Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, February 14, 2020

02/14 Links Pt1: The UN Human Rights Council's shameful blacklist; Caroline Glick: Build Bibi, build; UNHRC worked with terror-tied NGOs to compile settlement blacklist

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: The UN Human Rights Council's shameful blacklist

The UN has reached a new low. The UN Human Rights Council, usually in the news because it includes countries with the worst records of human rights abuse in the world, has now targeted companies that do business in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The so-called blacklist includes 112 companies with the aim of letting the world know who it is that works in Israel’s alleged “occupied territories.”

The publication of the list has been in the works since 2016. Countries with the worst human-rights records, such as Cuba and Venezuela, pushed the list due to their anti-Israel views, not because of an attachment to international law. The Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation also supported the list, neither of which are known for having members with stellar human-rights records.

Unsurprisingly, the UN does not have a global standard for how it labels companies that operate in different disputed areas, such as Crimea, Kashmir, Afrin, Northern Cyprus or Western Sahara. As usual, the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has merely replicated the antisemitism of previous eras, targeting Israel the way global antisemites target Jews. There is no reason Israel’s role in the West Bank is especially unique.
Corporations that do business in the West Bank are no more involved in human-rights abuses than those accused of fueling such abuses from the Gulf to Asia.

As Lahav Harkov wrote in Thursday’s Post, there is no explanation for why some companies active in the West Bank, in the categories the UN mentions, are on the list of 112 while others are not. The UN supposedly seeks to target companies involved in surveillance, demolition, pollution and hindering the Palestinian economy. The list includes Motorola, Airbnb, General Mills and TripAdvisor, among others. This is confusing, since TripAdvisor enables users to review places in Palestinian areas. Why punish a company that assists people in finding tourism opportunities in Palestinian areas merely because the same company might highlight restaurants that are also owned by Israeli citizens?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will contest the decision with all of its strength and will boycott those who try to boycott it. President Reuven Rivlin said the companies deserve support, and former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also slammed the list.

Caroline B. Glick: Build Bibi, build

From the dawn of modern Zionism, two forms of Zionism have operated in tandem. The first is diplomatic Zionism. The second is pioneering Zionism. One of the unique aspects of the Trump plan is that it embraces both.

The map of Israel envisioned in the Trump plan is a map that adds the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria to sovereign Israeli territory. It bears out the central maxim of pioneering Zionism – the map of Israel is determined by the settlement of Israel. The land Jews live in is the land over which they take possession. The slogan of the pre-state pioneers, "One more dunam [hectare], one more goat," lives on, as relevant than ever in the Trump plan.

As for diplomatic Zionism, the Trump plan is predicated on a recognition that Israel is the legitimate sovereign in Judea and Samaria under international law. This recognition, a hundred years after those rights were anchored in international law in the San Remo Convention, is a singular triumph for diplomatic Zionism.

Over the past 150 years, when progress in one form of Zionism was blocked, the other compensated by taking a more dominant role.

For instance, due then Obama's obsessive hostility towards Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and neighborhoods in united Jerusalem, throughout most of Obama's presidency, pioneering Zionists were stymied. Israel couldn't build new communities or build much of anything inside existing communities without incurring the white wrath of the White House.

So Netanyahu, the greatest diplomatic Zionist since Theodor Herzl grabbed the baton and started running. Through his peripatetic defenses of Israel's rights and relentless push to strengthen and widen Israel's bilateral relations with countries around the world, Netanyahu enabled Israel to withstand the Obama administration's anti-settlement pressure campaign and get through his presidency with all communities intact.

Due to the administration's sudden opposition to the application of Israeli law over the Jordan Valley and the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria ahead of the March 2 elections, the diplomatic pathway to Israeli sovereignty over the areas is stymied. But that there is a path forward. It has a diplomatic component but it mainly involves community building.

Clifford D. May: The return of the Monroe Doctrine

Tehran's regional propaganda headquarters is in Caracas. The two regimes collaborate in a disinformation war against the US Their Spanish-language television networks, Hispan TV and Telesur, respectively, share journalists across Latin America.

Hezbollah, a proxy of the clerical regime, is firmly ensconced within Venezuela's large (about 200,000) Lebanese Shia community. "Simply put," Dr. Ottolenghi notes, "Maduro and his cronies use the trappings of a sovereign state to run a criminal syndicate involved in pillaging state resources and taking commissions from organized crime to use Venezuela as a staging ground for their global smuggling operations."

He adds: "Hezbollah supporters, concentrated in several areas of Venezuela and along the Venezuela/Colombia border, have, over the years, lent their businesses to trade-based money-laundering schemes designed to repatriate drug money for the cartels – minus a hefty commission for Hezbollah."

The day after the State of the Union, President Trump met with Guaido to discuss how "to expedite a democratic transition in Venezuela that will end the ongoing crisis," according to a White House press statement.

I'd argue that will require additional sanctions, not just on the Maduro regime but also and especially on Russia which is violating the Monroe Doctrine – President James Monroe's 1823 warning to Europe that further imperialism in the Western Hemisphere would not be tolerated.

Of course, in 2013, then-Secretary of State John Kerry announced: "The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over." What he probably meant was that the Obama administration had no wish to dominate the Americas.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian neo-tsar toward whom Bhatt believes Mr. Trump is too solicitous, may have interpreted Mr. Kerry's words differently: as an invitation to exploit US neighbors – an invitation he and others have been only too pleased to accept.

It's Not A Question of How Jewish Bernie Sanders Is; It Is Whether He Identifies With Jews (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

There are those who claim that supporters of Israel throw around the accusation of "antisemitism" merely as an excuse to deflect criticism of Israel.

At the same time, apparently without being aware of the irony, there are times that criticism of Muslims is deflected by claiming that the critics are, in fact, guilty of Islamophobia -- such as when Ilhan Omar responded to Liz Cheney's criticism of Rashida Tlaib's comments "we all know you never met a Muslim you didn't want to vilify!" and accusing her of "deep-seated hate and Islamophobia"

Now we have reached a whole new level, where we see accusations of antisemitism in order to deflect criticism of Bernie Sanders.

At issue are some of the friends and allies that Sanders surrounds himself with:

This has led The Washington Examiner to claim Bernie's campaign has an anti-Semitism problem and has led The Federalist to ask:

Bernie Sanders' associations paint a pattern of proximity to antisemitism, which raises the question: Is it that he really doesn’t notice, that he’s willing to tolerate it, or that he somehow also supports it?

A typical response to rebut this is to claim that the criticism accusing Sanders of antisemitism is itself antisemitism:

But does Sanders himself even understand what antisemitism is?

Last year, Bernie stated his opposition to antisemitism:

“Like other forms of bigotry—racism, sexism, homophobia—antisemitism is used by the right to divide people from one another and prevent us from fighting together for a shared future of equality, peace, prosperity, and environmental justice.

Like the Democrats, when they were called upon to condemn Ilhan Omar's antisemitic tweets, Sanders also groups antisemitism together with all other forms of bigotry, and sees it as a right-wing phenomenon.

While he claims “I will always call out antisemitism when I see it. My ancestors would expect no less of me,” the fact remains that you have to recognize antisemitism before you can call it out and we have already seen the difficulty Sanders has on that score -- what with his defense of Ilhan Omar's accusation of dual loyalty to Israel, his making Linda Sarsour a surrogate and his alliances with people who regularly attack Israel.

So we are left with the odd situation that Sanders is surrounding himself with divisive people like Sarsour, Omar and Tlaib -- yet he claims to be opposed to being divisive

How can someone who identifies as a Jew associate with antisemites?
But maybe the focus of these criticisms of Sanders is actually misplaced.

Ramon Epstein suggests that it is not a question of Sanders identifying as a Jew, but whether Sanders identifies with Jews:

Nowadays he talks sparingly about his Jewish identity, but when he does he’s quick to mention the Holocaust. Tellingly however, he neglects how he stood silently and ignored the cries of Soviet Jews to live a free life. Whereas he’s willing to let black nationalists rip microphones from him and he openly associates with fraudulent civil rights activist Linda Sarsour, he never misses an opportunity to condemn Jewish nationalism by appearing at a J Street convention.

Similarly, in an October 2015 article, AlterNet claimed that besides having never appeared at AIPAC, Sanders has never appeared at a pro-Israel rally and has not traveled to the Middle East in decades.

Yossi Klein Halevi goes further:

After his stay on a kibbutz, Bernie the Jew seems to have gone AWOL. Did he stand with Israel in 1967? 1973? In 1975, when the UN labeled Zionism racism? Did his Holocaust-driven pain lead him to active involvement in the movement to free Soviet Jewry?

The fact is, Sanders shies away from publicly identifying with and relating to the Jewish people.

In 1994, Sanders refused to single out Farrakhan official Khalid Muhammad for condemnation for racist remarks, including referring to Jews as "bloodsuckers."

In 2002, when Congress considered a bill supporting Israel against terrorism, Sanders voted "present"

When Sanders was asked if he viewed himself as a Zionist in an interview in 2015, he was clearly uncomfortable and answered politically, rather than personally:

Ezra Klein: Do you view yourself as a Zionist?
Bernie Sanders: A Zionist? What does that mean? Want to define what the word is? Do I think Israel has the right to exist, yeah, I do. Do I believe that the United States should be playing an even-handed role in terms of its dealings with the Palestinian community in Israel? Absolutely I do.

Contrary to Sanders' tepid response, a Zionist is not someone who thinks 'Israel has the right to exist.'
A Zionist is someone who identifies with Israel and supports it, who thinks that "Israel must exist.'

Similarly, in 2016, at a political event, Sanders again sidestepped an opportunity to address his personal feelings about being Jewish when a man in the audience claimed: "Jews run Wall Street, they run every campaign."

“I am proud to be Jewish,” [Sanders] declared, to cheers from the audience. But then Sanders did something odd. Rather than using the question as a teaching moment to address and rebuke its anti-Semitic underpinnings, Sanders instead immediately pivoted to his stump speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Talking about Zionism and Israel,” he said, “I am a strong defender of Israel, but I also believe that we have got to pay attention to the needs of the Palestinian people.” He never challenged the actual contents of the question, let alone labeled it anti-Semitic. [emphasis added]

Sanders did not see this as an antisemitic attack on the American Jewish community in general -- he saw it as an opportunity to fall back into the political safe-space of his stand on Israel and the Middle East.

Last month, Joel Rubin, the Jewish outreach director for the Sanders campaign said the American Jewish community needs Bernie Sanders:

“As a Jewish candidate he is a unique voice, he’s a person whose personal bio is rooted in ending up on these shores as a result of suffering anti-Semitism abroad. This is the most quintessential Jewish American story if ever there was one, to have him out there for the American Jewish community, which is attacked and under siege. It is so valuable to have a politician and a leader running who gets it in his kishkes.” [emphasis added]

But if so, how do his 'kishkes' allow Bernie Sanders to keep teaming up with antisemites?

In 2015, during an interview on NPR, Diane Rehm matter-of-factly asked Sanders about his being a dual citizen of Israel, a claim he quickly rebutted. Yet, here is Sanders teaming up with the people who make the same accusation of Jewish dual loyalty of others. James Kirchick notes the incongruity, and writes:

It also raises the troubling possibility that Sanders is using his own Jewishness to mainstream some of the worst actors in the Democratic Party’s progressive wing–either out of the same naivete that led him to honeymoon in the Soviet Union or a wager that their support is necessary to bring about his desired political “revolution” in America.

But maybe the answer is more basic, and ties in with the Bernie Sanders record, or lack of a record, of standing together with Jews both in the US and around the world.

As Yossi Klein Halevi puts it:

Bernie Sanders is not an enemy of the Jewish people. He simply doesn’t care enough about Jewish concerns to be considered a friend.

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A story about hacking members of the Palestinian Authority has turned into another story about how the Palestinian Authority tries to control the news media.

From SecurityWeek:

Two apparently politically motivated backdoor campaigns have been observed operating in the Middle East, targeting influential Palestinians. The aggressors are most likely the MoleRATs APT (aka The Gaza Cybergang, Extreme Jackal, Moonlight, and DustySky). MoleRATs operates out of Gaza and is believed to be associated with Hamas.

The two campaigns are primarily differentiated by the backdoor malware used: Spark and Pierogi -- and have been named as the Spark Campaign and the Pierogi Campaign respectively by researchers at Cybereason's Nocturnus group. Spark is the older of the two malwares, and has been known since January 2019. Nocturnus believes it was developed by MoleRATs themselves. Pierogi is a new undocumented RAT, discovered by Cybereason in December 2019.

Pierogi is thought to have been developed by Ukrainians rather than MoleRATs themselves. There are numerous Ukrainian words within the code, including, for example, C2 commands. These include 'ekspertyza' ('examine', for requesting commands from the C2), 'zavantazhyty' ('download', for exfiltration), and 'vydaly' ('delete', for deleting certain requests). The Ukrainian connection is the reason for the Pierogi (a popular East European dish) name.

Both campaigns use email social engineering as the initial attack vector. Spark delivers a weaponized document or a malicious link. The lure is political, including themes based on the Hamas/Fatah conflict, the Israel/Palestine conflict, tensions based on the killing of Qasem Soleimani, and tensions between Hamas and the Egyptian government.
...
The Spark Campaign, concludes Cybereason, suggests the social engineering element is "specifically meant to lure and appeal to victims from the Middle East, especially towards individuals and entities in the Palestinian territories likely related to the Palestinian government or the Fatah movement."

The second campaign, Pierogi, is slightly different but also tied to MoleRATs. It is similarly targeted against Palestinian individuals and entities that are likely related to the Palestinian government. ....
The infrastructure for the Pierogi campaign seems to have been created specifically for the campaign. The domains were registered in November 2019 and operationalized shortly afterward. "The Pierogi backdoor discovered by Cybereason during this investigation seems to be undocumented and gives the threat actors espionage capabilities over their victims." Cybereason suggests it may have been obtained through underground communities rather than developed in-house by MoleRATs.

It is interesting that Gaza (and possibly Hamas) hacking abilities are this sophisticated.

But the Palestinian Authority doesn't want this information to be published.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said that what the Israeli websites claim from the occurrence of cyber attacks and attempts to penetrate Palestine is only a description of the general situation that Palestine and other countries of the world are subjected to from attempts to infiltrate and cyber attacks through multiple sides.

The ministry confirmed in a statement issued today, Friday, that all attempts of this type are dealt with immediately by our specialized teams, which are the information security team and the competent security authorities.

The Ministry called on citizens not to deal with such news, inviting them to go to the competent authorities in the event of any citizen being exposed to attempts or operations of this type of targeting and others.

The Ministry released a statement: "We deplored the nature and timing of this news, which was published through the occupation...we confirm that its aim is an attempt to reinforce the division between our people who created a great image of unity with the decision rejecting the deal of the century."

The Ministry called on all Palestinian and Arab news websites and media platforms to be vigilant and cautious, not to circulate unreliable news and reports, and to check their accuracy before publication.

The news of course came from an Israeli cybersecurity company, not the Israeli government. A new backdoor in Android is always news. This is what cybersecurity researchers do. The PA yet again is warning its new media not to publish reports that make them look bad. The idea that the timing was to somehow hurt Palestinian unity is paranoia.

And the attempt to stifle free speech is at least as big a story as the hacking.

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Bloomberg was mostly right about Gaza in 2014

Peter Beinart points to a 2014 interview with Mike Bloomberg about Israeli actions in Gaza during the last war.

Bloomberg defends Israel (and even refers to Israel as "we") when he discusses the shelling of a UNRWA school in July:

Bloomberg is correct in saying that Israel has every right to attack the spot where they are being attacked from. He should have told the interviewer when she asked about the Geneva Conventions and an incident at a UNRWA school where some 15 were killed that Israel was fully within its rights under international law to attack a military objective, and that civilians in the area do not make a military objective immune to attack unless the expected collateral damage is disproportionate to the military advantage.

No one knew it at the time, but Israel did err in its attack. After four years of investigation, Israel admitted that a mortar or mortars that was meant to be shot at a target 130 meters away from the school had accidentally hit the school. Israel admits it was aware of the school and that the only civilians in the area were there, and it had no intention of attacking it. Decisions in the heat of wartime are made by the best available information that the commander in the field has, and the errant shells were not anticipated, so there is definitely no violation of international law here.

Bloomberg may not have known the details of international law while understanding in his gut that Israel was not doing anything immoral in wartime. But Beinart proves that he knows nothing about international law - which proves that Israel's actions are not only defensible but in nearly all cases, necessary.

Here are the results of Israel's investigation into the incident, which gives an idea of how thorough the investigations are (and how Beinart and Human Rights Watch and others simply assume Israel is a bloodthirsty tyrant intent on murdering innocents.)

As previously reported in media reports, in reports and complaints from an international organization and from NGOs received by the MAG Corps, it was alleged that an IDF strike in the vicinity of an UNRWA school in Beit Hanoun on 24 July 2014, at around 1500, resulted in the deaths of 15 persons, as well as injuries to others. Subsequently, the incident was referred to the FFA Mechanism for examination.

The factual findings collated by the FFA Mechanism and presented to the MAG, indicated the existence of grounds for a reasonable suspicion that the incident involved a deviation from the rules and procedures applicable to IDF forces. As a result, the MAG ordered a criminal investigation into the incident.

The investigation that was conducted was thorough and comprehensive. Testimony was obtained from numerous IDF soldiers and officers, as well as from seven Palestinians. Moreover, the investigation reviewed materials from the IDF’s relevant operational systems, witness affidavits received from Palestinians, and more. Additionally, video clips, radio communications and pictures were obtained, some of which was given to the investigating authorities by UNRWA and an NGO.

Documents reviewed in the course of the investigation showed that on 10, 17, and 20 July 2014, mass messaging was directed at the residents of Beit Hanoun through leaflets, radio and television broadcasts, telephone calls and voice messages, all calling on the residents to evacuate from the area. The evacuation was called for due to the IDF’s intention to enter the area for the purpose of locating and neutralizing a cross-border assault tunnel that, according to the information available to the IDF, originated in the Beit Hanoun area and ran into Israeli territory.

According to the testimony of commanders and soldiers, the civilian population did indeed evacuate from the area, and no civilians were identified during the ensuing fighting – with the exception of the civilians taking shelter in the UNRWA school, which was known to the IDF to be operating as a shelter for civilians who had evacuated their homes. It was also found that the commanders of the force tried to bring about the evacuation of the school, in order to avoid harm to those therein in light of the fighting that was occurring in the area, and that many attempts were made to try and coordinate the evacuation of the school and the transfer of civilians to a different shelter in a more remote area.

On the day of the incident, in the early morning hours, the IDF began advancing in order to clear enemy forces from the area. IDF forces came under heavy attack from enemy forces, who fired anti-tank missiles, small arms fire, and sniper fire against IDF forces. During the maneuver, IDF forces identified explosive devices embedded in the area next to the school. [That is a blatant violation of international law that is completely ignored by the Israel haters - EoZ.]While the forces were engaged in neutralizing the explosive devices, they were fired upon from a number of structures, resulting in injuries to an officer and to a soldier. A short time later, another unit was fired upon from the same area.

Following the combat, IDF forces evacuated the injured and moved back to defensive positions. Shortly thereafter, an order was given to fire towards the area of combat, in order to prevent the persistent enemy fire on IDF forces, and to facilitate the forces’ re-entry into the area.

The investigation's findings provide that the commanders who ordered the fire assessed that, with the exception of the school, the area was devoid of civilians. Accordingly, the precautions taken during the firing were mainly aimed at preventing harm to the school, and at reducing the risk of civilian casualties. The findings also provide that the forces were instructed to avoid any possible harm to the school and the civilians therein, and that the central consideration in choosing the impact point for the fire was ensuring strict compliance with safety margins from the school.

The forces directed mortar fire at an impact point located approximately 130 meters away from the school’s boundary (a distance significantly greater than the relevant safety margin). The firing was conducted using a single mortar so as to increase accuracy, and while employing visual surveillance and shells with the lowest possible potential to cause damage.

In retrospect, it turned out that three of the shells landed within the school grounds and hit persons located therein. The investigation materials showed that this outcome was not foreseen in real-time by the IDF forces, and was caused due to an unintentional and unexpected deviation of the shells from the intended impact point.

When it was discovered that the school had been hit, all forces in the area were instructed to cease fire immediately, and coordination efforts were undertaken to facilitate the passage of supply and medical vehicles into and out of the school.

As a result of this event, the IDF implemented operational lessons-learned, which were intended to reduce the risk of such incidents occurring in the future.

It should be noted that, in the course of the investigation, allegations were raised by various sources that a mortar shell or rocket fired by a Palestinian terror organization hit the school. No evidence was found to corroborate these allegations.

After reviewing the investigation's findings, the MAG found that the firing procedures in question accorded with Israeli domestic law and international law requirements. The decision to fire was taken by the competent authorities, for a clear military purpose, and the fire was aimed towards a source of persistent enemy fire emanating from a number of different locations in the area, which put the forces in clear danger. The attack complied with the principle of proportionality, as despite the outcome of the attack, which was only discovered in retrospect, at the time the decision to attack was taken it was estimated that no collateral damage to civilians was expected to result, and certainly no excessive collateral damage was expected. This estimation was not unreasonable under the circumstances. In addition, the attack was carried out while undertaking several precautionary measures aimed at preventing harm to civilians, including the use of the most precise munitions available to the forces, and the use of visual surveillance. The MAG found that the professional discretion exercised by all the commanders involved in the incident was not unreasonable in the circumstances. The fact that civilians uninvolved in the hostilities were harmed as a result of the attack, which was not expected at the time the decision to attack was made, is a regrettable result, but does not affect the legality of the attack ex post facto.

Accordingly, the MAG ordered that the case be closed without any further legal proceedings – criminal or disciplinary – to be taken against those involved in the incident.

The only part I don't understand is how three shells hit the school when only one was supposed to be fired at the legitimate target. But the MAG investigations, when read all together, shows how careful the IDF is in battle and how it keeps records of virtually every bullet. When the IDF is involved, it says so - and when it is not, it says that as well, as was the case of the nine women who the IDF found were in fact killed by a terrorist bomb (#3 in the link.)

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Jerusalem deputy Grand Mufti says celebrating Valentine's Day is forbidden

The Deputy Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the representative of the Palestinian House of Ifta, Sheikh Ibrahim Awadallah, made it clear that celebration of Valentine's Day is forbidden in Islam, stating that any relationship outside of marriage is a violation of Islamic law.

Awadallah said in an interview with Ramallah News that the holiday is not in line with the Islamic religion, and that Valentine's Day "is a tradition for the infidels."

Awadallah did say that Islam urges love and affection among people, citing the hadith “Do not enter Paradise until you believe, and do not believe until you gain one’s affection”, but on the condition that love is not linked to an illicit affair, explaining that the only valid holidays in Islam are Eid Al Fitr And Eid al-Adha; adding any others is forbidden.

When asked about an Egyptian fatwa that allowed Valentine's Day celebrations, he said that this only applied to within marriage. However, he didn't say that married Palestinian couples can celebrate Valentine's Day, perhaps because he cannot conceive of a marriage where the couple remains in love.

Saudi Arabia used to forbid Valentine's Day until they got an updated fatwa allowing it in 2018. So far, though, the Palestinian Authority does not have official religious police like the Saudis do (Hamas seems to have informal religious police in Gaza.)

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02/13 Links Pt2: The Jewish nightmare of Bernie vs. Trump; Congresswoman calls AIPAC a ‘hate group’ after it attacks her in ad; 20% of German university academics reject Israel’s existence

From Ian:

The Jewish nightmare of Bernie vs. Trump

Ask British Jews what advice they would offer to American Jews, based on their experience fighting Corbynism, and the answer is unequivocal: Don’t wait until it’s almost too late to fight for your political home. Don’t pretend it can’t happen to you.

They mean: Pay attention to how quickly a mainstream party with a long pro-Israel tradition and deep roots in the Jewish community can be transformed into a home for enemies of the Jewish people.

Bernie Sanders is not Jeremy Corbyn, and the Democratic Party is not Labour. Sanders has repeatedly affirmed his support for Israel’s right to exist (though he is far more equivocal about its right to defend that right). We all know about his time on a kibbutz. And the Democratic Party has an overwhelming majority of pro-Israel legislators.

But more than any other leading politician, Sanders is responsible for mainstreaming the Corbynist wing of the Democratic Party. The party’s anti-Zionists, like Linda Sarsour, have gathered around Sanders. And Sanders himself supported Corbyn — ignoring the fears of British Jews, who overwhelmingly saw Corbyn as an anti-Semite.

Corbyn has shown us how quickly the politics of the fringe can become mainstream. Under President Sanders, those still-renegade voices within the Democratic Party would have intimate access to the White House.

Why are Democrats skipping out on AIPAC?

Who's going to #SkipAIPAC? The hashtag campaign created by the anti-Zionist IfNotNow group is winning even when their demands that Democrats, and especially their presidential candidates, stay away from the annual AIPAC policy conference next month are opposed.

The radical group scored an unexpected triumph when one of its members ambushed Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren at a New Hampshire campaign event. Warren was asked if she would avoid "legitimizing" AIPAC by skipping the annual conference because it was forming an alliance with "Islamophobes and anti-Semites and white nationalists." When Warren answered this falsified and loaded question with a simple: "yeah," it was heralded as a victory for a marginal organization dedicated to torpedoing the US-Israel alliance.

But in some ways, they also won when former Vice President Joe Biden answered a similar question by saying that he would go to the AIPAC event, but only to "convince them to change their position."

Left unsaid by Biden was what position(s) he was referencing.

Is it AIPAC's continued support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict despite the fact that the formula is looking more obsolete than ever? Or is it their uphill fight to preserve bipartisan support for the Jewish state despite the fact that Democrats are deeply divided about the issue, while Republicans are marching in lockstep behind President Donald Trump's efforts to closely align American foreign policy with that of the Jewish state?

While neither Biden nor Warren is likely to win their party's nomination, the fact that even the former felt that the only way he could justify his presence at AIPAC was to confront its supporters was telling.

Gil Troy: AIPAC’s challenge: Celebrating bipartisanship when it’s passé

Israel still enjoys bipartisan approval – 70% of Americans remain pro-Israel. For this now-threatened status quo to persist, AIPAC and other forces cherishing civility and bipartisanship in America must champion those values too, while AIPAC and others who care about keeping the Democratic Party pro-Israel must figure out how to resist the haters too.

Instead, too many have insisted there’s no problem – overlooking the dramatic warning signs. Last year, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer proclaimed at AIPAC that “there are 62 freshman Democrats – you hear me? Sixty-two not three.” But while reaffirming that which still is, worry about what might soon be.

The “three” Hoyer targeted – Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar – are radicals who oppose Israel and bipartisanship. AOC insists that even before Trump, “bipartisanship was s***ty.” But more and more, the same Democrats who reject bipartisanship as “disastrous,” as “ruining America,” as perpetuating power, also demonize Israel. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean claims Israel “embraces ethnic cleansing.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren says “yeah” when a voter claims AIPAC is in an “unholy alliance… with Islamophobes and antisemites and white nationalists.”

More broadly – and worryingly – many Democratic presidential candidates threaten to blackmail Israel with military aid. And most Democrats refused even to read Trump’s “Deal of the Century” thoughtfully, to see if it offered anything positive.

Congresswoman calls AIPAC a ‘hate group’ after it attacks her in ad

A Minnesota congresswoman called AIPAC a “hate group” inciting against her after the Israel lobby featured her in an attack ad.

“AIPAC claims to be a bipartisan organization, but its use of hate speech actually makes it a hate group,” US Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat, said Wednesday in a statement. “By weaponizing anti-Semitism and hate to silence debate, AIPAC is taunting Democrats and mocking our core values.”

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee declined to comment. The lobby removed and apologized last week for at least two Facebook ads that slammed “radical” Democrats in Congress, and altered an online petition that said Israel’s harshest critics in Congress pose a threat “maybe more sinister” than ISIS and other terror groups.

“This is not a call to action, it is incitement,” McCollum said. “Elected representatives in Congress ‘more sinister’ than ISIS? Last year, I met with AIPAC representatives from Minnesota in my office. Do forces ‘more sinister’ than ISIS sit down and meet with AIPAC’s advocates?”

On Twitter, McCollum rejected what she called AIPAC’s “non-apology.” In its statement of apology, AIPAC said the ad was poorly worded” and “inflammatory,” but also said it “alluded to a genuine concern of many pro-Israel Democrats about a small but growing group, in and out of Congress, that is deliberately working to erode the bipartisan consensus.”

One of the ads was illustrated by a collage of three of Israel’s toughest critics in Congress, including McCollum, who is the lead sponsor of a bill that would link Israel’s assistance to its treatment of Palestinian juvenile detainees.

This language will be very familiar to people who followed @uklabour’s decline into moral insanity. @GnasherJew https://t.co/ludhJBSD5x
— Brits For Israel (@BritsForIsrael) February 13, 2020

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, issued a fatwa on Tuesday prohibiting anyone dealing with the American "Deal of the Century" and with anyone who promotes it.

In his statement, the Mufti said that "everyone who deals with the deal is a traitor to Allah and His Messenger, and to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem and Palestine."

The fatwa continued, "The deal of the century robs Jerusalem of its rightful owners, and deprives Muslims of their third mosque, their first tribe, and the path of their Prophet, and the rights of refugees are lost, and it denies the legitimate rights of a people who are uprooted from their homes."

"The deal comes to nullify the right of our people to live on their land in dignity, tightens the hand of the oppressor, supports him, and gives him most of the Palestinian land which is scented with the blood of the noble martyrs."

If he has to issue a fatwa, that means he (and his PA employer) is nervous that some Palestinians might come out in support of the plan. Better to proactively shut them down than allow people to make up their own minds.

(h/t Irene)

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Jewish Candidate Hopes To Dispel Stereotype Of Rich Jews By Impoverishing Everyone (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Montpelier, VT, February 13 - A lifelong politician and committed socialist vowed again today to combat the pernicious, widespread assumption that Jews enrich themselves at the expense of others, through the imposition of an economic system to guarantee no one, including Jews, ever has enough, let alone gets or stays wealthy.

Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) aims to secure his party's nomination for the presidency, and promises to combat income inequality by redistributing the nation's wealth to help the have-nots. Such policies implemented elsewhere in the world have in fact had significant impact on inequality, with many more people in countries such as Venezuela no longer any better-off than the neighbors next to whom they must scavenge for food. Sanders hopes to engineer the mechanisms of that transformation to undo persistent negative assumptions about Jews, aiming to achieve a total equality in which Jews starve just as much as everyone around them. The Jewish candidate himself, however, will retain his multiple residences and private luxury amenities.

"There's no way this goes sideways," Sanders assured listeners at a town hall meeting Wednesday evening, following a narrow victory in the New Hampshire primary. "Jews are always safe in periods of rapid economic change and uncertainty. Just look at the difference between the eastern part of Germany under the Weimar Republic and the same part of the country after Soviet administration in 1945. During Weimar, with its capitalism, and in the several years that followed, Jews came under constant attack and abuse, but how many such incidents do we have once the socialists of the Soviet Union took the reins? Close to zero."

Sanders also cited the precedents of China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and North Korea, noting that they have no Jews in a higher economic bracket than the rest of the population, and all have embraced policies similar to his proposals.

"In general the Soviet Union did a remarkable job of combating that stereotype," observed Sanders. "That could serve as our model. If you look, you'll find almost no Jews in positions of economic influence in the USSR, or of political influence. The leaders of that great nation understood how to handle the issue. We can do it, too, with enough political will. Naturally, seeing it through in any practical sense will require some adaptations and compromises, which is why my own estates and lifestyle will remain unchanged. I find it absurd anyone might suggest that such a decision might contradict the goal I have in mind. In fact that line of thinking exposes you as an antisemite."

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02/13 Links Pt1: Isi Leibler: Our Age of Miracles but Possible Lost Opportunities; UNHRC’s game is rigged, so Israel isn’t playing; Germany Can’t Stop Loving Iran

From Ian:

Isi Leibler: Our Age of Miracles but Possible Lost Opportunities

Three months ago, who could have dreamed that we would be in such an extraordinarily good position? The Trump government had already established itself as the most pro-Israel American administration in history and publicly assumed the role of a genuine ally.

For the first time, a US administration has rebutted the false Palestinian narrative and exposed their duplicity at the international level, including the rabidly anti-Israel United Nations. It terminated aid that was being channeled as stipends to terrorists and their families and repudiated the nauseous theme of moral equivalence between murderers and their victims. Trump’s policies on Iran, Jerusalem, the Golan, and the settlements are a stark reversal of the Obama administration’s policies.

Only last month, amid the internal political turmoil as Israel approaches its third election this year, more than 40 world leaders, including royalty, heads of state, and heads of government, participated in a Holocaust commemoration in Jerusalem. They included Russian President Vladimir Putin, who personally inaugurated a memorial commemorating the citizens and defenders of Leningrad during the Nazi siege of the city. The same week, representatives of Arab states attended a memorial at Auschwitz. And just this last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expanding diplomatic relations with African and Latin American countries, including Arab and Muslim states.

However, the high point is surely the release of the momentous Trump Mideast peace plan whose ramifications must not be underestimated. For the first time since the disastrous Oslo Accords, there is an outline of a solution based on reality, supported by the two dominant and centrist parties and the majority of Israelis.

The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace

Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz on the Ben Shapiro Show discussing their book "The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace" (St. Martin’s Press, available on April 28).

UNHRC’s game is rigged, so Israel isn’t playing - Analysis

There is no explanation of why some companies active in the West Bank in the categories they mention are on the list of 112 while others aren’t. Jerusalem’s iconic Angel Bakery is on the list, though it is unclear how it would fit into any of the listed categories, which include surveillance, demolition, pollution and hindering the Palestinian economy, among others. Some of the categories do not specify that these business activities have to take place in settlements – and yet it is only a blacklist of businesses working with the Jews in the West Bank and not the Arabs. Much of the list provides services to both Palestinians and Israelis.

It’s also worth noting that the UNHRC’s mandate is to help UN member states, not corporations, implement the council’s decisions on human rights.

Though the UNHRC’s anti-Israel slant is blatant, the blacklist is both a public relations problem and a potential economic problem. It’s a public relations problem because there are enough people who don’t know that the council is a sham, that commends instead of condemns violators like Iran for their human rights records. It’s a potential economic problem, because some of these companies – especially the 18 from abroad – may feel pressured to stop doing business with Israelis in Judea and Samaria.

Right now, Israel’s plan to mitigate the damage is to work, with American support, to remind the companies on the list that they are not doing anything illegal. Israel is also highlighting the anti-boycott laws passed in 28 states in the US. Israeli consuls in the US have been instructed to contact the governors of states with anti-boycott laws in which companies on the list operate.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demonstrated the Israeli strategy to combat this problem in his remarks on the blacklist. First, he called the UNHRC “biased and lacking in influence” – in other words, the companies can ignore them.

Then, he says: “In recent years, we promoted laws in most states in the US that say that they must take firm action against anyone who tries to boycott Israel.” In other words, if you consider not ignoring the UNHRC, know that there will be consequences.

What Netanyahu and the Foreign Ministry realize is that the only way to fight back against a game that is fixed at the outset is to refuse to play it.

“Whoever boycotts us will be boycotted,” Netanyahu said at a Likud event in Merom Galil. “This is unimportant. We are not afraid… We are not apologizing and not withdrawing even a millimeter.”

This short video from Jewish Insider shows three truths about Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

First it shows how, at what was billed as a press conference, Abbas refused to take a single question. Ignoring the press at a press conference shows complete disdain for the idea of freedom of expression

Second, notice how Abbas is protected by his handlers. He looks like a tottering old man who has no idea what he is doing, not at all like a national leader.

Third, Jeremy Ben Ami of J-Street - who is obviously not a reporter - was given a seat of honor for the meeting, and Saeb Erekat led Abbas to Ben-Ami so they could kiss. It is telling that to Abbas, the media is the enemy - and J-Street is his friend.

And why not? There is no daylight between the positions of J-Street and Abbas, and Ben Ami has visited Abbas in Ramallah several times a year. Chances are that he is considered a strategist for Abbas.

You can be sure that J-Street won't be saying anything critical about Mahmoud Abbas' autocracy and the lack of freedoms under his rule. Because they aren't liberal - they support the worst dictators if those dictators share their hate for the democratically elected government of the Jewish state.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

There is something practical that can be done to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that is to grant limited autonomy to a limited Palestinian entity in Judea and Samaria.

In other words, to adopt something like the Trump plan.

It is not a “solution” in the sense that it guarantees a complete end to terrorism. It does not produce the warm feeling that would come from the knowledge that the entire Land of Israel, from the river to the sea, was in Jewish hands. Nor does it satisfy “Palestinian aspirations.” But it’s something we can do today, or at least in a few months. And although I can’t say for certain how much better it will make things for Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, I  am relatively sure it will not make them worse. And it does not preclude additional positive developments in the future.

I said “something like” the Trump plan. Trump’s map needs adjustments, and the “secure route” between the Palestinian entity in the east and Gaza is a non-starter. Indeed, Gaza requires an entirely different approach. But in outline, it is a plan that will improve Israel’s security and can provide a better life for the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria, if they can repress their desire to kill us long enough to take advantage of what they will be given. And we don’t need their agreement to begin.

The status quo is unacceptable. It is expensive, it prevents the development of Judea and Samaria – despite what the Left says, there is almost no actual Jewish construction across the Green Line – and it leaves us vulnerable to terrorism. And no other proposed “solution” is practical.

I have favored incentivized emigration as proposed by Martin Sherman, and I still think that in the case of Gaza, it must be at least part of the solution – along with regime change there. But is hard to imagine that we can afford to pay all the Arab residents of the land to leave, that there are enough countries that would both be attractive to them and would want to take them, and that the reaction from the rest of the world would be positive.

The Obama-style sovereign “Palestine” in almost all of Judea and Samaria is also unacceptable. I don’t have to discuss the reasons in detail; most of my readers are aware of them. Promises of demilitarization are ludicrous; we would have mortar fire on Ben-Gurion airport, short-range rockets striking Tel Aviv, and Iranian-controlled militias in the Jordan Valley. International security guarantees are worth as much as the UNEF that fled from the Sinai in 1967, or the UNIFIL that was charged with preventing Hezbollah from rearming in 2006. Only Israeli security control of the entire area – as proposed in the Trump plan – can guarantee our security.

On the other hand, wholesale annexation of Judea and Samaria and absorption of the entire Arab population into Israel would be dangerous in another way. Although we would still have a Jewish majority (barely), and even supposing we could find a way to keep from granting citizenship to all of those Arabs who wanted it, we would most likely be facing a continuing insurgency. Either we would move in the direction of a binational state – and such a state would make Lebanon look relatively stable and peaceful – or we would have to take draconian measures to suppress the Arab population, which would be in a permanent state of unrest and conflict.

Various Jordan-is-Palestine plans have been suggested. But surely Palestinians would not accept the  Hashemite dynasty, and a change in regime would be massively destabilizing for the entire region. Israel’s security would not permit contiguity between a “West Bank” and the rest of Jordan. A movement of a large part of the Arab population of Judea and Samaria to Jordan is also impractical and unlikely. Perhaps this could have been accomplished in 1967, perhaps not. But not today.

The Trump plan has been rejected by the Palestinian leadership, both the PLO and Hamas. And that is not surprising, since it fails to accommodate their true aspiration, which is to replace the Jewish state with an Arab one. It acknowledges that the only way to ensure that the Jewish state will continue to exist is for it to have security control of all of the land from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. It takes into account that the state that (at least the PLO) say they want, when they speak in English, is not what they really want. It recognizes that they have rejected all previous offers, including offers of sovereignty over almost all the territories, because they thought that holding out long enough would ultimately get them a package that included the tools for the destruction of Israel.

If the Trump plan is implemented, probably the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas will both have to disappear. The PA was established by the Oslo Accords as a temporary government for the Palestinian Arabs. It is essentially identical with the PLO, with whom Oslo was negotiated. The PLO was admittedly a terrorist organization until the Oslo Accords, in which they pledged to abandon terrorism. They didn’t, but most of the world – including the government of Israel – pretends that they did. The PLO is an umbrella organization, made up of various factions of the Palestinian movement. The largest, which dominates the PLO, is Fatah, the movement formerly led by Yasser Arafat and now by Mahmoud Abbas. Fatah is and has always been committed to the violent destruction of Israel. It has vehemently rejected the Trump plan.

I suspect that nobody would be happier to see the PA/PLO and Hamas ride into the sunset than every Palestinian not on their payroll. Both regimes are corrupt, stealing huge amounts of aid and tax money from their citizens; both are oppressive, violently crushing dissidents and not allowing a free press; both engage in torture of their citizens. As long as they are in power, it’s doubtful that the promise of the Trump plan to provide a better life for Arab residents of the territories can be fulfilled. However, it will still be possible for Israel to obtain the security benefits from the plan. At the end of the day, it will be up to the Arabs take advantage of the financial and other incentives provided by the plan.

The European Union and apparently most of the Democratic candidates for the US presidency oppose the plan. The objections from the candidates seem to boil down to “the Palestinians don’t agree” and “anything Trump does is bad.” I suppose the second objection was unavoidable, but in regard to the first, we should note that so far the Palestinians have never agreed to anything. This implies that the candidates think that more concessions from Israel are necessary to get them to agree; but even previous plans (e.g., Clinton, Olmert, Obama/Kerry) would have presented unacceptable security concerns had they been implemented. So now they want to go even farther? Either they are ignorant of the true objectives of the PLO/Hamas, or they don’t care about Israel’s security, or they just wanted talking points.

The European Union is, I think, another kettle of fish. In a recent document describing the EU’s positions and activities in the territories, it was made clear that the EU position is that any Israeli presence in the areas controlled by Egypt and Jordan from 1949-1967 is illegal under international law, and all Israeli communities there should be dismantled and their residents expelled. The entire 133-page document makes only two references to terrorism, one in connection with Israel’s cutting off revenue transfer in response to the PA’s “pay for slay” system, and another saying “The EU firmly condemns the terror attacks and violence from all sides and in any circumstances, including the death of children.” I should hope so.

It’s clear that if the EU’s recommendations were carried out, the Jewish state would cease to exist. I am convinced that this is the desired outcome for policymakers in the EU and several European countries, and that they would prefer that the Jewish state had never been created. But there is no reason that the Jewish people – which learned about the imperative of self-defense from its history in Europe during the last century – should respect, or indeed pay any attention at all, to the views of these successors to the Nazis.

The Trump  program represents a break with the conventional wisdom of the last decades which held that a reversal of the results of the 1967 war would bring peace. It should be clear that what has prevented peace has been the struggle by the losers of that war (as well as the war of 1948) to try to ignore its clear outcome. UNSC resolution 242 correctly asserted that secure borders for Israel were required for peace. For the first time since then, a serious proposal that recognizes this has been put on the table, backed by the greatest world power.

Everyone should put aside their issues, whether they come from simple partisanship or more complicated psychological problems, and grasp this historical moment to work to implement Trump’s plan – before it’s too late.

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We've seen the rabid Israel hatred and antisemitism of the Presbyterian Church USA in the past. (Even liberal and progressive Jews have found that PCUSA statements crossed the line into antisemitism.)

That hate continues.

The Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reverend Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II, issued a statement against the Trump plan that goes way beyond valid criticism into antisemitism territory.

We must speak out on behalf of the Palestinian community, residents of this land for generations. Their land has been stolen. Their holy sites have been denigrated. Their homes and businesses have been destroyed and they all live under the iron fist of Israel’s continuing military occupation. This would not change under this “deal” proposed. As Christians, concerned for our own roots in this “Holy Land,” we cry out in anguish and anger as a kind of social and religious “ethnic cleansing” is occurring under these efforts of current Israeli leadership and of our own president.

What Muslim or Christian religious rights have been curtailed by Israel? On the contrary, if the Muslims controlled the land the way that PCUSA insists, the Jewish rights to worship would be the ones that are denigrated. There is more freedom of religion in the Land of Israel now under Jewish rule than there has been for 1900 years under Christian and Muslim rule. That isn't even in question.

But the statement gets even worse;

One of the deep ironies of the impact of the ongoing illegal taking of Palestinian land and the draconian control on the Palestinian community by Israel and its military is the potential for feeding the growing antisemitism in Europe and the U.S. that we so abhor. More violence is the inevitable fruit of a “deal” such as the one proposed.

This bigoted cleric is saying that Arabs are driven to violence against Jews worldwide and simply cannot stop themselves - meaning they are an inherently violent people. So, just as a pit bull owner is responsible for anyone injured by his pet, Israeli Jews are responsible for any Arabs or Muslims who attack Jews in Europe or America - these subhuman Arabs have no free will and cannot help themselves.

Saying that the Jews defending their people are responsible for haters attacking Jews is supremely antisemitic.

Once Nelson proves his bigotry against Arabs, he must extend it to Jews:

And the Israeli Jewish community should understand, better than anyone, the tragedies of sustained oppression.

This is a thinly veiled accusation that Israeli Jews are acting like Nazis.

I call on all Presbyterians who yearn for peace in The Holy Land to demand of our president a better “deal.” We must make clear to our political leaders that the “land of Israel” will never be at peace until justice is done for all her people, not just members of the Jewish community.

"Justice" is a codeword for allowing Palestinians to reject any and every peace plan they don't like, because they cannot accept anything that doesn't fit with "justice" - and they are the only ones who can define what justice entails. PCUSA is saying that the Palestinians have veto power over any peace plan that allows Israel to exist as a Jewish state, which they do not consider "just."

This statement is not a reasoned criticism of the Peace to Prosperity plan. It is an antisemitic and bigoted screed that uses the plan as an excuse to bash Jews and to say that Jew-hatred is justified.

(See also here.)

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