Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 12, 2019

12/12 Links Pt1: Jewish Blood on the Streets of Jersey City; The Silence Surrounding Violence Against Us Orthodox Jews Is Deafening; Could Jordan’s Economic Crisis Solve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?

From Ian:

Jewish Blood on the Streets of Jersey City

In the early afternoon, after the governor and mayor had come and gone, Rabbi David Niederman, the president of United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and one of the public faces of the city’s Satmar communities, arrived on the scene. I followed him and various leaders of the Jersey City community up that side stairway and into the first floor of the school, where dozens of children had been hiding in fear just a day earlier, and where a massacre beyond all imagination might have been narrowly avoided. There was a board game half out of its box, and cards strewn across one of the hallways. A single page of cursive Yiddish handwritten on notebook paper sat at my feet.

Niederman, who was likely in the midst of one of the most intense and complicated days of his life, had appeared at a press conference with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio just a couple hours earlier. He ate an egg salad sandwich and then said birkat hamazon under his breath.

Niederman had tirelessly sounded the alarm about the frequent attacks and harassment of Jews in Williamsburg. It was important for him to come to Jersey City as soon as he could, he said, because “my brother and my sister were killed here.”

In his experience, the attack was not a single, shocking incident of violence but rather the latest episode in a year-and-a-half-long period in which a Haredi Jew was hit, beaten, or threatened on the streets of New York on what felt like a monthly and then a weekly basis. That the steady drumbeat of attacks on Jews had finally turned deadly left him with a feeling of inevitability, exhaustion, and waste. “It’s incremental,” Niederman said of the worsening attacks. “The target moves.”

Niederman had a message for the non-Haredi Jews who form the vast majority of New York’s incredibly diverse Jewish community. “Don’t think that because you don’t have a kippa and you don’t dress like the Hasidim that you are safe,” he said. “Speak out, and say anti-Semitism has to be stopped, no matter who the recipient of the anti-Semitic acts are. Say: Those are our brothers and sisters. It’s our brothers and sisters, and people should start understanding that they are also Jewish, and therefore they can be next on the line.”

Jersey City rampage victims remembered as generous Satmar community members

Two of the Jewish victims of the Jersey City shooting rampage were remembered on Wednesday as a dedicated mother of five “full of love,” and a charitable young member of the Satmar Hasidic community who was involved in the founding of the local yeshiva.

A police officer, three bystanders and the two suspects all died in the violence Tuesday afternoon in Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from New York City. Two of the bystanders have been identified by local community members as Leah Mindel Ferencz, 33, and Moshe Deutsch, 24, both members of the local ultra-Orthodox community.

The 40-year-old slain officer, Detective Joseph Seals, who led the department in the number of illegal guns removed from the streets in recent years, was cut down by gunfire that erupted near a cemetery. The gunmen then drove a stolen rental van to another part of the city and engaged police in a lengthy shootout from inside the kosher market, where the five other bodies were later found.

Ferencz, 33, was part-owner of JC Kosher Supermarket. Shortly before the gunmen stormed the store, her husband, Moishe, went to the synagogue next door to pray, according to Chabad Rabbi Moshe Schapiro.

Thousands mourn at funerals of 2 Jewish victims of Jersey City shooting

Thousands of mourners took to the streets of Brooklyn and Jersey City late Wednesday for the funerals of Mindel Ferencz, 31, and 24-year-old Moshe Deutsch, who were killed in the kosher store shooting.

In Brooklyn, thousands of mostly men followed Ferencz’s casket through the streets hugging and crying. Many prayed. She was later laid to rest in Jersey City, where she had made her home in recent years and ran the grocery with her husband.

Thousands also accompanied Deutsch, a rabbinical student from Brooklyn who was shopping at the grocery when the assailants entered. The funeral service was held at the Satmar Beit Midrash in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Eulogies, in Yiddish, were broadcast to the crowds who filled the roads and stairs of homes along the route, with many sobbing and wailing.

At the funeral of Moshe Dautsch, murdered yesterday in the kosher grocery yesterday in Jersey City. This should not be. pic.twitter.com/oDQnRDt8kN
— Motti Seligson (@mottiseligson) December 12, 2019

Police provided escorts to both funerals.

The prospect of attacks against Jews weighed heavily on the more than 300 people who attended a vigil Wednesday night at a synagogue about a mile from where the shootings took place.

“I think maybe we have two parts of our brain,” said Temple Beth-El president Tom Rosensweet. “One part is absolutely not expecting something like this to happen in Jersey City, but the other part knows we have to be careful.”

I reported yesterday about a survey of Arabs throughout the Middle East by Transparency International that showed that Palestinians see their government as very corrupt, among the worst in the region.

The Palestinian Authority set up an anti-corruption commission about 14 years ago to supposedly fight corruption. The building looks very impressive. But how did the commission respond to this survey?

With denial and whining, of course.

Instead of saying that they will study the matter, they said that the methodology of the report was bad (many Arab countries were not included so they say their rankings aren't really so bad.)

They blame the sextortion reports in the survey as being all in Gaza under Hamas, and nothing to do with their bosses in Ramallah.

It said, "The report does not reflect the reality, and came in light of the cut in salaries and the difficult conditions experienced by the Palestinian people."

In short, the commission whose entire job is to root out corruption washed its hands of having to investigate a major report of corruption.

For all of the hundreds of reporters and NGOs in Israel and in the Palestinian territories, no one seems much interested in reporting stories like this. Corruption in an entity that receives billions of dollars from the West is not considered as newsworthy as Jews building a house.

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Palestinian Americans and Leftist Jews push vision of a Jew-free (and improbably progressive) "Palestine" from the river to the sea

Israel-haters pretending to be Palestinian activists in the US have started a new initiative to create a vision for a Jew-free Middle East while pretending to be progressive.

The "Justice for All" campaign, on a new website called "FreedomFuture.org," was set up by the BDSers from the Adalah Justice Project and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Together with many partners like Jewish Voice for Peace, the American Friends Service Committee, the Democratic Socialists of America they have a list of "demands" that use all he correct "progressive" buzzwords while building a case to ethnically cleanse Jews from the river to the sea, meaning an entire Middle East that is Judenfrei.

Demands include Palestinian self-determination (including in Israel), the "right of return" (where there is full freedom for Palestinians to live wherever they want but Jews have no such right,) "freedom for all Palestinians" which is just a veiled accusation that Israel discriminates against all non-Jews, and the "the right to resist our oppression" in which they never say that "resistance" is only peaceful - meaning it includes terrorism.

All of these codewords have been used for years to fool liberals into thinking that destroying the Jewish state is a valorous cause.

One demand absurdly says they want "the freedom to build our own just and liberated society that is free of classism, patriarchy, homophobia, racism, ableism, and bigotry in all forms."

Surveys have shown that Palestinians are among the the least liberal people on the planet. An astonishing 89% of Palestinian Muslims say they want Sharia to be the law of the land - and most of them approve of stoning for adultery and chopping off hands for theft. 89% say homosexuality is morally unacceptable and 92% say drinking alcohol is immoral. 37% say "honor killings" are justified.

It is had to imagine a less tolerant state than the one that Palestinians in the PA and Hamas controlled areas themselves want - these numbers are in Taliban territory.

These so-called progressives do not lift a finger to help Palestinians change their xenophobic, antisemitic and intolerant attitudes. Instead, they are gaslighting uninformed liberals in the West into thinking a Palestinian state would be a beacon of light and equality.

The entire initiative is meant to ethnically cleanse Jews from the area. Indeed, nowhere in the entire website does it even pretend to say that Jews would live as equals in the Palestinian state they "demand." This is intolerance disguised as progressivism, and it is a shame that so few true liberals call them on it.

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It is way past time to talk about antisemitism in the black community

There is antisemitism on the Right.

There is antisemitism on the Left.

There is antisemitism in the Arab world.

And there is antisemitism among blacks and Hispanics.

They have some things in common, but there is no "one size fits all" for each of them.

The problem is that this last category of antisemitism is the one that no one wants to talk about. Blacks are framed as perpetual victims in the media - and in many ways they really are - but the narrative cannot accommodate the victims as being the bigots against Jews.

There was a shocking video that came out after the Jersey City shootings showing truly evil antisemitic attitudes by the black community against the Jews who live there. One hopes this is not representative - but it shouldn't be swept under the rug, either.

SHOCKING VIDEO: As Jewish bodies were still laying in cold blood after being murdered by terrorists in Jersey City, a rep of @AmericansAA captured spontaneous antisemitic tirades blaming Jews for their own murder & ppl cheering it on!

Antisemitism, a bigger problem than appears. pic.twitter.com/WHmLtxANAE
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) December 11, 2019

The good news is that black antisemitism has been steadily decreasing in recent decades. Some 37% of blacks had antisemitic attitudes in the early 1990s, but since 2007 it has been bouncing in the mid 20s:

This is still significantly higher than the antisemitic attitudes of the general population (which is still way too high at 14%.)

Hispanic Americans born in the US are somewhat less antisemitic; those born abroad much worse:

Black antisemitism has different factors. Historic views of Jews as greedy landlords and the influence of the Nation of Islam on the community are among them. Jamie Kirchick in Commentary last year identified two trends: "neighborhood" antisemitism from Jews often being the only white people inner city blacks would meet and becoming the lightning rod for all resentment, and "conspiratorial" antisemitism pushed by Louis Farrakhan and others that the Jews have control over the nation or even the weather. It is a very worthwhile article to read.

I also recommend a 1992 New York Times op-ed by Henry Louis Gates Jr. about the rise of black antisemitism at that time. He also divides up black antisemitism into two parts that roughly correspnd with Kirchick's:

We must begin by recognizing what is new about the new anti-Semitism. Make no mistake: this is anti-Semitism from the top down, engineered and promoted by leaders who affect to be speaking for a larger resentment. This top-down anti-Semitism, in large part the province of the better educated classes, can thus be contrasted with the anti-Semitism from below common among African American urban communities in the 1930's and 40's, which followed in many ways a familiar pattern of clientelistic hostility toward the neighborhood vendor or landlord.

Gates exposes how black pseudo-intellectuals were able to provide the "new anti-semitism" with a veneer of respectability, including the Nation of Islam's influential and utterly false book about the supposed Jewish slave trade.

He concludes eloquently:

Bigotry, as a tragic century has taught us, is an opportunistic infection, attacking most virulently when the body politic is in a weakened state. Yet neither should those who care about black America gloss over what cannot be condoned: that much respect we owe to ourselves. For surely it falls to all of us to recapture the basic insight that Dr. King so insistently expounded. "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality," he told us. "Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly." How easy to forget this -- and how vital to remember.

Black antisemitism has different sources than other strains, and it requires different methods to fight it. It cannot be fought unless it can be admitted and discussed. And this is where the Left, who claim to care so much about antisemitism, has failed terribly.

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Trump Gets it Right about Antisemitism (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

(Note: This was written before we all found out that there was nothing in the executive order that described Jews as a nationality. - EoZ)

President Trump is expected to issue an executive order that Jews should be treated as a “nationality*” as well as a religious group. This means that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans the use of federal funds for programs or activities that discriminate on the basis of “race, color, or national origin,” will now apply to antisemitism. And an administration official has said that the government would use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which the State Department adopted in 2016, as a working definition of antisemitism (a previous working definition in use from 2010 is similar in relevant respects).

This is a big deal, because the extreme anti-Zionism (misoziony) that characterizes the discourse on many Western colleges and universities clearly falls under the IHRA definition, which specifically mentions

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis...

which are all the bread and butter of Students for Justice in Palestine, as well as countless other anti-Israel organizations. Of course, antisemitism in the form of assaults, discrimination, and other more subtle forms of harassment in the guise of “free expression” – incidentally, things that would never be tolerated if their object were other minorities – also will be able to trigger a shutoff of federal funds.

Naturally, the usual suspects are outraged. Some of the outrage comes from those who would be outraged if Trump were to issue an order recognizing motherhood and apple pie, because he is Trump. Halie Soifer of the Jewish Democratic Council of America accused Trump of “hypocrisy,” blamed him for “emboldening white nationalism, perpetuating anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and repeating stereotypes that have led to violence targeting Jews.” Even if these accusations were true (I am convinced that they are not), they are irrelevant to the reasonableness of this executive order.

But there are more substantive objections. They either deny that Jews are a nationality, or they object to the IHRA definition, usually saying it limits free speech by conflating “legitimate” anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Let’s take the issue of nationality first.

One group that objects to the idea that Jews are a people or a nationality, of course, is the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, who have always insisted that “Jewish” refers only to a religion, not a nation. They have therefore refused to accept the “two states for two peoples” formula or to recognize that Israel is the state of the Jewish people. This is one of the main reasons that the Palestinians have never accepted any of the generous offers of statehood proffered to them. Interestingly, there is also a strong current of “nationhood denial” among liberal American Jews. Some seem to think that attributing nationhood to the Jewish people would mean that they would somehow be “less American.” But of course nobody believes that granting this status to Italian-Americans would make them less American, or that Title VI doesn’t apply to discrimination against them.

This prejudice in the diaspora against the idea of Jewish nationhood goes back to the late 18^th and early 19^th century when Jews were first beginning to acquire rights in newly-enlightened Europe. The spectre of their “dual loyalty” to their country of residence and to the Jewish nation quickly arose. In 1789, the French Count of Clermont-Tonnerre, in a speech about the treatment of minorities in the new Republic, said “[w]e must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation, and accord everything to the Jews as individuals.” Let them have their religion and their quaint customs, but their national loyalty can only be to France.

Many Jews were happy to agree. In Germany, the newly-created Reform Movement adopted the idea of being “Germans of the Mosaic Persuasion,” nationally identical to their neighbors of the Lutheran persuasion. In America, the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform of the American Reform Movement included this unequivocal statement: “[w]e consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.” By 1999, their platform refers to the Jews as “a people.” But many liberal Jews, uncomfortable about the possibility (and often the actuality) of accusations of dual loyalty, take pains to insist that they do not see themselves as anything other than Americans (or Canadians, or Britons). Their Jewishness is only a matter of religion, ethnicity, or some cultural artifacts.

They have a right to say that if they wish, and to distance themselves from the Jewish nation, but they do not have the right to say that there is no Jewish nation. The Jewish people, in fact, are the paradigm case of a nation: if you want to know what the characteristics of a nation are, look at the Jews. The Jewish people have

1.      A common geographical origin and a connection to their aboriginal home.
2.      A shared genetic heritage.
3.      A unique ancestral language.
4.      A unique religion.
5.      A shared culture.
6.      A shared historical experience.
7.    Self-identification as a nation.

It’s ironic that the Palestinian Arabs, who have multiple origins, a relatively short period of shared history, no unique language or religion, a culture based entirely on opposition to the Jews, and who have only self-identified as a nation since the mid-1960s, have the chutzpah to deny nationhood to the Jewish people!

What about the argument that the IHRA definition conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism and thus limits speech that is critical of Israel? Despite what some say, it is actually quite easy to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism. The criteria were provided by Natan Sharansky, who called it the “3D Test of Antisemitism.” I’ll quote him:

The first "D" is the test of demonization. When the Jewish state is being demonized; when Israel's actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz - this is anti- Semitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel.

The second "D" is the test of double standards. When criticism of Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored; when Israel's Magen David Adom, alone among the world's ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross - this is anti-Semitism.

The third "D" is the test of delegitimization: when Israel's fundamental right to exist is denied - alone among all peoples in the world - this too is anti-Semitism.

I call irrational, extreme hatred of Israel misoziony. Misoziony is a form of antisemitism, the traditional Jew-hatred raised to a higher level of abstraction. And there is no better test for misoziony than Sharansky’s 3D criteria, which are implicit in the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. There is no reason to oppose the IHRA definition, except to enable antisemites to disguise their poison as legitimate political speech.

The growing phenomenon of antisemitism in Western universities – where it usually takes the form of misoziony – has given rise to a great deal of consternation and hand-wringing on the part of university administrators, who have in general done nothing practical to reduce it. Yet again, Donald Trump has come along and cut what appeared to be a Gordian Knot, just as he did when he finally fulfilled the promise of the US Congress to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.

And just as they did last May, Jewish progressives displayed their remarkable ability to cut off their own noses to spite their faces.
______________________________________
* It should be understood that “nationality” is used in the older and broader sense of belonging to a people, or nation, and not in the narrow modern sense of citizenship in a country.

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12/11 Links Pt2: Douglas Murray: Labour’s anti-Semitism shame must never be forgiven; Left labels Trump an anti-Semite for defending Jews; 15 Former Labour MPs Sign Letter Saying Don't Vote Labour

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Labour’s anti-Semitism shame must never be forgiven

As I say, I could easily go on. Anyone could. And for those who are still inclined to vote for the Labour party on Thursday perhaps nothing can now be said. They include people who hate the Conservative party and think that they must always vote Labour for tribal reasons. And they include people who think that whatever the unpleasantness that may linger around Corbyn and McDonnell and co it can be put down as a second order of business after the priority of getting the Conservative party out of office.

Well, I would like to make another suggestion. Jeremy Corbyn will lose this election and every effort should be put into ensuring that he loses it big: that what happens on Thursday is not just a defeat, but a defeat of such crushing totality for the Labour party that it takes it years to recover. It should be such a defeat that it is not possible for a Keir Starmer or Emily Thornberry to simply pick up the reins and go back to business as usual. Other left-wing parties may emerge and flourish. But the Labour party must never be forgiven for what it has offered to the public at this election. What Corbyn has brought into the mainstream has toxified Britain and the party that allowed it to happen should be held to account.

Nor should his wider rabble of supporters simply be allowed to slip away. Instead, they should each themselves be held accountable for what they have done – as the Mosley-ites were in the ‘30s. All those Labour MPs who decided to support Corbyn because he was the leader that they had. All the weird media creations who have popped up on the television day-after-day (with no identifiable credentials other than brute loyalty or loyalty to a brute). And all those columnists and ‘journalists’ of the left who pretend that they have spent their lives ‘tackling’ racism only to spend recent years campaigning for the most racist force in British politics to gain power and making Britain a pariah among the nations.

In 1936, it was a former Labour MP who had to be stood up to by the Jews of Britain and their friends. In 2019, it is the serving leader of the Labour party who has to be stood up to. It is Jeremy Corbyn who must be stood up to with those historic words: ‘They shall not pass’.

The virtue of vengeance

With the alt-right’s nighttime, torchlit march on Charlottesville, where chants of “Jews will not replace us!” could be heard, and the disruption of European soccer matches by neo-Nazis thriving across the continent, Nazis — the original brownshirts, not the modern-day wannabes — have reentered the public imagination. And with that, so, too, has the idea of vigilante justice.

In the broader culture, the Third Reich never actually left us. The evil of Nazism and depictions of its steadfast servants have always been en vogue, at least in popular culture. Whether Hogan’s Heroes in the 1960s, the television miniseries Holocaust in the 1970s, the feature films Sophie’s Choice and Schindler’s List in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively, the smash Broadway musical The Producers, which set a new Nazi-mocking tone for the millennium, or countless other artistic and documentary representations, the image of jackboots and high-handed salutes has continued to fascinate artists and audiences alike.

Now, the resurgence of a particular genre of this Nazi fixation is upon us, one that is guided by the muse of revenge. Good revenge has always gotten a bad rap.

Netflix is showcasing a new documentary, The Devil Next Door, a five-part series about John Demjanjuk, a Cleveland autoworker accused in the 1970s of being the sadistic Treblinka guard "Ivan the Terrible." The Justice Department denaturalized and extradited him to Israel, where he was tried and found guilty, only to be sent back when new evidence was introduced that cast doubt that he was, in fact, Ivan the Terrible. Regardless, he was still a guard in a death camp. On that allegation, he was eventually extradited to Germany, where he was found guilty (he died while awaiting appeal).

There’s more. Bestselling novelist Joseph Kanon’s latest thriller is The Accomplice, which revolves around an aging Nazi doctor suddenly recognized by one of his former victims. The Holocaust survivor’s nephew, a CIA agent, takes it upon himself to settle the score. A recently published work of nonfiction, Citizen 865: The Hunt for Hitler’s Hidden Soldiers in America, by Debbie Cenziper, describes how the United States got into the business of apprehending and deporting some of Hitler’s most notorious henchmen, who managed to reinvent themselves as unblemished American citizens.

Left labels Trump an anti-Semite for defending Jews

US President Donald Trump is expected to use the power of the presidency to sign an executive order to protect Jews from anti-Semitism on college campuses. That order will broaden the federal government's definition of anti-Semitism and instruct it to be used in enforcing laws against discrimination on campuses.

Like many issues in the US, this too rapidly became a partisan issue. While the potentially game-changing decree was embraced by Republican Jews and pro-Israel advocates, free speech activists and Democrats slammed the move.

Sen. Norm Coleman, Chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, called the executive order a “historic and important moment for Jewish Americans” and lauded the president as the “most pro-Israel” in American history.

Seffi Kogen, the global director of Young Leadership at the American Jewish Committee, took a more nuanced middle-of-the-road take:

“Let's set aside how we feel about the president. I'm a member of the Jewish nation, aren't you?” he asked on Twitter, referring to the order’s definition of Judaism which labels it not only a religion but a nationality.

Despite Jewish groups lobbying for this move for years and the Obama administration’s expansion of the federal government’s interpretation of Title VI to cover religious groups back in 2010, liberal Jews and free speech advocates demonstrated yet again that Trump can’t do anything right in their book.

How Trump’s executive order on antisemitism originated in Harry Reid’s office

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order today that will formally adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

Details: The measure, which penalizes colleges and universities under federal anti-discrimination laws if they tolerate antisemitic activities, comes in place of the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which had been stalled in Congress. The legislation would have applied the IHRA definition, which the State Department adopted in 2016, to the Department of Education. Trump’s executive order applies the definition to the Department of Justice’s enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well.

Worth noting: The groundwork for the executive order was laid in 2004 by Ken Marcus, at the time the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, and reaffirmed in 2010 by Russlynn Ali, who held the same position in the Obama administration. In a letter to colleagues at the time, Ali wrote, “While Title VI does not cover discrimination based solely on religion, 14 groups that face discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics may not be denied protection under Title VI on the ground that they also share a common faith.” Ali listed Jews, Muslims and Sikhs among the groups facing discrimination.

Behind the scenes: Wednesday’s signing is the culmination of a multi-year effort led by an influential group of Democrats and a private equity businessman from New York. Five years ago, Apollo Global Management co-founder Marc Rowan visited then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Washington to discuss the rise of antisemitism. Attendees at the meeting included Reid’s chief of staff, David Krone, and super-lobbyist Norm Brownstein, a longtime Jewish community leader from Denver. Reid proposed the idea of pushing a wider adoption of the State Department’s definition and Rowan, Krone and Brownstein spent the next five years building a coalition of organizations to push legislation through Congress. Reid himself continued to work on the issue even after leaving the Senate, including hosting a town hall on antisemitism in Las Vegas earlier this year.

Angela Merkel visited Auschwitz, said she was ashamed, and pledged 60 million euros to the site’s museum. In theory, this should have been gratifying, a tangible expression of German national atonement for the Holocaust. It comes close, in fact, to the teshuva, tefilla, and tzedaka* prerequisites of Jewish atonement, if you substitute a pilgrimage for the prayer. There was, after all, a public admission of shame, and a large donation, to boot.

But for me, and perhaps others like me, the entire exercise fell flat.

For one thing, it seemed like throwing money at the dead. The dead can’t use the money. It can’t help them and does nothing for them. The money doesn’t really do anything for the survivors or the Jewish people, either.

For another thing, the symbolic number seemed, in particular, a tone-deaf effort. Like, “We killed 6 million of you, but we gave ten times that much to charity, so that’s all right then.”

Mostly, though, I just had this image of Germans throwing lots and lots of euros at a mass grave, the wind blowing the paper bills thither and yon. Uselessly. Like a danse macabre of money in lieu of actual people.

Danse Macabre ou danse des morts, Fresques de l'Abbaye de la Chaise-Dieu, Auvergne, Adrien Dauzats (1804-1868)

Which brings us to another reason to look askance at the visit and donation. Would it not have been better for Merkel to donate the money to Israel; perhaps to alleviate the condition of those Israelis who suffer from nutritional insecurity and hunger?

We all know the photos of the skeletal inmates of Auschwitz. A donation to feed and sustain hungry Jews in Israel would seem to be a closer counterbalance to the images branded on our collective mind’s eye, forever.

No. Nothing can repair that: what happened, what they did. But building Jews (and not museums) is certainly the opposite of murdering them.

And since we are speaking of how German money might properly be spent, we come to the final reason that Merkel’s PR journey to Auschwitz is so galling. That would be the millions of euros the German federal government gives to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS); to anti-Israel organizations like Miftah (the sponsor of the Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib anti-Israel tour that wasn’t) and Adalah; and affiliates of outright terror organizations like the PFLP, which is dedicated to murdering the Jews. So here's the thing: we may know that Merkel pledged 60 million euros toward the museum at Auschwitz, but we actually have no clue whatsoever how many millions of euros Germany gives to organizations dedicated to today’s version of the Final Solution. We don’t know how many millions of euros Germany currently invests in killing the Jews, because German federal funding frameworks, according to NGO Monitor, are severely lacking in transparency.

Perhaps this is by design. Because maybe there are things they don't want us to know. Sure, the Germans were meticulous record keepers during the war. They told us exactly what they did to the Jews, when they did it, and how they did it. Now, they know better. Now, they don’t want us to know how much money they still, today, invest in killing the Jews. They don't want us to know how much money they throw at the Arabs--showers of money, rivers of money--to rob the Jews of their land.

It's different today, in the shadow of history. They’d rather not tell us how much they spend to bankrupt Israelis and force them out of business. The Jews of Israel, they hope, will be so poor that they will no longer be able to buy food. Once this happens, starvation will set in, and force the Jews to leave Israel, abandoning it to the Arabs. Germany spends millions of euros on this. Millions. How many millions only Merkel and God know. Because today the German government would rather cover its tracks than have us discover how much money it still gives today to terrorists who murder Jews with missiles instead of with Zyklon B.

Germany does, on the other hand, want us to know that it will give 60 million euros to build a museum in Europe, where Germans once killed or starved the Jews on their own, instead of paying several proxy organizations to do it in their stead.

There is nothing wrong with a museum, nothing wrong with Holocaust education--we need to learn the lessons of the past. There is, however, everything wrong with funding Holocaust education with the one hand, while paying out millions to PFLP affiliates with the other. This is the Germany of today. A Germany where the federal government continues to fund the Final Solution, and does so from the same flowing money font that will fund a museum in Auschwitz.

Knowing all this, what can we understand about German atonement for the Holocaust?

*repentance, prayer, and charity

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Elder gets results, sort of (Haaretz edition)

In September, Haaretz' Gideon Levy and Alex Levac wrote an article saying that Israel was uprooting "hundreds" of olive trees, right before harvest!

Levac took a photo of one of them. Note the caption.

Regavim told me the entire story was bogus, and the trees that were uprooted were acacia saligna (coojong.)The acacias are a pest plant, hat spread quickly, planted by Palestinians for a land grab.

Who was telling the truth?

I asked Twitter what kind of tree was in the photo - taken by one of the authors. Everyone agreed it wasn't an olive tree, and some agreed it was acacia. I wrote up how Haaretz appears to be lying.

I just noticed that Haaretz corrected the caption, and even added a correction for the photo caption. But the article still claims that hundreds of olive trees were destroyed by Israel.

If one of the authors doesn't know what an olive tree looks like, why should we believe them about the other trees destroyed? No Palestinian news site showed photos of hundreds of destroyed olive trees.

Haaretz was caught in a lie, but only admitted the bare minimum it could.

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12/11 Links Pt1: Jersey City shooting suspect posted antisemitic, anti-police posts; An Unfair Attack on the JNF — From an Unlikely Source

From Ian:

One Suspect in Jersey City Carnage Posted Antisemitic Content Online, Officials Say

One of the suspects involved in Tuesday’s gun battle in Jersey City that left six people dead posted antisemitic and anti-police posts on social media, local officials said on Wednesday.

Investigators believe the attack was motivated by those sentiments, a law enforcement official familiar with the case told The New York Times on Wednesday.

Later on Wednesday, the suspects were named as David Anderson and Francine Graham. According to NBC New York, Anderson was a “one-time follower of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement.”

The developments came after Jersey City officials, including Mayor Steve Fulop, revealed that the kosher supermarket where most of the carnage took place had been “deliberately targeted,” though initial reports on Tuesday did not mention antisemitism as a motive.

and prevented the perpetrators from leaving that location and harming any further civilians. At this time we have no credible further threats from this incident but out of an abundance of caution we will be increasing our police presence in the community.
— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) December 11, 2019

Still unclear was the connection between the supermarket incident and an earlier shooting at a cemetery in another part of Jersey City.

Police said on Tuesday night that the suspected assailants killed Officer Joseph Seals in the cemetery in the city of 270,000 people, which is located across the Hudson River from Manhattan, before driving a U-Haul truck to the kosher market, where three Jews — two of whom have been identified as Leah Mindel Ferencz, 33, and Moshe Deutsch, 24 — were shot dead.

Anderson and Graham died at the kosher market in an exchange of fire with police.

Suspected Jersey City gunman said to have railed against Jews online

One of the suspected attackers in the deadly Jersey City shooting at a kosher supermarket on Tuesday railed against Jews and police officers on social media, according to a report Wednesday, as authorities indicated that the store had been targeted in the deadly incident.

A law enforcement official said police believe the shooter was motivated by the anti-Semitic and anti-police beliefs, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Details of the online posts were not provided in the article.

The two suspects, who were both killed in a shootout with police, were identified as David Anderson and Francine Graham, NBC New York quoted law enforcement sources saying.

According to the network, Anderson was once a follower of the Black Hebrew Israelites, who believe they are descendants of the ancient Israelites and may practice elements of both Judaism and Christianity.

Some Black Hebrew Israelite groups have been accused of racism and anti-Semitism.

Officials said a religious note was found in the vehicle allegedly used by Anderson and Graham but that they were still investigating a motive.

A neighbor of Graham’s in Jersey City told NBC she was formerly a home health aide in Manhattan who met Anderson after getting hurt and quitting her job. The neighbor said Graham became a “dark” person after meeting Anderson.

A YouTube channel reportedly belonging to Anderson had several playlists made up of videos with various conspiracy theories, some of which included anti-Semitic Black Hebrew Israelite theology.

Deadly attack on New Jersey Jews draws condolences, police protection

The deadly shooting at a New Jersey kosher supermarket on Tuesday drew condemnations from leaders in Israel, the US and the American Jewish community, while local officials announced heightened protection for Jewish institutions.

“On behalf of the people of Israel, I extend my condolences of the families of Leah Mindel Ferencz, Moshe Hirsch Deutsch, police officer Joe Seals and the other victims of the murderous attack in Jersey City,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted after the attack.

Though they initially ruled out a terror attack, investigators later said they believed the two gunmen who shot and killed a cop in a Jersey City cemetery, then drove to a kosher supermarket and began an hour-long gunbattle that left three Jewish bystanders and themselves dead, had deliberately targeted the Jewish shop.

“Based on our initial investigation (which is ongoing) we now believe the active shooters targeted the location they attacked,” Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said late Tuesday, without elaborating.

Next to the store, the only kosher supermarket in the area and a central fixture for the growing community, are a yeshiva and a synagogue. Around 100 Jewish families live in the area in the city’s Greenville neighborhood, with most of the families having moved there from Brooklyn in the last few years.

Authorities have not released information on the victims, but Chabad identified two of the dead as store owner Leah Minda Ferencz, 33, and Moshe Deutsch, 24, both members of the local Hasidic community.

The third victim was also believed to be a member of the local Jewish community.

New Jersey kosher supermarket shooting rattles tight-knit Jewish community

Hours after a furious gun battle erupted at a kosher supermarket on Tuesday in Jersey City, New Jersey, distraught residents had more questions than answers.

As of Tuesday night, the crime scene was cordoned off, keeping onlookers far from the scene. Some two dozen area residents, several reporters and many more police vehicles lingered outside the JC Kosher Supermarket on Martin Luther King Drive, on the western side of Jersey City. Some of the residents took video or live-streamed the scene on Facebook.

Investigators believe the shooting involved at least two young gunmen, and a possible third accomplice who escaped the violence. They shot and killed a police officer in a nearby cemetery before holing up in the market in the Greenville neighborhood and exchanging fire with dozens more officers. The gunmen were killed in the lengthy shootout.

It was an ordeal that violently and abruptly disturbed the heart of a small Orthodox Jewish community of nearly 100 families, most of whom moved from the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn to Jersey City over the past few years.

According to locals, the supermarket is the only kosher one of its kind in the area. It serves basic groceries, sandwiches and salads. Next door is Khal Adas Greenville, a building with a synagogue on a lower level and a yeshiva for children on the upper level.

“It’s a beautiful tight-knit community, very kind people, and it’s devastating that something like this happened,” said Rabbi Shmully Levitin, a Chabad rabbi who lives in the city, which is across the Hudson River from New York City.

Text of executive order to combat antisemitism

Jewish Insider found the text of the actual executive order being signed this afternoon.

I see nothing about treating Jews as a nationality. It simply says that antisemitism will be treated under Title VI the same as other types of discrimination.

I have no idea about the legalities involved.

Here is the text:
_______________________

EXECUTIVE ORDER- - - - - - -COMBATING ANTI-SEMITISM

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America,it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy.

My Administration is committed to combating the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incidents in the United States and around the world. Anti-Semitic incidents have increased since 2013, and students, in particular, continue to face anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on university and college campuses.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI),42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq ., prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance. While Title VI does not cover discrimination based on religion, individuals who face discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin do not lose protection under Title VI for also being a member of a group that shares common religious practices. Discrimination against Jews may give rise to a Title VI violation when the discrimination is based on an individual's race, color, or national origin.

It shall be the policy of the executive branch to enforce Title VI against prohibited forms of discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism as vigorously as against all other forms of discrimination prohibited by Title VI.

Sec. 2. Ensuring Robust Enforcement of Title VI. (a)

In enforcing Title VI, and identifying evidence of discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, all executive departments and agencies (agencies) charged with enforcing Title VI shall consider the following:

(i) the non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA),which states, "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities"; and

(ii) the "Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism"identified by the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent.

(b) In considering the materials described in subsections(a)(i) and (a)(ii) of this section, agencies shall not diminish or infringe upon any right protected under Federal law or under the First Amendment. As with all other Title VI complaints, the inquiry into whether a particular act constitutes discrimination prohibited by Title VI will require a detailed analysis of the allegations.

Sec. 3. Additional Authorities Prohibiting Anti-Semitic Discrimination.

Within 120 days of the date of this order, thehead of each agency charged with enforcing Title VI shall submit a report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, identifying additional non discrimination authorities within its enforcement authority with respect to which the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism could be considered.

Sec. 4. Rule of Construction.

Nothing in this order shall be construed to alter the evidentiary requirements pursuant to which an agency makes a determination that conduct, including harassment, amounts to actionable discrimination, or to diminish or infringe upon the rights protected under any other provision of law.

Sec. 5. General Provisions.

(a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States,its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees,or agents, or any other person.

THE WHITE HOUSE

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Study: Palestinian government corruption second only to Lebanon in MENA; 21% aware of "sextortion" to receive services

Transparency International has released a report on corruption in Middle East and North Africa countries, and the Palestinian Authority is regarded as one of the most corrupt in the region.

The most shocking result is in the area of government institutions demanding sexual favors from women in exchange for services.

When it comes to measuring the impact of corruption on women in Palestine, gathering concrete evidence can sometimes prove difficult.

Although GCB results show that 21 per cent of people in Palestine experience sextortion or know someone who has, these incidents often go unreported.

This may be due to a tendency of victim blaming within Palestinian communities, where sexuality is still taboo.

As a result, many women often think twice before reporting sextortion.

According to the Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (AMAN), Transparency International’s chapter in Palestine, every year a number of women contact the organisation’s Advocacy and Legal Advice Centre with complaints of sextortion in public workplaces. In such cases, public officials abuse their authority to gain sexual favours from their employees. However, when asked to file a formal complaint outlining these incidents, most women refuse.

Civil society organisations in Palestine have advocated for the inclusion of sextortion as an illegal form of corruption. However, there is still no cohesive, consistent legal framework to criminalise sextortion as well as sexual harassment within the public sector. Similarly, the legal framework does not recognise and address specific forms of corruption experienced by women.

There's more.

In Palestine, nearly one in two citizens thinks that most or all members of parliament
are involved in corruption. 51 per cent of citizens have little or no trust in the government.

17% of Palestinians paid a bribe to receive a service in the past year.

Here is a summary of the results:

The difference between the Palestinian Authority and the other governments in the study is that such a high percentage of the PA budget is paid by European governments and agencies - money that is supposedly to promote good governance.

Perhaps that is part of the problem.

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From an EU press release:

Each year, 10th of December marks the day, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted with a view to express a universal commitment towards the respect and protection of human rights for all individuals without discrimination. This year, UDHR turns 71 and we also celebrate the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Yet fundamental human rights continue to be challenged around the world, including in the occupied Palestinian territory. Palestinian children in particular face significant obstacles in accessing basic services and enjoying their fundamental human rights. Some of the obstacles are developmental in nature and at times linked to cultural and religious issues as, for example, the case with child marriage or gender based violence. However, the major factor that impedes the full realisation of children’s rights in the oPt is the decades-long Israeli occupation, including the Gaza blockade. It is clear that children are disproportionately affected by the conflict and occupation. An unacceptable number of Palestinian child casualties have been attributed to Israeli forces and many Palestinian children are held in detention by Israeli forces over security offences. Moreover, restrictions on the freedom of movement severely impact on Palestinian children’s enjoyment of their fundamental human rights, including the right to education and the right to health.

According to the EU, Palestinian youth face some relatively minor human rights challenges from cultural or religious factors, but the real problem is Israel.

Not a single word about how the Palestinian political leadership abuses children as policy.

The official Fatah Facebook page published this video only last month of a girl reciting a poem glorifying children killing themselves for "martyrdom."

"His mother promised him a gift if he finished his food. The boy wondered in excitement: 'Is it a toy?' His mother approached him with a glowing look while carrying the gift. He looked, and it was a rifle! He shouted loudly: 'O Mommy! Mommy! What is this? Is this the gift?' She picked him up, hugged him, and said: 'My son, we were not created for happiness. In my eyes, you are meant for Martyrdom!' … Jerusalem is ours, our weapon is our Islam, and our ammunition is our children. And you, O my son, are meant for Martyrdom. [The boy] returned to his bed and complained to his pillow, for he is too young for these things… He gave in to his dreams. He sees his bride (i.e., Jerusalem), but she is handcuffed, and the Jews surround her, and she says to him: 'O my knight, release me from the handcuffs… I, Jerusalem, say this to you: What was taken by force will only be returned by force.'

A Bethlehem high school now has a plaque honoring a 17 year old suicide bomber at its entrance. It has an exhibition honoring other Palestinian terrorists.

These aren't anomalies. The entire Palestinian culture promotes dying for the honor of killing Jews directly to children.

And it is not only Fatah. UNRWA schools, funded largely by Europe, teach the exact same message to their students.

The same EU-funded PA just last month closed schools in order to increase the number of students participating in a "day of rage." Not a day of tolerance and human right - just rage against Jews and Israel.

Beyond that we have para-military summer camps by Hamas and Islamic Jihad that teach children how to use weapons. There is literally a formal program to recruit children to jihad.

It is astounding that the EU cannot say a word about this, and instead uses Human Rights Day as an excuse not to help Palestinian youth but to bash Israel - the target of the directed hate - in the name of human rights.

By not only ignoring this indoctrination of Palestinian children into a culture of martyrdom and jihad - and by funding that same message through Palestinian schools - the EU is enabling and promoting Palestinian child abuse.

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