Some people still try to claim that Iran isn't antisemitic, but simply anti-Israel. The few thousand Jews who still live in Iran tell any visitors - while Iranian security officials are in earshot - that everything is wonderful. Credulous Westerners believe them.
Usually, Iran is careful to keep blatant antisemitic attitudes under wraps. But sometimes the facade cracks.
The convoluted story says that the Saudi family is all from the Jewish Bani Al-Qinaqa tribe, who were naturally immoral, that the Sauds destroyed Muslim holy places but preserved Jewish sites in Khaybar, and that today the Saudis are pro-Israel and anti-Muslim.
While the conspiracy theory of one's enemies really being Jewish is a well known trope in the Arab world (both Egyptian president Sisi's allies and the Muslim Brotherhood accuse each other of being Jewish,) we see that the Iranians also consider being Jewish as the ultimate insult.
After all, if Iran treasured Jews as much as they claim, then why should the Saudis' alleged Jewish roots matter one bit?
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In light of the suspension of peace negotiations, Palestinians support various alternative directions: 60% support popular non-violent resistance; 52% support a return to an armed intifada; 42% support dissolving the PA; and 28% support abandoning the two-state solution and demanding the establishment of one state for Palestinians and Israelis. Three months ago, 50% said they prefer a return to armed intifada and 40% said they prefer to dissolve the PA.
Imagine if more than half of Israelis supported a new war with Palestinians, there would be screaming headlines. But the world expects Palestinians to prefer terrorism (which is what an "armed intifada" means.) No news coverage.
Other notable findings that the news media doesn't deem newsworthy:
61% of the public want president Abbas to resign while 34% want him to remain in office. A majority of 54% (59% in the West Bank and 45% in the Gaza Strip) believes that it will not receive a fair trial if it finds itself in a Palestinian court. A majority of 55% (60% in the West Bank and 48% in the Gaza Strip) thinks that the Palestinian judiciary is rules according to whims and interests; 42% disagree and believe that it rules according to the law. Perception of corruption in PA institutions stands at 82% while perception of corruption in the institutions controlled by Hamas in the Gaza Strip stands at 67%.
Once again, it is amazing how little reporting on actual Palestinian attitudes there is, given how many journalists are there.
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As The Daily Wire reported last month, 106 House Democrats sent a scathing letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that expressed “strong disagreement” with the Trump administration’s recently promulgated legal assertion that so-called Israeli “settlements” in the biblical Jewish homeland of Judea and Samaria do not per se violate international law.
The House Democrats’ hysterical letter accused Pompeo of “ignoring international law” and “undermin[ing] America’s moral standing.” The congressmen continued: “If the U.S. unilaterally abandons international and human rights law, we can only expect a more chaotic and brutal twenty-first century for Americans and our allies, including the Israeli people.”
Conservative Zionists quickly and assertively pushed back against the tendentious missive. The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), which identifies as “the largest rabbinic public policy organization in America,” wrote its own powerful letter that deconstructed the House Democrats’ misleading claims. Frequent Daily Wire contributor and CJV Managing Director Rabbi Yaakov Menken told The Daily Wire at the time: “Word to the wise: If you claim to be pro-Israel, and sign a letter regarding Israel along with Reps. Omar, Tlaib, and Ocasio-Cortez, you’re fooling no one but yourself. It’s amazing to see congressmen telling the administration to ignore Acts of Congress. All the more so when those Acts prevent U.S. tax dollars from being spent to encourage terrorism.”
Now, as reported by The Jerusalem Post, Pompeo has powerfully responded himself to the House Democrats’ letter. Pompeo excoriated the Democrats’ letter as “foolish,” and he hit the anti-Israel presidency of Barack Obama in no uncertain terms: “The Obama-Kerry departure from America’s historic support of Israel has done nothing to make peace more attainable.”
“While I appreciate your interest in this important issue, I couldn’t disagree more with those two foolish positions,” Pompeo continued. “While you are free to fixate on settlements as a barrier to peace, you are simply wrong in referring to that view as being subject to bipartisan agreement.”
Pompeo then blasted “the erroneous positions of international law that have gained favor in the past decades”: (h/t MtTB)
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday responded to a Congressional letter that criticized the administration's position on the legality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
"The State Department's determination did not reverse any policy with regard to Israeli settlements. Rather, the State Department reversed a legal determination by Secretary Kerry...allowing UNSCR 2334, whose foundation was the purported illegality of the settlements...to pass the Security Council on December 23, 2016."
"Secretary Kerry's determination did not enjoy bipartisan consensus. Rather, it received bipartisan condemnation, including from leading Democrats in both chambers of Congress. Indeed, an overwhelming number of Senators and House Members, on both sides of the aisle, supported resolutions objecting to the passage of UNSCR 2334."
"While you are free to fixate on settlements as a barrier to peace, you are simply wrong in referring to that view as being subject to bipartisan agreement. No less a Democratic spokesman than the Senate Minority Leader publicly stated at his AIPAC address on March 5, 2018, that 'it's sure not the settlements that are the blockage to peace.'"
"You assert that we have 'blatantly disregarded' the Fourth Geneva Convention....I commend to you the writings of Eugene Rostow, who left his position as Dean of the Yale Law School to become Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration....Rostow stated in 1983 that 'Israel has an unassailable legal right to establish settlements in the West Bank.'"
"U.S. policy with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict largely has been consistent for decades and remains so: we support and seek to facilitate direct negotiations between the parties towards the goal of a just and lasting peace agreement."
"Regrettably, as many experts concur, UNSCR 2334 and the related self-justifying remarks by Secretary Kerry have saddled the Trump Administration with a significant handicap in advancing the cause of peace by erroneously injecting into the conflict an incorrect and largely irrelevant legal component. This in turn has led to the hardening of positions, especially on the Palestinian side."
A Jersey City Board of Education Trustee suggested that the shooting at a Jewish market that left six dead last week, including the shooters, was justified as a result of how Jewish people treat African Americans.
Both suspected shooters, David Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50, were found dead after a shootout with police. Both of them publicly expressed interest in the Black Hebrew Israelites, but neither had formal connections, and the shooting is being investigated as a hate crime.
On Saturday, Lincoln High School Principal Chris Gadsden posted a column from InsiderNJ on Facebook. The column, titled "Faith and Hope to Fight Hate," focused on a recent event bringing together religious and civic leaders to address the shooting and the hate that precipitated it. While discussing the growing tension between the African American and Jewish communities, they also spoke about the encroachment of a new development making its way into the traditionally poorer neighborhoods.
Joan Terrell, who sits on the Jersey City Board of Education, commented on the post questioning, "Where was all this faith and hope when Black homeowners were threatened, intimidated, and harassed by I WANT TO BUY YOUR HOUSE brutes of the [J]ewish community? ... Who helped Black people living in rental properties owned by the [J]ewish people but were given 30 day eviction notices so that more [J]ewish people could move in?"
Her post continued to accuse Jewish residents of forcing African Americans out of their homes and referenced community programs that have been eliminated.
“Mr. Anderson and Ms. Graham went directly to the Kosher supermarket,” Terrell wrote. “I believe they knew they would come out in body bags. What is the message they were sending? Are we brave enough to explore the answer to their message? Are we brave enough to stop the assault on the black communities of America?”
She's a city official where Jews were just gunned down in cold blood because they're Jews, and she just said they probably deserved it, and by the way are they taking ppl's organs?
City officials instigating another pogrom, but you'll hear crickets over this.
Today's BDS movement is a direct descendant of the Arab boycott of the 1950s and 60s against Israel.
Then, as now, the boycott isn't against Israel, but Jews. No boycott list today includes Israeli Arab companies but only Jewish owned businesses in Israel.
The Arab League in 1956 was a bit cruder. They had an explicit policy of not doing business with any companies with Jews in major roles.
The American Jewish Congress has in its possession correspondence from Arab firms located In Saudi Arabia, canceling contracts with American Jewish businesses because of a directive promulgated by the Saudi Arabian Chamber of Commerce, but unquestionably inspired by the Saudi Arabian Government, instructing Saudi Arabian firms to discontinue all relations with businesses abroad owned or controlled by Jews or that employ Jews. These letters state that any contract negotiated in violation of this directive will be subject to summary cancellation and that any merchandise imported into Saudi Arabla from firms employing Jews abroad will run the risk of confiscation. The Saudi Arabian Government evidently requires its domestic import companies to obtain affirmative and positive assurances that their business associates abroad are free of all Jewish connections,
The nature of the discrimination is clearly reflected in the following excerpts from letters in our files received by American firms owned by Jews from their Saudi Arabian customers
January 3. 1952:
“We very much regret to inform you that our Government has duly published a notice announcing that any importers of Saudi Arabia must not be permitted to import the goods, any kind of goods, from any Jewish firms of the world.
“Further, they have listed your name as being a Jewish firm, as these steps are taken suddenly against you, we are obliged to cable you to stop the shipments of our orders until we write you.
“However, we are obliged to ask you to let us have full particulars as to what faith your firm is belong, to Jewish or Christian? And until we have full particulars from you, we are obliged to stop our business with you.”
October 1, 1953:
“In connection with our request for not effecting the shipment of our order by any steamer which belongs to any Jewish steamship company. This is in compliance of our Government's regulation announced recently, further this ordinance warns that any shipment by such steamers will not be
allowed to enter Saudi Arabia.”
September 17, 1953:
“We have also to inform you that you are well aware we are quite prohibited to import any goods manufactured in any Jew factories, Now our Government has issued a new regulation warning all the importers that no goods may be brought by the steamers belonging to Jew steamship company. You are kindly requested to take this matter into consideration in order to avoid any sortof trouble arising by doing so.”
B. Boycotts by other Arab countries
Although the boycott carried out by Saudi Arabia has received the greatest attention in this country there are clear indications that other members of the Arab League have carried on an identical policy of barring Jews from international trade. The following excerpts from a letter to the chairman of the
Board of Directors of Verkoopkantoor Van der Heem N. V., The Hague, Holland, on November 13, 1955, indicates the firm intenttion of all members of the Arab League to make the boycott of Jews universal:
“As you are aware the Arab countries are in a state of war with Israel and for this reason we are making an economical siege around that Israel. This siege is administered by a special control and investigation office with members of all the Arab states.
“An officer in said office visited us today and requested that following information be supplied about your company:
Do you have any Jewish employees in your company. if yes how many and what are
the positions held by them.
Are there any Jews in your Board of Directors as members?
Is any of your managers or branch managers a Jew, if yea please give name of the department headed by such a man.
Is any of the persons authorized to sign on behalf of your company a Jew.
What ts the number of Jewish laborers in your factories and offices.
In a letter quoted below from the Assistant Secretary of State in 1953, the State Department acknowledged that there has been from time to time a blacklisting of American Jewish firms by the Lebanese Government. American newspapers report simlar experiences by American Jewish businesses throughout the world In dealing with member states of the Arab League (New York Herald Tribune, February 12, 1956). The boycott now suffered by American Jewish firms is a vital part of the International plan of the Arab League to deny Jewish businesses access to principal markets.
Nowadays, the Israel haters like to boycott "Zionist" businesses - to say "Jewish" is too crude. But there is a direct line from the Arab boycott to today's BDS - just because the messaging is more sophisticated doesn't mean the goals and bigotry aren't the same.
There is more from that same article that highlights some American history that has been all but forgotten. I hope to present that soon.
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James Joseph Zogby (born 1945) is the founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, D.C.–based organization that serves as a political and policy research arm of the Arab-American community. He is Managing Director of Zogby Research Services, LLC, specializing in research and communications and undertaking polling across the Arab world. In September 2013 President Obama appointed Zogby to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Zogby is a lecturer and scholar on Middle East issues and a Visiting Professor of Social Research and Public Policy at New York University Abu Dhabi. From 2001 to 2017 he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee.
A prominent Arab leader, Democrat and pollster - one would expect a minimum level of honesty from such a person, and a backlash from his own party when he crosses a line, right?
His photos include the one on the lower left, which is twice Photoshopped - it would be impossible for a soldier to maintain his balance like that.
What about the other photos of soldiers seemingly pointing their guns at innocent Palestinians?
Besides the optical illusion of a two dimensional photo making it impossible to see whether the guns are actually pointed at someone, there is another issue: this is how soldiers carry guns.
See this photo of a US soldier in Afghanistan:
And others from Afghanistan:
Given the right caption, any of these innocent photos can be twisted to look like US troops are terrorizing Afghan civilians, with guns pointed in the direction of children.
Pallywood isn't always the staged and Photoshopped photos Often it is the framing/captionng of an innocent event to make it appear as if it is malicious.
Another example from Twitter yesterday:
Israeli occupation forces humiliated and abused Palestinian civilians as they searched them at the military checkpoints installed around the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of #Hebron. pic.twitter.com/JPyTG4VMgc
The video shows no such thing, but the people who follow the account are primed to believe the lie because of how it was presented.
It was pointed out to Zogby that at least one of his photos were Photoshopped. He doesn't care; he didn't take down the tweet nor did he acknowledge it. He knows he is being dishonest in both the text and the photos, but he doesn't care - he is not about truth but to push anti-Israel propaganda.
The real question is why the Democratic Party he is so heavily involved with tolerates someone who is so obviously dishonest.
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The latest Human Rights Watch report is again a piece of theater. It believes wholeheartedly what Palestinians accuse Israel of, it doubts everything Israel says, and it pretends to understand human rights laws that it has no idea of.
The first 12 pages or so is a discussion of human rights laws under occupation. The report concentrates on the Right of Peaceful Assembly, Right to Freedom of Association and Right to Freedom of Expression, saying that all West Bank Palestinians do not have these rights. However, the 95% of Palestinians who live under Palestinian Authority rule can and do create mass anti-Israel rallies, complete with people dressing as terrorists with guns and masks.
A centerpiece of HRW's legal argument is this:
Article 43 of the Hague Regulations of 1907, recognized by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and the International Court of Justice as having the force of customary international law binding on all states, outlines the powers and responsibilities of an occupying power:
The authority of the legitimate power having in fact passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country. This provision authorizes an occupying power to take restrictive measures that are militarily necessary to ensure its own safety, but also requires the occupier to restore and ensure public life for the benefit of the occupied population. Measures that are militarily necessary are those likely to “accomplish a legitimate purpose and are not otherwise prohibited by international humanitarian law.”
What HRW doesn't tell you is that the person who determines whether an action falls under the definition of "military necessity" is the field commander in charge, and he or she is given a great deal of latitude in that determination (obviously not to the point of violating any other humanitarian law rules.) It is not up to HRW or professors or other NGOs to look at a situation with the luxury of hindsight and determine whether something was a military necessity.
...In calling on occupiers to “ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety,” Article 43 requires an occupier to use all practical means at its disposal to minimize the impact of its actions on the local population. The logical corollary of this article is that the means available to an occupier increase with the duration of an occupation. A foreign army occupying a village for a month or a year may be limited in the sophistication of the security measures it adopts, for lack of time, resources, and familiarity with the location and population under occupation. A foreign army, though, occupying a territory for decades, has more time and opportunity to refine its responses to threats to the security of its forces in ways that minimize restrictions on rights and freedoms. The longer the occupation, the greater the ability and therefore the obligation to arrive at security measures that minimize impact on the local population.
This is HRW's major argument that Israel has not done all it can to provide for freedoms of the Palestinian population - because during a short occupation there may be very restrictive measures taken but over time it is the responsibility of the occupier to refine the methods to help the population have more public order and safety.
There is one major flaw in this argument: since 1987, every couple of years, a new wave of violence erupts that forces Israel to go back to a more restrictive rule. HRW simply doesn't admit the existence of the two intifadas,or the later car ramming and stabbing sprees, or the violent weekly riots, as a factor in what Israel is allowed to do to protect its soldiers and Israeli civilians.
Anyone who looks at the freedom of Palestinians under Israeli rule from 1967 to 1987 would see that they indeed gained more and more freedoms - until the first intifada.
This report does not even mention the word "intifada" once. It does not mention the word "riots." It doesn't mention "Molotov cocktails" or "firebombs." In other words, HRW strips Israeli security force actions and decisions of any context.
There is far more, of course.
HRW, when discussing the case of Nariman Tamimi, says
Officers interrogated Nariman three other times, each time returning to her "incitement." She said they also asked her about her Facebook posts, some dating as far back as seven years, of Palestinians who carried out attacks against Israelis or were killed by Israeli forces.
It puts "incitement" in scare quotes and trusts her to say what the IDF considered her incitement.
She didn't mention sharing this handy guide on how to stab someone effectively:
HRW may know about this (one of many offensive posts by Nariman) but they would never share it, because it undermines their lies.
Another innocent victim of Israeli capriciousness is "artist" Hafez Omar. HRW doesn't mention that his posters glorify violence as the only way to freedom:
This report was of course written by Omar Shakir, whose work permit was revoked by Israel. Ever since the, Shakir and HRW have embarked on a vindictive crusade against Israel - as always, at the expense of real human rights abuses happening within a couple of hundred miles of Israel's borders.
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I am from an inferior race who also controls the world I am the evil brain behind both Communism and Capitalism I'm way too religious and also a Godless atheist I'm insular yet I infiltrate I kill and deceive deities and prophets And if you murder me it is my fault Because you can always find a good reason
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At last Sunday’s rally against antisemitism in Westminster, more than 3,000 people listened to a range of speakers denounce anti-Jewish bigotry.
Beyond that rally, however, reaction among the general public to the hatred in the Labour party directed at Israel and the Jewish people does not seem to reflect its eye-watering scale and viciousness.
Leaked evidence collected by the Jewish Labour Movement exposed a virtual tsunami of crazed venom, with statements that Jews were “subhuman” and should “be grateful we don’t make them eat bacon for breakfast every day”, that they were connected to Isis or 9/11, or they were traitors and “bent-nosed manipulative liars”.
Despite all this, there’s still a failure to grasp the full dimensions of this horror. For there are two issues over which widespread moral confusion is hampering proper acknowledgment of this onslaught against the Jews.
The first is support for the Palestinian cause and the related belief that, while antisemitism is a loathsome prejudice against Jews as people, anti-Zionism and Israel-bashing are legitimate attacks on a political project. This distinction is bogus.
Anti-Zionism is the modern mutation of antisemitism with which it shares the same, unique characteristics of deranged and obsessive falsehoods, demonic conspiracy theory and double standards. It is furthermore an attack on Judaism itself, in which the land of Israel is an inseparable element.
When the postmodern left emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, its worldview absorbed much of this Soviet propaganda, with a key tenet remaining a commitment to anti-Zionism — the view that the State of Israel is illegitimate and should not exist. Added to the anti-Zionist denial of Israel’s claim to an ancestral homeland was “a contradictory claim that the Jews sought to maintain a ‘racial state’ in Israel.”[15]
In historical terms, anti-Zionism has been quite distinct from antisemitism. Whereas the racist prejudice of antisemitism was largely a phenomenon of the political right, anti-Zionism was based on what Australian scholar Philip Mendes has described as “a relatively objective assessment of the prospects for success for some Jews in Israel/Palestine.”[16] In recent decades, however, as anti-Zionism has developed into a rejection of the legitimacy of the State of Israel, anti-Zionism and antisemitism have converged.
The postmodern left’s anti-Zionism was certainly influenced by Soviet hostility to Israel. However, it is a phenomenon which owes even more to the determination among the post-World War II generation to oppose racism and colonialism. Israel, according to the postmodern left, is an illegitimate remnant of western colonialism in the Middle East — a view increasingly endorsed by the United Nations as it added newly decolonised states to its membership.
Postmodern left anti-Zionists invariably insist their target is neither Jews nor individual Israeli citizens going about their ordinary lives. Rather, their target is the State of Israel itself, which they hold to be a political regime promulgating illegal, coercive, and dehumanizing treatment of Palestinians. It is a line of argument that attempts to defend the distinction between anti-Jewish remarks and criticism of Israeli government policy.
A piece we published on Friday by our own Noah Rothman kicked up a social-media dust storm over the weekend—the view of Noah’s critics being that it is illegitimate to question associations between Bernie Sanders, his campaign, and anti-Semites. We disagree. At length. Give a listen. (h/t IsaacStorm)
The Jewish National Fund (JNF)—which owns much of the land in Israel—together with a few Israeli families who live near the Gaza Strip, has filed suit in an American court against organizations that, they allege, support arson attacks on southwestern Israel, often accomplished by attaching makeshift incendiary devices to kites and balloons. In doing so, writes Nadav Shragai, the plaintiffs have an opportunity to shed light on the how Palestinian terrorist groups raise funds in the United States:
If the details of the suit are found to have a legal basis, it will be possible to point to three links in the money chain, the first of which are the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces (PNIF). The group was established by the former PLO leader Yasir Arafat during the second intifada [to] coordinate among the various organizations fighting against Israel. . . . It turns out that the PNIF was never dismantled and in fact helped establish the Supreme National Authority of the Return Marches and Lifting the Siege, [which coordinates attacks from Gaza and attempts to breach the border fence]
A total of twelve religious and nationalist Palestinian factions belong to the PNIF, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, [and] the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. . . . All of them are recognized as terrorist groups by Israel, the U.S., and Europe.
The second link is the BDS National Committee (BNC), a leading player in the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that was founded in Ramallah. BNC sees itself as an umbrella organization that heads the international movement to boycott Israel.
The third link is the specific group named in the lawsuit: the American charity Education for Just Peace in the Middle East U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR). According to the lawsuit, at least as far back as 2017 the group has functioned as a pipeline to transfer donations to terrorist organizations, utilizing the BNC [for that purpose]. The funds USCPR transfers to the BNC are designated charitable donations, and are therefore tax-exempt. The lawsuit argues that starting in 2018, the USCPR has been involved in a conspiracy to support, promote, and encourage the marches of return, which are directed [and] led by a terrorist coalition. Therefore, the suit argues, the BNC receives tax-free donations and uses them to promote an agenda of hatred and the arson-balloon and kite attacks against Israel.
The Jerusalem Post got hold of the letter that Mike Pompeo wrote in response to a left-wing Democratic letter criticizing the US position that Israeli settlements are not illegal per se.
I converted the facsimile of the letter to text.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE
WASHINGTON
The Honorable
Andy Levin
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Mr. Levin:
I am in receipt of your letter of November 21 in which you criticize the State Department's determination that the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not categorically inconsistent with international law - a decision which you contend reverses “decades of bipartisan US policy on Israeli settlements.” You further argue. in conclusory fashion, that this determination “blatantly disregards Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
While I appreciate your interest in this important issue, I could not disagree more with those two foolish positions. I will briefly respond to your principal points.
First, the State Department's determination did not reverse any policy with regard to Israeli settlements. Rather, the State Department reversed a legal determination by Secretary Kerry. made during the waning days of the Obama Administration, that the establishment of settlements was categorically inconsistent with international law. That determination was made in a failed attempt to justify the Obama Administration's betrayal of Israel in allowing UNSCR 2334 — whose foundation was the purported illegality of the settlements and which referred to them as “a flagrant violation” of international law — to pass the Security Council on December 23, 2016.
Second, Secretary Kerry's determination did not enjoy bipartisan consensus. Rather, it received bipartisan condemnation, including from leading Democrats in both chambers of Congress. Indeed, an overwhelming number of Senators and House Members, on both sides of the aisle, supported resolutions objecting to the passage of UNSCR 2334. Secretary Kerry's statement departed from decades of bipartisan consensus, reverting to an approach last advanced by the Administration of President Carter in 1978 whose position was reversed by the next succeeding president, Ronald Reagan.
While you are free to fixate on settlements as a barrier to peace. you are simply wrong in referring to that view as being subject to bipartisan agreement. No less a Democratic spokesman than the Senate Minority Leader publicly stated at his AIPAC address on March 5, 2018, that “it's sure not the settlements that are the blockage to peace.”
Third, you assert that we have “blatantly disregarded” the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Trump Administration has thoroughly reviewed and analyzed this issue and we respectfully disagree. Among the numerous sources and authorities supporting our view. I commend to you the writings of Eugene Rostow, who left his position as Dean of the Yale Law School to become Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration. Dean Rostow represented the United States in the peace talks that followed the 1967 Six Day War and was responsible for the drafting of UNSCR 242, which even today remains the primary architecture for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Dean Rostow stated in 1983 that “Israel has an unassailable legal right to establish settlements in the West Bank.”
Fourth. US policy with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict largely has been consistent for decades and remains so: we support and seek to facilitate direct negotiations between the parties towards the goal of a just and lasting peace agreement. Regrettably. as many experts concur, UNSCR 2334 and the related self-justifying remarks by Secretary Kerry have saddled the Trump Administration with a significant handicap in advancing the cause of peace by erroneously injecting into the conflict an incorrect and largely irrelevant legal component. This in turn has led to the hardening of positions. especially on the Palestinian side. By way of example. the closing of the Office of the General Delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington
D.C.. which you criticize, was mandated by Federal statute following President Abbas’ announcement before the United Nations General Assembly on September 20, 2017, that the Palestinian Authority “called on the International Criminal Court . . . to prosecute Israeli officials for their involvement in settlement activities . . . I doubt that President Abbas. with apparent animus towards Israel. would have taken such an inappropriate and unlawful position absent the cover mistakenly granted under UNSCR 2334 and Secretary Kerry's unfortunate speech.
The Trump Administration is committed to working tirelessly to advance the cause of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. We approach the issue pragmatically and diplomatically, but we eschew the erroneous positions of international law that have gained favor in the past decades. The Obama-Kerry departure from America’s historic support of Israel has done nothing to make peace more attainable. The State Department's recent determination that the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se illegal is an important step in the peace process and we are confident that it creates the right platform for further Progress.
We hope this information is helpful to you. Please let us know if we may be of further
assistance.
Sincerely.
Michael R. Pompeo
Secretary of State
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In looking at the bogus arguments against the Executive Order on including Jews as a protected minority for Title VI purposes, I stumbled onto the J-Street U arguments used against the nearly identical Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2018.
J-Street U wrote a letter to Congress opposing that act, which was originally pushed during the Obama administration. Most of their arguments are the specious ones we have already debunked, but they added one that tells us a lot more about the leftists who oppose fighting antisemitism than the act itself:
In addition to focusing narrowly and exclusively on anti-Semitism that is related to Israel and to Zionism, the bill alarmingly fails to take into account the pressing issue of anti-Semitic hatred in our country stemming from the white supremacist far-right, which has risen precipitously since the 2016 election. ...It would be a grave mistake for Congress to ignore this virulent strain of anti-Semitism that has lead to a rise in hate crimes and violence across the country.
J-Street U claimed that the Antisemitism Awareness Act didn't deal with right-wing antisemitism - and this is a laughable lie. It refers to the IHRA definition which includes all kinds of antisemitism, right and left. Its definition (without the examples) leaves no doubt:
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.
By falsely and absurdly claiming that right-wing bigotry is not included, J-Street U - and by extension, all of the Leftist arguments against the EO - shows that their concern isn't for free speech or worries about chilling debate on campus. They simply want to shut down the very idea that there is any kind of antisemitism other than the neo-Nazi kind (and there are plenty of other flavors of antisemitism besides Right and Left) and therefore they want to be able to demonize the Jewish state in exactly the same way the far-Right demonizes Jews. Any argument is meant only for the real goal of defending most types of antisemitism on campus.
That's messed up.
What is especially sick about this antisemitism denial is that it tramples on the rights of thousands of Jews on campus, today, who are being disenfranchised and attacked because they don't subscribe to the religious philosophy of the Left, where victims are to be worshipped and white-passing people like Jews are the devil-oppressors.
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In our modern age, we tend to think of the outcome of warfare being
decided primarily by technology and logistics, with armies able to deploy and
utilize complex weapons systems in the land, sea and air being superior to
those who cannot. Even when you look at
asymmetrical warfare, which tends to utilize roadside bombs, terror tactics and
propaganda instead of aircraft carriers and robot drones, success in this field
requires mastery of technical and political skill, rather than fighting
experience.
But if you look back throughout the thousands of years of history when
war was conducted primarily with the same hardware (swords, spears, bows,
shields, armor and the like), the factor marking the difference between a
successful and unsuccessful army was the experience of the soldiery.
Troops loyal to Julius Caesar, for example, were not referred to as
“Caesar’s Soldiers” or “Caesar’s Legions,” but “Caesar’s Veterans,”
highlighting the fact that soldiers who spend decades fighting side-by-side provided
the edge in battle even against far larger armies.
Even the strategic genius of a commander is frequently the result of a
general himself being the veteran of numerous campaigns, providing him the chance
to try different things at different times and experience both victory and
defeat.
I bring this up since another strength BDS warriors bring to battle
(along with Internet-enabled
communication skill and complete
indifference to the needs of others) is their experience waging their
propaganda campaigns over many years and even decades. For most of us, the thought of engaging in a
divestment debate in our student union or town hall is appalling not just
because of the nature of the subject matter, but because few of us have
experience engaging with (in this case) aggressive political warfare that is
likely to create tension and conflict (the very things many of us spend our
lives trying to avoid).
But years of experience battling against the boycotters eventually
provides us the veteran’s perspective, helping turn what might have originally
felt like distasteful conflict into a battle we eagerly anticipate for the
thrill it provides (especially in victory – the familiar result for pro-Israel
activists engaged in a BDS fight).
I can attest to this personally as someone addicted to the rush of
watching a BDS go down to defeat. And my
eagerness to mix
it up with Israel haters/BDS propagandists derives from longing to engage
in arguments I’ve been writing about for years.
But the veterans’ experience can also be seen in the wider Jewish
community ready to fight back unapologetically against defamers of the Jewish
state. As time goes on, more experience
should drive more success and success will drive our desire to obtain more
experience, creating new generations of vets capable of continuing to stare
down the BDS threat, regardless of the ruthlessness of our adversaries.
As a final note, I’d like to pay a tribute to a veteran of many wars
who lost out to the one enemy none of us can avoid forever eight years ago yesterday. Christopher
Hitchens may have never been a great friend to the Jewish state. But he was a great friend to others who
earned his sympathy (such as the people of Iraq) and Hitchens fought for their
cause, regardless of what previous friends and allies had to say on the matter. While I am sad that this iconoclast of great
wit and letters passed away without embracing the justice of Israel’s cause (or
the Jewish world of which he was a part), I still miss him and his words, even (or
especially) the ones with which I disagreed.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
The new Conservative government in the UK will pass a law making it illegal for public bodies to engage with BDS, UK Special Envoy for post-Holocaust issues Eric Pickles said at the International Institute for Strategic Dialogue’s conference in Jerusalem on Sunday night.
"BDS is antisemitic and should be treated as such," Pickles said, explaining that the new law will not allow public bodies to work with those who boycott, divest from or sanction Israel in any way.
Queen Elizabeth will read the traditional "Queen's Speech" – prepared for her by the prime minister and his cabinet, which outlines the government's agenda for the next year – at the opening of the new parliament on Thursday. A UK news website called "i" reported that Johnson will write the anti-boycott law into the speech.
The Conservative Party’s platform in the UKs general election last week included a commitment to "ban public bodies from imposing their own direct or indirect boycotts, disinvestment or sanctions campaigns against foreign countries. These undermine community cohesion."
The move is meant to bloc local councils controlled by the Labour Party from using taxpayer funds to boycott foreign countries, including Israel.
“I believe that it was a divinely inspired result,” said Rabbi Joseph Dweck, senior rabbi of Britain’s Sephardi Jewish community, describing Thursday’s landslide defeat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in the UK election.
A member of the Conference of European Rabbis, Dweck told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that he was “grateful for the results. I believe that there is a renewed confidence that the Jewish community has both in Britain and the British people. We know now that we have a fast friend of the Jewish community at 10 Downing Street [Prime Minister Boris Johnson], who has, throughout his political career — especially during his time as mayor of London — proven his care, attention and protection of the Jews of Britain.”
Asked how Johnson should continue dealing with antisemitism in the UK, Dweck said he believes that “he should continue as he has: denouncing antisemitism, and to work with his government to eradicate any and all expressions of it in the country.”
Dweck said he is “deeply concerned” about rising antisemitism, but made it clear that he is as “concerned about it here in Europe as I am about it in America. We have seen a great upsurge of antisemitic crimes occurring in the States, and the antisemitic rhetoric that is rampant in many American universities is profoundly worrying. It will not be long at all until those students hold government office.”
The Labour Party got a taste of wipe-out, and it could not have happened to a nicer bunch of antisemites, who are already busy, guess what, blaming the Jews.
From the “Well, that didn’t take long Department,” this Labour woman has already got it figured out. The Jews did it…yes, not the butler…the Jews.
The Jews, she says, won it for Boris and lost it for Corbyn, which is an amazing feat, when you consider the math.
The figure I’m getting is 270,000, so far as the (decreasing) number of Jews throughout the UK…from a total population of 67 million otherwise.
To which you can only scratch your head and say… what? How can so few have made all the difference, unless you are an anti-Semite and do math differently.
For some people, life is so simple. No matter who, what, where, when, it adds up to the Jews – even if there is only one left in town.
I mean, to be an anti-Semite you should need Jews, and in the UK, there are hardly any at all.
Some soccer stadiums draw bigger crowds.
Spectacularly, the British rejected that man Corbyn and his message, plus the leftist agenda altogether, and let’s hope the song of deliverance reaches America.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
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