Wednesday, August 21, 2019

  • Wednesday, August 21, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
Quds News Network "reports:"

The Committee of Palestinian Prisoners and Former Prisoners said Tuesday that the administrations of Israeli jails deliberately assault wounded and sick Palestinian prisoners through medical negligence and deprivation of treatment to make them die.

The committee stated in a statement issued on Tuesday that through prisoners’ witnesses and close monitor of the health condition along several years, it turned out that the medical care provided for sick prisoners is the worst. It is formal and nearly never provided.

The committee stressed that prisoners are detained in very bad conditions. Their cells are damp and badly ventilated. It is also overcrowded and unsanitary, and infested with insects and rodent.

The number of Palestinian martyrs, who died in Israeli jails due to medical negligence, has reached 64 prisoners since 1967.
Arab prisoners in Israeli prison
Let's do some back of the envelope math.

Let's assume that the average Palestinian prisoner is male and 25 years old.

In the US, the odds of dying for that person in any given year is 0.13%. Let's assume that it is roughly the same for Palestinians.

Let's further assume an average of 6000 prisoners incarcerated at any given moment since 1967.

That means that if they were outside prison, about 8 would be expected to die any year.

I will vastly overestimate the number of the Palestinians that die from car accidents or conflict (not likely in prison) to be half of that total, or 4 per year. The actual number is far lower; most Palestinian deaths are from non-communicable diseases. But let's vastly underestimate the number of non-accidental deaths to be half this total.

Which means that we would expect 4 prisoners to die of natural causes every year if they are all young and otherwise healthy.

We would expect the total number of prisoner deaths over 52 years to be above 210 .

If only 64 have died in that time period, then Arab prisoners must be receiving exceptional medical care compared to Palestinians who are not in prison.

The Committee for Prisoners has proven that Israel takes very good medical care of its Arab prisoners.




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Tuesday, August 20, 2019

From Ian:

Is the Campus BDS Threat Shifting to Academic Boycotts?
In some cases, the principle of academic boycott is of greater concern than the direct impact on students.

At Pitzer, fewer than a dozen students have participated in the Haifa program since 2007. And the idea that a university should institutionally sever access or collaboration with international partners is not only antithetical to the very idea of a university, but can actually have tangible adverse effects on student course enrollment and even school choice. No student should have to consider an individual professor’s political agenda when registering for courses or choosing a major. Students should be able to pursue any degree, any course, or any study-abroad destination without fear that someone else’s politics will limit their own educational journey.

Antisemitic ideology will also pose threats to healthy campus life this year in other vehicles besides academic boycotts. Already, a pair of Israeli student athletes at the University of Indianapolis found a swastika on the wall as they were moving into their dorm. Graffiti incidents are increasingly commonplace on campuses, and other forms of harassment, including mock eviction notices, continue to disenfranchise Israel-supporting students. On the eight campuses where divestment failed last year, there’s likely to be some attempt to revive a traditional BDS push in the next year. Students will also undoubtedly see a continued campus presence from right-wing white-nationalist groups, which have increased their college activities.

While other concerns are sure to pop up this year for Jewish and pro-Israel students, the academic boycott against Israel has the most potential for coordinated activity. An entire section on the BDSMovement.net website — run by the Palestinian BDS National Committee — serves as an instructional guide to launching start-up chapters to help them promote the boycott. Anti-Israel activists across the country are sure to attempt to capitalize on the near success of the Pitzer campaign and pursue boycotts against Israeli institutions at whatever levels they can.

Supporters of Israel, democracy, and the free exchange of ideas must recognize the threat that academic boycotts pose to the health of the university environment and make clear that these attacks on academic freedom are not welcome on any campus.
Learning the Wrong Lessons from the Disengagement from Gaza
Fifteen years after Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip, and evicted the Jews who lived there, many of the former officers and other self-described security experts who supported the move at the time continue to argue that it was the correct decision, pointing to the decrease in the number of Israelis killed and wounded since then. But, argues Gershon Hacohen, this is the wrong yardstick:

[B]y making the number of casualties the main criterion by which to assess the security situation, as U.S. generals did in Vietnam to cover up their abysmal failures, the “experts” ignore the fact that a national-security equation does not by any means depend primarily on the number of wounded and killed. If that were indeed the key criterion, most struggles for national liberation would not have happened.

To begin with, Israel’s withdrawal reinforced Hamas’s belief that Palestinian victory will be won through “resistance” and not by political means, à la the approach of Mahmoud Abbas. . . . According to Hamas, it was not the yearning for peace that impelled the Israelis to withdraw from Gaza but operative and mental distress in the face of relentless “resistance,” similar to the panicky flight from Lebanon in May 2000. Hence the two-state solution has succumbed to a radical logic that paints it, according to Hamas’s former leader Khaled Mashal, in the colors of an ongoing phased strategy in the ceaseless struggle for Israel’s destruction.

For rockets, missiles, and mortars, as well as explosive and incendiary balloons, the fence [separating Israel from Gaza] is not an obstacle. Nor does it inhibit the tunnel threat. The fence does contribute to the regular security routine, but in symmetrical fashion it helps the enemy build up its power undisturbed. Under the protection of the fence, . . . Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been able to form an organized military force, comprising battalions and brigades, replete with a concealed and protected arsenal of rocket fire and supported by an effective command-and-control system.

How Al Sharpton Failed African Slaves
In 2001, Al Sharpton paid a visit to Sudan, where he met with black Christians who had been held as slaves by Muslim Arabs. Most of these slaves had been captured during raids on their villages in which the male population was slaughtered and women and children sold into servitude. Sharpton, notorious for aggravating racial tensions in the U.S. and provoking two murderous outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence in New York City, pledged to take up their cause and for a brief time spoke about it publicly. But he soon abandoned the issue, as Charles Jacobs explains:

When Sharpton returned from Sudan he met with senior members of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam. Farrakhan had been vigorously denying that Arabs were enslaving blacks. His mission is to convince American blacks that Islam is the path to authentic freedom; it would be damaged by living and breathing proof that blacks are enslaved and slaughtered in African countries like Sudan where Islam dominates.

In 2017, after ignoring Africa’s slaves for many years, Sharpton returned to the issue. The occasion was a CNN report on Arabs in Libya capturing and selling Africans as slaves which featured a video of an auction where a man was sold for $400. . . . For whatever reason, Sharpton never actually went to Libya, but he did meet with Libya’s UN ambassador Elmahdi Elmajerbi to discuss the problem—and made sure to get the photo-op. Just as with his trip to Sudan, however, Sharpton’s ire quickly faded and once again the slaves went down the memory hole.

Today, in five Arab and Muslim African countries—Sudan, Mauritania, Libya, Nigeria, and Algeria—blacks are enslaved. These are known realities, easily documented. Sharpton and Farrakhan ignored or denied the current-day plight of black people who are taken as slaves. They do so for two primary reasons; first, so as not to denigrate Islam, and secondly, to keep “America’s racism” a singular and unique focus, the benefits of which would be lost to them if blacks here knew that today, sadly, in some parts of the Islamic world, African men, women, and children are still in bondage, captured, bought, and sold as chattel.

Al Sharpton heard the groans of enslaved black Africans, saw their tears, and then, seeing the way the wind was blowing, ran away.

  • Tuesday, August 20, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
Look at this advertisement from various US newspapers in 1880:


This was a traveling troupe nationwide.

The person behind is was "Professor" James Rosedale, who says he was a convert from Judaism to Christianity and who brought these Arabs to America - billing them as the only Arabs ever to leave Palestine.

Rosedale appears to have been a Middle East PT Barnum. You can be very certain that there was not a single Jew in Jerusalem in 1880 with the name "Rosedale." This guy was a flim-flam man, knowing that the curiosity of being a convert will help get him speaking gigs.

He gave a lecture in 1885 that included his supposed history, some tales about Jerusalem and the Arabs of Palestine.

THE CONVERTED JEW.
His Lecture Last Night.
Prof. Rosedale, the converted Jew, as he styles himself, delivered his much advertised lecture at the Baptist church last night, to a rather slim audience. He began by saying that he had been a Jew all his life until about ten years ago, when he embraced Christianity. Singularly enough. Prof. Rosedale did not state where he became converted, or by what means. Neither did he tell his hearers where the change took place in his religious views, or what caused him to depart from the religion of his fathers. Reclaimed to believe in Christ, and to be a follower of Christ, and said he was honest and sincere in his belief. 
Prof. Rosedale stated that the houses in  Jerusalem and Palestine were fortresses, instead of homes. They were forced to be built that way on account of the many invasions made in days past by hostile tribes and nations upon the people of that section.

...He spoke of Joppa and its beautiful gardens, and luscious grapes, stating that he weighed one bunch which pulled down the scales at 17 pounds. ...He explained the story of Sampson tying the foxes' tails together and setting fire to them. He said it was a common practice, even in this day, to catch foxes, tie their tails together, set fire to them and start them an enemy's field to destroy his grain. The professor did not say whether the foxes' tails were soaked in kerosene before starting or not, but left his audience to think out the puzzle of the inflammable qualities of a fox's tail.

He told how the peasants plowed with a cow and a woman side by side. Said men never dined with their wives in Palestine—the woman always standing behind the man , while he ate. That when men meet each other in that country they salute by kissing, and keep on kissing as long as the conversation lasts. They do their churning in goat skins, with the hair inside. "The difference in your butter and our butter," said the lecturer. "is that your butter is bald-headed, while our butter has hair on it."

 There are 85,000 Jews now in Jerusalem, and they are moving there every year. The wall around the city is  eighty feet high...

Children, when born in that country, are soaked in salt brine for three days, and are then washed and well greased with olive oil, which is said to give perfect  immunity from diseases in after life.

Tonight the protessor will lecture on "A Pilgrimage to Mecca," when the church will, no doubt, he filled. 
None of this sounds true in the least, and he obviously never went to Mecca unless he was a Muslim, too.

He gave this interview about his Arab troupe in America:








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  • Tuesday, August 20, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah organization has spread every single popular antisemitic meme from millenia of Jew-hatred.

This means that it must have accused Jews of poisoning the wells of Palestinians, right?

Of course!

From a 2007 article by Elias Akleh published on Miftah:
The first lesson an Israeli child learns is the most racist, chauvinist, prejudiced, religiously extremist, homo-phobic lesson of the persecuted (prejudice) God’s chosen people in God’s Promised Land. The Israeli child discovers that he has the Jewish divine birth right of being God’s chosen, and that this divine privilege comes with the envy, the anti-Semitic hatred, and the persecution the others (the Goyim; other people) inflicted on him. He learns that these Goyims are mere animal souls incarnated in human bodies for the service and pleasure of the God’s chosen people.
God is still talking to Israeli Rabbis to direct Israel in its war against the Arabs. Israeli Rabbis publish religious decrees sanctifying Israelis’ aggression against Palestinians. Rabbi “Murdachai Eliahu”, Israel’s previous Chief Rabbi, published religious decrees calling for genocide of all Palestinians as a religious duty. Rabbi “Eleazar Malmid” published religious decrees encouraging Israelis to steal and burn Palestinian crops, to kill their farm animals, and to poison their water wells. 

Obviously none of this is true. Mahmoud Abbas made a similar accusation and only walked it back when the Western media called him on it.

It is yet another example of antisemitism in Miftah, and in Palestinian society as a whole.

Miftah is one of the more moderate Palestinian NGOs. Palestinian antisemitism is baked in from birth, but the West is loathe to mention it, as if telling the truth is too shameful. Much easier to keep blaming Israel for all the problems of the region, which strengthens Palestinian hate for Jews.

(Another offensive article was also discovered, proposing that Jews in Israel all relocate to Russia's Birobidzhan.)




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From Ian:

Kevin D. Williamson: America’s Other ‘Special Relationship’ Remains Worth Preserving
Friedman is not 100 percent wrong in his argument here — and he is about 80 percent wrong, on average. It may not be that the entire Republican party is pro-Israel, but the GOP is overwhelmingly pro-Israel, and has been with and without Benjamin Netanyahu in office. And it is not the case that the entire Democratic party is anti-Israel, though it unquestionably is the case that the ascendant left wing of the Democratic party is anti-Israel. Representative Omar is bitterly anti-Israel, to the point of trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes. Representative Tlaib is anti-Israel. A whole lot of Democrats who support the BDS movement are anti-Israel.

The Right’s celebratory interest in Israel is easy to understand, even if you think some of it is a little dopey. But why is the Left so intensely interested in Israel? Of course, there are things to criticize about Israel and its government. But it is by any measure of decency and liberalism a top-tier country. I am not aware of a boycott movement directed at, say, Pakistan. Or Turkey. Or Egypt. Or Venezuela. Or Russia. Or Burma. Or China. Or the Palestinian statelet, for that matter.

(I once was accosted by one of those clipboard-wielding cretins in Union Square who wanted me to sign on to boycotting Israel on behalf of the Palestinians. I told him I planned to start boycotting the Palestinians as soon as they managed to produce something worth boycotting.)

There are many countries in the world that merit criticism. Why is the American Left fixated on the Jewish state? Belgium can be pretty rough on refugees. Have you ever heard an American progressive collapse into a weeping fit about Belgium? Israel, though . . .
192

And, really, are Thomas Friedman et al. quite confident that it is Donald Trump and not, say, the people looking to economically ruin Israel as a pet political project, making the U.S.-Israeli relationship a partisan issue? It is easy to see an argument that a thriving Israel accords with U.S. interests abroad. Is there an argument that a diminished and destabilized Israel — or an Israel consumed in fire, as Representative Omar’s rambunctious little Hamas buddies would prefer — is in the interest of the United States?

If there is, I have not yet heard it.

They Praised the Murder of a US Senator’s Niece — and They Organized Tlaib’s Israel Trip
First, they praised the terrorist who murdered a US senator’s niece. Then they were chosen by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) to organize her now-cancelled trip to Israel. Tlaib’s outrageous choice of the pro-terrorist group Miftah to run her trip is a slap in the face of the United States Congress, and deserves to be investigated by the House Ethics Committee.

The fact that Rep. Tlaib chose Miftah to organize her trip is no secret; it was widely reported by major news media outlets. The problem is that nobody is explaining what “Miftah” really is. The New York Times, for example, reported only that Miftah is a group “that promotes ‘global awareness and knowledge of Palestinian realities.’”

Ironically, one the “Palestinian realities” of which Miftah reminds us is that the Palestinian Authority (PA) regards Palestinian Arab murderers of American citizens as heroes.

The official Miftah website features an essay by one of the group’s leaders, Ms. Johara Baker, profusely praising Dalal Mughrabi, the murderer of Gail Rubin, the niece of the late US Senator Abraham Ribicoff, Democrat of Connecticut.

Ms. Baker is not some minor figure at Miftah. At the time she wrote her article praising Mughrabi, she was identified as the group’s “Director of the Media and Information Department.” Elsewhere on the Miftah website, she is listed with other titles. Last year, she was one of Miftah’s representatives at a gathering to discuss “Possible Repercussions of the Collapse of the International Order on the Palestinian Issue.”

Mughrabi was the leader of a PLO death squad that came ashore in northern Israel early one morning in March 1978. Gail Rubin, a nature photographer, was walking along the beach. Mughrabi shot her in the head. Then Mughrabi and her gang hijacked an Israeli bus, and carried out what is known in Israel as the Coastal Road Massacre. They slaughtered 37 people. That remains the highest casualty toll in any terrorist attack in Israel’s history.
For Most Palestinians, the "Occupation" includes All of Israel
Ask someone at random what Israel should do to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the answer you're most likely to get is "end the occupation." For most Westerners, this means the West Bank (acquired by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War).

However, for most Palestinians the occupation is not limited to the West Bank, but consists of "historic Palestine," which includes the whole of Israel. For most Palestinians, the occupation began in 1948 when Israel was born, and they won't be satisfied by anything less than the elimination of the State of Israel.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told Palestinian TV in October 2013: "All Palestinian land is occupied - Gaza is occupied, the West Bank is occupied, the 1948 lands [i.e., Israel] are occupied and Jerusalem is occupied."

A June 2019 survey by the Palestine Center for Public Opinion found that only 30% of West Bankers would approve a two-state solution. The majority say "the conflict should not end, and resistance should continue, until all of historic Palestine is liberated."

There is no mistaking the meaning of the chant heard at virtually all pro-Palestinian rallies: "From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free." The river is the Jordan River and the sea is the Mediterranean Sea. In other words, Palestine is Israel.

The Palestinians memorialize the "Nakba" or "catastrophe" to mourn the 1948 War of Independence and the creation of Israel. That is the occupation they seek to end to this day.

  • Tuesday, August 20, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
Ilhan Omar sent out a series of tweets about her planned itinerary in the territories that included some really ridiculous lies.





Here is a map of Hebron I made in response:


The 77% of shops closed aren't in Hebron; they are in a tiny section of Hebron that anti-Israel groups want you to think is the entire city. Israel closed off those areas because Palestinians were shooting Jews in that section.

Hebron in fact has malls like this one:


It looks like this:


Omar was badly quoting a 2007 B'Tselem report that was not talking about Hebron as a whole, or even about H2, but only about the tiny area around Shuhada Street. But she is too ignorant to know the difference.

One should expect more from an elected representative.


Another tweet of Omar's is equally false:




Only 13% of Bethlehem is accessible to Palestinians?

That is absurd, as I responded with a B'Tselem map showing the separation barrier - and Bethlehem is almost entirely on the Palestinian side, and quite large, without any checkpoints or impediments:



Again, Omar was misquoting a different statistic and applying it to the city of  Bethlehem.

This is not mere sloppiness, which would be bad enough for a member of Congress. This is knowingly lying.





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  • Tuesday, August 20, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
Yesterday, someone named "Adam Greenblatt" criticized one of my tweets. When I looked at his profile, he claimed to be an Orthodox Jew who supported Jewish Voice for Peace, but his profile photo did not look like an Orthodox Jew at all:



I pointed this out on Twitter, and then started looking closer at his account and those of his followers and people who follow him.

I (and others) discovered a series of brand new accounts, with generic Jewish-sounding names, following each other to make them look more legitimate - but their account information did not add up as actually being Jewish, as they wrote things that no real Jew of any denomination would ever write:










I originally thought that these fake accounts were made by JVP, because many of them claimed to be JVP members. Israellycool gathered more evidence and posted about it.

But soon a JVP fan (quite rudely) pointed out to me that this was not JVP, but a new coordinated campaign by the alt-Right in the "poi" (Politically Incorrect) 4chan hate site that started last Friday.

We must create a massive movement of fake Jewish profiles on Facebook, Twitter etc...etc...Since Jews shapeshift into whites anytime they want, we can do the same to them. The reasoning and goals listed below.
>>Jews are a protected class. LARPING (live-action role playing - EoZ) as a Jew has the benefit of being uncensored by big tech. It beats the hell of fashygoyim1488 profiles. Nobody will listen to you, and you will continue to receive bans. You also have the benefit of labeling anyone an anti semite who disagrees with you. Use this to your advantage.

>>As a Jew, normies will listen to you. Especially boomers. You can take the blame for world events. Post redpill facts about your fellow Jews. Slave trade, monetary facts, mass media, porn industry etc...etc... 
>>Being a Jew, you are able to subvert Jews themselves. Since Jewishness is 100% based on supremacism, you can use the same tactics they have used to dismantle our own society. You can push for more diversity in Israel, for example. More race mixing...etc...etc...If your fellow Jews disagree, call them Nazi's, racists, bigots, xenophobes. LOVE WILL WIN. Bring ICE detainees to Israel.

>>Even if Jew know of our plans, it will create in fighting as righty Jews will accuse lefty Jews of being fake profiles. This creates more division.

>Make sure your profiles are as authentic looking as possible.
By accusing JVP of being behind the fake accounts, I inadvertently fell for part of the scam.

The 4chan poster gave an example of they type of thing to post:

Anyone who knows anything about Jews could see that these accounts were what far-right haters imagine Jews are like in their fevered dreams. But to the general audience, the plan could easily foment antisemitism as "proud Jews" push extreme positions that most people would not agree with.

Soon I and other started reporting these accounts to Twitter.

I quickly found at least 15 fake accounts, but there were many more - including accounts that did not pretend to be Jewish.





Twitter removed some, but most of them were taken down by the haters as they saw that the plan was exposed pretty early. (Some pretended to argue with me and threaten me with lawsuits before going "poof!")

This sort of thing has happened before, as Yair Rosenberg has documented.

This time the plot was exposed quickly. But these losers have plenty of time as they spend their pathetic lives blaming Jews for their still living in their mother's basements. And motivated haters can easily put things like this together.





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  • Tuesday, August 20, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
Ammar Fareed Tawfiq al-Astal, 32, was killed in an accident caused by an explosion during while he was preparing a bomb.

Most Arabic media are just saying that a man was killed in an explosion without identifying what terror group he might belong to, but the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah said he was a commander of a brigade of Khan Younis.

Here's his martyr poster:







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Monday, August 19, 2019

John-Paul Pagano found this amazing article at Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah that claims Israel steals the organs of children.

Helping the victims of disasters has become now an occasion for launching public relations campaigns or achieving hidden political and military objectives. People still fall victim to earthquakes, disasters, occupation, oppression and terrorism. They also fall victim to campaigns which use their tragedy to achieve other purposes which have nothing to do with the value, importance, sanctity and dignity of human life.

After the Swedish journalist Donald Bostrom wrote about the Israeli army killing Palestinian youth in order to harvest their organs, there were other media reports about Israelis stealing Ukrainian children in order to harvest their organs. Once again there are documented reports from Haiti that organs are being stolen by Israelis without international justice intervening to put an end to such criminal practices against innocent vulnerable people.
The author, Bouthaina Shaaban, is a media adviser to Syrian dictator and mass murderer Bashar Assad.

Today, Peter Beinart defended Miftah and its head, Hanan Ashrawi, in a meltdown performance on CNN, pretending that there is no real problem with a group that publishes pure antisemitism sponsoring the trips of US members of Congress.



Rich Lowry asked Beinart, quite sensibly, whether Ashrawi should be held responsible for antisemitism and support for terror that has published many times. Beinart didn't answer that, even though any NGO would be held to a much higher standard than Miftah is.

Even funnier, Beinart went to Twitter to defend Miftah - and instead of linking to their fake apology for posting the original blood libel article I found, he linked to their attack on me that justified the blood libel article as just part of Palestinian "open dialogue."

The disclaimer at the opening of the “News and Analysis” section clearly states that, “The views represented in [News and Analysis] are solely those of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of MIFTAH, but rather fulfill its mandate for open dialogue.”
The entire reason Miftah justified the blood libel posting back in 2013 is because, to the people who work there, antisemitism is part and parcel of their lives.  Claims that Jews drink Christian blood, steal organs of Haitian and Ukranian kids and and control the media are what Palestinians are taught all the time. This is why they are so tone deaf to these articles - because they don't see anything wrong with them!

Hanan Ashrawi is of course responsible for how her NGO acts. People like Beinart who praise her in light of repeated outrages like this are clearly on the side of the antisemites.





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From Ian:

A Misunderstanding About Anti-Semitism
Only diseases can have cures, and anti-Semitism is not a disease: It is a perfectly normal human reaction to an anomaly that has persisted for just over 2,000 years, ever since starving Jews migrated in great numbers to food-rich Roman Egypt and its splendid capital of Alexandria, where they quickly outmatched the local Greek-speaking elite not only in Greek philosophy but also in Greek athletics—and in business too, no doubt. The Greeks reacted not by competing harder, but with murderous mob attacks. Thus, anti-Semitism was born, already so fully formed that nothing has been added by all the anti-Semites in history ever since. That the Jewish side of the story is well known through texts by Josephus and Philo, while the original denunciation of the Jews by then-famous philosopher Apion is lost (except for the bits quoted by Josephus as put-downs), proves just how right Apion was: Primitive Hebrew shepherds and peasants arrive, and in no time at all they take over everything, even Greek philosophic literature, in which Philo now occupies 10 volumes in the Harvard’s Loeb Classical Library and Apion has none, zilch, and nada. (Loeb was a Jewish banker, of course.)

What infuriated the Greeks was that the Jews stubbornly preserved their identity, even when they threw away their Bedouin robes to sit in togas to debate Aristotle and “continue” Plato’s writings, even when they abandoned Hebrew for Greek in their daily lives, and even when they exercised in the gym just as naked as the Greeks—and walked off with the prizes. By the time Philo paid a call on the Emperor Gaius—aka the colorfully murderous, pan-sexual Caligula—to ask him to fire his anti-Jewish Governor Aulus Avilius Flaccus and stop the riots, two of the five quarters of Alexandria, the New York City of the Roman world, were mostly Jewish. Gaius, incidentally, joshed Philo about the weirdness of not eating pork, but did recall A.A. Flaccus, who ran into a sword upon his return—an early case of undue Jewish political influence.

Apion & Co. were unpleasant but not irrational, because the extraordinary success of Alexandria’s Jews certainly had no straightforward explanation. They should have been at the bottom of the queue, not at the top, considering that ambitious and well-educated Greeks were arriving in the city all the time, and that many of the indigenous Egyptians were already very well educated urban folk (the rubbish heaps of just one of their small towns, Oxyrhynchus, have yielded the fragments of many literary scrolls).

There was only one logical explanation for Apion and all anti-Semites ever since: The real reason Jews stayed away from the wide-open temples in which all decent folk publicly gathered to worship the gods with sacrifices, libations, and hymns was to conspire in their secretive and literally godless synagogues to do in the gentiles, conniving and conspiring to defraud them of their just rewards while pretending to mumble incomprehensible prayers in their weird tongue.

The obvious remedy against the perpetually conniving Jews was simply to keep them out—a humanitarian solution actually, for no violence was needed. And for two millennia after the Alexandria riots, countless towns, many cities, and some entire countries did just that.
StandWithUs: The rise of Antisemitism in New York City.
Antisemitic incidents are up by 82 percent in New York City. Blind hatred must be stopped!


The Australian: Albanese needs to show some spine (click on the twitter link)
The examples of anti-Semitism emanating from Corbyn and his crew are legion, but just a few examples should suffice. He once defended a blatantly anti-Semitic mural depicting hook-nosed bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of the poor. He suggested renaming Holocaust Memorial Day “Genocide Memorial Day”. He placed a wreath on the grave of Black September terrorists. Last month, the BBC aired an explosive documentary detailing Labour’s abject failure to deal with anti-Semitism within its ranks.

The revelations led 67 Labour members of the House of Lords to write an open letter declaring: “The Labour Party welcomes everyone* irrespective of race, creed, age, gender identity, or sexual orientation. (*except, it seems, Jews). This is your legacy Mr Corbyn.” Labour member Trevor Phillips, Britain’s former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, laments that his party “presents like a textbook case of institutional racism”.

Nine Labour parliamentarians have quit in disgust, citing Corbynista anti-Semitism among the reasons. Politics, they say, makes strange bedfellows, and none has been stranger than the endorsements Corbyn has earned from the likes of Nick Griffin, the former leader of the fascist British National Party, and David Duke, ex-leader of the Ku Klux Klan and perhaps America’s most infamous racist. We can also add, unfortun­ately, Australian Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese to the list.

According to this newspaper, Albanese has met Corbyn at least three times in less than two years, posing for friendly selfies with the hard-left British Labour leader. “Talking politics and progress — and a bit of cricket,” Albanese captioned one of the photos. He should take a cue from some of his fellow social democrats abroad and distance his party from its British cousin, pronto.

Last year, Israeli Labor suspended all official relations with its British counterpart. In a sternly worded letter to Corbyn, then-leader Avi Gabbay acknowledged the “long history of friendship” that had existed between the two parties stretching back to prime minister Harold Wilson. But “the hostility that you have shown to the Jewish community and the anti-Semitic statements and actions you have allowed as leader of the Labour Party UK” along with “your very public hatred of the policies of the government of the state of Israel” led him to the conclusion that “we cannot retain relations with you … while you fail to adequately address the anti-Semitism” within Labour ranks.


New documentary gives a glimpse into the mind of Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Toby Perl Freilich, who directed the documentary, Moynihan, with Joseph Dorman, spoke about what moved her most when making this film, which had its Israeli premiere on Sunday at the DocuText Festival at the National Library. DocuText continues until Thursday.

This brilliant, engaging movie is currently available on iTunes, Amazon VOD and several other platforms (see note at the end of the article). It focuses on Daniel Patrick Moynihan, (1927-2003), a US Senator, UN ambassador and scholar who was a maverick intellectual and used his mind to try to better the lives of the poor. While it touches on his personal life, particularly his childhood and how it impacted his work, it is not a biography of the man but rather an incisive look at his ideas and ideals.

“He always understood that there were people who were going to fall through the cracks. He felt that government needed to be there to catch them with a safety net... He was interested in how policy affected people, how government could help them. Someone once asked him why he switched from academia to politics,” she said. “He said it was the other way around, that he had come to academia through politics. His academic work was always rooted in the real world.”

  • Monday, August 19, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon


This week is the 50th anniversary of the burning of part of the Al Aqsa Mosque by a crazed Australian Christian, Denis Michael Rohan.

Every year the Arab media claims that Jews and Israel were the ones who set the fire. On this half century anniversary, get ready for some serious incitement.

Hamas is starting by declaring that this Friday they this week's theme for the Friday "March of Return" demonstration is dedicated against the "Judaization of Jerusalem," with the 1969 arson as exhibit A.






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When I first got into the game of fighting against BDS in the early 2000s (simply called “divestment” back then), I became fairly dogmatic regarding the superiority of political victories over legislative and judicial ones. 

This was largely due to the nature of boycott and divestment activity at the time, which consisted of anti-Israel organizations seeking to get a civic institution, such as a college, municipality, church or business, to boycott or divest from the Jewish state through strategies that tended to involve trickery (like getting organizational leaders to pass anti-Israel motions before members knew what was going on) and moral blackmail.

Back then, members of such organizations tended to get enraged once they realized what was about to be done in their name.  This meant the most effective ways to counter BDS votes was to activate those members and help them organize to defeat unwanted political measures.  While conflicts generated by turning divestment into a political matter (usually accompanied by an organizational vote) gave the boycotters the public show trials they craved, their inevitable defeat left BDS looking more and more like a loser.

In many cases, ongoing defeat within a category of institution helped immunize other organizations from the BDS virus.  For example, food coops are no longer targeted by boycott activists since a string of defeats helped establish the fact that the coop movement should not be taking political stands on controversial issues unrelated to their missions.  In contrast, when wronged members of the still-only boycott-embracing food coop decided to challenge that boycott in court, they nearly faced catastrophe in the form of harsh court-ordered punishments against them (which have fortunately since been overturned).

Over the course of many years, however, I’ve been convinced by other activists that legal remedies are sometimes warranted, given the changing nature of boycott-related activism. 

For example, Kenneth Marcus (now in a position to do something about rising levels of bigotry directed against Jews and Israel supporters on campuses) pointed out how Israel haters engaging in brutish campaigns against their opponents use their own lawyers to scare administrators away from punishing students who engage in gross violations of campus rules.  Under such circumstances, it would be malpractice if our side didn’t challenge those same administrators with better lawyers insisting schools enforce their own rules for civil behavior.

Similarly, anti-boycott legislation at the state and federal level serve two important purposes: (1) demonstrating that, far from being widespread, support for BDS is marginal compared to support for Israel demonstrated by the votes of overwhelming numbers of democratically elected representatives; and (2) creating a counterweight to BDS activity taking place way above the level that can be challenged effectively by local, grassroots activists (such as attempts by the UN to create and implement a blacklist of Israeli companies).

But even if some circumstances warrant legal/judicial and legislative activities, I continue to be circumspect about how quickly our side should reach for those arrows.  Going to court is tricky, with decisions creating precedents that can be long-lasting.  It is also time consuming, and by the time matters are resolved by a judge or jury, the battle may have moved to entirely different ground.
Laws passed to fight BDS can also be double-edged swords.  To take a high-profile example, Israel’s law to bar BDS activists from visiting the country has generated bad press for the Jewish state that needs to be compared to the damage that might have occurred had those activists been allowed into the country.  Legislators tend to be motivated by a desire to do something in the face of perceived crises and be less concerned with the consequences of the measures they vote in once enacted. Recent controversy generated by banning two anti-Israel congresswomen from Israel also shows how the worthy fight against BDS can get entangled with domestic politics, both in Israel and in the US.  
Given the growing and increasingly dangerous anti-Israel project, its continued attempts to take over major institutions and its support by powerful actors (such as national governments and major non-governmental institutions), counting on grassroots activists to save the day is unrealistic.  But where and when to appeal to higher authority (such as a judge or legislative body) needs to be thought through and risks balanced against rewards before a strategy is pursued.

If we consider grassroots activism, lawsuits, and legislation as just three of many weapons we have at our disposal, then the issue boils down to how to choose which one(s) to use and how they will be deployed to help us achieve our goals.  In other words, it requires us to cultivate not a political or legal mindset, but a military one appropriate when someone else has been waging war against you for over a century. 


  



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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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