’s morphed into something else: Akiva Fuld created a Facebook page called How can I try to help you today? The page is open to the public, anyone can join. Anyone can ask for Akiva Fuld’s help.

Now, Akiva may or may not be able to help you with your problem. But he’s going to try. And if you think about it, 45-year-old Akiva Fuld, married for 22 years, and a father of 7 (girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl), is only doing what we all know we should be doing for each other: caring enough to offer our help and doing our best to follow through.

This is what it means to be a good person. And we should all be good people. I think we can learn something from Akiva Fuld’s example, so I reached out for an interview. Wanting to be helpful (!), Akiva agreed:

Varda Epstein: Tell us a bit about yourself: where are you from, how did you end up in Israel?

Akiva Fuld: I was born and raised in Queens, NY. I made Aliyah at age 23. I guess ending up in Israel mainly had to do with the kind of upbringing I wanted for my future children. I was hoping to save my children from a society that was highly influenced by envy.

Varda Epstein: You started a Facebook group: How can I try to help you today? Can you tell us about this group?

Akiva Fuld: A few months ago I started posting those words to my page, and I was getting all sorts of requests from all over the globe. When I first started noticing the requests begin to dwindle, I started posting 3 times a day. I began to see a rise in requests. When I saw them drop off again, I decided to post to groups that were quite big.

On the first day, many people posted and I helped as many as I could. The second day, again there were many requests, but this time many people started helping others. I guess I felt that I can't help with everything, so I might as well share the opportunity. The truth is that the group is for me to be able to help others. If other people want to help, that's great, if not, I get to keep the opportunities for myself.

Varda Epstein: What made you start the group?

Akiva Fuld: Well there really were three things that made me start the group. First, I haven’t always been a big fan of mankind. I'm very optimistic when it comes to Hashem, and yet quite pessimistic when it comes to mankind. Our ability to cause self-destruction is staggering. I felt that I needed a way to begin to better like mankind. What better way to grow to love someone, than to give to them?

Second, we don't charge usury in Judaism. Aside from the simple reason—Hashem told us not to—if we want a bit of a logical reason, it seems to me that the money doesn't really being to us, we are simply guardians. So if we need the money then we use it, if not then we should make sure someone else can. I feel that it should be the same with time.

And third, certain personal things happened in the past few years that made me want to work on being a better person.

Varda Epstein: What do you hope the group will achieve?

Akiva Fuld: I have no real expectations, and I have no idea where this is going to go. I really would like to see it be more international, and be able to help many other demographics.

Varda Epstein: How much of your time would you say is occupied with this endeavor?

Akiva Fuld: Good thing you are asking me and not my wife or children. I am spending as much time as I believe I need to, in order to make sure as many people as possible get the help they need. My wife and kids believe I am spending WAY too much time on this.

I guess in the end the actual time calculation comes out about the same—pretty much around the clock. I am trying to get it down to 2-3 hours in the morning, 2-3 hours in the afternoon, and 2-3 hours at night. I'm hoping as I bring in more moderators on the page, that I'll be able to get it down to those numbers.

Varda Epstein: What do you do for a living?

Akiva Fuld: I'm building up my company - https://fourpathsto.com/ - which is a new form of communication that I've created, based on recognizing which one of 4 personalities best describes your audience, and then being able to change the delivery of your message, not the message itself, to best fit your audience. This works with audiences from 1 all the way to millions.

Varda Epstein: Do you ever think about the success/fail component to your offer of help?

Akiva Fuld: Personally I don't like to fail, so I do put great effort into it, but it will happen from time to time that I'm not able to help someone. Sometimes it is because I don't have specific knowledge, and sometimes the person isn't open to creative solutions. Also, this is why I added the word 'try' to the name of the group. Does it matter whether or not you are able to help this person or that? Nope. As long as I try and give it my all. I imagine there are people who would like to know: how often is he successful. I don't know the answer to that. I'm not keeping track. I don't see any value in that.

Varda Epstein: What is it about an offer of help that is important?

Akiva Fuld: 1- Listening to what the person is and isn't saying. 2- Understanding what the person is asking for. 3- Being able to recognize, and clearly communicate the difference between the person's 'wants' and 'needs.’ 4- Being able to provide creative solutions when the situation requires it, and simple solutions, when that is what is needed. 5- Being able to recognize what the other person needs to hear and how it needs to be said.

Varda Epstein: What should others take away from your perspective on extending help?

Akiva Fuld: 1- Sometimes people simply need an ear, and sometimes they need more than that. And 2- it is only on one to try.

Varda Epstein: What is your ultimate goal for you and for your people?

Akiva Fuld: For me it is to keep on helping until people don't need to ask anymore. Also it might be nice SOMEDAY (NOT NOW) to have a discretionary fund to help out some of the people who need financial assistance. But I am in no rush. I honestly don't know what the other group members hope to achieve. I'm doing this for me.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

08/07 Links Pt1: Palestinian who saved Jewish kids after terror attack gets Israeli residency; Swastika Flag on Gaza Border Reveals Hamas’ True Intention — the Annihilation of the Jewish State

From Ian:

Palestinian who saved Jewish kids after terror attack gets Israeli residency

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri on Tuesday awarded Israeli residency to a Palestinian man who saved the children of a West Bank rabbi in the aftermath of the deadly terror attack in which the father was killed.

Rabbi Miki Mark was murdered in a July 1, 2016, shooting. His wife, Chava, was seriously injured, and their two teenage children were also hurt. The Palestinian rescuer and his wife, residents of the Hebron area, helped the surviving members of the Mark family escape their overturned vehicle and administered first aid until first responders arrived at the scene.

The Palestinian man, who has not been named, received a temporary visa to live and work in Israel after receiving death threats in his hometown near the West Bank city of Hebron.

However, the visa was not renewed in August 2018 and for the last year he was unable to work, becoming homeless and living in limbo in Israel.

After his plight was revealed recently in a Channel 12 report, and following a campaign by several Israelis, including settler leaders, he was awarded Israeli residency on Tuesday, along with his wife and son.

While presenting him his identity documents, Deri praised him for his “selfless, noble” actions and said he would now be able to begin a new life in Israel.

Israel: Swastika Flag on Gaza Border Reveals Hamas’ True Intention — the Annihilation of the Jewish State

Israel continued on Tuesday to call out Hamas for the placing last Friday on the Gaza border fence of a Nazi swastika flag by Palestinian demonstrators.

“When #Hamas-led rioters in #Gaza raise the #Nazi flag, they expose their true intention — to annihilate the Jewish State. But Hamas will never have its way,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry tweeted.

On Monday, it was reported that Hamas had instructed rioters to not use the swastika “so that the Israeli occupation cannot take advantage of it.”

Elad Strohmayer — spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC — tweeted on Tuesday, “Hey #Hamas, I get your concern about your PR but banning Nazi symbols just won’t do it. As long as you call for the destruction of the Jewish State, using swastikas is simply you being honest. It’s not the swastika that makes us think you want to kill all Jews, it’s your charter.”

David Singer: Jordan Jew-hatred Risks Trump, Israel and United Nations Ire

Jordanian Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Minister Abdul Nasser Abu al-Basl – who oversees holy sites in Jordan and Jerusalem – reportedly accused Israelis of illegally entering Aaron’s Tomb and decided that Jordan would close it to all tourists with the exception of those who receive prior government approval.

Abu Basl also told Al Mamlaka TV, a state-funded channel, that he decided to close the tomb following “Israeli violations” at the site and “the performance of rituals without the knowledge of the ministry.”

Jews and Arabs – Moslem and Christian – need to respect each other’s religious places of pilgrimage and not claim exclusivity of any site they may each have a religious connection with.

Jordan’s reprehensible action threatens the release of Trump’s deal of the century and Jordan’s possible participation in negotiations with Israel to successfully bring it to fruition. Trump’s displeasure could see financial and security consequences for Jordan. Possible retaliatory action by Israel on Jordan’s Islamic-sites custodianship in Jerusalem could also follow.

Cooling the situation by allowing Jews to freely access Mount Hor is urgently required.
Jordan should hang its head in shame.

Just asking.

It seems there are various former members of J Street, some who served in leadership positions, who are now involved in If Not Now -- and some of them are apparently founding members.

For example:

Max Berger

o He is identified as a co-founder of If Not Now in his 'bio' on Haaretz
o A JTA article notes that before If Not Now, Max Berger worked for J Street as a new media assistant

Yonah Lieberman

o Yonah Lieberman has a twitter account that identifies him as a co-founder of If Not Now
o Lieberman was very heavily involved in J Street. According to his LinkedIn page, from January 2010 on he was a member of the National Student Board, the Midwest Regional Co-Chair, and Campus Chapter Chair.

Carinne Luck

o Times of Israel identifies Carinne Luck as a co-founder of If Not Now.
o Luck's website notes she was a founding staff member and Vice President for Field and Campaigns at J Street.

Simone Zimmerman

o Simone Zimmerman identifies herself as a co-founder of If Not Now on her Twitter page.
o In an article for The Forward, Josh Nathan-Kazis writes that Simone Zimmerman was the national president of J Street U’s student board in the 2012-2013 school year

Kara Segal

o Kara Segal's LinkedIn account lists her as an If Not Now co-founder.
o She appears in this YouTube video at a 2009 J Street conference.

Emily Mayer

o Emily Mayer identifies herself as an If Not Now organizer on her Twitter page
o Daniel Greenfield notes that Emily Mayer was with J Street U at Haverford

Sarah Beth Alcabes

Canary Mission lists Sarah Beth Alcabes as leading an INN disruption, in partnership with Taher Herzallah of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and also being an activist with J Street U at the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley) from 2012-2014.

Times of Israel mentions Elianna Fishman, who was "heavily involved with J Street U Dartmouth" and who confirms "I interned for J Street, and helped set up a chapter on campus” before graduating and joining IfNotNow -- to which the article adds

In fact, many of IfNotNow’s leaders are alumni of J Street U.

An article in Haaretz echoes this when it says:

[If Not Now] remains small, attracting several dozen participants, some of whom are leaders of J Street U, the group’s student-organizing arm.

But the question remains: why have these, and other members of J Street, made the switch?

It sure appears as if J-Street is a gateway drug for Jewish students to learn to hate Israel and to be comfortable to criticize Israel "as a Jew." But it might be more than that.

According to a Haaretz article from 2014, Gaza War Pushes Some to the Left of J Street. The logic, according to Haaretz, is that over time, J Street, even back in 2014, was becoming larger and more moderate, with the result that there were the beginnings of a limited exodus that benefited smaller more radical groups. One of those groups was If Not Now, described in the article as "an ad hoc group."

Of course, what the Haaretz article claims is a sign of J Street's moderation can also be seen as the failure in the eyes of some of its members, to become increasingly radical.

A similar theme to Haaretz is taken by Nathan-Kazis in the Forward also in an article from 2014, that in contrast to the more "moderate" tone taken by J Street, some members felt J Street was not doing enough:

Former high-ranking J Street staff members were among the organizers of a July 28 protest in New York City against Israel’s invasion of Gaza. They acted under the name #ifnotnow and made no mention of their former J Street affiliations.

He writes about another protest just a few days earlier, launched by 4 activists that included high-ranking members Carinne Luck who had left J Street in 2012 and Daniel May, director of J Street U from 2010 to 2013 as well as Max Berger.

Other participants in one or both of those #ifnotnow protests included Isaac Luria, J Street’s vice president of communications and new media from 2008 until 2011 and Tamara Shapiro.

Some of that former J Street staff said they were not opposed to J Street’s long-term strategy -- but felt limited by its tactics. Others, like Luck, said they did not share J Street's "patience" with the "Jewish institutional community."

That is the narrative. Daniel Greenfield of FrontPageMag.org isn't buying it.

He is cynical of claims that If Not Now was simply born of a break with J Street. In If Not Now, J Street's Latest Anti-Israel Front Group, he writes:

The official narrative is that If Not Now parted ways with J Street because the group was insufficiently opposed to the Jewish State and insufficiently supportive of Hamas. As a practical matter though this is how radical groups have always operated, with a front group that makes efforts to appear moderate while incubating radical organizations within itself that "split off" but still pursue the same agenda.

Despite claims of a split, If Not Now is just pursuing the exact same agenda as J Street U, protesting Jewish charities for supporting Israel, while claiming to be the voice of a new generation.

It's the same scam with a new brand and slightly less of a paper trail.

If Not Now is J Street...

...New organizations are constantly being created and destroyed. But they all share one agenda. The destruction of the Jewish State.

If there is indeed an element of dramatic effect at work here, then this alleged break would be no more authentic than the recent break of Jesse Steshenko, who claimed to have been "a very ardent Zionist" who as a result of his recent J Street trip to Israel became "disgusted" with Israel.

Elder of Ziyon revealed that in fact as recently as 2016 as a member of Junior States of America, a mock Congress, he introduced a resolution calling Israel an apartheid state and demanding the recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza as defined by the 1949 Armistice -- effectively depriving Israel of the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.

Actually, J Street itself has a history of being less than straightforward.

o It is a group that claims that it is pro-Israel, yet only supports Democrats, going so far as to support candidates it claims support Israel such as Representative Mark Pocan, who anonymously reserved official Capitol Hill space for an anti-Israel forum organized by organizations that support boycotts

o  J Street was perfectly willing to support Rashida Tlaib, until it withdrew it only because she backed out of support of a 2-state solution

o  Despite denials, J Street not only supported the Goldstone Report - it actively facilitated Goldstone's attempt to defend it

o  Despite their repeated denials to the contrary, in 2008 and 2009 J Street received funding from George Soros.

o  J Street's co-founder Daniel Levy called the creation of Israel ‘an act that was wrong’

Carinne Luck's involvement in If Not Now is another reason for apprehension.

Here is a 2012 video of Luck explaining J Street's job:

The main takeaway from what Luck says:

o A sizable percentage of J Street is not Jewish
o J Street responds to the wishes "the Hill, the (Obama) Administration" which wants J Street to "move Jews"
o The bulk of J Street resources are dedicated to this
o There is an uneasiness about those in J Street leadership who are not Jewish who may present themselves as Jews

This idea of misrepresentation that Carinne Luck shares with the group -- without condemning -- is an issue that arises again with If Not Now, both in terms of questions about its connections with J Street but also in terms of its own claims to represent today's young American Jews.

We have seen there is a failure of J Street to live up to what it claims it does.
Should we be surprised that there are doubts about what If Not Now claims as well?

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.