Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

08/21 Links Pt1: Exposing physical and intellectual terrorism to awaken the oblivious; Trump: Any Jew voting Democratic is uninformed or disloyal

From Ian:

Exposing physical and intellectual terrorism to awaken the oblivious

It is terrible that incidents like using cars to run over innocent children and other means of terror are still happening in Israel and around the world, and that so many oblivious individuals are not being informed about these events - and even if they get to know about them, they do not care.

They do not understand that once evil is unleashed, ALL people from ALL walks of life, will become its victims.

Unfortunately, terror today is taking two major forms. One is the physical attack, by all kinds of weapons which may include cars, knives, bullets, rockets, bombs, etc. The other one is the verbal attacks which intend to incite, malign, deceive, rewrite history and educate the oblivious to become the perpetrators of malicious action. These actions could be physical terrorism and/or no less aggressive non-violent terrorism, which includes Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

Our fight against evil is relentless but there is too much uncontrolled evil to address with too few people fighting it. Therefore, it is imperative to educate as many people as possible with the correct information. This will help them join the effort to stand up against evil and expose the perpetrators of the deception, even if those perpetrators are members of Congress, University Professors, High School Teachers or any other person in important decision-making or educational positions.

The risks to free society are too high to remain timid or silent and let evil prevail.

Who says that crime does not pay?

Only four years ago, the man whom we rely upon for terror research, Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi, discovered and translated the official ordinance of the Palestinian Authority which provides an automatic payment to anyone who murders a Jew, and that includes a payment to his family for life.

This official Palestine Liberation Organization incentive for murder has been incorporated into a series of working papers on the subject of incentifying murder, published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and accessible at http://jcpa.org/the-2018-report-on-palestinian-authority-payments-of-salaries-to-terrorists-in-2018/

How do Jews around the world react to the payment incorporated into the Palestinian Authority rule of law which provides automatic payment to anyone who murders a Jew?

It is hard to tell. So we posed a question to Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the largest Jewish denomination - the Union for Reform Judaism

We have asked Rabbi Jacobs , who passionately supports the establishment of a PLO state, for his response to the fact that the PLO, through is PA administrative arm, awards anyone who will murder a Jew.

Rabbi Jacobs will not answer the question, which we have posed to him more than once.

Israel has a responsibility to do everything it can to rid itself of the PLO , which places the murder of any Jew.as the highest value for a Palestinian Arab to strive for. Israel can now define anyone who supports the PLO state as an accessory to murder.

Trump: Any Jew voting Democratic is uninformed or disloyal

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that American Jewish people who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty."

Trump's claim triggered a quick uproar from critics who said the president was trading in anti-Semitic stereotypes. It came amid his ongoing feud with Democratic congresswomen Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, both Muslim.

Trump has closely aligned himself with Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while the Muslim lawmakers have been outspoken critics of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and have evoked anti-Semitic tropes to bolster their arguments. Tlaib is a US-born Palestinian American, while Omar was born in Somalia.

The US president, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, replied to Omar’s call to cut the $3 billion in assistance given to Israel annually stating, “I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation.”

“Five years, the concept of even talking about this, even three years ago, of cutting off aid to Israel because of two people that hate Israel and hate Jewish people, I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. Where has the Democratic Party gone? Where have they gone where they are defending these two people over the state of Israel? I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty," he said.

Another antisemitic Miftah article says "Jews demand our submission," claims Ben Gurion wanted to expand Israel to Syria, Jordan and Egypt

Miftah, the NGO founded by Hanan Ashrawi and that is in the news for both is historic antisemitism and its offer to sponsor the Ilhan Omar/Rashida Tlaib aborted visit to "Palestine," still has many offensive and ahistorical articles on its site from over the years.

John Paul Pagano found another one, named "America's Tar Baby," (archived here), written by a humanities professor and conspiracy theorist named Clara Rising, where she says things like "Jews demand our complete submission" and finds justification for suicide bombing:

By what historical stranglehold do the Jews demand our complete submission to their unapologetic brutality to their Arab neighbors? From 1948 until the present year 2001—for half a century—they have chanted, like some mesmerized tribe in a jungle, the magic mantra of Security. Security from what? Yasser Arafat no longer has an army. He has no air force. No tanks. He is not bulldozing Israeli houses or invading neighborhoods with armed troops or firing from helicopter gunships. He has a desperate people who have produced suicide bombers, young men driven almost mad by the despair of living in a bottle like those drugged roaches—which is what the West Bank and Gaza have become.

The entire article is vile and filled with bizarre conspiracy theories, which is perhaps fitting, because the author had President Zachary Taylor exhumed to prove her theory that he was assissinated with poison. (Experts found no such evidence.)

Rising includes number of debunked Zionist quotes, but I found this one interesting:

According to the Zionist agenda, Palestine would be just the first step toward a "Greater Israel," which would ultimately include Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and even Iraq. If this sounds preposterous, one need only go back to the beginning, in 1948, when the first prime minister of Israel, Ben-Gurion, addressed his General Staff. Confident—largely because of American money which had secured Israel’s military superiority—Ben-Gurion told them: "We should prepare to go over to the offensive with the aim of smashing Lebanon, Transjordan and Syria….When we…bomb Amman, we will eliminate Transjordan too, and then Syria will fall. If Egypt still dares to fight on, we shall bomb Port Said, Alexandria, and Cairo."

The entire paragraph is insane - remember, this is written after Israel had given up the Sinai to Egypt and much of the West Bank to the PLO - but who can even consider that Ben Gurion had designs on the entire Levant in 1948?

The quote comes from Noam Chomsky, in his 1983 book The Fateful Triangle, republished and updated a number of times since then:

Although the Chomsky book includes hundreds of footnotes, it provides none for this quote.

Every other place on the Internet that quotes this refers to Chomsky, not to any primary source.

It appears to have been a complete fabrication.

Which makes it perfect for an antisemitic professor to publish in the antisemitic Miftah.

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It's Another Round of Omar-Tlaib vs Trump -- And Jews Are Caught In The Middle (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

We've seen that Trump is determined to paint the Democratic party as the party of AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

With the latest blowup over Israel banning Omar and Tlaib from entering the country -- Trump, Omar and Tlaib are at it again, but this time with not only Israel, but also the American Jewish community itself caught in the middle.

Yet some of the themes and some of the accusations being cast back and forth seemed oddly familiar, with a certain double standard being applied.

This is especially apparent on Twitter.

Deflecting Criticism With Impunity

In the current situation, we see Omar deflecting criticism of her support of BDS and her and Tlaib's reliance on the viciously antisemitic Miftah, by claiming the criticism is really all about her and Tlaib being Muslim:

But oddly enough, we have seen that when there is even a hint that criticism of Israel is being deflected by claiming it is antisemitic -- there is an uproar that this is proof that defenders of Israel are evading the issue.

Do We Want Netanyahu To Have a Good Relationship With The US President?

David Hazony points out that not so long ago we were told about the importance of Netanyahu having proper respect for the President of the United States:

That is an idea that Herb Keinon dwells on:

Netanyahu, and by extension Israel, were damned when they had a difficult relationship with the US president, and now Netanyahu, and by extension Israel, is damned for enjoying a good relationship with the US president.

At Powerline Blog, Paul Mirengoff expands on this idea:

When Barack Obama was in office, Benjamin Netanyahu had a terrible relationship with the American president. Back then, as Herb Keinon reminds us, liberals and their media pals insisted it was crucial that the Israeli prime minister have a strong relationship with the president of the U.S.

These days, Netanyahu’s relationship with the American president could hardly be stronger. So what’s the liberal/media line now? Netanyahu is too close to President Trump.

Exhibit A is Netanyahu’s decision to cancel a visit to Israel by Reps. Omar and Tlaib — a visit that apparently was going to take place until Trump tweeted that it shouldn’t. But if the relationship between the U.S. president and the Israeli prime minister is so important, why shouldn’t Netanyahu take Trump’s opinion into account when making what probably was a close call?

Well, actually, strong relations with the president would be considered a good thing -- even with a Republican president -- but in this case, where Trump has been so thoroughly demonized by the Left and the Media, it really is no surprise to see Netanyahu criticized for having a good working relationship with him. After all, the ban is carefully framed as an example of Netanyahu giving in to Trump and being manipulated by him, which makes matters seem even worse.

Calling Jewish Loyalty Into Question Yet Again

Just when it seemed that the uproar over Israel refusing entry to Omar and Tlaib was beginning to wane, Trump stirred things up again:

Not that we haven't seen other politicians in Washington recently accuse Jews of disloyalty:

If there is a difference, it would be that Omar was accusing Jews of being disloyal to the US and being guilty of dual loyalty.

Trump, on the other hand, in his own sloppy way, seemed to be saying that Jews voting for Democrats were being disloyal to the Jewish community as a whole.

But as far as his opponents were concerned, it was a difference without a distinction and they are playing it up for all it was worth.

Lost in this kerfuffle, was the fact that another Democrat was throwing around accusations of disloyalty as well

Congressman Ted Lieu accused US Ambassador David Friedman of being disloyal to the US by defending Israel's decision to ban Omar and Tlaib.

It was a sharp attack and Lieu later deleted the tweet and gave an unapologetic apology:

But as pointed out on Legal Insurrection, Lieu's excuse in pleading ignorance was not altogether honest.

Just last month, Lieu indicated he understood full well the impact of being accused of having dual loyalties, both in general and to Jews:

The suspicion that immigrants are not to be trusted or are unpatriotic is not just wrong, it is un-American. And dangerous. Yet it has marred America's past, including with the 19th-century "Yellow Peril" hysteria, the internment during World War II of more than 110,000 people who happened to be of Japanese descent and accusations against Jewish Americans of harboring dual loyalties. [emphasis added]

Even now, there are reports that as a result of the anger of Democrats, Israel’s ambassador to the US is done in the House, and the US ambassador to Israel may not be far behind.

Lost in all this is that Friedman, as ambassador, represents Trump -- not the American people.

When Cartoons Become Antisemitic Weapons

Remember when the Trump came out with this tweet, which he later deleted:

All that uproar over a star of David being used -- and Trump was again being accused of antisemitism.

But that kind of outrage is very selective.

As much as the media loves to jump at the chance to accuse Trump of antisemitism, that same media takes care to mute their criticism of Omar-Tlaib when they do something similar:

Batya Bungar-Sargon pointed out the problem:

Oof. Looks like both Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib shared this awful Carlos Latuff cartoon in Instagram stories yesterday. In 2006, Latuff came in second in Iran's International Holocaust Cartoon Contest, which is a thing that exists, in case you thought the TL couldn't get any worse.

Putting aside Latuff's history of antisemitic cartoons and his mocking of the Holocaust, this cartoon -- which Omar and Tlaib eagerly shared -- shows the arms of Trump and Netanyahu forming the stripes of the Israeli flag, with a Jewish star in the middle, implying a conspiratorial connection between Trump and Netanyahu, something we haven't seen in a cartoon since The New York Times graced its pages with this:

Not that The New York Times has learned its lesson and would call out the antisemitism of the Latuff cartoon:

The Times, after publishing an antisemitic cartoon in its international edition a few months ago, editorialized it is a “dangerous mistake“ to dismiss antisemitism as a fringe element in society, but on Miftah, Tlaib, and Omar the paper continues to fall painfully short of “unblinking journalism and the clear editorial expression of its values.” Or its values seem to require a certain amount of blinking.

Jews and/or Israel are accused of

o Hiding behind claims of antisemitism to avoid criticism
o  Allowing Trump to dictate Israeli policy
o  Trying to influence US policy
o  Being accused of dual loyalty
o  Trying to control Muslims

And through it all, Jews are becoming ever more aware that the hatred of Jews that we read about happening in Europe has reached the US and is getting worse.

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NGO accuses Israel of systematically killing Palestinian prisoners. Its own statistics show the opposite.

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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08/20 Links Pt2: Is the Campus BDS Threat Shifting to Academic Boycotts?; How Al Sharpton Failed African Slaves

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.

The PT Barnum of Palestine, 1880

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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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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08/20 Links Pt1: America’s Other ‘Special Relationship’ Remains Worth Preserving; They Praised the Murder of a US Senator’s Niece — and They Organized Tlaib’s Israel Trip

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.

Debunking more of Ilhan Omar's lies about Israel

Ilhan Omar sent out a series of tweets about her planned itinerary in the territories that included some really ridiculous lies.

We then planned to visit Hebron. Once a bustling economic hub, settlement expansion has resulted in a two-tiered city, with Palestinians under military occupation forced to walk on the opposite side of the street from Israelis. https://t.co/UqTzOMb0Hs
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) August 16, 2019

77% of shops have closed bc of military occupation. Palestinians walk with garbage nets above their heads, put up to catch trash thrown by settlers. Violent attacks on Palestinians are routine.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) August 16, 2019

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:

We planned to visit the separation wall around historic Bethlehem. Only 13% of Bethlehem is now accessible to Palestinian use.

The wall, built in 2002 against international law, was said at the time to be “temporary.”

It still stands. https://t.co/EVftWuvtLe
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) August 16, 2019

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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Far right 4Chan haters began flooding Twitter with fake "Jew" accounts to increase antisemitism

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.

Yup. Fake. And look at the fake accounts she follows and that they follow: @RAbdiel333, @ZalmenWeitz, @feldberg121, @RealDvidSlvrstn, @AdelbergAvidan, @AbrahamLehrer, @AbeChutzpah45, @DanBerkowitz3, @ShotKalDalet @Twitter - these are all more fake accounts pretending to be Jews.
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) August 19, 2019

More fake Jewish accounts created in the past few days by 4chan antisemites for @Twitter to take down:
RabbiDavidGold1 RMolestein mark_maffia JothamRosenste1 kravitz_nathan MaxDriver12 PeacenikAri
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) August 19, 2019

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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Work accident! Fatah member blows himself up.

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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New Miftah outrage: Article claims Israel steals organs of Haitian, Ukrainian kids. (Peter Beinart defends Miftah.)

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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