Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

11/27 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: The Chief Rabbi's intervention in Britain's general election; The vile antisemitic conspiracy theory Jeremy Corbyn refused to condemn; Two Rockets Launched From Gaza, Israel Hits Hamas Targets in Response

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Chief Rabbi's intervention in Britain's general election

Anti-Zionism has exactly the same characteristics directed agains the collective Jew in Israel: an obsessional and unhinged narrative about Israel based entirely on lies; accusing Israel of crimes of which it’s not only innocent but the victim; holding Israel to standards expected of no other country; depicting Israel as a global conspiracy of unique malice and power.

The Palestinian cause, meanwhile, is based on an attempt to wipe out another people’s country, a campaign consisting entirely of lies about the present and the past in an attempt to write the Jews out of their own history in the land, accompanied by virulent antisemitic bigotry.

Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority regularly present the Jews as the source of all evil in the world and a conspiracy against all humanity. They claim that the Jews were behind 9/11 and that they control the world’s media, finance and US foreign policy.

So why should anyone be surprised when Labour party supporters and other so-called “progressives” come out with their claims that the Jews were behind 9/11 and that they control the world’s media, finance and US foreign policy in a conspiracy against all humanity?

Alas, experience tells us that the Chief Rabbi’s intervention is likely to make antisemitism in Britain even worse. Yet he was right to have spoken up; indeed, he had no moral alternative but to do so.

Because decent people need to be in absolutely no doubt about the nature of the Labour party which is campaigning to become the government of the country.

And because Jews have a duty to bear witness to the truth, however painful.

But even if the Labour party is defeated at this general election, even if Jeremy Corbyn is removed as the party’s leader, that will not eradicate the terrible scourge of antisemitism which now courses through Britain.

Douglas Murray: Holly Rigby and the ignorance of the Corbynistas

After all, the Labour party is a racist political party. The most successful racist party in Britain since the BNP – though wildly more successful than Nick Griffin’s gang ever managed to be. So if I were a paid or unpaid activist for the Labour party these days I’d be wary about throwing around accusations of racism. As for ‘transphobia’ – this is just the accusation made against anyone who won’t automatically nod through medical experimentation on children. So while I’m not happy about it, I’m content to roll with it for now.

And that was that. I thought that Holly’s smilingly ignorant face would never bother my mind again. But fanatics are extraordinary things, and this morning – after the chief rabbi issued an unprecedented denunciation of the Labour party’s high-command for its anti-Semitism – Holly was one of those who attempted to mount a retaliatory strike.

For Holly, it matters enormously that ‘racism’ remain a tool that their ilk can wield, but one that can never be used against them. And so Holly – in her infinite wisdom – chose to retaliate to the chief rabbi’s criticism of the Corbyn-ite Labour party for anti-Semitism by attacking the chief rabbi.

Once again, Holly showed herself to be deeply untroubled by facts. Nobody who knows anything about rabbi Mirvis could describe him as any kind of unalloyed ‘supporter’ of Boris Johnson. Nobody who knows anything about the chief rabbi could describe him as ‘an uncritical supporter of Netanyahu.’ These are claims so laced with presumption and ignorance that it is hard to know how Holly can embarrass herself so publicly. Or rather, it would be hard to imagine, if I hadn’t experienced Holly’s weapons-grade ignorance myself only days earlier.

Isabel Hardman: Jeremy Corbyn flounders on anti-Semitism, Brexit, tax and spending

Jeremy Corbyn’s interview with Andrew Neil was one of the most uncomfortable half hours of the Labour leader’s tenure. In contrast to the ITV debate, where he appeared confident and quick-witted, Corbyn struggled to answer questions on a number of different issues, complaining all the while that Neil wouldn’t let him finish. By the end, he might have wished that he’d had more interruptions as this was a very poor interview.

His refusal to apologise for the Labour party’s handling of anti-Semitism has naturally attracted the most attention. He point blank disagreed with the Chief Rabbi, saying he was ‘not right’ to say it was ‘mendacious fiction’ that Labour had investigated every single case of anti-Semitism, and once again saying he was ‘looking forward to having a discussion with him because I want to hear why he would say such a thing’. He expressed clear irritation at having his anti-racist credentials questioned, insisting that opposing racism is ‘what my life is about’ and that he felt ‘very passionately’ about this, as though making the sort of statements you’d see in a university application immediately inoculates you against ever being wrong. Taken together, these two responses to Neil’s questions suggest that Corbyn still blames those who accuse him, rather than wondering whether there might be a different way of approaching the racism in his own party. He could quite easily have said that he too was appalled that his party had given Jews the impression they wouldn’t feel safe if he were in government, and that he would do everything in his power to change things in Labour to win back trust. Instead, he wants to do everything in his power to persuade those Jews that they are wrong.

Full transcript: Jeremy Corbyn grilled by Andrew Neil
The Andrew Neil Interviews - Jeremy Corbyn 26.11.19 (unofficial video, may get deleted)

In case anyone still wonders whether the Palestinian keffiyeh is a symbol of terrorism, this story in the official PA Wafa news agency should dispel all doubt.

The largest Palestinian keffiyeh, in memory of Yasser Arafat, was presented at the Dura International Stadium in Hebron on Wednesday.

When Palestinians dedicate something to Arafat, it is never in terms of him being a peacemaker.

The keffiyeh is over 3,000 square meters large.

Wafa adds that "the Palestinian keffiyeh is a symbol of pride and dignity. It is a symbol of martyrs and prisoners."

Which means....terrorists.

Every time I have a keffiyeh story I like to post a photo of the Zionist keffiyeh, only because it upsets the bigots so much.

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Thousands of people took part in a mass demonstration Wednesday outside the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza and elsewhere.

It seems likely that these demonstrations were organized by UNRWA officials themselves.

The demonstrators chanted slogans emphasizing the need for UNRWA to continue its work until the "right of return" is realized.

In plain English, that means that the UN agency should continue being funded until millions of Arabs of whose ancestors lived in Palestine in 1947 can flood Israel and destroy the Jewish state.

They aren't demanding the world recognize a Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state. They are demanding the "right" to move to an enemy state in order to destroy it from within.

UNRWA, of course, is on board with that plan. They have taught generations of Palestinians that they will "return" one day and are complicit in keeping them stateless for over 70 years.

Ironically, large numbers of schoolchildren took off from their UNRWA schools and participated in the demonstrations. This was probably with UNRWA's blessing. They are being taught that protests are more important than education.

Schoolchildren in the West Bank were off school yesterday as well for the "Day of Rage" declared by the PLO.

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The contemptible Jew-hatred at "TruNews"

This is a video from the far-right Christian site TruNews, edited by Right Wing Watch:

That’s the way the Jews work, they are deceivers, they plot, they lie, they do whatever they have to do to accomplish their political agenda.This ‘impeach Trump’ effort is a Jew coup and the American people better wake up to it really fast because this thing is moving now toward a vote in the House and then a trial in the Senate. We could have a trial before Christmas. This country could be in civil war at Christmastime. Members of the U.S. military are going to have to take a stand just like they did in the 1860s with the Civil War. They are going to have to decide: are you fighting for the North or the South?

People are going to be forced, possibly by this Christmas, to take a stand because of this Jew coup in the United States. This is a coup led by Jews to overthrow the constitutionally elected president of the United States and it’s beyond removing Donald Trump, it’s removing you and me. That’s what’s at the heart of it.

You have been taken over by a Jewish cabal. The church of Jesus Christ, you’re next. Get it through your head! They’re coming for you. There will be a purge. That’s the next thing that happens when Jews take over a country, they kill millions of Christians.

Rick Wiles, who runs TruNews, is a known nutcase who has accused Queen Elizabeth of being a satanist lizard. Donald Trump Jr. was interviewed on this show but he says it was not planned and he had no idea of their positions when a correspondent from the site asked him some questions.

More worrying is that TruNews is an accredited part of the White House press corps. This is completely unacceptable and the White House should remove that privilege immediately.

UPDATE: Let's do something about this. Retweet your disgust to the White House.

Tweet your displeasure to @potus @realDonaldTrump @whca @IvankaTrump @jaredkushner @PressSec
to kick Jew-hating TruNews out of the @WhiteHouse Press Corps. It is inexcusable to give them credibility. https://t.co/wVW6Xp8YEu
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) November 27, 2019

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Don't worry, Albania: Mahmoud Abbas says he is sending aid (UPDATE: No, he isn't)

From Wafa:

President Mahmoud Abbas gave instructions to send medical staff and food to Albania following an earthquake that hit the country earlier today.

President Abbas ordered immediate medical help to the areas and people affected by the earthquake to ease their calamity.

There is no news yet on exactly how much aid and how many people are being sent. If any.

UPDATE: I can find no news story n Arabic showing any actual aid being sent by Palestinians to Albania. Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of 25 countries sending aid, including Israel. "Palestine" is not one of them.

This looks like Yasir Arafat pretending to give blood for 9/11 victims.

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11/26 Link Pt2: UK chief rabbi: What will be the fate of Jews if Labour ‘poison’ comes to power?; UK Jewish dad meets Muslim woman who defended his kids from anti-Semitic abuse

From Ian:

UK chief rabbi: What will be the fate of Jews if Labour ‘poison’ comes to power?

Mirvis described the last four years of having Labour repeatedly minimize and deny the rampant anti-Semitism in the party and the attacks, and even death threats, Jewish party members faced for speaking out about it, with many hounded out of the party.
Illustrative: People hold up placards and Union flags as they gather for a demonstration organized by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism outside the head office of the British opposition Labour Party in central London on April 8, 2018. (AFP/Tolga Akmen)

He noted Labour’s “quibbling and prevarication” over whether to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance‘s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, finally only doing so after adding an amendment that emphasized the right to “free speech” on Israel.

And he highlighted the party being formally investigated by the UK’s anti-racism watchdog.

“And all of this while in opposition. What should we expect of them in government?” Mirvis asked. “Therefore, with the heaviest of hearts, I call upon the citizens of our great country to study what has been unfolding before our very eyes.”

Mirvis dismissed Labour’s claims that it was doing everything possible to root out anti-Semitism as a “mendacious fiction.”

“According to the Jewish Labour Movement, there are at least 130 outstanding cases before the party, some dating back years, and thousands more have been reported but remain unresolved.

“The party leadership have never understood that their failure is not just one of procedure, which can be remedied with additional staff or new processes. It is a failure to see this as a human problem rather than a political one. It is a failure of culture. It is a failure of leadership. A new poison – sanctioned from the top – has taken root in the Labour Party,” he wrote.

Mirvis said given Labour’s record, it “can no longer claim to be the party of equality and anti-racism.”

UK Chief Rabbi Slams 'Poisonous' Labour Party

Less than two weeks before the contentious upcoming election, Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis slammed the head of the Labour party, saying “Jeremy Corbyn [is] not fit for high office.” In an opinion piece written for British daily The Times, Rabbi Mirvis wrote that “the overwhelming majority of British Jews are gripped by anxiety” at the possibility of a Labour victory on December 12.

Church of England appears to back chief rabbi’s stand against Labour

The Church of England on Tuesday expressed support for the Jewish community amid worries of rising anti-Semitism, after the country’s chief rabbi took a stand against the Labour party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn ahead of next month’s general election.

A statement by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby on Tuesday warned of a “deep sense of insecurity and fear felt by many British Jews.”

The statement was released hours after Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis accused Labour party chief Jeremy Corbyn of allowing the “poison” of anti-Semitism to take root in his party.

“None of us can afford to be complacent. Voicing words that commit to a stand against antisemitism requires a corresponding effort in visible action,” Welby’s statement said.

He did not mention Corbyn by name.

Welby’s statement came less than a week after the Church of England admitted in a major report that centuries of Christian anti-Semitism helped lead to the Holocaust.

Today’s front pages of British 📰, with unprecedented intervention by @chiefrabbi, over grave concerns about future of British Jewry from the ‘poison’ of #Antisemitism engulfing @UKLabour & @jeremycorbyn’s leadership.

What sad indictment it has come to this! #GeneralElection2019 pic.twitter.com/q67yuge5QV
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 26, 2019

Idea laundering and anti-Israel academia

Peter Boghossian at the Wall Street Journal writes ‘Idea Laundering’ in Academia about how academia pretty much makes things up while pretending that they are following some sort of scientific method.

I hate to publish the entire article which is behind a paywall, but it all hangs together:

You’ve almost certainly heard some of the following terms: cisgender, fat shaming, heteronormativity, intersectionality, patriarchy, rape culture and whiteness.

The reason you’ve heard them is that politically engaged academicians have been developing concepts like these for more than 30 years, and all that time they’ve been percolating. Only recently have they begun to emerge in mainstream culture. These academicians accomplish this by passing off their ideas as knowledge; that is, as if these terms describe facts about the world and social reality. And while some of these ideas may contain bits of truth, they aren’t scientific. By and large, they’re the musings of ideologues.

How did this happen? How have those working in what’s come to be called “grievance studies” managed to extend their ideas far beyond the academy, while convincing people that their jargon adds something meaningful to public discourse? Biologist Bret Weinstein, who was run out of Evergreen State College by a leftist mob in 2017, calls the process “idea laundering.”

It’s analogous to money laundering. Here’s how it works: First, various academics have strong moral impulses about something. For example, they perceive negative attitudes about obesity in society, and they want to stop people from making the obese feel bad about their condition. In other words, they convince themselves that the clinical concept of obesity (a medical term) is merely a story we tell ourselves about fat (a descriptive term); it’s not true or false—in this particular case, it’s a story that exists within a social power dynamic that unjustly ascribes authority to medical knowledge.

Second, academics who share these sentiments start a peer-reviewed periodical such as Fat Studies—an actual academic journal. They organize Fat Studies like every other academic journal, with a board of directors, a codified submission process, special editions with guest editors, a pool of credentialed “experts” to vet submissions, and so on. The journal’s founders, allies and collaborators then publish articles in Fat Studies and “grow” their journal. Soon, other academics with similar beliefs submit papers, which are accepted or rejected. Ideas and moral impulses go in, knowledge comes out. Voilà!

Eventually, after activist scholars petition university libraries to carry the journal, making it financially viable for a large publisher like Taylor & Francis, Fat Studies becomes established. Before long, there’s an extensive canon of academic work—ideas, prejudice, opinion and moral impulses—that has been laundered into “knowledge.”

They then have an answer when one asks the obvious question: “How could fat be just a narrative? There’s overwhelming medical evidence—A1Cs, the surge of type-2 diabetes, demonstrable risk factors—reliably indicating that excess fat is a health hazard. This has nothing to do with ‘stories we tell ourselves’ or ‘societal power structures,’ and instead directly corresponds to facts about the human body.”

In response, grievance scholars point to articles in the peer-reviewed journal Fat Studies: “Toward a Fat Pedagogy: A Study of Pedagogical Approaches Aimed at Challenging Obesity Discourse in Post-Secondary Education.” Not knowing any better, and seeing a veneer of scholarly rigor and scientific peer review, people reasonably assume that such articles are trustworthy sources of knowledge. (They assume this because it’s how the peer-reviewed process has traditionally worked: Academics try to disconfirm or falsify claims, as opposed to seeking support for them.) These articles tell us that obesity is but a narrative and there are other narratives, such as being healthy at every size, and there’s no reason to “privilege” one narrative over another.

It doesn’t stop there. Grievance scholars then use articles like those published in Fat Studies to credential themselves and receive promotion and tenure. They proceed—from the safety of professorships they’ll hold for life—to design courses around this literature. They test students on the material, marking answers right or wrong according to how closely they replicate the laundered ideas.

Within their academic ecosystems, grievance scholars hire new faculty members with similar moral commitments who’ve written for the same journals. Eventually, they institutionalize their ideas in the larger academic system. This process, which has been propagating laundered ideas for at least three decades, now has enough “scholarship” behind it to have a significant cultural impact.

Students leave the academy believing they know things they do not know. They bring this “knowledge” to their places of employment where, over time, laundered ideas and the terminology that accompanies them become normative—giving them even more unearned legitimacy. And this is why you’ve heard some of the terms we began with: cisgender, fat shaming, heteronormativity, intersectionality, patriarchy, rape culture, and whiteness. They’ve been laundered through the peer-reviewed literature by activist scholars, then widely taught for years, before being brought into the world.

Now, at least, you won’t mistake them for knowledge.

This is exactly the pattern done by anti-Israel academics. Someone makes up a concept like "settler colonialism" and within years it is a recognized field of study, where opinion is presented as fact and previous papers are treated as legitimate no matter how sloppy they are, as long as they agree with what the current author "feels" must be true. Ideas like "Israel is an apartheid state" or "Zionism is racism" or "violent resistance is legitimate" or "Israel engages in pinkwashing" are accepted as not only true, but proven, because of previous papers by Israel haters.Then the more adventurous academics try to extend this house of cards into new areas - if Zionism is racism, then maybe it is sexism, too! Can I define "Israeli apartheid" as a form of genocide?

Over time, just as the article notes, absurd concepts become accepted in academia, and then when the time is ripe, it starts spilling into the real world, where people who think they know something because they read some papers are free to spout their opinions in op-eds - which are eager to publish writings of "experts" as they present themselves.

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No, fighting racism nowadays has nothing to do with fighting antisemitism

Huffington Post UK has an article critical of Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis' editorial about the Labour Party's antisemitism. While the author, Em Hilton, acknowledges that this antisemitism exists, she asserts that the Tory party is worse

Hilton engages in one of those progressive tropes that sound reasonable but in fact is not true at all:

If we truly want to root out ant-Semitism [sic], we must fight Islamophobia, xenophobia and all other forms of racism along with it. ...The best way to fight anti-Semitism is through building solidarity with those who are also on the frontline of fighting racism...

It sounds like it should be true, right? Bigotry is bad no matter whether the victims are Jewish, black, Muslim or women, and it stands to reason that they should be fought the same way.

It isn't true.

People who identify as people of color generally don't look at Jews as their fellow victims. They look at Jews as their oppressors. The only coin of the realm of identity politics and grievance studies is perceived victimhood, and all victims have oppressors. In the US at least, Jews do not have the obstacles that people of color or women have.

Unlike every other victim of bigotry, Jews are hated in modern times because they are perceived to have too much power.

Fighting racism and sexism is a struggle for gaining a fair share of power; fighting antisemitism is not. It is a fight against pure, illogical, unbridled hate often disguised as a fight for fairness and equality. The two types of bigotries are not only different - they can be perceived as contradictory.

Some 30% of blacks and Hispanics in America are antisemitic. How, exactly, can racism and antisemitism be tackled together when the victims of each consider the other to be the oppressors?

"Progressive" spaces like the women's movement have their own problems with antisemitism, disguised as solidarity with Palestinians under the rubric of intersectionality, which consciously excludes Jews from its list of victims of bigotry. When a "progressive" group like Women's March excludes liberal Zionists but includes bigots from the Nation of Islam, it loses any claim to care about antisemitism.

Whether we like it or not, the tools and methods to fight antisemitism are completely different than those to fight other bigotries. And when the fight against other types of bigotry helps enable antisemitism, then the methodology being used is immoral.

When the methodology is victimhood, the implication is that every victim of bigotry has an oppressor who is immoral for doing that to them. When you look at the world through that lens, Jews - especially Zionist Jews - are always perceived to be the oppressors. As such, within the context of a grievance culture, Jews are deserving of punishment, and cannot ever be considered victims in their own right. The grievance and victimhood mentality subtly encourages antisemitism.

What is needed is an overhaul of how bigotry is fought. The yardstick cannot be victimhood, but equality. Everyone should treat everyone else with respect and judge them to the same standards as everyone else. There can no divide between victims and oppressors because the victims in one context can be oppressors in another. People need to concentrate on what they can do, not how they were wronged.

This would require a complete overhaul on how bigotry is fought. Then, and only then, can antisemitism be fought at the same time as racism, xenophobia, ageism, sexism and other bigotries.

Since the current cult of victimhood is not going away any time soon, antisemitism must be fought on a different playing field than other bigotries. No one is immune from the disease of Jew-hatred, including Jews themselves.

Claiming that antisemitism is just another bigotry ends up too often not only making Jews into the victims, but justifying it.

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11/26 Link Pt1: PA closes schools - tells children to participate in Day of Rage; Palestinian Refusal to Negotiate Dooms Peace Process; Lindsey Graham, Ron Dermer endorse US-Israel defense treaty

From Ian:

PMW: PA closes schools - tells children to participate in Day of Rage

Following US State Secretary Pompeo’s announcement that the US no longer views Israeli settlements in the West Bank as “inconsistent with international law,” Palestinian leaders called on their people to participate in a “Day of Rage” today and to continue Day of Rage activities to protest against the alleged “Zionist-American plots”:
“The [PLO] factions… called on their activists and our people to take part in these [Day of Rage] activities, which will begin during the week in order to express our people’s opposition to all of the Zionist-American plots against the Palestinian cause.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 25, 2019]

Fatah official Jamal Muhaisen announced that the Day of Rage activities are part of “a comprehensive program of struggle,” and promised that it will end in terror – “a comprehensive intifada”:
“Fatah Movement Central Committee member Jamal Muhaisen said that the day of rage is the start of a comprehensive program of struggle to deal with the American-Israeli steps, even to the point of a comprehensive intifada against the occupation’s crimes.”

To enable children to participate in the Day of Rage activities, the PA Ministry of Education closed all its schools for one hour in the middle of the day:
“The [PA] Ministry of Education emphasized… that it is necessary to participate in the activities, and that studies at the schools will be stopped from 11:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. so that there will be active participation in the mass marches and the activities that will be organized against these unfair decisions.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 26, 2019]

Fatah official Muhaisen recently expressed his concurrence that violence and terror are effective Palestinian tools and instructed Palestinians to “benefit from” the previous terror waves, as Palestinian Media Watch reported last week.

The Palestinian 'Day of Rage' in the West Bank

Palestinian rioters hurled rocks at Israeli security forces on Tuesday, in part of the “Day of Rage” protest organized by Fatah party throughout cities in the West Bank, Hebrew-language outlet Walla News reported. Protests are being held in Tulkarem, Ramallah, Hebron and Nablus, among others. No casualties were reported thus far. The protests are aimed against “unjust US resolutions, which have violated international conventions and law. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's remarks on Israeli settlements are contrary to international law,” a Fatah statement read.

No, Israel Does Not Target Palestinian Children

The third way we know that accusing Israel of targeting Palestinian children crosses the line into antisemitism is the way in which, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it paints Israel as an evil entity that either specifically targets children, or doesn’t care if children get targeted.

Bernie Sanders’ surrogate Linda Sarsour tweeted as much recently when she said Israel has “stripped the Palestinians of their humanity to justify the indiscriminate killings including of children. Half of the population of Gaza ARE CHILDREN.”

In reality, Israel’s military goes to unprecedented levels to reduce casualties. The Israel Defense Forces emphasizes “purity of arms” and consistently works to avoid harm by distributing flyers and sending text messages to Gazans alerting them of impending airstrikes, even using non-explosive “roof-knocking” projectiles to warn residents who may not have vacated the area.

Col. Richard Kemp, national security expert and former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, has spoken at great length to this very point. So has former U.S. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, who praised Israel’s measures to reduce civilian casualties. In the latest round of violence, these measures explain why adult males (considered by Israel to be combatants) constituted the vast majority of casualties.

So if accusations made by Patel, McCollum, Tlaib and others are so far from the truth, one has to wonder why they continue pushing this narrative. The simple answer is that such claims are modern incarnations of centuries-old blood libels, antisemitic slander that falsely accused Jews of killing Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals. Circulating throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, this formed the basis for countless anti-Jewish pogroms.

Proportionately critiquing Israel’s military actions in the interest of reducing civilian casualties and the detention of Palestinian children is completely legitimate, if not encouraged.

Israel should — and I expect will — continue to take great measures to minimize collateral damage. However, to suggest that Israel purposefully and maliciously targets innocent children is plainly antisemitic. When espoused by elected officials no less, it impedes any genuine debate about how to reduce child suffering during conflict.

I've been watching Palestinian news sources for dramatic video of today's "Day of Rage" and so far haven't seen much beyond some city marches, tire fires, slingshots and tear gas.

Here is some of what is being broadcast.

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Terrorist Sami Abu Diak was sentenced to three life sentences for voluntary manslaughter and kidnapping.

He just died in Israeli prison of cancer - and Mahmoud Abbas is holding Israel responsible for his death.

His Palestinian Authority’s Prisoners Affairs Commission accused Israel of a "policy of deliberate and systematic clinical killings by the (Israel) Prison Services.”

No one even blinks at these absurd lies from a wannabe nation.

Since he was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2015, Abu Diak he underwent surgery to remove 83 cm of his large intestine. Afterwards he had four more surgeries, paid by Israel, to remove tumors from his intestine.

Five expensive surgeries in hospitals superior to any Abu Diak would have access to at home isn't exactly the most efficient way to kill someone with fast growing cancer.

Mahmoud Abbas and his government might be dysfunctional but they have raised the art of lying to levels rarely seen.

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Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis wrote an article in the Times UK about how bad a Jeremy Corbyn government would be for Jews.

Mirvis has never ventured into politics before. It is clear that he didn't want to write this but felt he had to.

He is now getting mercilessly attacked on Twitter by the very antisemites he is warning against.

The Times UK is paywalled. Here is the full text of his article from his Facebook account.

-------------------
Elections should be a celebration of democracy. However, just a few weeks before we go to the polls, the overwhelming majority of British Jews are gripped by anxiety.

During the past few years, on my travels through the length and breadth of the UK and further afield, one concern has been expressed to me more than any other. Of course, the threats of the far right and violent jihadism never go away, but the question I am now most frequently asked is: What will become of Jews and Judaism in Britain if the Labour Party forms the next government?

This anxiety is understandable and justified.

Raising concerns about anti-Jewish racism in the context of a general election ranks amongst the most painful moments I have experienced since taking office. Convention dictates that the Chief Rabbi stays well away from party politics – and rightly so. However, challenging racism in all its forms is not a matter of politics, it goes well beyond that. Wherever there is evidence of it, including in any of our political parties, it must be swiftly rooted out. Hateful prejudice is always wrong, whoever the perpetrator, whoever the victim.

The Jewish community has endured the deep discomfort of being at the centre of national political attention for nearly four years. We have been treated by many as an irritant, as opposed to a minority community with genuine concerns. Some politicians have shown courage but too many have sat silent. We have learned the hard way that speaking out means that we will be demonised by faceless social media trolls and accused of being partisan or acting in bad faith by those who still think of this as an orchestrated political smear.

Yet, I ask myself: should the victims of racism be silenced by the fear of yet further vilification?

Therefore, with the heaviest of hearts, I call upon the citizens of our great country to study what has been unfolding before our very eyes.

We sit powerless, watching with incredulity as supporters of the Labour leadership have hounded parliamentarians, party members and even staff out of the party for facing down anti-Jewish racism. Even as they received unspeakable threats against themselves and their families, the response of the Labour Leadership was utterly inadequate.

We have endured quibbling and prevarication over whether the party should adopt the most widely accepted definition of antisemitism in the world. When the breakthrough came it was not without amendments, suggesting Labour knows more about antisemitism than Jewish people do.

Now, astonishingly, we await the outcome of a formal investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission into whether discrimination by the party against Jews has become an institutional problem. And all of this whilst in opposition. What should we expect of them in government?

The way in which the leadership of the Labour Party has dealt with anti-Jewish racism is incompatible with the British values of which we are so proud – of dignity and respect for all people. It has left many decent Labour members and parliamentarians, both Jewish and non-Jewish, ashamed of what has transpired.

The claims by leadership figures in the Labour Party that it is “doing everything” it reasonably can to tackle the scourge of anti-Jewish racism and that it has “investigated every single case”, are a mendacious fiction. According to the Jewish Labour Movement, there are at least 130 outstanding cases currently before the party – some dating back years and thousands more have been reported but remain unresolved.

The party leadership have never understood that their failure is not just one of procedure, which can be remedied with additional staff or new processes. It is a failure to see this as a human problem rather than a political one. It is a failure of culture. It is a failure of leadership. A new poison – sanctioned from the very top – has taken root in the Labour Party.

Many members of the Jewish community can hardly believe that this is the same party that they proudly called their political home for more than a century. It can no longer claim to be the party of diversity, equality and anti-racism. This is the Labour Party in name only.

How far is too far? How complicit in prejudice would a leader of Her Majesty’s opposition have to be in order to be considered unfit for high office?

Would associations with those who have openly incited hatred against Jews be enough? Would support for a racist mural, depicting powerful hook-nosed Jews supposedly getting rich at the expense of the weak and downtrodden be enough? Would describing as “friends” those who endorse and even perpetrate the murder of Jews be enough? It seems not. What we do know from history is that what starts with the Jews, never ends with the Jews.

It is not my place to tell any person how they should vote. I regret being in this situation at all. I simply pose the following question: What will the result of this election say about the moral compass of our country?

When December 12th arrives, I ask every person to vote with their conscience.

Be in no doubt – the very soul of our nation is at stake.

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