Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, September 23, 2019

09/23 Links Pt1: Kicking off unity bid, Rivlin invites Netanyahu and Gantz to meet; Arab voters feel more Israeli than Palestinian; Jason Greenblatt And The Inconvenient Truth Of Palestinian Rejectionism

From Ian:

Kicking off unity bid, Rivlin invites Netanyahu and Gantz to meet

After completing meetings with party representatives to hear their recommendations as to who should form the next government, and with neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz receiving majority support in the new Knesset, President Reuven Rivlin on Monday issued an invitation for a meeting between the two in an attempt to move forward in the coalition-building process.

Netanyahu and Gantz both confirmed that they would attend the meeting, called for Monday evening.

Shortly after Rivlin’s appeal, Netanyahu, speaking at a Likud party faction meeting at the Knesset, said that “the only government that can be formed is a broad unity government” between his Likud and the centrist Blue and White.

Netanyahu, who received 55 MK recommendations to Gantz’s 54, made his own plea for Gantz to agree to a meeting “to achieve unity and compromise between the national camp headed by me… and the left-wing camp headed by Gantz.”

Gantz has so far rejected an invitation to meet with the prime minster “with no preconditions,” a call Netanyahu made immediately after signing an agreement according to which his Likud party and all the parties on the religious right agreed to only enter a coalition as a single unit and negotiate the terms of the new government together.

As Rivlin concludes talks with parties, Netanyahu wins 55 backers to Gantz’s 54
President Reuven Rivlin on Monday ended his round of consultations with representatives of all the Knesset parties ahead of his decision on

whom to task with forming the next government, with no candidate securing the backing of the necessary 61-strong majority needed for a governing coalition.

After the final two parties that Rivlin consulted with, the center-left Labor-Gesher and left-wing Democratic Camp, recommended Benny Gantz as expected, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has the support of 55 lawmakers in the 120-member Knesset to Gantz’s 54. That seemingly gives the incumbent leader a slight edge over his rival, although Gantz’s Blue and White party is bigger than Netanyahu’s Likud.

Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party is in the kingmaker position with its eight seats, having refrained from recommending either candidate. The three-member Arab faction Balad within the Joint List also opted to back neither Netanyahu nor Gantz.

Rivlin is expected to try to force a unity government comprising Likud and Blue and White, although significant disputes remain as to who would be prime minister and what other parties would be members of such a coalition. He is expected to make a decision later this week or early next week.

Liberman meets Gantz, says unity government a certainty

Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman said a unity government was no longer a question, after meeting with Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz ahead of talks between the two prime ministerial candidates initiated by President Reuven Rivlin and set to take place Monday evening.

Liberman said the only point of contention remaining between Gantz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was who would lead the unity government as prime minister first.

Netanyahu and Gantz both lack majority support to form government, after Rivlin consulted over the past two days with parties elected to the Knesset in last week’s elections.

Liberman has refrained from recommending either one as a candidate for prime minister.

The secularist Yisrael Beytenu leader campaigned on forcing a unity government between his party, Likud and Blue and White if neither could build a coalition without him and now holds the balance of power in the Knesset with Gantz and Netanyahu likely needing his support to secure a ruling majority.

Arab voters feel more Israeli than Palestinian

On Tuesday, Arab voters flocked to the polls, defying expectations of a low turnout.

Arab turnout skyrocketed compared to the April 9 election, reaching 59% on Tuesday, almost as high as the Jewish turnout.

This could suggest that the Israeli Arabs are no longer trying to distance themselves from the state's institutions.

Although Arab voters voted for the Joint Arab List, the only Arab list on the ballot, their high turnout sent a message to the Jewish public. The Arab voters essentially said that they viewed themselves as Israelis and want to take part in the Israeli experience.

Likewise, during the campaign Arab candidates put aside their solidarity with the Palestinian Authority in its struggle against Israel, and scaled back their rhetoric on changing Israel’s Jewish character.

Instead, the Arab politicians campaigned on better education, employment, housing, education and so forth, highlighting the need to address the festering problems in the Arab sector.

Arab candidates had realized that their attempt to drive a wedge between Arabs and Jews and their refusal to accept Israel as the nation-state of the Jews were turning off voters. Consequently, they figured they could only win back the Arab street if they changed the discourse and promised a course correction.

Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, Mark R.Cohen, in 2013 wrote a chapter for a book on the history of Jewish-Muslim relations. This chapter, titled “Muslim Anti-Semitism: Old or New?,” has recently been released publicly.

Cohen is a recognized researcher on Jews in Muslim lands. His research is sound. But in this article, I think that his central thesis is based on an incorrect assumption:

In presenting my own views, I should ﬁrst deﬁne what I mean by anti-Semitism because of the fuzziness that prevails in contemporary discussions of anti-Semitism in Islam. This fuzziness emanates especially from representatives of the counter-myth school, for whom every nasty expression about Jews in the Qur’an, the hadith and other Arabic literature, and every instance of harsh treatment or violence experienced by Jews in the past, is deemed anti-Semitic. But this is decidedly not anti-Semitism. It is, rather, the typical, though nonetheless unsavory, loathing for the“other” found in most societies even today, a disdain that, in the Middle Ages, was shared by all three Western monotheistic religions in relation to pagans and rival monotheist claimants to divine exclusivity and the right to dominate society.

The proper deﬁnition of anti-Semitism, which is shared by most students of the subject, is a religiously based complex of irrational, mythical, and stereotypical beliefs about the diabolical, malevolent, and all-powerful Jew, infused, in its modern, secular form, with racism and the belief that there is a Jewish conspiracy against mankind. Deﬁned this way, I can say with a great deal of conﬁdence, in agreement with other seasoned scholars, that such anti-Semitism did not exist “under the crescent” in the medieval Muslim world.

I agree with Cohen that Jew-hatred in the Muslim world throughout history has been nothing close to how it was in Christian Europe. But his definition of antisemitism - which he claims is shared by most academics! - is almost comical in how limited it is.

The view of the Jew as "all powerful" is relatively recent, pretty much from the 19th century. Cohen's definition doesn't include Christian supersessionism or charges of deicide, accusations of the blood libel or Jews spreading plagues, or Voltaire's or Marx' more philosophical antisemitism which were not based on any religious viewpoints. No one can seriously say that there was no antisemitism in Europe before the 19th century but if you accept this definition, that's pretty much what you are saying.

Muslims have eagerly incorporated not only traditional Christian antisemitism in their everyday discourse (the first Muslim blood libel was in 1840) but also the conspiracy-theory antisemitism of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, modified to explain how weak Jews could have defeated the proud warrior Arabs. But before that infestation of Western-style antisemitism in the Muslim world, it had its own flavor, which is reflected in writings about Jews by Muslims today.

The major qualities of Jews based on the Quran, as described by an Arab professor a few years ago, are:

Jews steal money
Jews use usury to enrich themselves and impoverish non-Jews
Jews don't care about human life
Jews are cowards, hiding behind fortified walls
Jews betray all agreements and covenants
Jews distort words of holy books
Jews are killers of prophets and other fine people
Jews want to extinguish the light of Allah
Jews bring corruption to the lands they are in

There are some variants but the basic list seems to be consistent.

These attributes are a very specific Muslim form of antisemitism. They seem to predate Western influence on Muslim thinking about Jews. None of them fit Cohen's definition of antisemitism.

Redefining antisemitism may make one feel better, but the hate is still there. Antisemitism morphs into ascribing to Jews whatever is considered the biggest evil of the day. Giving it a narrow definition that ignores thousands of years of Jew-hatred does not help matters at all - it obfuscates what it is pretending to illuminate.

(I emailed Professor Cohen to explain his definition a bit better, but he never responded.)

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Palestinian PM Shtayyeh cutting ribbon on new cancer center

Palestinian Authority prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh, speaking at the opening of the National Center for Diagnosis of Cancer and Genetic Diseases, said "We have 6251 cancer patients, a high percentage compared to neighboring countries, because the Israelis use our land as a landfill...This is a big number, and the main reason is the Israeli occupation's nuclear and chemical waste. We will sue them for this criminal act against the citizens and the land."

This is a complete and utter inversion of the truth.

In reality, the (crude) Palestinian cancer rate is 89 per 100,000 people, far less than the world average of 237 and less than one third the Israeli rate of 316. (The age standardized rates are closer, but still significantly lower for the West Bank and Gaza - 159 - that the world average of 198 and the Israeli ASR of 234.)

Palestinians get cancer at a much lower rate than Israelis. Perhaps they should thank the "occupation!"

Why do Palestinians get cancer? Well, their rate of cigarette smoking among men is 40%, so that would be the obvious explanation - unless you want to politicize your own people's cancer deaths as a weapon against Israel.

Shtayyeh further lies by falsely claiming that Israel dumps nuclear waste in the territories. It doesn't.. At the moment it is buried near the Dimona nuclear plant in Israel. (Syria makes the same false claim against Israel, charging that nuclear waste is buried in the Golan.)

What other world leader, especially one dependent on foreign aid, is able to lie with such impunity?

The Palestinian prime minister is telling the world baldfaced lies about Israel. As usual, no reporter for any major media outlet bothers to check the facts and publicly show him to be a liar. This is the media's job. Yet when it comes to Palestinians, the media abdicates its responsibility in favor of pushing a false narrative about the conflict.

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Depraved Gaza terror group takes credit for murder of 74 year old woman in Ashkelon. Pal media calls her a "settler."

TOI writes:

An elderly woman who was seriously injured by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip last November has died of her injuries.

Nina Gisdenanova, 74, from Ashkelon, was in a four-story building that took a direct hit from a rocket during a barrage of hundreds of projectiles fired by Palestinian terror groups in Gaza over a 24-hour period.

Gisdenanova died last week at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer.

Islamic Jihad is happy about it and wants everyone to know that it was almost certainly one of their rockets that killed her:

It is noteworthy that the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, rained settlements "Israeli" and especially the city of "Ashkelon" hundreds of rockets, in response to the crimes and attacks of the occupation against the Palestinians.

Notably, most Palestinian Arab are referring to the Ashkelon resident as a "settler." Sometimes "Israeli settler," sometimes "Jewish settler" as Fatah Voice reported.

Just more proof that Palestinians consider all Israel to be "occupied" and all Israeli Jews to be "illegal settlers."

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Another Jewish holy spot the Arabs hate Jews visiting

Last week Palestine Today.Net "reported:"

Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed the area of Bab Al-Zawiya and Beersheba Street in the center of Hebron. According to witnesses, large numbers of settlers stormed the center of Hebron through the military roadblock at the entrance to the Martyrs Street towards Beersheba Street , under the protection of the occupation army, which closed the area.
They pointed out that the Israeli army prevented citizens from moving to ensure the access of settlers to the so-called "Hebron" tomb, where they performed Talmudic prayers.

The so called Christian Peacemaker Teams reported on this too:

The border police barricaded the area with armored vehicles while a group of settlers from the illegal outposts within al-Khalil, some of them carrying automatic weapons, exited the checkpoint and walked to a destination within the Palestinian administered part of the city.
— CPT Palestine (@cptpalestine) September 19, 2019

So what happened?

A couple of times a year, a large group of chasidim, in this case Breslovers, go to visit the grave of Biblical figure Othniel Ben Kenaz, the first of the Judges. His grave happens to be in the H1 area of Hebron that is normally Judenrein. Under previous agreements, Jews should have free access to holy spots.

The IDF coordinates these visits with the Palestinian Authority ahead of time. These aren't surprises, they aren't spontaneous incursions into Area A. The only reason the IDF must be there is because otherwise the defenseless Jews would be ripped apart.

Here's video from last year's visit.

To say that these chasidim are heavily armed is laughable. It goes to show that Christian Peacemaking Teams are not interested in peace and very interested in destroying any Jewish rights in the Middle East. (And for a Christian to refer to Biblical Hebron as "Al-Khalil" shows that they are not very Christian, either.)

(h/t Yosef Hartuv)

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09/22 Links: Rivlin: Blue and White, Likud must share power; Why left-wing anti-Semitism is just as bad as white supremacy; Trudeau’s blackface problem and casual antisemitism

From Ian:

Rivlin: Blue and White, Likud must share power

Rivlin made the statement directly to representatives of Blue and White, who said they want a unity government but have been ruling out Prime Minister and Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, because of his pending criminal charges. Rivlin reminded them that Netanyahu has not been indicted.

"The people of Israel want a government that will be stable," Rivlin said. "A stable goverrnment cannot be a government without both of the two largest parties."

The head of the Blue and White delegation, MK Moshe Ya'alon said "all Zionist parties" would be welcome in the coalition, a statement interpreted as excluding the Joint List.

MK Zvi Hauser told Rivlin that Gantz's goal would be national reconciliation.

Rivlin told the MKs that the people of Israel were "disgusted" by prospects of a third election.

Members of the Joint List decided to recommend Gantz to build a coalition. This will be the first time since Yitzhak Rabin that an Arab party recommends someone for Prime Minister.

Jonathan S. Tobin: Will the Anti-Netanyahu Crowd Like Gantz?

The answer is that Gantz knew that challenging Netanyahu on security from the left was a recipe for defeat. The sole rationale for his party’s existence is to oust Netanyahu, not to make nice with the Palestinians.

The same is true about relations with President Donald Trump. Netanyahu’s contentious relationship with President Barack Obama and his warm embrace of Trump is a particular bone of contention for Democrats. But expect Gantz to be every bit as grateful to Trump, who is immensely popular in Israel, as Netanyahu has been.

Nor will a future Democratic president — should Trump be defeated next year — find Gantz to be any more willing to abandon the West Bank or divide Jerusalem than Netanyahu has been. The political success of the former Israel Defense Forces’ chief of staff rests on his being part of a broad consensus that believes there is no Palestinian peace partner. Democrats will have to accept that even an Israel led by Gantz will refuse to trade land for terror.

As for American Jewish resentment about the lack of religious pluralism in Israel, that will depend on the composition of the next coalition. Should the religious parties wind up outside the government, plans for expanding the egalitarian prayer area at the Western Wall will be reinstated, no matter if Netanyahu or Gantz stands at the helm. But should the new coalition include those religious parties, you can bet that the scheme will remain on hold.

Just as important, Gantz will be no more acceptable to the growing ranks of anti-Zionists in the left wing of the Democratic Party than Netanyahu. For BDS supporters, Gantz is just another criminal Zionist. If left-wingers like Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) represent the future of the Democratic Party, it won’t make any difference who is prime minister of Israel.

The gap between Israelis and Americans on these issues has always been bigger than one leader. Israel’s critics may pretend that Netanyahu is the primary obstacle to peace as opposed to the Palestinians, but it won’t take long for them to be hurling the same sort of accusations at Gantz if he gets the top job.

Liberman won’t recommend either Netanyahu or Gantz for PM

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman on Sunday said his right-wing party will not recommend any candidate for prime minister during its consultations with President Reuven Rivlin later in the evening.

In his remarks, Liberman — whose party won eight seats in last week’s election — said he could recommend for the task of forming the next coalition neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor Blue and White’s Benny Gantz, who could receive the endorsement of the predominantly Arab Joint List.

“In the Knesset there is a party that is trying to destroy us from within, and in the best case scenario, they belong in parliament in Ramallah, not in Israel,” said Liberman, referring to the Joint List. “Therefore we cannot recommend Benny Gantz. Therefore our recommendation to the president is that we won’t recommend anyone.”

“The Haredim [ultra-Orthodox] are political rivals, but not enemies. The Joint List are our enemies,” said Liberman. “Wherever they are, we will be on the other side.”

Joint List to present list of demands to Gantz in return for backing him as PM

The Joint List alliance of Arab-majority parties will reportedly on Sunday present a list of demands to the Blue and White party as conditions for recommending Benny Gantz as the next prime minister, although, despite talks, the centrist party has not yet made any commitments in return.

Blue and White has established a back channel to communicate with the Joint List — an alliance of four parties — which is said to be leaning toward endorsing the former IDF chief of staff. However, three of its 13 newly elected Knesset members, from the Balad party, are opposed to the move.

The primarily Arab slate will have to make a decision by 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, when its representatives are scheduled to meet with President Reuven Rivlin and tell him whether they recommend Gantz — the chief rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — as leader of the country.

Senior party members were quoted Sunday by Hebrew-language media as saying they would present their demands later in the day to Blue and White. These include freezing home demolitions in unrecognized Arab villages, forming a team to examine the issue of those villages, passing a government decision on battling violence within the Arab sector, canceling the controversial nation-state law — which enshrines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people — and initiating a peace process with the Palestinian Authority.

UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief Ahmed Shaheed

The UN has released an important report about antisemitism worldwide.

Written by the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ahmed Shaheed, much of it is a list of both antisemitic incidents and charges.

It properly notes Arab antisemitism:

The Special Rapporteur received numerous reports that in countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Jews are frequently conflated with Israel and Zionism, even in countries with a deep history of Jewish life. Literature demonizing Jews is prevalent in the media in this region. Saudi school textbooks contained antisemitic passages, with some passages even urging violence against Jews.

Footnote:
Examples: In Saudi Arabia, the newspaper Al-Iqtisadiyya printed an editorial cartoon showing a grinding machine in the shape of the Star of David, grinding Gazans into skulls. In Algeria, Echourouk El Youmi published an article claiming that Jews had been plotting against Muslims for centuries, that Jews were responsible for most of the disasters that have befallen Muslims, and that Jews controlled the media, cinema, art, and fashion. In Qatar, the privately-owned Al-Raya newspaper published a cartoon showing a witch with a Star of David wand causing inter-Arab disputes.

The report notes the existence of left-wing antisemitism as well:

The Special Rapporteur also takes note of numerous reports of an increase in many countries of what is sometimes called ‘left-wing’ antisemitism, in which individuals claiming to hold anti-racist and anti-imperialist views employ antisemitic narratives or tropes in the course of expressing anger at policies or practices of the Government of Israel. In some cases, individuals expressing such views have engaged in Holocaust denial; in others, they have conflated Zionism, the self-determination movement of the Jewish people, with racism; claimed Israel does not have a right to exist; and accused those expressing concern over antisemitism as acting in bad faith. He emphasizes that it is never acceptable to render Jews as proxies for the Government of Israel. He further recalls that Secretary-General Guterres has characterized “attempts to delegitimize the right of Israel to exist, including calls for its destruction” as a contemporary manifestation of antisemitism.

On the other hand, in the next paragraph that discusses BDS it presents both sides of the argument that BDS is inherently antisemitic and the report effectively supports the BDS right to boycott Israel and takes a stand against legislation to prohibit such boycotts. Shaheed doesn't bother to do any fact checking to see which side is telling the truth.

The Special Rapporteur further notes claims that the objectives, activities and effects
of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement are fundamentally antisemitic. The movement promotes boycotts and stockholder divestment initiatives against Israeli or international corporations and institutions that BDS supporters maintain are ‘complicit’ in violations of the human rights of Palestinians by the Government of Israel. Critics of BDS that the architects of the campaign have indicated that one of its core aims is to bring about the end of the State of Israel and further allege that some individuals have employed antisemitic narratives, conspiracies and tropes in the course of expressing support for the BDS campaign. The Special Rapporteur notes that these allegations are rejected by the BDS movement, including by one of its principal actors, who asserted that the movement is “inspired by the South African anti-apartheid and U.S. Civil Rights movements;” maintained that they oppose all forms of racism and that they take steps against those who use antisemitic tropes in the campaign, and stressed that they employ “nonviolent measures to bring about Israel’s compliance with its obligations under international law.” Concern about the adoption of laws that penalize support for the BDS movement, including the negative impact of such laws on efforts to combat antisemitism have also been communicated to the Special Rapporteur. He recalls that international law recognizes boycotts as constituting legitimate forms of political expression, and that non-violent expressions of support for boycotts are, as a general matter, legitimate speech that should be protected. However, he stresses that expression which draws upon antisemitic tropes or stereotypes, rejects the right of Israel to exist, or advocates discrimination against Jewish individuals because of their religion should be condemned.

The good news is that the document says that the IHRA working definition of antisemitism is valuable.

The bad news is it doesn't appear that the Special Rapporteur understands the examples given specifically about Israel as really being antisemitic.

He writes:

The Special Rapporteur notes that critics of the Working Definition have expressed concern that it can be applied in ways that could effectively restrict legitimate political expression, including criticism of policies and practices being promoted by the Government of Israel which violate the rights of Palestinians. Such concerns are focused on three of the illustrative examples attached to the definition namely, claiming that the existence of Israel is a racist endeavour; requiring of Israel a behaviour not demanded of other democratic states; equating Israeli government policy with that of the Nazis. The Special Rapporteur notes that the IHRA definition does not designate these as examples of speech that are ipso facto antisemitic and further observes that a contextual assessment is required under the definition to determine if they are antisemitic. Nevertheless, the potential chilling effects of the use of these examples by public bodies on speech that is critical of Israeli government policies and practices must be taken seriously as should the concern that criticism of Israel sometimes has been used to incite hatred towards Jews in general such as through expression that feed on traditional antisemitic stereotypes of Jews. Therefore, the use of the definition, as a non-legal educational tool, could minimize such chilling effects and contribute usefully to efforts to combat antisemitism. Where public bodies use the definition in any regulatory context, due diligence must be exercised to ensure that freedom of expression within the law is protected for all.

It is true that the IHRA says that those examples could theoretically be not considered antisemitic based on context, but in reality essentially all such uses are absolutely antisemitic and this fig leaf of "legitimate criticism" must be called out for what it is - an excuse for Jew-hatred. (The only counterexamples I can think of are some overheated and unfortunate rhetoric within Israel itself.)

Saying that Zionism is racism is antisemitic, because Zionism is the movement for self-determination of the Jewish people, and denying Jews that right is inherently antisemitic.

Saying that Israel is uniquely evil when other countries do things that are much worse is antisemitic because the criticisms are clearly hurled at the Jewish state because it is the Jewish state. "Human rights" is an excuse for hate in those cases, and the hypocrisy should be called out.

Equating Israeli policy with the Nazis is antisemitic because such examples are never meant to illuminate but to claim that the victims of the Holocaust are no better than the perpetrators. The accusation is a direct attack on Jews because the accusers know that such comparisons are especially painful for Jews.

Saying that Israel violates Palestinian human rights, whether one agrees with that or not, is not antisemitism. Saying that Israel treats them like Nazis treated Jews clearly is.

In the recommendations, Shaheed says that IHRA is useful but still includes the caveat that allows Jew-haters to hide behind the "legitimate criticism" facade:

The Special Rapporteur recognises that the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism can offer valuable guidance for identifying antisemitism in its various forms, and therefore encourages States to adopt it for use in education, awareness-raising and for monitoring and responding to manifestations of antisemitism. The Special Rapporteur recommends its use as a critical non-legal, educational tool that should be applied in line with guidance provided by the Rabat Plan of Action, Human Rights Committee in General Comment 34, and the CERD in General Recommendation In this regard, the Special Rapporteur notes that criticism of the Government of Israel is not per se antisemitic, as stated in the Working Definition, unless it is accompanied by manifestations of hatred towards Jews in general, or expressions that build on traditional antisemitic stereotypes.

Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and the other two examples do not fit under Shaheed's two exceptions, meaning that he has effectively accepted the claims of the left wing antisemites who say - falsely - that the IHRA definition chills free speech and legitimate criticism of Israel.

Saying that some of these examples might be legitimate criticism of Israel is akin to saying that some people who use blackface today are not being racist. It is theoretically possible but at this point in history the chances that the act is done innocently are practically nil, and all cases should be treated under the assumption that the violator is a bigot and any excuses are simply that. The Special Rapporteur clearly thinks otherwise.

Most of the report is quite good. But the continued cover for antisemitism disguised as legitimate criticism of Israel shows that even the UN expert on freedom of religion or belief truly doesn't understand how treating the Jewish state with double standards is simply hate.

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"But I'm only criticizing the occupation!" (UPDATED)

I tweeted this on Friday:

The pattern:
Before:
"ZIONISM IS RACISM! ISRAELIS ARE NAZIS! APARTHEID! THEY POISON PALESTINIAN WATER, STEAL ORGANS AND ENJOY KILLING BABIES! I CAN UNDERSTAND ARMED RESISTANCE! JEWS ARE WHITE SUPREMACISTS!"

After:

"What's the fuss? All I did was legitimate criticism of Israel."
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) September 20, 2019

I had in mind last week's episode where the Women's March appointed Zahra Billoo to be on its board and then her rabid anti-Israel posts were uncovered, for example:

Last year she said, " I am clear about I am not going to legitimize a country that I don't believe has a right to exist. "

This isn't criticism. This is unhinged hate for the Jewish state, calling for its destruction and proudly showing support for terror against Jewish civilians.

But when the Women's March changed its mind about the appointment, she suddenly says that she is the victim of a smear campaign - she only "challenges the occupation:"

Her words show that she is a liar, but her fans that hate both Israel and Jews who do not want to be second class citizens flocked to her defense - the same defense we always see: "Oh, this is just legitimate criticism, and you are falsely accusing us of antisemitism."

No other state in the world is ever told it shouldn't exist. No other state is falsely represented as being guilty of apartheid. In no other case are people who shoot rockets at civilians lauded by people who otherwise swear they support human rights. And disgustingly comparing Israel to Nazis has only one purpose: to hurt Jews.

Yes, this is antisemitism. And claiming that it is mere opposition to Israeli government policies or "challenging the occupation" is meant to be a smokescreen to blind the world to the obvious, vicious and psychopathic hate that these people have - hate so vicious that its only historical comparison is to "old" antisemitism.

UPDATE: I made a cartoon:

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At first glance, this greeting for the Jewish New Year by PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat seems to be a nice gesture:

On the Eve of the Jewish New Year Nemah and I would like to extend our best wishes for a happy , peaceful and good year for all those who follow the Jewish faith , and a happy and good year for all .
— Dr. Saeb Erakat الدكتور صائب عريقات (@ErakatSaeb) September 20, 2019

But notice is wording. He is not wishing a happy New Year to Jews or the Jewish people, but to "all those who follow the Jewish faith."

Because the official position of the PLO is that there is no such thing as a Jewish people. In the PLO's own words:

Recognizing the Jewish state implies recognition of a Jewish people and recognition of its right to self-determination. Those who assert this right also assert that the territory historically associated with this right of self-determination (i.e., the self-determination unit) is all of Historic Palestine. Therefore, recognition of the Jewish people and their right of self-determination may lend credence to the Jewish people’s claim to all of Historic Palestine.

According to the PLO, Judaism is merely a religion, because to admit the truth that Jews are a people implies that Jews have a right to a land like all other peoples - and the Jewish claim to their land predates the Arab claim, making it stronger than the flimsy Palestinian claim as a recently created "people."

Denying that the Jews are a people is antisemitic.

So even something meant to be as innocent as a greeting to Jews is a subtle attempt to deny Jews their historic connection to the land, a connection that is mentioned countless times in the high holiday prayers.

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09/21 Links: Melanie Phillips: In a deadlocked election, the real winners are Israeli Arabs; Palestinians in bid to secure renewal of UNRWA mandate; The Kremlin's persecution of Jews

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: In a deadlocked election, the real winners are Israeli Arabs

Israeli Arabs are poorly served by their elected members of Knesset. According to a recent survey by researchers at Tel Aviv University, crime, unemployment, welfare, and the community’s dire housing crisis top Israeli Arabs’ concerns.

Their Knesset members, however, are interested only in political posturing that bashes Israel, behaving as a kind of disloyal fifth column inside the Knesset intent upon harming the state to whose legislature they have been elected.

MK Ahmad Tibi, for example, does not support Israel as a Jewish state, opposes the Law of Return and has challenged the Jewish religious symbols on the national flag.

Former MK Hanin Zoabi has walked out of Knesset during the singing of “Hatikvah,” claims that the Israel Defense Forces are a greater danger than the possibility of Iranian nuclear weapons, and has said that Palestinians who kidnap Israeli civilians are not terrorists because such actions are their only alternative to suffering under occupation.

Before April’s election, some Israeli Arabs were quoted bitterly criticizing the Arab List MKs.

“It didn’t represent us, and it did great damage to the [average] Arab citizen who wants to integrate,” said one resident of Abu Ghosh, an Arab village near Jerusalem. “The infrastructure in the Arab communities needs to be taken care of, and they [the Arab lawmakers] aren’t dealing with it.

“We recognize the existence of the only democratic country in the Middle East and want to be a part of the country. And we’re proud of it. We, Israeli Arabs, exist with our Jewish brothers. Not coexist, exist.”

Those living in east Jerusalem, where civic status falls into an unhappy legal limbo under uneasy Israeli sovereignty over that part of the city, are by default Israeli residents but not citizens.

Officially, they are citizens of Jordan. Most choose not to exercise the right to which their residency entitles them to vote in Jerusalem’s municipal elections.

But Jerusalem’s city hall is currently swamped by applications from Israeli Arabs in east Jerusalem who are keen to activate the right they enjoy under Israeli law to convert their residency into Israeli citizenship.

They want to be Israelis. They don’t want to be citizens of a future Palestinian state.

Kevin D. Williamson: The Iran Dilemma, the Saudi Dilemma, and the Iran–Saudi Dilemma

The United States has enough firepower at its command that it can afford to wear its idealism on its sleeve.

Is the United States going to go to war against Iran on behalf of Saudi Arabia? Probably not.

Should it?

Probably not.

The Saudi regime is, to be plain about it, detestable. It is wildly corrupt and horrifyingly repressive, it tangles together sundry absolutisms and fanaticisms (religious, nationalist, monarchist) into a mess of diplomatic and military trouble, it is duplicitous, and — perhaps most dangerous of all — in spite of its aspirational absolutism, it cannot even control its own contradictory internal constituencies, which is why the Saudi elite cultivates Islamic terrorism with one hand while fighting it with the other. Americans invested a lot of hope and diplomatic currency in the belief that crown prince Mohammed bin Salman was going to turn out to be the great reformer that the West keeps hoping will emerge in the Islamic world, and he’s shaping up to be just another Arab caudillo, if a slicker and more intelligent specimen than the general run of them. There is not much there to hang American hopes on.

But the Iranians are worse. At least, that is the conventional point of view in Washington. The question of what is worth fighting for sometimes is distinct from the question of what is worth fighting against.

And that, fundamentally, has been the argument underpinning continued U.S. support for Saudi Arabia, which is put forward as the great counterweight to the forces of jihad and chaos in Tehran. It is classical great-gaming, the enemy-of-my-enemy thinking that — while not always wrong and occasionally even necessary — has led the United States into so much trouble in the Muslim world, with so many unintended consequences. The legend that the United States “created al-Qaeda” is not exactly true, in the way it usually is put forward, but it is not entirely an invention, either.

The rat bastards in Riyadh, we keep telling ourselves, are our rat bastards — mostly, and most of the time, when they are not murdering columnists for American newspapers or torturing human-rights advocates as a prelude to raping and murdering them or launching ill-advised wars on their neighbors. This so-called foreign-policy realism (which can be very unrealistic) is what is used to paper over both the domestic abuses of the Saudi state and, more important, its habit of acting in a way that is inconsistent with long-term American interests in the region. Of course the Saudi leaders are vicious, depraved, and fundamentally anti-American, the story goes, but they are not quite as vicious, depraved, or anti-American as their Iranian counterparts.

Book review: 'After ISIS'

As Frantzman leads us through the sequence of events that slowly but surely squeezed ISIS out of the vast areas of Iraq and Syria that it had originally conquered, he provides an informed commentary on their impact. He embraces issues ranging from the effect on Europe of the influx of refugees from the Middle East, to the success of the Kurds’ peshmerga fighters against ISIS, the subsequent boost to their independence aspirations, followed by the efforts by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to remove what he saw as a Kurdish threat to his regime.

Frantzman brings to light the temporary battlefield alliances that were formed and disintegrated as the US-led coalition slowly crushed ISIS, and also with more profound changes in political thinking in the region, for example how Iran’s growing influence encouraged Saudi Arabia and the UAE to look increasingly toward Israel as an ally, and how it changed the strategic thinking of Jordan and Egypt.

In considering whether the post-ISIS era would simply replicate the worst days of al-Qaida terrorism under Osama bin Laden, he is not wholly pessimistic. He sees hope in the rise of a younger generation of Middle East leaders that came of age in the 1980s or 1990s, in an era of US hegemony, taking over from leaders who had run the region since the colonial era. “With the Saddam Husseins, Mubaraks, Gaddafis, and Salehs out of the way,” he writes, “there may be a new way forward.”

The basis for Frantzman’s qualified optimism lies in his belief that the whole ISIS episode was a unique phenomenon – a one-off. In his words: “It appears that the power of ISIS was sui generis. A group like this will not appear again. This was the apogee of Islamist extremism and jihadist groups.”

“After ISIS” is a comprehensive, insightful, thought-provoking account of how an exceptionally ruthless and brutal organization succeeded in capturing the imagination of scores of thousands of Muslims the world over, how it rose to control large parts of Syria and Iraq and rule over millions, and how finally it was defeated. For anyone wishing to understand how this all came about and what might follow, “After ISIS” is essential reading.

09/20 Links Pt2: Why Are the Left’s Favorite Muslims Anti-Semites?; BDS founder Omar Barghouti, due to speak at Labour conference fringe, fails to secure UK entry visa;Their Boys, Not Ours

From Ian:

The New Anti-Semitism is the Old Anti-Semitism

And when the Nazi Holocaust confronted the world with the ghastly handiwork of unbridled evil, the world embraced the Jewish people as the poster children for the overarching moral standards that govern civilized society. The innate empathy of mankind began to emerge. Anti-Semitism became as indefensible as infanticide.

Tragically, the pendulum has swung back again.

In part, memory fades. More significantly, politics has come to replace religion as the guiding doctrine of mankind. The principles introduced to the world by the Jews have been hijacked and conscripted to defend an ideology of utopianism. Judge every person favorably has mutated into non-judgmentalism. Charity has morphed into entitlement. Liberty has devolved into libertinism. Civility has been weaponized into political correctness.

Most perversely, Israel has been compared to Nazi Germany.

As moral autonomy supplants moral duty, the traditional values of Judaism become worse than irrelevant; they become a threat. The mere suggestion of higher moral authority annuls the right of the individual to define his own moral code. Traditional values become a form of heresy, and all heretics must die.

Ideologies become entrenched. Truth becomes subjective. Civil discourse disintegrates. Rhetoric becomes weaponry. Society descends into empathy deficit disorder.

Inevitably, violence follows as bullying becomes the new normal.

The resurgence of Jew-hatred, therefore, is a symptom of the moral decline of man, not into immorality but amorality, the rejection of moral absolutes and embrace of relativistic moral autonomy.

Ironically, anti-Semitism, has much more to do with non-Jewish society than it does with either the Jew or his Judaism. It is the bully’s reflexive response in the face of moral maturity on the playground of human society.

Is there a solution? Of course.

How Pro-Israel Students On Campus Can Fight Back Against Jew-Hatred

Do my fellow proud Zionists see the problem here? The Palestinian-Arab side of the argument may be genocidal and jihad-loving, but at least they present a morally framed narrative (no matter how grossly immoral that narrative actually is). The pro-Jewish/pro-Israel side, by contrast, tends toward an AIPAC-inspired, overly defensive posture that relies on a non-substantive, purely procedural narrative.

Interestingly, then, the fight against Israel-inspired Jew-hatred on the university campus can actually learn much from the ongoing conservative dialogue between the New York Post’s Sohrab Ahmari and National Review’s David French. Procedure-based arguments, especially when confronted with a substance-based argumentative opposition, are unlikely to be sufficient; the only way to truly make a dialectic dent is to argue on the substantive merits of an issue and argue in overtly moral terms. I wrote as much in June: "Advocates for Israel on the American university campus must transition away from pleas for 'peace' and 'tolerance' and toward arguments grounded in the inherent, biblically derived morality of a Jewish state existing between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea."

This simply must be the path forward for Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus who are invested in helping to turn back the tide of rising on-campus anti-Semitism. Jewish and Zionist students must make the moral, historically informed case that Zionism — which is simply the Jewish right to self-determination in the Jews' biblical, ancestral homeland — is an inherently beautiful phenomenon. These courageous students must argue that the culmination of Herzl's Zionist vision, the establishment in 1948 of a sovereign Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael for the very first time in millennia, represents one of the most profoundly beautiful developments in human civilization over the course of the last century. These students must advance direct, overt, morally based arguments that defend the beauty of that Zionism. These students must also advance historically and legally informed arguments that rebut the utter mendacity that is "Nakba" and other purported Palestinian-Arab "national" humiliations.

Appeasement and unilateral disarmament — here, in terms of the use of overt moral terminology — never work. The students who take the lead on this initiative will necessarily be bold. They will be valiant. And they will face mighty resistance from the leftist/Islamist alliance all across the nation. But these students will have the benefit of standing for truth, morality, and, fundamentally, justice. It's time to get the ball rolling and begin to defeat on-campus Jew-hatred in America.

BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, due to speak at Labour conference fringe, fails to secure UK entry visa

The co-founder of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, who was due to speak at a number of fringe events at the Labour party conference, has been denied an entry visa to the UK.

Omar Barghouti had been due to speak at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign event in Brighton on Sunday, alongside prominent Labour party politicians including Diane Abbott, the Shadow Home Secretary and Lisa Nandy, chair of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East.

Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite union, and Josie Bird, president of the Unison union, were also due to speak alongside him.

However, on Friday, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) announced that Mr Barghouti had been unable to travel to the UK “because his visa was abnormally delayed by the British government without explanation.”

The PSC blamed his lack of a visa on “growing efforts by Israel and its allies to suppress Palestinian voices and the movements for Palestinan rights.” The organisation added that Mr Barghouti would speak via a video link-up instead.

A Jordanian poet named Rania Dogan, who has published a number of books, writes a poem in As Sawsana that covers a number of current events.

Google translates poetry very poorly, but even with the unreadable parts one gets a pretty good idea of where Dogan, and probably many other Jordanians, are coming from.

The smell of Netanyahu is everywhere and Ivanka perfumes and skirts

Short Mossad walks in our phones ..... and our cars follow

Cooks in Alwats August ..and Alnmimh ... and sometimes myopia

The media is controlled by the Jews

Our radio ..... penetrates our homes .. And our cars know about us more than we know

About ourselves

Our fate is all dependent on the Israeli elections

Century deal and included the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea

Have mercy and have mercy

A crisis between teachers and the government in Jordan is worsening ... stalled

Life in Jordan and education .. That home did not have only

Education ... and salt ... millions of students and teachers .... stopped them

Wheel of life ... The teacher stood on the corner of the dream to fight .. And congestion

My people because of the difficulty of life .... and circumstances .. And life that

It became impossible .. and became impossible

In Egypt, it was a million to overthrow the police rule of the military Bastar… They killed Morsi and his legitimacy. They served his son's heart to go to him.

Bashar al-Assad wanders stranded in Syria after all his crimes in Syria

It's boredom again

Saudi Arabia is now sinking oil wells in it .... and lose half of its production and it is difficult for them now to collect their papers

The UAE stood half way ... looking at the veins of her hands smelling the martyrs of Yemen

Trump with a square face .... the world moves right north waving the stick to Iran .. and war on it ... and sanctions to leave Saudi Arabia in a dilemma ..... after being implicated

In the war in Yemen ... and sold it arms ... and looted its goods

Erdogan from far away wants to help. Qatar, Kuwait and Muscat are trying to save China ... China started to take an economic role ... and Putin is reading a wall of

The Quran

Israel .... Israel right-wing Jews .... and left-wing Jews

Beware ... Injustice Beware that Trump is an ally because he may fall in the first election ... Don't make al-Sisi ally ... Because his fall is close ... Don't reach out

Bashar on anything we reward

Beware .. and beware ........ deal of the century

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