Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 27, 2020

01/27 Links Pt2: Survivors, world leaders at Auschwitz mark 75 years since its liberation; Western world nations support terror-linked Palestinian NGOs; Rashida Tlaib resurrects a 700 year old blood libel

From Ian:

Western world nations support terror-linked Palestinian NGOs - report

A new report issued on Monday by the research institute NGO Monitor found that eight Palestinian NGOs, which receive support from Western nations, maintain ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terrorist organization.

NGO Monitor claimed that the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, France, Ireland, Norway, and Belgium funneled millions of dollars to the Palestinian groups. The support was not limited to EU countries as the US, Canada and Japan were also among the donors. UN-OCHA and UNICEF were among the international organizations who also donate.

Over 70 current and former staff, board members, and general assembly members, as well as senior management and founders at these NGOs have direct ties to the PFLP, the report found.

Founded by George Habash in 1967, the PFLP is a Palestinian, secular, Marxist-Leninist terror group, originally supported by the USSR and China.

The PFLP was involved in suicide bombings, shootings, assassinations and other attacks targeting Israeli civilians. The group was well-known for hijacking commercial airlines in the 1960s and 1970s

David Collier: Antisemitism and Holocaust denial – the rise of the left

The Rise of Holocaust denial on the left

It would be fair to say that Marxist elements on the political left can freely love the victims of the Nazis. The tragedy of the Holocaust and the anti-nationalist ideologies of the modern left are a perfect fit. What better way to show everyone how evil some of their ideological enemies are, than by holding aloft the furnaces of Auschwitz?

When I began the undercover work into antisemitism it never crossed my mind that Holocaust denial would exist on the Marxist left. Yet just as antisemitism has evolved and mutated so too has Holocaust denial. In fact, ‘left-wing’ antisemitism today is so rooted in Holocaust denial it would be unable to have spread into the mainstream without it. It sits hidden away in an antisemitic sewer titled ‘Rothschild Conspiracy’.

Many people I know – indeed even many people who fight antisemitism – consider Rothschild Conspiracy as something akin to a racist joke. Antisemitic – but put away with Icke’s lizards as a silly and almost laughable version of it. An adaptation of the ‘socialism of fools’ that blames Zionists rather than Jews for the inequality of the world. Marxists hate bankers, antisemitic stereotypes paint Jews as bankers, therefore antisemitic Marxists hate Jews.

This misses the point entirely. Rothschild Zionist Conspiracy – is not throwaway foolishness, nor is the inherent Holocaust denial within accidental. It is all an absolutely vital part of anti-Zionist ideology.
20,000 Jewish children burn

The problem is this: Israel is an ethical imperative. It is why elements of the left supported the early Zionists as a liberation movement even before the rise of the Nazis. The more the Nazis rose – the more of the left understood the necessity of Israel. What the Holocaust managed to do, was simply end the argument. Even amongst Jews – there was near universal support. Zionism was no longer just based on history or universal human rights, but on an undeniable contemporary necessity. Had Israel existed earlier, millions of Jews could have been saved.

This image is from a file at the British archives. The Polish consul sought agreement from the British for 20,000 Jewish children from Poland to be allowed to immigrate into the Mandate of Palestine. The date 18 Sep 1939.

US Democratic Presidential Candidate Bloomberg Vows to Back Israel, Takes Dig at Sanders

US presidential contender Michael Bloomberg pledged on Sunday to “always have Israel’s back,” while separately joking he was the only Jewish candidate who does not want to turn the United States into a “kibbutz.”

The joke, made during a speech on antisemitism and foreign policy, referred to collectivist farms in Israel and was an apparent dig at fellow Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders.

Bloomberg and Sanders, who are both Jewish, are vying for the Democratic nomination to take on Republican President Donald Trump in the November election.

Sanders is a front-runner in the race and proposes left-wing policies like abolishing private health insurance in favor of a government-run Medicare-for-All program, based on the government program for older Americans.

Sanders spent several months in Israel in the 1960s as a volunteer on a kibbutz, and calls himself a democratic socialist.

Bloomberg has more centrist positions and has largely avoided attacks against individual Democratic candidates. A former mayor of New York whose wealth is estimated at about $60 billion, he has pledged to spend from his fortune to support the eventual Democratic nominee even if he loses the contest.

Bloomberg previously criticized leading Democratic candidates as too liberal to beat Trump. His remarks on Sunday appeared to take aim at Sanders, although he did not mention the senator from Vermont by name.

“I’m not the only Jewish candidate running for president. But I am the only one who doesn’t want to turn America into a kibbutz,” he told a campaign event at a synagogue in Miami.

There are two Jewish presidential candidates.@BernieSanders of them has always distanced himself from Judaism and has surrounded himself with antisemites.@MikeBloomberg is proudly Jewish and has always supported Israel.

For proud Jewish Democrats, there is no choice. pic.twitter.com/AgJMH1ysfZ
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 27, 2020

An article in Ammon News by Bassam Al-Amoush, a law professor, former member of Jordan's parliament and former head of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood:

Those who follow the history of the children of Israel find that it is a troubled history: they were humiliated under the rule of the Pharaohs, and the mission of the Prophet Moses, peace be upon him, was to free this people from shackles. They said to him when seeing the sea in front of them and Pharaoh behind them: We were hurt by what we came from and we'll be hurt now! And when God drowned their enemy before them, their faith did not increase. Rather they said to Moses "make us a god" as the other peoples have gods !! They killed the prophets and took the head of the Prophet Yahya [John the Baptist]!! They plotted against their brother the Prophet Joseph and lied to their prophet Jacob and used crocodile tears !!

A disgraceful black history made the world hate them and I will not talk about the Nazis criminals against the Germans and the world, but I am talking about Henry Ford, the American Ford Motor Company owner who wrote a book entitled "The International Jew" in which he describes the greed and deception of the Jews....

A country was established for them but it is a country of torment where there is no security or stability but rather fear, because thieves live in fear and they have been thieves since 1948 , and even today. ...

He certainly makes no distinction between Jews and Israelis.

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Last week, in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, world leaders gathered in Jerusalem. Listening to the speeches, it was obvious the intent was to go beyond just commemorating and remembering the past. There was a growing apprehension about the future and the increase in antisemitism.

And not just about Europe.

The increase in reported incidents of antisemitism in the US is beyond shocking. It goes beyond graffiti, protests and harassment. It goes beyond college campuses. Jews are being physically attacked and murdered, both by fanatics on both the right-wing and the left-wing too.

Jews are being attacked in New York City -- by blacks.
And those who would be expected to provide protection and address the problem are not as forthcoming as one would expect.

The media may report what is happening, but begrudgingly mention the attacks by blacks in New York City, and even then, many in the media are trying to find ways to excuse it, blaming the attacks on the Hasidic victims, on gentrification.

Then there are the political leaders, who have been excruciatingly slow to address the problem. Some in Congress have insisted that antisemitism cannot be singled out as a problem, but rather must be packaged with 'Islamaphobia" and other forms of hate. Others have taken advantage of the crisis in order to score political points, whether to blame Trump or single out the right-wing as the sole source of the hatred.

The lengths to which the media and politicians will go to craft a narrative to suit their purposes comes up in a review in The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, of the book "Wilmington's Lie", by David Zucchino, about the 1898 massacre of blacks in Wilmington, N.C., by members of a white-supremacist conspiracy. The book reveals what happens when the media and politicians ally with each other, leading up to the massacre and in covering it up afterward.

At the time, in addition to 3 of Wilmington’s 10 aldermen being black, there were black health inspectors, postmasters and magistrates, and a black street superintendent and county treasurer. The American Baptist Publication Society called Wilmington “the freest town for a negro in the country.”

According to the article:

Other key offices, such as those of the mayor and police chief, were held by white Republican or fusionist allies. Contrary to later racist propaganda, the city was well run. It was the very presence of blacks in positions of power that was intolerable to leading Democrats, who began railing against “Negro rule.”

This led to heated and racist rhetoric and worse. In this regard the review makes reference to Josephus Daniels, the influential editor of the Raleigh News and Observer:

His race baiting and fake “reporting” fueled the savagery of the white mobs. “White supremacy” has today become something of a buzzword in the debate over racial inequities: In the Wilmington of 1898, it was a proud battle cry.

Daniels would later serve as Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson. He was a close friend of Franklin Roosevelt, who appointed him ambassador to Mexico. A cruiser launched in 1963 bore his name.

Josephus Daniels. Public Domain

When Alex Manly, the editor of Wilmington’s black newspaper, the Daily Record, denounced the routine charges aimed at black community -- such as that blacks were rapists worthy of lynching -- there were outright calls for Manly's murder while a local paper, The Messenger, claimed that Wilmington was suffering from a massive crime wave (a claim that has been proven to be a complete fabrication):

“The Sambos do not wait to be threatened or assaulted but they take the initiative and assault to kill from the start.”

The newspaper went on to claim that blacks were stockpiling arms, that nannies were planning to poison the white children in their care and to set their homes on fire.

That November, on election day, blacks were blocked at gunpoint from the polls, where ballot boxes were openly stuffed. In one case, a Democrat won with 100 more votes than the total of registered voters in his precinct. Similar tactics brought Democrats overwhelming victories across much of North Carolina. One newspaper proudly declared: “Our state redeemed—Negroism defunct.”

And then came the massacre.

What came next was an organized riot, one that, as Mr. Zucchino conclusively shows, was planned even before the stolen election as a decisive coup de grâce to what remained of the biracial fusion movement. On streetcars, on horseback and on foot, hundreds of armed men poured into Wilmington from outlying towns, “stoked with adrenaline . . . and eager for an opportunity to shoot black men,” in Mr. Zucchino’s words. Many of them, known as “Red Shirts,” wore red calico blouses or red jackets over white butterfly collars, with cartridge belts around their waists. They shot their guns into black homes, fired on blacks standing on street corners, and burned the office of the black-owned Daily Record. Alex Manly had already fled north or he would have been lynched.

Later, white officials claimed that their actions were necessary to quell “Negro riots.” In reality, what took place was a slaughter. One white man was overheard to say to another as he fired, “We are just shooting to see the n—s run!” White housewives brought the shooters coffee and hotcakes. Meanwhile, hundreds of black women and children fled to the surrounding swamps in terror. By the time it was all over, at least 60 black men lay dead and many others wounded.

Every member of Wilmington’s fusion government, white and black, was forced to resign. In their place, 8 white supremacists, including 2 men who had led the rioters, were chosen as alderman. Col. Alfred Waddell, who had called for black voters to be shot, was selected as Wilmington’s mayor. Not one of the rioters was ever charged with a crime.

“With the killings completed and their enemies banished,” Mr. Zucchino writes, “Wilmington’s whites began crafting a lasting narrative of a heroic victory over dark and malevolent forces.” Later reports in the white press typically asserted that black men were the aggressors.

...In the years that followed, whites shamelessly rewrote history to incorporate racist tropes. In the 1930s, one popular writer asserted that Wilmington’s whites had to act because “black rapists prowled the city...attacking Southern girls and women.” And as late as 1949 school textbooks portrayed the insurrectionists as heroic defenders of law and order.

All this is not meant to demonize Democrats or the Democratic Party.

But it is interesting to note in passing the story of William Holden, the governor of North Carolina, from 1868-1871. 1870, in response to the assassination of Republican senator John W. Stephens months earlier, Holden called out the militia against the Ku Klux Klan, imposed martial law in two counties, and suspended the writ of habeas corpus for accused leaders of the Klan. This became known as the Kirk-Holden war.

For his efforts, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives impeached Governor Holden on December 14, 1870.

Holden was later posthumously pardoned -- by the North Carolina Senate, in 2011.

Today, we may take some comfort from the fact that the rhetoric aimed at Jews is not as heated or as debased as what Blacks faced in 1898 -- that is, unless you take a look at what appears on social media. Under the banner of 'free speech,' community and political leaders such as Sarsour, Omar and Tlaib consider themselves free to make various any of a number of baseless claims against both Jews and Israel.

And if the lack of backlash against them is any indication, they really are free to say anything.

In an article, Anti-Zionism has a death toll, Hen Mazzig notes that one of Sarsour's favorite memes has gotten Jews killed:

David Anderson, one of the Jersey City kosher supermarket shooters, posted, “Jews were using the police to [carry] out a well planned agenda [against black people]” to a thread discussing the 2016 police killing of Alton Sterling.

...One of the more prominent anti-Zionist organizations spreading this theory is the ironically-named Jewish Voice for Peace, which developed a campaign called “Deadly Exchange” to scapegoat Israel for police brutality in the United States. JVP claims that Israel is the root of anti-black police brutality, with practices that include “extrajudicial executions, shoot-to-kill policies, police murders, racial profiling, massive spying and surveillance, deportation and detention, and attacks on human rights defenders.”

Another leader of the anti-Zionist movement, former Women’s March co-chairwoman Linda Sarsour, called the anti-Semitism watchdog Anti-Defamation League, “An organization that takes police officers from America ... to Israel so they can be trained by the Israeli police and military, and then they come back here and do what? Stop and frisk, killing unarmed black people across the country.”

Sarsour’s fellow co-chairwoman Tamika Mallory has taken this conspiratorial rhetoric a step further. When Starbucks announced it planned to work with the ADL on anti-bias training, the activist demanded the public boycott the coffee conglomerate because Jewish organizations like the ADL are “CONSTANTLY attacking black and brown people.” When asked to clarify how, she wrote, “The ADL sends U.S. police to Israel to learn their military practices. This is deeply troubling.”

Then, there is Hanan Ashrawi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Miftah, which Elder of Ziyon revealed in 2013 posted on their website an article accusing Jews of using Christian blood on Passover. Just last year, the Miftah website claimed that Israel steals the organs of Haitian and Ukranian children.

When Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar announced their trip to Israel, they arranged it through Ashrawi and her Mitah organization.

Now Tlaib and Ashrawi have made news again this past weekend, doing what they do best: accusing Israel of killing non-Jewish children.

There was outrage -- on social media.
From politicians?
Not so much.

We keep talking about Tlaib and Omar.
But we almost gloss over the fact that we are talking about Representative Tlaib and Representative Omar, who serve in the House of Representatives in the US Congress in Washington, DC.

And what they do and say is important, relevant -- and dangerous:

Ashrawi apologized for her tweet, not whole-heartedly ("not fully verified"; "not certain"), but she apologized.
Tlaib just deleted her retweet, with neither comment nor apology.

It is only a matter of time before she will say or write another biased, derogatory accusation against Israel.

What happened in Wilmington seems long ago and far away. And it may be true that today such blatant, open and over-the-top attacks on blacks -- and Jews -- may be a thing of the past.

But then you read the stories about the increase in antisemitism.

And you read that the increase is not just in campus harassment, or verbal assaults on clearly identifiable Jews or the number of swastikas that are being spray-painted.

Synagogues around the world are being protected by the police and armed guards. My synagogue has been redesigned with reinforced metal doors with combination locks, special fobs and synagogue volunteers who will let you into the synagogue on Shabbos -- if they recognize you.

If the overt attacks by the politicians and the mainstream media are a thing of the past, their silence and foot-dragging in dealing with the rapidly increasing problem are very much a problem today.

With the increasingly vocal hate and the killing of Jews that is tied to it, maybe there really is not that much difference between Sarsour, Representative Tlaib and Representative Omar -- and their allies -- and the Wilmington racists after all.

All the more need for the media and political leaders to wake up.

Today, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, would be a good day to start going beyond just words.

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.

01/27 Links Pt1: Trump's peace plan: A presidential show of friendship and solidarity with Israel; Col. Kemp: Britain should support Trump's peace plan

From Ian:

Trump's peace plan: A presidential show of friendship and solidarity with Israel

Such a clear presidential display of friendship and solidarity with Israel can also help sway moderate Jewish voters to break with the Democrats and park their support with the 45th president.

Trump's decision to unveil the plan at this point is most likely designed to dominate the news cycle so that his impeachment trial gets less coverage.

But it would be wrong to accuse Trump of using the peace plan for domestic purposes only. Even if the timing may be a result of his own personal considerations, one cannot ignore the fact that it is the culmination of a long process that was launched in the very first days of his presidency.

In May 2017, Trump convened a summit of Arab leaders in Riyadh, laying the groundwork for a regional framework that he hopes will eventually serve as the backdrop for the Palestinian-Israeli peace deal.

He also took other steps, like the Bahrain workshop in June, when the administration unveiled the economic component of the peace plan as part of a larger effort to establish a mechanism to enhance the Palestinians' lives and help create a more stable Middle East.

Even if peace is still far off, Trump's vision will help cast him as a pro-active and assertive leader who is not afraid of thinking outside the box and does not feel tethered to the traditional US posture regarding this region.

Now we just have to wait and see what the actual impact of the plan is, both on American politics and on the region.

Col. Kemp: Britain should support Trump's peace plan

At a cost of 168,000 casualties, British Empire forces freed the land of Palestine from the malignant rule of the Ottoman Empire in a defensive campaign from 1915 to 1918. Had our troops not secured victory, the Turks would have maintained dominion over that land and there could never have been a Jewish state.

Yet the British government published a White Paper in May 1939 slamming the door on Jewish immigration into Palestine. Liberal Party MP James Rothschild observed at the time, "For the majority of the Jews who go to Palestine, it is a question of migration or of physical extinction."

We don't know how many Jews perished in the Holocaust who might have escaped to Palestine but it certainly runs into the hundreds of thousands. It is to Britain's eternal shame that our nation played a role in sending Jews to the Nazi ovens.

At the same time, had the British Army under General Montgomery not succeeded in halting Rommel at El-Alamein in 1942, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, would have achieved his desire to see Jews herded into gas chambers in Palestine and across the Arab world.

A serving British general led the illegal Jordanian invasion of the newly declared State of Israel in 1948. Britain armed the Arab aggressors and denied munitions to Israel, even continuing to hold fighting-age Jews in Cyprus long after British forces had withdrawn from Palestine.

On Tuesday, President Trump will announce his proposals for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Predictably, Al-Husseini's successors in the Palestinian leadership have rejected it even before it's been published. Britain, which played such an important part in the re-creation of the Jewish state, yet also made too many disastrous missteps, should get behind the president's proposals, which represent the only realistic hope for long-term peace and stability between the two peoples.

The security significance of annexing the Jordan Valley

A bill that would apply sovereignty to the Jordan Valley is currently being pushed in the Knesset. Members of Knesset should support the initiative, as annexing the Jordan Valley will help bolster Israel’s security for the foreseeable future.

The Jordan Valley serves as Israel’s frontline of defense during conventional wars from any opposing attacks coming from the East. Israel has a width of about 9.3 miles at its narrowest from the Mediterranean to the Green Line, which would be nearly impossible to defend in the event of an invasion. However, Israel’s width from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River is on average around 40 miles, which provides Israel with the necessary strategic depth to withstand an attack.

Likewise, the inimitable geographical features of the Jordan Valley provide Israel with defensible borders. The Jordan Valley rises from an area that lies 1,300 feet below sea level to the eastern slopes of the West Bank mountain ridge, which at its highest point stands around 3,600 feet above sea level. The Jordan Valley thus creates a 4,000-foot topographical barrier that makes it difficult for an opposing army attacking from the East to traverse, especially with large artillery such as tanks. The Jordan Valley contains only five mountain passages, which makes it easy for Israel to defend.

Of equal importance is the IDF’s ability to thwart terrorist infiltrations and smuggling via the Jordan Valley. The Gaza-Jericho Agreement signed in 1994 by Israel and the PLO created a narrow strip along the border area between Egypt and Gaza that would be controlled by the IDF. The agreement designated this area as the “military installation area” but was referred to by the IDF as the “Philadelphi Route.” Palestinian organizations began to create smuggling tunnels underneath the Philadelphi Route, however, the IDF was able to identify the location of the tunnels along this strip of land and eliminate them.

Once Israel withdrew from Gaza, though, Israel was no longer able to send in forces to try to destroy these tunnels, so their number proliferated. Without the IDF patrolling the border area, Hamas and other terrorists were able to capitalize on this by significantly increasing the number of weapons they were able to import via the tunnels running underneath the Philadelphi Route.

Yaakov Katz, editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, has put together some great research to describe what went on behind the scenes before, during and after Israel's bombing of the secret Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007.

The actual bombing was not tremendously dramatic. It was a fairly straightforward operation, much easier logistically than the bombing of the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981. The real drama came beforehand.

The Mossad hacked into the computer of Ibrahim Othman, the director of Syria's Atomic Energy Commission, when he visited Vienna in early March, at the request of Israel's Military Intelligence, because they had a suspicion that something bad was going on but not nearly enough evidence. The computer gave them everything they needed, including photos of Othman with a North Korean nuclear expert posing in front of a Syrian reactor, under construction, virtually identical to the one the expert was in charge of in Yongbyon.

Throughout the book, we are witness to Israel's decision making - how much intelligence to share with the US? Will the US bomb the facility itself, or try to pressure Syria diplomatically? When it became clear that the US will not act, what repercussions might there be for Israel if it bombed it alone? How can they keep the planning for the operation, which ended up being known by some 2000 people in Israel, a secret? And, most importantly, would the bombing be the first salvo in a major war with Syria, a country with tens of thousands of missiles capable of aiming chemical weapons at all of Israel? How can such an outcome be avoided?

Katz gives lots of background and context, going over the Osirak bombing and some of Mossad's clandestine operations in Syria over the years, from Eli Cohen to the assassination of Imad Mugniyeh shortly after the attack done with the US. (Interestingly, Katz said that the bomb was made by the US to fit in the spare tire compartment of Mugniyeh's Mitsubishi SUV; the book Harpoon that I recently reviewed said the bomb was placed in his headrest.)

Perhaps more knuckle-biting than the raid itself was the preceding covert operation to take soil samples from the reactor itself, with IDF soldiers disguised as Syrian soldiers, with Russian helicopters and AK-47s, to get close to the target without arousing suspicion. The uranium particles discovered provided crucial proof that the facility was indeed a secret nuclear plant.

After the successful attack, Israel still has many diplomatic issues to deal with. When do they talk to their European allies about it and what do they share? How can they deal with Turkey's complaints that they crossed into their airspace (they hugged the Turkish/Syrian border as they flew under the radar.)

If there is any hero in this book, it is Ehud Olmert, who is portrayed as making the tough decisions with no interest in politicizing it, especially at a time when he was under criminal investigation. If there is any villain, it is Ehud Barak, who seems to want to delay the attack until he can topple Olmert to become prime minister so he could take credit. (Even so, during the Jerusalem Post conference in New York last year where Katz was hawking this new book, he had a one-on-one interview with Barak that seemed friendly enough.)

George W. Bush is shown as very sympathetic but unable to risk an operation after the intelligence debacle of the Iraq war. (He promised full support to Olmert after he was informed of the attack in case Syria initiated a war.) John Bolton and Dick Cheney are seen as "getting it" before many other American officials and having great suspicions of North Korea possibly wanting to be a nuclear weapons proliferator. Binyamin Netanyahu is portrayed as a political opportunist, taking partial credit for the operation on American TV when Israel had not accepted responsibility.

Shadow Strike is a fun read, chock full of interesting details that even those who were familiar with the operation beforehand would not have known.

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Middle East Monitor, an English-language site that is pro-Hamas and pro-Muslim Brotherhood, has an amusing article accusing Mohammad bin Salman, and the entire Saudi royal family, of being Zionist.

For decades, Arabs would accuse their political enemies of being Zionists in order to shut them down. That doesn't seem to work any more, but Hamas still tries, as this article by a Gaza writer shows.

It starts off with:

Last week, a prominent Saudi Sheikh, Mohammed Al-Issa, visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its liberation, which signalled the end of the Nazi Holocaust. Although dozens of Muslim scholars have visited the site, where about one million Jews were killed during World War Two, according to the Auschwitz Memorial Centre’s press office, Al-Issa is the most senior Muslim religious leader to do so.

Visiting Auschwitz is not a problem for a Muslim; Islam orders Muslims to reject unjustified killing of any human being, no matter what their faith is. Al-Issa is a senior ally of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), who apparently cares little for the sanctity of human life, though, and the visit to Auschwitz has very definite political connotations beyond any Islamic context.

By sending Al-Issa to the camp, Bin Salman wanted to show his support for Israel, which exploits the Holocaust for geopolitical colonial purposes.

It's particularly funny that the author says that there is no problem for Muslims to visit Auschwitz - yet every one who does so is invariably attacked. The most egregious example is Prof. Mohammed Dajani Daoudi who was forced out of his job, subjected to death threats and had his car blown up after he lead a trip to Auschwitz. Also, Hamas has been bitterly against teaching the Holocaust in UNRWA schools, so the assertion that Arabs and Muslims have no problem with visiting Auschwitz is quite a lie.

We should not be shocked, therefore, to see a Zionist Muslim leader in these trying times. It is reasonable to say that Bin Salman’s grandfather and father were Zionists, as close friends of Zionist leaders. Logic suggests that Bin Salman comes from a Zionist dynasty.
This has been evident from his close relationship with Zionists and positive approaches to the Israeli occupation and establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, calling it “[the Jews’] ancestral homeland”. This means that he has no issue with the ethnic cleansing of almost 800,000 Palestinians in 1948, during which thousands were killed and their homes demolished in order to establish the Zionist state of Israel.

The line from admitting that Israel is the Jews' ancestral homeland and supporting the (fictional) ethnic cleansing of 800,000 is not at all obvious - unless you are an Arab who sees life as a zero-sum game.

As the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Bin Salman has imprisoned dozens of Palestinians, including representatives of Hamas. In doing so he is serving Israel’s interests. Moreover, he has blamed the Palestinians for not making peace with the occupation state. Bin Salman “excoriated the Palestinians for missing key opportunities,” wrote Danial Benjamin in Moment magazine. He pointed out that the prince’s father, King Salman, has played the role of counterweight by saying that Saudi Arabia “permanently stands by Palestine and its people’s right to an independent state with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid of Israel’s Channel 13 News reported Bin Salman as saying: “In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given. It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.” This is reminiscent of the words of the late Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, one of the Zionist founders of Israel, that the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Apparently, pointing out obvious truths is proof of one's Zionism.

While discussing the issue of the current Saudi support for Israeli policies and practices in Palestine with a credible Palestinian official last week, he told me that the Palestinians had contacted the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to ask him not to relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. “The Saudis have been putting pressure on us in order to relocate our embassy to Jerusalem,” replied the Brazilian leader. What more evidence of Mohammad Bin Salman’s Zionism do we need?

I have no idea if this is true, but it would certainly be cool if it was!

(h/t Mark D.)

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This past Shabbat, the Park East Synagogue held an impressive Holocaust commemoration together with the UN and participants from many countries.

Park East synagogue's Rabbi Arthur Schneier is a Holocaust survivor and prominent speaker who pulled this event together. The synagogue featured the haunting recently colorized photos of Auschwitz.

Since it was held on Shabbat, there is no video, but the speakers and participants included Colonel Oliver Nurton of the UK, as well as speakers from the military attaches of the US, Russia and France, who read Pslams 23.

Also in attendance were representatives from China, Turkey, and the Vatican. Two representatives from Morocco spoke about how that country is opening synagogues and is open to Jewish visitors.

Israel was represented by Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon and Consul General to New York Dani Dayan who spoke forcefully about the need to combat Iran's desire to start a second Holocaust.

The featured speaker was UN Secretary General António Guterres, who gave a forceful speech against antisemitism (although he unfortunately only emphasized the right-wing flavor.) Excerpts:

Intolerance today spreads at lightning speed across the Internet and social media. Hate groups use social media to link up with like-minded bigots across borders. And hate is moving into the mainstream – as major political parties incorporating ideas from the fringes and parties once rightly considered pariahs are gaining influence.

We should not exaggerate the comparisons to the 1930s, but equally we should not ignore the similarities. Hatred is easy to uncork, and very hard to put back in the bottle.

Some of you may know of the recently rediscovered 1924 Austrian silent film, “The City Without Jews”. It was featured this month at the New York Jewish Film Festival.The film is based on a book from 1922 – in other words, even before Mein Kampf. In Vienna, in Austria, the city of Rabbi Schneier.

A country’s economy is in tatters. Opportunistic politicians need a scapegoat. And so they say: let’s blame the Jews. Jews were hounded, harassed and ultimately expelled. They were forced to leave in masses, by train and on foot.

At the time, such imaginings might have been dismissed as the height of absurdity. New York’s local newspaper called it “one of the most fatuous productions imaginable”.

Yet within years, cinematic satire turned to real-life prophecy.Today, the film has taken on a new life as a warning to act early, before the unthinkable fiction becomes all too real fact.

Ladies and Gentlemen, This is the painful backdrop for today’s observance marking the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

We are together to honour the memory of the six million Jews and millions of others who were systematically murdered. Our urgent challenge today is to heed the lessons of a period when human dignity was cast aside for a racist ideology.

I was disturbed to learn that a recent poll in Europe found that one third of people say they know little or nothing about the Holocaust. Among millennials, some two-thirds had no idea Auschwitz was a death camp.

We are also seeing attempts to rewrite the history of the Holocaust, and to sanitize the wartime records of leaders, citizens and societies. As the number of survivors dwindles, it falls to us to carry their testimony to future generations.

And so my answer to Rabbi Schneier’s question as to who will speak on behalf of the survivors, is: we will. Education is crucial. We must teach our children to love before others teach them to hate.

The United Nations is strongly committed to being at the forefront of this important work. Our Holocaust Outreach Programme has activities in dozens of countries. I have just asked my Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide to mobilize the whole UN system and devise a global plan of action to deepen our efforts to counter hate speech.

The UN may be a cesspool but Guterres is the most pro-Israel, philosemitic Secretary General that organization has had in many decades, if not ever.

(h/t Rabbi Elchanan Poupko)

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Here come the Palestinian threats to withdraw from Oslo - just like in years past

AFP reports:

Palestinian leaders threatened Sunday to withdraw from key provisions of the Oslo Accords, which define arrangements with Israel, if US President Donald Trump announces his Middle East peace plan next week.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told AFP that the Palestine Liberation Organisation reserved the right "to withdraw from the interim agreement" of the Oslo pact if Trump unveils his plan.

Now, where have we heard that before?

2014:

The era of the two-state solution may soon be rocked by a decision that could signal its demise. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is mulling the merits of a proposal to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Sunday morning.

2012:

If diplomatic stagnation continues after the Israeli election and construction in the settlements doesn't stop, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will dismantle the PA and return responsibility for the West Bank to the Israeli government, he told Haaretz in an interview on Thursday.

2010:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to dissolve the Palestinian Authority (PA) if Israel does not stop building settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

"If Israel does not stop settlement building ... I will strive to end Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories," he said.

2008:

Rafik Husseini, the top adviser to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told The Sunday Telegraph that Palestinian politicians may take the drastic step of disbanding the authority if a lasting agreement is not reached during the current peace negotiations.

Somehow, Abbas didn't follow through. Just like he didn't follow through on his many threats to resign if he didn't get some demand or another.

The chances that PLO leaders would voluntarily choose to lose the (still significant) power they have is exactly zero.

The chances that they will continue to make baseless threats rather than take responsibility for the welfare of their own people is exactly 100%.

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Amazing video of thousands of Ugandans marching with Israeli flags

This is amazing to watch:

According to StopAntisemitism, this is sponsored by Vision for Africa, a Christian organization. The march was lead by a Pastor Drake in Marbara, Uganda.

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01/26 Links: Douglas Murray: What unites the Nazis and Communists?; Netanyahu says he and Trump will ‘make history’ this week; Israelis can visit Saudi Arabia

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: What unites the Nazis and Communists?

So what is it that makes Life and Fate (by Vasily Grossman) so deserving of the description “great”, a realisation of which more and more English readers — not least thanks to Robert Chandler’s translation — are becoming aware? There are a number of ways in which the term can be used of a novel; a key one is if the work appears to convey every aspect of the world which it describes.

Though it might seem impossible to do that with the panorama Grossman surveys, he manages it: from the mother of a Russian soldier travelling to find the grave of her son, to the civilians and soldiers still eking out their lives in the rubble of the besieged city; from the minds of Hitler and Eichmann to those of Stalin and the NKVD, the novel is a vivid, living x-ray of the whole 20th-century nightmare.

The novel’s tricky publishing history is now well-known. Completed in 1960, it was confiscated by the KGB and only smuggled into the West in 1980. But you can see immediately why, even in the Khrushchev period, this novel could never have been allowed. One of the central, simple insights of the work is the way in which it innocently demonstrates how Nazism and Communism were mirrors of each other.

On one side, the Nazis would put people in camps because of their racial origin. On the other, Soviet, side people could be consigned to the camps because of a relative who had chosen to live abroad or who had the “wrong” job before the revolution. In both cases, the individual could be disappeared due to factors over which they had absolutely no control. As one of the more decent Russian characters of the novel reflects:
“To me, a distinction based on social origin seems legitimate and moral. But the Germans obviously consider a distinction based on nationality to be equally moral. One thing I am certain of: it’s terrible to kill someone simply because he’s a Jew. They’re people like any others — good, bad, gifted, stupid, stolid, cheerful, kind, sensitive, greedy… Hitler says none of that matters — all that matters is that they’re Jewish. And I protest with my whole being. But then we have the same principle: what matters is whether or not you’re the son of an aristocrat, the son of a merchant, the son of a kulak; and whether you’re good-natured, wicked, gifted, kind, stupid, happy is neither here nor there. And we’re not talking about the merchants, priests and aristocrats themselves — but about their children and grandchildren. Does noble blood run in one’s veins like Jewishness? Is one a priest or a merchant by heredity?”

Never over-laboured, the mirror keeps offering up reflections. The Germans had their crazed purges just as the Russians — before, and after, as well as during 1937 — had theirs. The Nazis had Rohm, the Russians had Bukharin. Stalin and Hitler are not just evil geniuses of their own creation, but clever students of each other.

Find yourself 10 minutes and listen to Howard Jacobson at his best (which is extremely good) - and calling out Jenny Tonge for what she is. https://t.co/szGDjJzcfL
— David Wolfson (@DXWQC) January 25, 2020

Rashida Tlaib retweets false blood libel claim that Israeli soldiers killed 7-yr-old Palestinian boy

The most anti-Semitic congressperson in memory, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, grievously retweeted a blood libel claim about a seven-year-old Palestinian child. The online antisemitic canard stated the boy “was kidnapped by a Herd of violent #Israeli settlers, assaulted & thrown in a water well, was found this morning frozen to death in Beit Hanina, Jerusalem after Israeli forces assaulted search teams.”

The claim, originally posted to a fake Twitter account called “Real Seif Bitar,” was false.

What is true is that the boy was found dead in a cistern Saturday morning after going missing on Friday.

Israeli journalist Eylon Levy pointedly accused Tlaib of being, at the very least reckless, and quite possibly far worse …

“Blood libel” is an antisemitic, defamatory allegation that Jews murder non-Jewish children to use their blood as part of religious rituals.

The Jerusalem Post reported: “Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi re-tweeted the allegation and added ‘the heart just shatters, the pain is unbearable, no words.’ Congresswoman Tlaib then retweeted the Ashrawi tweet that included the allegations.”

Victor Rosenthal: Tweet and Delete

Tweet and delete. If someone complains, shrug. Anyone can make a mistake.

There is no excuse for what they did. They know how the Palestinian rumor machine works. They know that @RealSeifBitar is not a real journalist, and that his vicious language is not that of a reliable source.

They should know that the blood libel that leads to the murder of Jews, sometimes to the destruction of whole Jewish communities, has a long history in both the Christian and the Muslim worlds.

But they don’t care, because it serves their purpose. Because it serves the Palestinian Cause. Because – maybe they would even admit this if you asked – truth for them is not independent of the observer. Truth for a Palestinian is identical with what helps the Cause. And that is defined as what hurts Jews and Israel.

So it is fine to make up massacres that didn’t happen (Jenin, 2002) as did pro-Palestinian journalist Phil Reeves, or to make movies about them like Mohammad Bakri. There’s no problem with accusing Israel of opening the dams to flood Gaza, even when there are no dams in the area. And if you get caught in a lie, no big deal. Just move on.

Tweet and delete. Because the Palestinian Theory of Truth says you can.

But don't worry, @Qudsn_en has found a different way to use this tragedy to demonize Israel.https://t.co/jPmvUAIIs6
— (((David Lange))) (@Israellycool) January 26, 2020

Bernie Sanders rolls out video casting Trump as threat to Jews

Bernie Sanders launched a campaign video highlighting his Jewish identity and casting President Donald Trump as part of the white nationalist threat.

The four-minute video posted Thursday night on Sanders’ Twitter feed, interpolates excerpts from Sanders’ speech last year to J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group, with commentary by Joel Rubin, the campaign’s Jewish outreach director.

It starts with Sanders’ declaration of pride in being Jewish. “I’m very proud to be Jewish and look forward to becoming the first Jewish president in the history of this country,” Sanders says.

During his 2016 run for the Democratic nomination, Sanders at first played down his Jewish background, although he was the first Jewish major-party candidate to win nominating contests. This cycle, he has emphasized his Jewishness.

The video otherwise focuses almost entirely on the threat that Sanders says President Donald Trump poses to Jews and other minorities.

Les palos place du Châtelet ont frappé un groupe d'iraniens pro sionistes. 3 agressés dont 2 https://t.co/PqcyJDsnEi une personne se trouve ce soir à l'hôpital. pic.twitter.com/f5J9WUKlLo
— Le Collectif des Vigilants (@HArlerte) January 25, 2020

According to the tweeter, on Saturday there was a pro-Ayatollah rally in France with communists, Hamas and Hezbollah supporters. Ten Iranians who fight for a free Iran who are also friends of Israel counter-protested with their flags. This pro-Palestinian, pro-Ayatollah man attacked them with his metal pole and injured three of them, one of whom was hospitalized.

Another angle of the attack:

pic.twitter.com/mmq5Jo0BhK
— Le Collectif des Vigilants (@HArlerte) January 25, 2020

The attacker's name is Abdelkader Dahmani, seen here in a 2016 protest with the same T-shirt where he calls such protests "fun."

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Blatant lies in Palestinian report to UNHRC on children's rights

The "State of Palestine" signed on to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on April 1, 2014, with very little intention of actually implementing any of its provisions. Instead, as its initial report to the UN Human Rights Council shows, the main reason for signing the Convention was to slam Israel:

The State of Palestine is under a colonialist, military occupation on the part of Israel and this report will throw some light on the colonialist policies of that occupation and the serious, systematic and widespread violations that infringe the provisions of the Convention. In fact, the Israeli occupation authorities deliberately and systematically target Palestinian children on a wide scale including through extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, displacement and forced migration with the aim of terrorizing an entire generation.

Still, acceding to the Convention involves describing what the signers are doing with their own children. The UN gave the Palestinians a long list of questions asking what they are doing to adhere to the Convention, and the Palestinians just published their responses.

Many of their responses are provable lies, and others (about teaching birth control in schools, for example) are almost certainly untrue as well.

87.The Ministry of Education has issued guidelines to combat all forms of violence in school and has implemented programmes to the same end, including a child-friendly-school programme that aims to provide an educational, social, psychological and health-related school environment that is welcoming and friendly to children. The programme also envisages activities to protect children and teachers alike. In addition, modules have been incorporated into school curricula that aim to promote a culture of dialogue, respect for the opinions of others and the acquisition of basic life skills by pupils.

In fact, dozens of schools are named after terrorists and glorify "martyrdom."

89.There are no cases in the State of Palestine in which children are alleged to have participated in hostilities. National laws and legislation provide complete protection for children and forbid their use or exploitation in hostilities. The Palestinian Child Act No. 7 of 2004, as amended, prohibits the use or exploitation of children in any unlawful activities and reaffirms the right of children to life and security.

Every single week children are encouraged to sling stones to Israelis.

Here's a protest of students in Hebron where they attack soldiers.

90.There is a national consensus against the exploitation of children in any circumstances and, in fact, children are not exploited for political purposes in the State of Palestine.

Here's a protest organized specifically by the PA for children against Trump last year.

Here is a poem that a child recited on PA TV:

"I am the Palestinian lion cub…The blood of the Martyrs flows in my veins
I am like a lion in the fields [of battle] If the drums of war call, I harvest the souls in the fields
My sword is drawn and won’t return to the sheath…
The armies of treachery fear me and the Dark-Eyed [Virgins] yearn for me
I have not sold my homelands, and have not given up my assault rifle
Today I carry my shrouds, and in my heart my faith strengthens
Because victory and liberation are coming at the hands of the lion cubs”

This is child abuse - and it is encouraged by the Palestinian Authority.

But the UN is not likely to look past the lies in the report.

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