Jerusalem, March 12 - Ministering angels disclosed today that the Almighty has begun consultation with His advisory board regarding the possibility of delaying this year's observance of the Feast of Unleavened Bread for more than six months until the danger of a burgeoning plague has passed.
Archangel Gabriel told reporters Thursday that the LORD has voiced concern for several weeks already that the observance of a pilgrimage festival under current circumstances will prove catastrophic, as it is expected to bring together hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps even millions, in a single location for days at a time. Such prolonged proximity to an unknown number of plague carriers, whether they display or do not display symptoms of the affliction, carries frightening epidemiological implications.
"God is close to a decision as to whether Passover will happen on schedule this year," the angel stated. "We should have an announcement by the end of the workweek tomorrow. The most likely scenarios under discussion at the moment include canceling Passover entirely for this year, but perhaps more likely, postponing it until after the onset of the autumn holidays, perhaps as an extension of Sukkot when so many people come to Jerusalem anyway. We all want to know what to expect so we can make adequate preparations and take the necessary precautions, but the economic, social, spiritual, and other effects of moving the festival deserve due consideration and discussion. I urge the public to maintain its admirable discipline and cooperation to date with the hygienic and other measures to help contain the disease, and ask a little more patience so that this important issue can undergo proper evaluation."
Hospitality industry figures voiced consternation. "We need to know already," declared a Judah Hotel owner. "In a typical year I'm full to capacity with pilgrims who've come to bring the paschal and festival offerings, and that means ordering food, arranging adequate laundering of guest linens, and providing extra services such as guides if that's what they want. I understand attendance might be sparser this year, but I'm still going to be out a pretty perutah if I order things that no one is here to eat."
Spiritual community figures also expressed concern. "I think it might be better to cancel Passover outright rather than delay it till after the Feast of Booths," argued a tribal elder of Ephraim named Jeroboam. "It's entirely the wrong season to be celebrating Passover, the spring festival, in the fall. I say just call off pilgrimage festivals to Jerusalem entirely, while we're at it. No need to take these epidemiological risks all the time. It courts disaster even in less troubling conditions."
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As my colleagues and I delved into the history of the Oslo peace process and the unsuccessful efforts of multiple U.S. administrations to bring Israel and the Palestinians to a deal, one issue stood out: While successive Israeli governments (left and right) had acknowledged the Palestinians' ultimate goal - some form of a Palestinian state or self-determination - the Palestinian leadership continues to refuse to acknowledge Israel's ultimate goal.
In 2014, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas insisted that millions of descendants of the original Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war had a personal "right of return" to all of Israel, including Tel Aviv and Haifa. The Trump plan stops the nonsense and says no to using generations of Palestinians as pawns to keep the 1948 war alive.
Several U.S. administrations and Israeli prime ministers had presented the Palestinian leadership with opportunities to end the conflict. Each time, the Palestinian leadership walked away, at times not even advancing a counteroffer. They weren't willing to compromise.
So long as Palestinian leaders were feeding their people a steady diet of incitement against Israel, plying them with the myth that they would achieve their claimed right of return, and glorifying murderers of Israeli civilians as "martyrs," there could never be a true end of conflict with Israelis.
Our approach, therefore, was to formulate a plan to deal with the situation as it was, in a realistic and implementable manner, and not through a prism that filtered out the harsh realities of the past 25 years of unsuccessful peacemaking. The Palestinian leadership, of course, rejected this plan before they even saw it.
After observing Ramallah's behavior over time, the Trump administration determined that we were not going to pander to the illusion that the Palestinian leadership was now prepared to negotiate in good faith. And we were not going to immunize them from the consequences of their actions.
Demanding that six million Palestinian “refugees” have a “right” to “return” to a place where most of them never lived runs counter to Palestinian claims that they want to have their own independent state. As the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis noted in The Washington Post, this demand negates the idea of Palestinian statehood — unless that state means, by definition, the demographic end of the Jewish nation of Israel. As the American Jewish International Relations Institute observed, such a move would “end the existence of the majority-Jewish state” in Israel.
In their unguarded moments, Palestinian leaders and their state-controlled media have said as much. Palestinian Media Watch, which monitors Arab media in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, has highlighted that official PA television promotes the “right of return” by showing a map of “Palestine” that simply erases Israel. PA-approved textbooks also hail that demand.
Defenders of the “right of return” often cite UN General Assembly Resolutions 194 and 394 and Security Council Resolution 224 to buttress their claims. But the Arab states voted against 194 in part because it did not establish a “right to return.” Indeed, it only “recommended” that original refugees from the conflict, not descendants, be permitted to return, and only after they agree to live “at peace with their neighbors.” (It should also be noted, as the late historian Martin Gilbert has documented, that these resolutions can be applied to the Jewish refugees as well.)
For decades, Palestinian leaders have rejected offers for statehood and peace while citing a “right” that doesn’t exist. Both the press and policymakers should speak honestly and openly about what it would truly mean and perhaps reflect on why Palestinian leaders continue to demand it.
No matter how academic or intellectual they are — or project themselves as being — those promoting a pro-Palestinian agenda always engage in not only historic revisionism and fallacies, but in complete misrepresentation of facts. Right at the beginning, Nusseibeh asserts that the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry concluded in 1946 that the demand for a “Jewish state” was not part of the obligations of the Balfour Declaration or the British Mandate.
That declaration includes, however, the phrases “sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations” and “a national home for the Jewish people.” Yes, the word “state” is missing, but everything else is there.
For Nusseibeh, however, “even in the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, when Zionists sought to ‘establish a home for the Jewish people,’” there was no reference of a “Jewish state.” As support, he notes that Judah Magnes and Martin Buber — two of the political minimalists who carried no responsibility of elected office in the Yishuv — avoided the clear and explicit term “Jewish state,” as if that means anything.
No non-Jew is discriminated against by law, except, of course, for the Law of Return, which is what makes Israel the Jewish state.
Of course, he ignores the League of Nations 1922 Mandate decision, one approved by 50 nations, based on the Balfour Declaration, which reads quite forthrightly that “recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”
The whole purpose of the Mandate was to “secure the establishment of the Jewish national home,” not an Arab one. The British Mandate sought “the cooperation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home.” “Jewish immigration” was to be facilitated and “close settlement by Jews on the land” was to be encouraged. A “Jewish Agency,” representing the Zionist movement and world Jewry, was to be a full partner in the recreation of the Jewish national home.
And Nusseibeh is a “philosopher”?
He is also an expert on Jews, Jewish nationalism, and Judaism.
He asserts that the term “Jewish” can apply “both to the ancient race [?] of Israelites and their descendants, as well as to those who believe in and practice the religion of Judaism.” But he has a problem as “some ethnic Jews are atheists and there are converts to Judaism.” There we have it: non-Jews telling us Jews who we are. He is also upset because defining a modern nation-state, he posits, “by one ethnicity or one religion is problematic in itself.”
The head of the municipality of Bani Naim Ali Manasra said, "The situation in the town is not stable, and several houses have been burned, and the civil defense is working hard to put out these fires, and the security force that reached the town is striving to contain the violence and prevent its continuation."
Clan clashes are not that unusual for Palestinians. They are rarely reported in the West, but perhaps the world should be more aware that Palestinians consider violent vengeance to be part of their culture.
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The Al Qassam website of Hamas writes, as one of its top stories, "On Tuesday evening, a Zionist usurper was seriously injured due to stone throwing by rebel youths near the town of Huwwara, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank....The health of the usurper is unstable and he is unconscious and on artificial respiration."
A 14-year-old Jewish boy from Samaria was injured Tuesday night when a Palestinian Authority Muslim hurled a rock at his head near the town of Huwara.
The youth was taken by Magen David Adom to Schneider Children's Medical Center, where he is unconscious and on a respirator in the intensive care unit. He is scheduled to undergo surgery at 12:00p.m. on Wednesday.
Initial investigations show that the attack occurred after a vehicle carrying several Jews stopped at the Huwara intersection, on the main road leading to the towns of Yitzhar, Itamar, and Elon Moreh. At the time, the youth and his brother were dancing to the sound of Purim music.
When a vehicle with several Arabs passed near them, the Arabs began cursing and attacking the Jews. Several other Arabs then arrived, attempting to block the Jews from continuing their journey.
Eyewitnesses said that the Jewish boy entered his vehicle in order to leave the scene, but one of the Arabs threw a block at his head from a short distance away, and the missile broke through the car's window and hit the boy on the head.
The vehicle driven by Jews succeeded in continuing its journey until the main Yitzhar Junction, where they met IDF forces who provided first aid to the critically injured youth.
There are three things to learn from this.
One is that Hamas remains as disgusting and immoral as ever, as it wants to highlight that a Jew injured by being hit in the head with a large rock is a victory for Palestinians altogether.
Two is that, as usual, the perversions of Hamas do not get condemned or disparaged in any way by the rest of the Palestinian media. This is expected behavior, and not anomalous.
Three is that Israel's defenses have left Hamas largely impotent that it feels the need to brag about something that it had nothing to do with and that was a far cry from the terror attacks that Hamas used to perform with near impunity. They are losing relevance, and they are desperate to make themselves feel relevant again.
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Jordanian Islamic Scholar Ahmad Al-Shahrouri: The Jews Are More Dangerous Than Coronavirus, AIDS, and Cholera; Jihad Purifies Our Bodies and Souls, Can Save People from These Diseases#7868 | 01:26Source: Yarmouk TV (Jordan) Jordanian Islamic scholar Ahmad Al-Shahrouri said in a March 8 episode of his show on Yarmouk TV – a Jordanian TV channel affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood - that the Jews are more dangerous than coronavirus, AIDS, cholera, and every disease in the world. He also said that to be saved from these illnesses, one should remember the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jihad, which he explained is a means of purification of one's soul and body. Sheikh Al-Shahrouri added that being saved from coronavirus serves to give one the honor of liberating the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Al-Shahrouri is a professor of shari'a at Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan and serves as the imam of the university's mosque. Ahmad Al-Shahrouri: "Brothers, we are talking about epidemics and diseases that afflict the body, but what about epidemics that afflict the soul and the mind? An epidemic that afflicts the mind... Let me ask you a question: Is it okay for us to talk about the coronavirus because it is 'hot news' and forget about the Jews, who are more dangerous than AIDS, coronavirus, cholera, and all the diseases of this world?
[...]
"If you want to be saved from these deadly diseases, we should all remember Jihad. Jihad is a means of purification. We should all remember Al-Aqsa Mosque. If we attach our souls to Al-Aqsa, they will be purified. Our bodies will be purified. Anyone who remembers Al-Aqsa loves life. He is saved from the coronavirus, but not in order to get married, build, or study – rather, he is saved so that he can have the honor of liberating the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
I'm also sure he means the "inner, spiritual jihad" when he's talking about "liberating" the Temple Mount from Jews.
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Last week I reported on a Europal event due to take place on the SOAS campus. Europal have links to Hamas and have spread antisemitic material on a UK campus. Several Jewish organisations set up campaigns and angry members of the community sent emails to the university in protest. Eventually SOAS responded -and sent out a reassuring email from the SOAS Director. The event would go ahead but was a ‘student only’ event. There would be no Europal presence. SOAS promised they would be ‘no external speakers. The event took place and now we know the truth. SOAS has been caught lying to us.
This is the email SOAS sent out:
SOAS emailThe email is clear. This is a student only event – there will be no external speakers – and Europal are not going to be there either.
The SOAS Europal event
The event took place on Saturday. This is an image from one of the sessions.
SOAS Europal event
Speaking at the front is Shamiul Joarder. Jorder is Head of Public Affairs of Friends of Al Aqsa (FoA) – another Islamist group. For many years FoA supported the Iranian, pro-Hezbollah ‘Al Quds’ day march in London. The FoA founder Ismail Patel has spoken at the event. Patel has also recommended the writing of Roger Garaudy -a 9/11 truther and convicted Holocaust denier. Friends of Al-Aqsa has also published work by Holocaust denier Paul Eisen and antisemite Gilad Atzmon. In the following image Patel can be seen with Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh:
Patel has openly said that Hamas ‘is not a terrorist organisation’ and fully supported the speaking tour’ of Raed Salah, who has since been found guilty of inciting terrorism. Patel himself has advocated the killing of adulterers.
The Iranian diaspora has coined a term for this kind of news management, hashtad-beest, or “80/20,” meaning that 80% of the reporting focuses on the obvious and unavoidable, including mild or implied criticism of the regime, in order to establish credibility among foreign readers. According to Iranian political activist Heshmat Alavi, “The remaining 20 percent of their published material focuses on pushing Iran’s talking points, such as justifying Zarif’s arguments, praising Soleimani as a popular figure and criticizing Iranian opposition groups.” And so the regime-friendly gaslighting produced by the Times’ man in Tehran highlighted a consistent array of topics pleasing to the ayatollahs and irritating to the U.S. administration: the Yemeni humanitarian disaster (always laid on Riyadh’s doorstep, never the Houthis’ or Iran’s), Brett Kavanaugh Bad, anti-refugee attacks in Germany, Israel bombing Hezbollah convoys in Syria (Bad), Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman visiting the United States (Bad), Pompeo replacing Tillerson (Bad), John Bolton (Worse), Apple closing its App Store to Islamic Republic consumers (Apocalypse), and predictable logrolling between Erdbrink and Vali Nasr and Al Jazeera’s favorite Iranian-American, Yara Elmjouie.
Erdbrink deserves some credit, however. When NPR interviewed Erdbrink about the then-upcoming Our Man in Tehran release, the interviewer mentioned his longtime residency in Iran with his Iranian wife. Could he be truly objective? “If objectivity is measured by, do I see Iran exactly though a Western view? Then no,” was Erdbrink’s answer. With this artful dodge, he was admitting to being a functional hostage of the regime, and with its array of tools—granting entry visas and press credentials, revoking both at whim, banning, silencing, imprisonment, uniting or separating families, taking hostages—Tehran can dictate not only how it is covered but by whom.
What is striking here to an outsider is the value that Tehran places on intermediaries and proxies. I asked Reuel Marc Gerecht, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies chief Iran expert, who has traveled through Iran and speaks fluent Persian, about this strategy. “I don’t think the Iranians are as strategic as many folks think,” Gerecht said. “They really are dependent upon Westerners leading on most issues. Most Westerners aren’t being led; if anything, Westerners have the rhetorical lead and Iranians follow. Ben Rhodes, Phil Gordon, Jake Sullivan, to name just a few, don’t need NIAC [National Iranian American Council] to frame arguments. As a rule, Iranian officials are pretty crude and stuck in a left-wing, Islamic, mindset of the 1970s, even if they are young. Zarif only looks good because the others are so bad, so inept with Westerners. The Islamic Republic is like Cuba: it exists in a time warp intellectually. It’s one of many reasons why it can’t evolve and reform.”
Keeping Thomas Erdbrink in limbo probably guarantees a certain level of compliance from his successor Fassihi. Why the New York Times so readily accedes to what looks from here like blackmail is another question. On Feb. 12, 2020, the Washington, D.C., think tank the Atlantic Council convoked a panel titled “Iran: Propaganda and Perception 41 Years After the Revolution,” starring, among others, its own Barbara Slavin, Farnaz Fassihi, and others. In a two-hour discussion about the rigors of reporting from Tehran, Erdbrink’s name did not come up once.
Rubin Report: Muslim On The Real Danger Of Ilhan Omar’s Agenda (Pt. 1) | Dalia al-Aqidi
Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report talks to Dalia al-Aqidi (Journalist, Republican Candidate) about why she is challenging Rep Ilhan Omar for her congressional seat in the fifth district of Minnesota. Dalia is a Muslim refugee who grew up in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. She immigrated to the US when she was 20. She shares her concerns about groups like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) and how they worked with and groomed congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. She reveals how CAIR is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood and is working to train many more candidates in the same progressive mold.
This is the man who endorsed Ilhan Omar and Bernie Sanders.
Benjamin Gerstein is the president of the student body at the University of Michigan.
He wasn’t beaten with sticks or carried through the streets with a dunce cap on his head. He didn’t see his parents murdered or sent to concentration camps. He wasn’t starved or threatened with execution or imprisonment.
His crime was to suggest a few years ago, that the “Palestinian people” did not deserve a state. It was really a relatively mild statement, certainly less severe than anything I would write. When someone noticed, he was forced to recant. And here is part of what he wrote on Facebook in his “defense:”
I made statements that erase the history of the Palestinian people. I made racist statements, including the denial of the right to self-determination, that were ignorant of Palestinians’ struggle under occupation. I am sorry beyond words … I accept total and complete responsibility for the harmfulness of my language, the offensiveness of my words, and the active role I played in the silencing of Palestinian voices.
I have grown considerably since I made those statements, and the repulsive views I expressed in the video no longer reflect my current understanding. I am devastated to see them reappear and be defended today. I know an apology is never enough and I am complicit in the oppression of Palestinians through my past actions.
I am asking myself if this could have happened when I was a student in America, in the early 1960s before the murders of JFK, MLK, and RFK, when LSD was still mostly in the lab, and Max Yasgur was just a farmer.
I’m not sure, but I doubt it.
I don’t know whether to be ashamed for him, to call him an idiot, or to feel sorry for him because I can only guess what may have been done to him to get him to crawl on all fours and lick the shoes of his enemies. Or maybe that’s what some American Jewish kids are like today. I don’t know. Maybe, like Jeremiah Denton, he blinked out “T.O.R.T.U.R.E” in Morse code when he posted that, but probably not.
American Jews: don’t send your kids to the University of Michigan or similar places. Let them join the military, enter apprenticeship programs to learn a trade, or make aliyah and serve in the IDF. Teach them about Mao’s cultural revolution, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and the treatment of POWs in Korea and Vietnam, so they will recognize brainwashing.
Don’t let this happen to them. (See also my post about this - EoZ)
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Fourth election on Israel’s
horizon? No worries. There’s nothing wrong with Israel possibly having a fourth
election and this is not a failure. It’s how the public uses the free and
democratic Israeli election process as a way to refine its political views.
What we see now is a maturation
process, a societal coming of age.
Those of us on the right would never
vote for Gantz or Lapid. Not during the first election, and not in subsequent
elections. But a part of me, the part that is angry with Bibi, played Devil’s
advocate: “Traditionally, there has been more building under left-wing Israeli
governments,” I would tell people on social media, going for shock value.
I wanted to wake people up. I
wanted to tell them: “Bibi has frozen settlement de facto, beyond what Obama ever
required. Stop pretending that a right wing government has enacted right wing
policy!”
But it’s more than that. Netanyahu has failed to stop the leftist courts from destroying settlements, he’s promised buildings that have never materialized.
He waits for people in other countries to decide when Israel will exercise its sovereignty
over Judea and Samaria. (What kind of sovereignty is that???)
These things make me mad. But I
am also angry at Bibi over old history: the votes for Disengagement; the way he
promised reciprocity, then gave away Hebron. I’ve written about these things
before. I don’t wish to write about them again. But the collective memory of
these actions make me sometimes not want to vote for him.
Please note that my anger at
Bibi comes from my passion for Israel. When Bibi does things that in my
opinion, harm my beloved country, it makes it harder for me to vote for him. So
in past elections, I’ve voted for smaller right wing parties, and even toyed with
not voting at all.
But this time I knew that it
was time to stop effing around, so I voted Likud.
It took three elections to get
me to that point, quite frankly. And the thing is, maybe it will take four or
more elections for everyone else to get to that point, too: the point where we
have a clear majority of Israelis who want the same things for our country.
Where we all—or at least most of us—understand what it takes to get there.
Because it sure ain't Gantz and Lapid.
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The Trump administration will no longer refer to Arab residents of Jerusalem as Palestinians, Israel Hayom has learned.
In a new human rights report released on Wednesday, the US for the first time calls the Arab residents of the capital "non-Israeli residents who live in Jerusalem."
The annual State Department report evaluates the state of human rights across the world. It has a chapter dealing with the situation in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem. In recent years its terminology has changed regarding those areas.
Two years ago, the report decided to omit the term "occupied" in reference to Judea and Samaria, and last year the report included strong rebukes of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas over their violation of human rights rather than just over Israel's record.
The administration's latest decision is in keeping with its principled stance of sticking to the truth and facts on the ground. The administration told Israel Hayom that the new definition of Arab residents in east Jerusalem reflects the reality in the capital,: On the one hand the Arab residents are not Israeli citizens but on the other hand, there is no Palestinian state either, and hence they cannot be considered Palestinian citizens.
In one paragraph dealing with the shortage of classrooms in the city, the report refers to Arab citizens in east Jerusalem without using the word "Palestinian" to describe their lack of Israeli citizenship: "Based on population data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the NGO Ir Amim estimated in previous years a shortage of 2,500 classrooms for non-Israeli children resident in East Jerusalem and 18,600 non-Israeli children in Jerusalem were not enrolled in any school."
A senior administration official told Israel Hayom that "the goal of this report is to maximize accuracy. Being accurate and factual has been the hallmark of this administration's foreign policy."
Here the contrast in the UN’s policies is extraordinary: these same companies offer services in the settlement projects of other disputed and occupied territories but are subject to no condemnation for this activity. Most of Israel’s settlements are on public lands, and the tourism services are offered there for new homes built after Israel’s conquest of the territory. However, in contrast, in other conflict zones Airbnb, booking.com, TripAdvisor openly advertise homes and services in the homes of actual refugees.
In fact, these sites advertise specific dwellings that belonged to Azerbaijani refugees driven from their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory under Armenian occupation since the early 1990s. Some of the original property owners have identified their homes in advertisements placed by Armenian settlers on Airbnb and other tourism sites.
Armenia has an extensive settlement project in its territories of Azerbaijan that it occupies. However, in contrast to Israel’s control of the West Bank, where the Palestinian population has been able to stay in their homes, Armenia expelled over 700,000 Azerbaijanis when it invaded the territories. This happened in 1992-1994, not generations ago. Armenia’s expulsion of the Azerbaijanis is the largest population expulsion in Europe since the end of World War II, yet is hardly known in the international system.
If the UN Human Right Office indeed wants to promote peace and be taken seriously as such, it should include in in the UN Human Rights Office database the business activity of all occupied territories and protracted conflicts. This would be a sign that it is truly interested in solving territorial disputes everywhere, not just one.
In fact, when it issued its blacklist, the UN Human Rights Office may have inadvertently opened the flood gates. In today’s interconnected world, aggrieved parties are keenly aware of developments in other protracted conflicts. They will want to know why the world’s most prominent multilateral organization is willing to apply sanctions in one protracted conflict, but not others. The UN Human Rights Office must now be prepared to explain why some occupations are inconsequential, but only Israel’s control of the West Bank is deserving of a blacklist.
Palestinian Authority and UNRWA schools continue to use textbooks that radicalize children against Israel, parliamentarians in the UK, a major donor to the PA, lamented on Tuesday.
MP Jonathan Gullis, who initiated the debate with Minister of State James Cleverly, displayed a reading comprehension textbook for 10-year-olds that praised Dalal al-Mughrabi, who killed 38 Israelis including 13 children, on a bus in 1978.
Gullis cited research by IMPACT-se, a research institute analyzing textbooks, which reviewed 202 such books from the current Palestinian curriculum, finding “a systematic insertion of violence, martyrdom and jihad across all grades and subjects, where the possibility of peace with Israel is rejected.”
MP Stephen Crabb questioned “why there has been so little progress” in removing incitement from textbooks, pointing out that “concerns have been constantly raised by members across parties in this house about the use of inciteful language in textbooks – which, whether directly or indirectly, UK aid has helped to finance.”
Labour Friends of Israel chairman MP Steve McCabe said: “I strongly support a two-state solution – and it is precisely because of that support that I believe it is imperative that we tackle the issue of radicalization in the Palestinian school curriculum.
The textbooks “seek to pass on old hatreds and prejudices to a new generation of young people,” McCabe added. “It’s a barrier to reconciliation and coexistence, is pernicious and simply unacceptable.”
The Bernie Sanders campaign denounced the “toxic and offensive” past statements of an imam who spoke at a Sanders rally days before a key presidential primary in Michigan.
Imam Sayed Hassan Al-Qazwini said in 2015 that the Islamic State terrorist group “somehow is connected to Israel.” The same year, commenting on a Supreme Court decision upholding the right to same-sex marriage, he said, “This is a moment that Americans would look back at with so much regret and sorrow, that we are legalizing something that is normal, something that is against human nature.”
Al-Qazwini introduced Sanders at a rally in Dearborn, Michigan on Saturday.
“The campaign has been made aware of offensive and toxic past statements by Imam Qazwini,” campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a statement Tuesday, after a number of media outlets reported on the past statements of the founder of the Islamic Institute of America.
“These statements are dangerous, hateful, and violate the principles of our movement, which is based on values of equality and dignity for all people,” Shakir said. “Senator Sanders stands with those in Israel, Palestine, and across the region who work for peace, and unequivocally rejects antisemitic conspiracy theories that seek to blame Israel for all the region’s problems, and well as any bigoted statements against any group.”
Really?
I dare Bernie Sanders to find a single statement from his workers, surrogates and co-speakers at his rallies Rashida Tlaib, Amer Zahr, Phillip Agnew, Linda Sarsour, Ilhan Omar, Belén Sisa, Matt Duss, Shaun King, and even Faiz Shakir before 2020 that blames anyone but Israel for the conflict.
Just one. (And any statement that blames Abbas for being too conciliatory towards Israel doesn't count.)
Unless he can find that they are really as even-handed as Sanders claims to be, then this statement that he rejects those who spout "antisemitic conspiracy theories that seek to blame Israel for all the region’s problems" is simply a lie.
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The student government at the University of Michigan has passed a resolution condemning its president for remarks critical of the Palestinians he made as a high school senior.
The final vote of the Feb. 25 resolution rebuking Central Student Government president Ben Gerstein was 25 in favor, zero against and four abstentions.
“There should be a test for what type of people deserve a state and what type of people don’t. I think the Palestinian people, with rejecting constant peace deals, with their financing of terror, with their raising kids to hate people purely because of their religion,” said Gerstein on the TV show “North Town News Magazine” in 2017. “I don’t think that people deserve a state at this point in time. Until we see a significant change in the Palestinian mentality and a significant change in the Palestinian leadership, I don’t think they deserve a state at this point.”
The resolution stated that Gerstein’s 2017 comments are “Islamaphobic and racist, and we formally condemn these comments,” and “we recognize the international plight of the Palestinian people, some of whom are constituents of this government.” It also stated: “We recognize that more work needs to be done to uproot racism and Islamophobia at the University of Michigan.”
Here is the portion of the video, on a small Jewish public affairs program, that the university is so upset about:
The resolution calls his words "Islamophobic." Yet Gerstein didn't once mention or imply anything about Islam or Muslims.
The resolution calls his words "racist." Gerstein certainly described Palestinian mentality - but his description was entirely correct based on well-respected polls done by Palestinians themselves.
There is no rule in international law that every people, especially a people who did not identify as such until the 1960s, deserve a state automatically. Surveys consistently show that Palestinians are always in the top three of peoples who are antisemitic. Their rejection of peace deals is a matter of record. Their support of violence has hovered in the 50% range when asked that question in the abstract, but when they are asked if they support specific acts of murdering Jews they have been consistently supportive by a large margin.
Gerstein's words were 100% accurate. It is not racist to point out that during the "knife intifada" in 2015, 80% of Palestinians supported stabbing and running over Israeli Jews in cars and a huge number were angry at Mahmoud Abbas for condemning the murder of four rabbis in 2014.
There is also no contradiction between pointing out how Palestinians have consistently chosen supporting terror over peace and noting that they really do suffer under Israeli control. One can and should be sympathetic towards anyone who is in pain. But being in pain does not change facts, and does not justify censorship of those pointing out the facts. Gerstein's 2017 comments do not lose their validity because Palestinians are suffering to some degree.
The truth must never be censured.
There is a second disturbing aspect of this story.
Even if Gerstein's words were bigoted - if, let's say, he had said that black people were lazy - the thought that his words from when he was a high school student must be censured by his current university is still chilling. Gerstein issued an abject apology - one that I do not believe was warranted:
A video recently surfaced of an interview I participated in when I was in high school. In this video as well as an op-ed, I made statements that erase the history of the Palestinian people. I made racist statements, including the denial of the right to self-determination, that were ignorant of Palestinians’ struggle under occupation. I am sorry beyond words--both for my actions as well as not coming forward with the video sooner and seeking remedy for it. I accept total and complete responsibility for the harmfulness of my language, the offensiveness of my words, and the active role I played in the silencing of Palestinian voices.
I have grown considerably since I made those statements, and the repulsive views I expressed in the video no longer reflect my current understanding. I am devastated to see them reappear and be defended today. I know an apology is never enough and I am complicit in the oppression of Palestinians through my past actions.
When I arrived at Michigan, I was introduced to the real lived experiences of Palestinian students and an understanding of the legacies of colonialism and settler violence I had not heard before. My education had only consisted of Israeli narratives and I committed myself to learning new perspectives and being empathetic to the Palestinian community. I feel my deeper understanding of history and multiple narratives now allows me to work as a stronger ally to others to dismantle the systems of oppression that perpetuate the suffering of the Palestinian people--but I also know that I have much more learning to do and am committed to continuing that work.
As Student Body President, I hope that the work I have done is representative of my commitment to moving past my former opinions, and further, representative of my dedication to supporting marginalized communities on campus. But this experience and the recognition of the pain my past language has inflicted on others helped me realize I can--and must--do much more. There is a toxic environment across the country that invalidates Palestinian narratives. I hope to further commit myself to working to uplift those who continue to struggle for their dignity and humanity. I look forward to working with SAFE and Palestinian students on campus to have a crucial conversation about how I can be a partner in promoting an inclusive campus. In my last weeks as President, I intend to use my role to address how the culture of CSG and campus at-large needs to be more responsive to the needs of Palestinian students. This is only one step in an apology that demands action, further learning, a genuine commitment to allyship, the pursuit of justice, and collective liberation, not empty words.
I can only imagine the pressure Gerstein was under to issue this apology. But, as always, it wasn't enough. The censure was passed anyway.
A statement censuring him for something he apologized for is the modern equivalent of a lynching. If a teenager can't evolve in his viewpoints, who can? No matter what side of the issue you are on, this sets a precedent that deep-freezes freedom of expression for everyone.
And nothing he said can remotely be considered "silencing Palestinian voices." That is absurd.
Finally, compare this story with the last one that I posted. An actual Palestinian government official said words that are antisemitic by any yardstick - claiming that the Jews aren't a people, that Jewish self-determination is a form of racism. This isn't a random 17-year old student, but a representative of the Palestinian government.
There is no censure for him. There is no anger. There is no pressure for him to issue an apology. Journalists ignore the story.
The world is dismissive of real, explicit antisemitism from a Palestinian official but there is outrage over the words of a 17 year old kid three years ago that happened to be true.
This isn't just a double standard. This is institutionalized and accepted antisemitism. Proud Jews who express their opinions must be silenced - but Palestinian officials can spout actual lies and hate without any concerns about backlash from the media or their colleagues.
(h/t Andrew)
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The PLO's representative to Greece, Marwan Tobasi, went on an antisemitic rant at a meeting with "peace" groups in that country.
There was seemingly no objection from these "peace" groups when Tobasi said that there was a "Zionist Holocaust" that Israel has waged against the Palestinian people for seven decades.
Echoing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Tobasi claimed that the Zionist strategy in the Middle east and throughout the world is to provoke conflicts and wars that will allow Israel to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. He said that the Zionist movement sought from its inception to expel the Palestinian people from its land to replace them with Jews.
Tobasi said that canceling the UN General Assembly’s decision in 1991 to consider Zionism as a form of racism was a major error on the part of the UN.
The diplomat also claimed that there is no Jewish people, and we are all a myth. "The danger and misleading lies according to the Zionist definition of Judaism as an ethnic and not religious group ...is rooted in the mentality and racist practice which is the essence of Zionist thought."
This is a man paid to represent the opinions of the "State of Palestine" to the world. It seems doubtful any Palestinian official will publicly disagree.
Which is just more proof that the Palestinian government is antisemitic.
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