Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, February 01, 2020

02/01 Links: Ben Shapiro: When ‘Never Again’ Means Nothing; Abbas says Palestinians cutting all ties with Israel, US; Arab League unanimously rejects Trump’s ME peace plan; Weekend at Bernies

From Ian:

Ben Shapiro: When ‘Never Again’ Means Nothing

The truth is that #NeverAgain has become a virtue signal for many on the modern left, who are more than willing to greenlight the genocidal anti-Semitism of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Authority, and the Iranian regime, among others. Islamic anti-Semitism, in their view, is not true anti-Semitism; it’s just religious conflict, or territorial disagreement, or anti-Zionism.

When such ideological disagreements result in open calls for the murder of Jews … well, that’s going a bit too far, but it’s understandable. After all, modern Jews—particularly Zionists, who insist on a Jewish state to ensure the survival of their people—are rather bothersome in real life, unlike those dead Jews from World War II, who aren’t any more real than their old black-and-white photos, and whose survival is no longer at issue.

It’s easy for radical leftists and their Islamic allies to spout #NeverAgain while proclaiming that today’s Jews aren’t like yesterday’s Jews. All of which is why Israel’s continued existence provides both a thorn in the side of modern anti-Semites and why Israel’s continued existence is so necessary.

Vague expressions of upset over an event that took place 75 years ago are no substitute for the hard-nosed defense of Jewish survival that Israel represents. And Jews should remember that when they decide to blind themselves to the real and present anti-Semitism of the Omars, Tlaibs, and Corbyns.

Holocaust education is not a miracle drug to immunize us against hatred

What were totally forgotten or ignored by all the speakers were two topics that can best be described as the “unfinished business of the Holocaust.” I am referring specifically to the issues of justice and restitution, which are neither identical nor equivalent, but have two important similarities. In both cases, there have been highly significant partial successes, but much more could and should have been done, which has not yet been done. Both are still continuing but the chances of any additional major successes are almost non-existent as far as justice is concerned, and only slightly better in terms of restitution.

I mention these two issues because they have a direct impact on future efforts to defeat antisemitism, and are part of the problems we continue to face in this regard. Justice is a genuine deterrent to crime and had more of the perpetrators of Holocaust crimes been punished, it’s likely that antisemitic crimes would not be as prevalent as they are today. The same can be said as regards restitution. The more property returned to Jews, the stronger the warning against harming Jews – since in both cases the root of these crimes is antisemitism.

I am certain that many of the leaders who ignored these issues would dismiss this argument by pointing to the passage of so many years since the crimes were committed, but the passage of time in no way diminishes the crimes of yesteryear, and the guilt of those who murdered and robbed. The problem is that it is always easier to stick to virtually meaningless platitudes about memory and remembrance rather than pledge to tackle unpopular problems which obligate difficult practical solutions. So of course remembering the Shoah and Holocaust education are important and beneficial, but they have to be accompanied by legal measures against antisemitic crimes and the determination that the perpetrators of such crimes will never benefit from them.

"Anti-Semitism is just like racism -- it's hate. And hate anywhere should never be tolerated... We have to be loud every time we see something that is anti-Semitic." -@NikkiHaley pic.twitter.com/OhWqFGp0OR
— Stand For America (@standamericanow) January 31, 2020

Yishai Fleisher: The Myth Of Arab Buy-In

However, while these Arab countries feel pressure to line up with Israel to defend their strategic positions, as leaders of Arab nationalism and authentic Islam, they still need to publicly save face.

That is why the Trump plan smartly kept the “two-state solution” on the table so that Arab states could pay lip service to the creation of a Palestine. This allowed Arab representatives to sit at the White House in their traditional robes as the deal was being unveiled. Yet the real effect of Arab states accepting the tenets of the deal was not the creation of an independent Palestine at all. Rather, it was the recognition of Israel as a legitimate Jewish entity in the Middle East — with its capital in Jerusalem and with rights in Judea and Samaria.

Shocking! And with regard to Palestine, the Arab states heard and acquiesced to the call on Palestinians to disarm, to stop paying for terror, to stop incitement — to basically give up the war with Israel. This was truly revolutionary. By agreeing to an Israel in the “West Bank” and also a defanged Palestine, the Arab states, quietly and without public pronouncement, essentially agreed to an end of hostilities with the Jewish state.

The Palestinian leadership, naturally, is up in arms. But it is not only their former Sunni Arab state allies who have turned their backs on them — it is also the proverbial Arab street. Many “West Bank” Arabs are tired of the pointless war with Israel and are tired of the corrupt Palestinian Authority. It is for this reason that there have barely been any protests against the “Deal of the Century” — just as there was a muted reaction to the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by the Trump administration.

Yet, while many Arabs want to end hostilities, it is a mistake to pine for public Arab buy-in. Israel is anathema to both their Arab nationalism and a core tenet of Islam — and if they must swallow the existence of Israel, they prefer it play out as coercion, or at least a gradual and quiet acceptance rather than voluntary proclamations of “peace in our time.” In the end, helping the Arab world transition from war to cooperation is a delicate task and it will surely benefit Israel. But the Muslim world, which is hungry for prosperity, modernity, and reform, stands to gain even more.

Hanan Ashrawi @DrHananAshrawi, by calling Naama Issachar a "drug smuggler," shows her antisemitism (again)

Hanan Ashrawi tweeted:

As anyone who followed the case of Naam Issachar knows, she was caught with 9.5 grams of marijuana in her suitcase during a stopover in Russia coming from India to Israel. She had no access to her luggage in Russia, she couldn't have sold her small amount of pot if she wanted to.

Issachar is not a politician. She is just a naive, perhaps stupid, girl for taking the marihuana on the plane. But Ashrawi, by smearing her as a "drug smuggler," shows that she does not want to merely insult a girl - but an Israeli and a Jew. She wants to tell the world that Issachar is guilty because she is Jewish - there is no other evidence of her being a smuggler.

Ashrawi, whose Miftah has pushed the blood libel and supported terrorists who kill Jews, has proven her hate for Jews yet again.

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.

01/31 Links Pt2: Senators Seek Answers to Davos Press Credentials Given to Antisemitic Broadcaster; Palestinian Authority Schools Are Teaching Anti-Israel Violence Is Honorable

From Ian:

FDD: Occupied Elsewhere

Setting policies toward territories involved in protracted conflicts poses an ongoing challenge for governments, companies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Since there are multiple zones of disputed territories and occupation around the globe, setting policy toward one conflict raises the question of whether similar policies will be enacted toward others. Where different policies are implemented, the question arises: On what principle or toward what goal are the differences based?

Recently, for example, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided goods entering the European Union that are produced in Jewish settlements in the West Bank must be clearly designated as such.1 At the same time, however, neither the ECJ nor the European Union have enacted similar policies on goods from other zones of occupation, such as Nagorno-Karabakh or Abkhazia. The U.S. administration swiftly criticized the ECJ decision as discriminatory since it only applies to Israel.2 Yet, at the same time, U.S. customs policy on goods imports from other territories is also inconsistent: U.S. Customs and Border Protection has explicit guidelines that goods imported from the West Bank must be labelled as such, while goods that enter the United States from other occupied zones, such as Nagorno-Karabakh, encounter no customs interference.

Territorial conflicts have existed throughout history. But the establishment of the United Nations, whose core principles include the inviolability of borders and the inadmissibility of the use of force to change them, led to the proliferation of protracted conflicts. Previously, sustained control over territory led to eventual acceptance of the prevailing power’s claims to sovereignty. Today, the United Nations prevents recognition of such claims but remains largely incapable of influencing the status quo, leaving territories in an enduring twilight zone. Such territories include, but are not limited to: Crimea, Donbas, Northern Cyprus, the West Bank, Kashmir, The Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, and Western Sahara.3

The problem is not simply that the United Nations, United States, European Union, private corporations, and NGOs act in a highly inconsistent manner. It is that their policies are selective and often reveal biases that underscore deeper problems in the international system. For example, Russia occupies territories the United States and European Union recognize as parts of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, yet Crimea is the only Russian-occupied territory subject to Western sanctions. By contrast, products from Russian-controlled Transnistria enter the United States as products of Moldova, and the European Union allows Transnistria to enjoy the benefits of a trade agreement with Moldova. The United States and European Union demand specific labeling of goods produced in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and prohibit them from being labeled Israeli products. Yet products from Nagorno-Karabakh – which the United States and European Union recognize as part of Azerbaijan – freely enter Western markets labeled as products of Armenia.

Today, several occupying powers try to mask their control by setting up proxy regimes, such as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) or similar entities in Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh. While these proxies do not secure international recognition, the fiction of their autonomy benefits the occupier. By contrast, countries that acknowledge their direct role in a territorial dispute tend to face greater external pressure than those that exercise control by proxy.

This on going War: Fox News break ranks with the mainstream media on Tamimi and Jordan

For us, it's something of a milestone.

On Wednesday, over on the heavily-trafficked Fox News website , there's an informative long-form piece that in large measure deals with our efforts to see Ahlam Tamimi, the Jordanian Islamist who masterminded the massacre at Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria in 2001, finally brought before US justice.

Written by Hollie McKay, the article is entitled "Most wanted female terrorist lives in freedom in Jordan despite extradition request for bombing that killed Americans".

Tamimi faces serious Federal charges in the United States for the central role she had in the mass-casualty attack. The FBI and the US Department of Justice have made serious efforts to take her into custody and reached what we think is the limit of their capabilities, absent the involvement of the political echelon of both the United States (by far the more important side) and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The mainstream media pay almost no attention to Tamimi, to Jordan's egregious (and frankly disgraceful) refusal to comply with its own 1995 treaty with the US, to our efforts, to the effect the Jordan/Tamimi scandal is having on the unchecked spread of Islamist and extremist pro-Palestinian Arab violence, and to how US politicians (with some important exceptions) treat the affair as untouchable and us as lepers.

Our thanks to Fox News and to Hollie McKay, whom we've never met, for focusing on what we are sure is an important story that exemplifies how justice in the plainest sense can be denied for shabby and unspoken political motives.

MEMRI: Muslim World League's Historic Auschwitz Visit Draws Support From Saudi Arabia, Condemnation From Qatar

The January 23, 2020 visit to the Nazi Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp in Oświęcim, Poland by a delegation from the Mecca-based Muslim World League (MWL), comprising 25 senior Muslim clerics and headed by its secretary-general, Mohammad Al-'Issa, was unprecedented. Taking place in advance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, it was the first visit by a senior Muslim delegation to the camp, and was in conjunction with delegations and representatives from the American Jewish Committee (AJC). The visit, along with Al-'Issa's statements condemning the Holocaust during the visit, prompted a range of reactions in the Arab and Islamic world.

Saudi intellectuals and media figures expressed support for the visit on social media, emphasizing that the Holocaust was a mark of shame for humanity as well as history's most loathsome crime, that it should be acknowledged and condemned as such, and that it should be taught in schools. They added that the visit itself was an expression of tolerance and a positive move that would advance peace in the region. The Saudi press also published articles in support of the visit and of Al-'Issa, clarifying that it expressed condemnation of the crime against the Jews but was not an expression of support for Israel since Jews and Zionists are not the same.

Aside from the delegation's Auschwitz visit, this year International Holocaust Remembrance Day received special mention in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. The Bahraini and UAE foreign ministers expressed solidarity with Holocaust victims and condemned racism on Twitter, with the Bahraini minister tweeting: "Together, we will remember those who were annihilated, [to ensure] that these crimes against humanity will not recur."[1]This was retweeted and expanded by his Emirati counterpart. Likewise, Saudi media published articles on International Holocaust Remembrance Day recognizing its importance.[2]

On the other hand, pro-Qatar elements leveraged the visit to protest against the MWL and its home base, Saudi Arabia. Condemnation of the visit appeared in the Qatari media, and the Qatar-backed International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) also condemned it, calling it an expression of unacceptable normalization with Israel. The position taken by the IUMS was in line with the antisemitic statements made over the years by its senior officials. IUMS founder Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradawi has for years promoted an extremist antisemitic and anti-Christian discourse, even saying in a sermon that Hitler was Allah's punishment for the Jews and calling for another Holocaust but this time at the hands of the Muslims.[3] This year, the organization's current leader, Dr. Ahmad Al-Raissouni wrote that it is a right and an obligation to question the Holocaust, and that details about it could not be confirmed because the narrative consists of claims that are "politically biased and questionable."[4]

The Islamic Rat Girl

A tweet I saw was funny but ultimately horrifying:

Since it’s Year of the Rat, I just wanted to pay my respects to rat girl, the girl who every Muslim kid growing up was told had turned into a rat because she threw out the Quran. My scripture teacher told us about it and literally no adult questioned this. Thanks rat girl pic.twitter.com/BmEnPbkVi2
— putting the pal in palestinian (@jennineak) January 31, 2020

The thread showed that this was, and maybe still is, a widespread assertion used by Muslim teachers and parents:

This story is actually all over the place, and treated seriously in many Muslim websites. The main variant:

A girl was listening to music loudly, her mother happened to be reading the Quran, she asked her to turn the music down so she can carry on reading the Quran. The girl got pisst off and went to kick the Quran, her mother threw herself between her foot and the Quran, she ended up kicking her mother. She then stormed up to her room, where she put her music on and locked the door.
Later that day her mother realised that she had been up there for quite along a time, and the music was still blasting, she decided to call her down to eat. So, the mother went up to call her daughter but there was no answer. The mother got worried, she got her husband to break open the door, and they found the daughter in a state where she could be described as half monkey, half snake, lizard and very ugly like a ghost. She appeared to b a mixture of monkey, lizard and human, she couldn’t speak either.

The photo is actually part of a 2003 sculpture by Patricia Piccinini who was very upset at this hoax.

It is sort of horrifying that this story is told as truth (with mosques even handing out flyers with the grotesque picture, as one tweeter noted.) Kids were truly traumatized.

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.

01/31 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: The Palestinians' bluff has been called; Caroline Glick: The Oslo blood libel is over; 3 mortar shells launched at Israel from Gaza; IDF tank strikes Hamas post

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Palestinians' bluff has been called

Perhaps the Trump plan's most important achievement is to put on record the truth about the Jews' unique rights to the land of Israel. As it states, the areas that Israel is being asked to yield to the Palestinians nevertheless constitute "territory to which Israel has asserted valid legal and historical claims, and which are part of the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people."

As for the loud protests that Israel is being allowed to "annex the West Bank," professor of international law Eugene Kontorovich has tweeted that the United States is not proposing to recognize Israeli annexation of the territory: "It is recognizing that Israel has always had a legitimate claim on this land." In other words, the application of Israeli sovereignty is to be based on its pre-existing rights to the land.

The most intractable element of these pre-existing Jewish rights is Jerusalem, which Israel will never allow to be divided again but to which the Palestinians lay claim as their state's intended capital. The plan audaciously resolves this apparently insoluble conundrum by stating that the Palestine capital should be located "in all areas east and north of the existing security barrier," including Kafr Aqab, the eastern part of Shuafat and Abu Dis, and which could be named Al Quds.

In other words, the Trump team has simply redefined Jerusalem to exclude those Arab areas of the city beyond the security barrier. This would enable the Palestinians to tell themselves their capital is Jerusalem, while Israel will have ceased to regard that area as Jerusalem at all.

Of course, the Palestinians would never agree to this. "Al Quds" to them centers on their illegitimate appropriation of Temple Mount – the most sacred site in Judaism.

But the plan states the all-important historical truth denied by the Palestinians because it vitiates their entire claim to the land – that Jerusalem was the political center of the Jewish people under King David, and has remained their spiritual center and the focus of their religious beliefs for nearly 3,000 years.

The Trump plan won't bring peace; however, it restores the truth and justice that are essential prerequisites of peace. Crushing the lethal and poisonous fantasies about Israel and the Jewish people, as well as taking a hard-headed approach to Palestinian intentions, it replaces illusions by reality.

That's no small achievement. Now it's up to the rest of the world.

Caroline B. Glick: The Oslo blood libel is over

When Israel embarked on the Oslo peace process it accepted Oslo's foundational assumption that Israel is to blame for the Palestinian war against it. From the first Oslo agreement, signed on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, through all its derivative deals, Israel was required to carry out "confidence-building measures," to prove its good faith and peaceful intentions to Arafat and his deputies.

Time after time, Israel was required to release terrorists from prison as a precondition for negotiations with the PLO. The goal of those negotiations in turn was to force Israel to release more terrorists from prison, and give more land, more money, more international legitimacy and still more terrorists to the PLO.

On Tuesday, this state of affairs ended.

On Sunday morning, just before he flew to Washington, US Ambassador David Friedman briefed me on the details of President Donald Trump's peace plan at his home in Herzliya.

Friedman told me that Trump was going to announce that the United States will support an Israeli decision to apply its laws to the Jordan Valley and the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria.

I asked what the boundaries of the settlements would be.

He said that they have a map, it isn't precise, so it can be flexibly interpreted but it was developed in consultation with Israeli government experts.

David Collier: Trumps vision: knocking the Palestinian cause off its perch

Peace or suffering

To those that oppose it – and are living in comfort in the west – they really need to decide what it is they are opposing – they are not the people who suffer from the perpetual conflict.

The problem for the Palestinians is that non-engagement doesn’t work. And I am speaking as someone with historical knowledge who wants genuine peace – and can visualise a time when the walls between Palestinians and Israelis fall down organically.

The only question we face today is how to build a platform upon which a real future partnership can be built. You don’t start as a doctor – you start in pre-school. If you refuse to enter education until you receive your medical licence – you will remain uneducated- even though education still remains a fundamental human right. On statehood – the Palestinians will never be able to start at the end.

Friends of Palestinians should be screaming this loudly. That historically when the Arabs did not co-operate – they lost. They lost when they didn’t co-operate during the early days of the Mandate. They lost when they refused to engage the UN as it formulated the partition plan. The world is moving on – and Israel has continued to grow and prosper. Talking doesn’t hurt. What ruined Oslo wasn’t the talks – it was the bus bombs.

The ‘vision’ does *EXACTLY* what it says on the tin. It is a clear project to improve the lives the Palestinians (and Israelis). It may not be perfect, but it is certainly something that everyone interested in ending the conflict should take seriously and want the Palestinians to discuss.

The vision looks at Palestinian suffering and finds a way to break through the impasse. But there is the catch. It deals with the Palestinians as people – not as a cause. It deals with their human rights, not their anti-Israel desires. And for that it will be instantly rejected by every Palestinian flag waver in the west. Which given the world will carry on moving with or without them – would be a tragedy for the Palestinians more than anyone else.

The Moroccan army has received 3 Israeli-made reconnaissance planes, according to French intelligence website Intelligence Online as quoted by Ma'an.

The news, which was also reported by Moroccan media, confirms that the size of the deal amounted to $48 million.

The drones are the Israeli Heron.

In 2014, there were reports of another 3 Herons that ended up in Morocco via France.

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.

It's the peace, stupid

One of the biggest complaints by the anti-Israel crowd against the Trump plan is the supposed "bantustans" of Palestinian territory only connected by roads, bridges or tunnels. This is said to be intolerable for a sovereign nation

Yet if you look at Wikipedia, you can see that there are literally hundreds of examples where the territory or territories of one state is fully or functionally within the territory of another, known as enclaves, exclaves, or variants of those. The largest example in the world (which is really a semi-enclave) is Alaska, only accessible to the rest of the US via land through Canada.

We mentioned one example in passing, that of the border between the Netherlands and Belgium at Baarle-Hertog:

This is the possibly the most complicated one but there are a huge number of others. Up until 2015, the border between India and Bangladesh had not only over a hundred enclaves but enclaves within enclaves (and one parcel of land that was a piece of India within Bangladesh, within India, within Bangladesh.)

There are even some small Canadian land parcels that are only accessible through the United States.

If there are hundreds of examples of such arrangements working perfectly well, then why is there such an uproar over a pathway to peace that would do the same for Palestine?

The answer is in the question. The Israel-haters have no desire for peace.

It is no coincidence that the Trump plan is named "peace to prosperity." Unlike every single previous plan, this is the first one that is focused on peace, not land.

If there is real peace, then no one would care about the enclaves of Palestinian lands in Israel and Israeli lands within Palestine (i.e., "settlements.")

The ideal, which the plan envisions, is that Israel and Palestine would be like Belgium and the Netherlands - two partners in peace. Any Arab can visit the Temple Mount, any Jew can visit the synagogues in Jericho and Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, without the need of heavily armed security protecting the visitors.

When there is real peace, the borders are not important.

This is the fundamental reason why Israel supports the plan and the Palestinians are so dead-set against it. Only Israel has ever desired real peace, just as Israel has thirsted for real peace with Jordan and Egypt and the rest of the Arab world.

The "pro-Palestinian" activists, although many belong to groups with "peace" in their names, do not want peace with Israel. They want Israel to be destroyed one way or another, and they - as well as Palestinian leaders - look at an independent Palestine as a weapon to end Israel, not as a goal in itself.

If Palestinians wanted a state, they would have had one in 2000, 2001 and 2008. If they wanted peace, they could have a state tomorrow.

It has been 26 years since Oslo, but in all that time no Palestinian school - not one - has taught students that they should thirst for peace with Israel. On the contrary, Israel is always the enemy and it must one day be reclaimed as "Palestine."

For some reason, the world thinks that the existence of two states would automatically bring peace. Everyone has it backwards. It is peace that would bring two states, because Israel would happily give the responsibility of governance to a Palestinian state that was friendly, where the borders are as open as those between EU states.

The Trump plan is a true peace plan - a vision of how peace and prosperity can bring about a political solution. The reason it is unrealistic is because Palestinians are taught hate from birth.

And that is the real obstacle to peace.

The world seems to have forgotten that peace is the goal.

(h/t Ian)

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.

There are blood libels every day

A tweet from Alice Rothchild, a long time anti-Israel activist, author, filmmaker, physician and member of Jewish Voice for Peace who says she has written for the Seattle Times and Boston Globe.

Her Mondoweiss link fills in the details of the lie:

An Israeli army statement said the three teenagers had crossed some 400 metres into Israel and were hiding in a thicket when a military jeep approached them. The army said that the young men threw two objects believed to be explosives at the jeep, prompting soldiers to open fire, killing them all. But Mohammed’s father refused to believe the army’s version of events. “The closest he ever got to resisting [against Israel] was by attending the Great March of Return protests a few times,” Hani said of his son. “He never held a gun, he didn’t participate in any military groups and I’m sure he didn’t know how to make a grenade. “If the boys crossed the border, I bet they did it for entertainment only and were unaware of what the consequences could be. The Israelis are lying.”

According to a friend of the slain teenagers, who asked not to be named, Mohammed, Salem and Mahmoud gathered in the square of the village of al-Zawayda on Tuesday afternoon after a long day at school. “It was about an hour before sunset, and they decided to go to some farmland owned by Salem’s family,” the friend told MEE. “They just wanted a break from hard studying.” The Naami family’s land is located some 200 metres from the fence that separates Gaza from Israel east of the Maghazi refugee camp. While the area is often monitored by Israeli forces – which enforce a ‘buffer zone’ hundreds of metres into the Palestinian territory – the teenagers regularly came to the area to relax around a bonfire, the friend said.

It is fairly obvious the boys crossed the fence - meaning they cut the fence. The IDF watched them as they went the 400 meters into Israel. Their bodies were recovered in Israel. They carried a knife and screwdriver. This happened at 8:30 PM. There is infrared video of them:

Mondoweiss, of course, didn't mention those facts.

Some Gazans made up a different story, based on this video: that the things we see thrown are the boys' clothing, and the IDF humiliated them by forcing them to strip before executing them with machine guns.

That's also obviously a lie. Heat is shown as black in the video, so they threw hot things that exploded into smaller components. Clothes would not show up as black.

This is just as much a blood libel as the accusation last week that Israeli Jews kidnapped a boy from Jerusalem and drowned him, the lie that was tweeted by Hanan Ashrawi and retweeted by Rashida Tlaib. Their falsity is obvious to anyone who is not an anti-Israel fanatic.

Which is why her tweet was retweeted and "liked" by various JVP branches and Mondoweiss itself.

Jews who push blood libels are just as antisemitic as non-Jews who push the same libels.

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.

Tunisian president calls for investigation on how an Israeli junior tennis player competed in Tunis

Al Jazeera reports:

Tunisian President Qais Saeed called for an investigation into the participation of a tennis player with Israeli citizenship in an international tournament in Tunisia.

A presidential statement said today that President Saeed asked the Minister of Youth and Sports Sunni Sheikh "to open an investigation in the purpose to determine responsibilities", pointing to Tunisia's principled position rejecting the establishment of relations with Israel in any way.

Aaron Cohen, holder of French and Israeli citizenship, participated in an international tennis tournament that started in Tunisia on January 26.

Cohen played his first match against Tunisian Karim El-Shazly last Sunday, winning two sets for nothing, and he also won his second match against Italian Simone Cavalieri before losing the third match against Portuguese Miguel Gomez and leaving Tunisia on Tuesday.

The Tunisian presidency confirmed that the player "entered Tunisia with a French passport, but he participated in the tournament as an Israeli."

President Qais Saeed - who is against normalization with Israel - pledged in his election campaign not to allow the entry of Israeli passport holders to Tunisia.

Those sneaky Jews!

Cohen is a 17 year old who is ranked 349 as a junior with a total win-loss record of 4-2. He was born in France and made aliyah as a teen.

The president of Tunisia is seething over an Israeli teen playing tennis in his country. Hate is a fascinating thing.

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.

01/30 Links Pt2: PMW: PA gave 517.4 million shekels to terrorists as salaries in 2019; Backpacker Naama Issachar walks free in Russia, boards PM’s plane back to Israel

From Ian:

PMW: PMW exclusive: PA gave 517.4 million shekels to terrorists as salaries in 2019

As US President Trump demanded “halting the financial compensation to terrorists” PA documents just publicized show the PA admits to paying 517.4 million shekels in salaries to terrorists in 2019, a rise of 15 million shekels compared to 2018.

Israeli government stipulated that the PA spent 150 million shekels on the payments to wounded terrorists and the families of dead terrorist “Martyrs” in 2018

PMW has calculated that this figure has grown by at least 1.6 million shekels, in 2019

Accordingly, in 2020, the Israeli Government must deduct no less than 669 million shekels from the taxes Israel collects and transfer to the PA

According to recently published Palestinian Authority financial reports, Palestinian Media Watch can expose that the PA has admitted to spending no less than 517.4 million shekels ($149.7 million/€136 million) paying salaries to terrorist prisoners and released prisoners in 2019.

The PA expenditure on allowances to wounded terrorists and the families of dead terrorists was at least 151.6 million shekels in 2019. Accordingly, the total minimum PA expenditure in 2019 on its payments to terrorists and families of dead terrorists - its Pay-for-Slay policy- was 669 million shekels ($193.6 million/€175.8 million).

In accordance with the Israeli law, Defense Minister Naftali Bennet should present the National Security Cabinet with a report showing that the PA expenditure on its Pay-for-Slay policy was no less than 669 million shekels.

Israeli law demands that this figure be deducted from the monthly tax transfers Israel makes to the PA.

Uganda expected to move its embassy to Jerusalem - report

Uganda is reportedly planning to announce that it is moving its embassy to Jerusalem next week, sources close to the Ugandan president and the Ugandan Christian community told The Jerusalem Post.

A spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry could not confirm the report.

The Hebrew website Ynet reported on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to Uganda on Monday, but did not cite a reason for the visit.

Sources close to the community told the Post that the move has been in the works for three years.

Pastor Drake Kanaabo, who ministers at the Redeemed of the Lord Evangelistic Church Makerere in Kampala, Uganda, told the Post that he had been hearing rumors about the move.

"I got a note from sources that Uganda is moving the embassy," he said, though he noted that he was unable to confirm the rumors with senior leaders by press time.

He said it is important that Uganda move the embassy to the holy city "because of our past good relationship with the State of Israel.

"On a spiritual level, Uganda regards Israel as the mother of Christianity," he told the Post. "Ugandan Christians are no longer standing on one leg for Israel, but two - in prayer and action. Israel is the only first-world country that is near to Uganda and Africa."

Peter Beinart accuses Orthodox Jews of being racists

Peter Beinart has recently joined Jewish Currents as a columnist and "editor at large," leaving The Forward. Jewish Currents was a Communist publication from decades ago that has been reborn recently as an equally leftist publication. (Apparently, the Forward was too right-leaning for Beinart.)

His tweets have been becoming more and more unhinged. It feels like he is following the Max Blumenthal model of going from somewhat respected to off-the-wall crazy. (We'll see how long he lasts at the Atlantic.)

His latest piece for Jewish Currents, where he gives his take on the Trump plan, is a conspiracy theory: the plan, according to Beinart, is nothing more than a way for Trump to attract the evangelical vote that he already has. (If anything, evangelicals would prefer Israel annex the entire Judea and Samaria.)

But Beinart really went off the rails when Jared Kushner said on TV that Palestinians had screwed up every opportunity they have had to gain a state.

Kushner's opinion is hard to dispute. The last offer by Olmert to Abbas not only met all his demands but exceeded them - and Abbas still rejected it. Don't ask me; ask Saeb Erakat:

How can anyone justify rejecting everything you say you want? How can that not be considered a screw-up?

But to Beinart, this is not only a racist opinion - it is one that Kushner clearly learned from the racist Orthodox rabbis and other teachers, and camp counselors. Yes, Orthodox Jewry is inherently racist, according to Beinart.

This opinion would fit in very well in any neo-Nazi publication.

Beinart is so upset at Kushner's using the word "screwed up" that he used today's Daf Yomi Talmud study as a means to give him "mussar" (ethical direction):

Beinart's self-righteousness not to humiliate anyone clearly doesn't extend to his own tweets and retweets. After all, according to Beinart, Kushner is guilty of "humiliating" Palestinians by using the word "screwed up" but Beinart is allowed to call Kushner patronizing, ignorant and racist.

Beinart also retweets Matt Duss:

Our Talmudic sage Beinart condones Duss' language.

His hypocrisy is off the charts.

I have a feeling that Forward editor in chief Jodi Rudoren is relieved not to have to worry about Beinart embarrassing her publication any more.

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.

Bibi Vows Not To Let Fateful Opportunity Get In Way Of Politics As Usual (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jerusalem, January 30 - Israel's embattled prime minister promised his citizens today that he will not allow the historic moment facing the country to disrupt his administration's horse-trading, bickering, and cynical manipulation of the public and its institutions.

Binyamin Netanyahu returned from a dramatic overseas trip to the US and Russia with a triumph in hand: de facto official American endorsement of Israeli sovereignty over much of the territory the country took in the 1967 Six-Day War, with an ultimatum to the Palestinian leadership that further intransigence and avoidance of negotiations will result in loss of potential statehood. The premier stood at President Donald Trump's side as the latter made his historic announcement and urged the international community to back the plan which, he and his staff contended, dispenses with the failed formulae of the past and focuses on what works, effectively siding with Israel and Netanyahu on every major issue. Several Persian Gulf Arab states sent representatives, as well, indicating the historic shifts taking place. The prime minister assured his constituents Sunday that this once-in-two-millenniums opportunity, as important as it may seem, will not impede his ongoing effort to make everything about petty politics.

"I stand before you with the most important proposal Israel has accepted in two generations," he declared at a rare press conference upon disembarking. "The State of Israel faces an opportunity of epic, perhaps even Messianic, proportions: US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and other strategic locales in our heartland, the cradle of our culture and history. Already I have instructed my cabinet to prepare for such a move, but in the meantime, I say to you, my fellow citizens, that I will continue to work as hard as I can to make sure this episode causes no interruption in my use of power for personal gain; my machinations to assert and retain control of my Likud political apparatus; and my famed refusal to do anything remotely right-wing of lasting significance despite my campaign promises, lest the unelected officials of the Attorney General and the High Court veto them."

"It's nice to always have them to blame for my lack of political will, so you can rest assured I will not lift a finger to reform anything," he added.

In addition to the question of annexing disputed territory, Netanyahu has been indicted for bribery, and must conduct yet another election campaign for a contest scheduled at the beginning of March, which experts believe will help, rather than hinder, his efforts to make every move with maximum cynicism.

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.