Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 13, 2020

07/13 Links Pt1: Britain Shamefully Betrays the Jewish People Again; Biden’s Foreign Policy Team Looks to Repeat a Legacy of Failure; Peter Beinart is neither a Zionist nor a Liberal

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: Sovereignty in the West Bank Areas of Judea and Samaria: Historical and Legal Milestones that Make the Case

The subject of the rights of the Jewish People and the State of Israel under international law, in the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria, involves a complex and extensive web of historical, legal, military, and political issues.
The Jewish People Have Historical Claims in Judea and Samaria

Israel’s claims to sovereignty regarding the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria did not originate with Israel’s attaining control of the area following the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israel’s rights are based on the indigenous and historical claims of the Jewish people in the area as a whole, virtually from time immemorial.

Israel’s international legal rights were acknowledged in 1917 by the Balfour Declaration’s promise to the Jews to reestablish their historical national home in Palestine. These rights are based on clear historical, archeological, and Biblical evidence.

The Balfour Declaration was subsequently recognized internationally and encapsulated into international law through a series of international instruments commencing with the 1920 San Remo Declaration by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers, followed by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

The continued validity of these foundational legal rights was also assured under Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Persistent Palestinian Refusal to Negotiate Leaves Israel No Option but to Act Unilaterally to Protect Its Rights
While Israel’s prior, well-established, and documented international, legal, political, and indigenous rights to sovereignty over the areas are clear, Israel nevertheless acknowledged in the Oslo Accords Palestinian rights in the areas, and agreed to negotiate with them the permanent status of the areas.

Persistent Palestinian refusal to return to negotiations and their rejection of peace plans to settle the dispute, cannot and should not serve to veto a settlement of the dispute.

Such ongoing refusal and rejection undermines the peace process, invalidates the Oslo Accords, and leaves Israel no option but to act unilaterally in order to protect its vital security and other interests and historical rights.

David Singer: Britain Shamefully Betrays the Jewish People Again

Britain – the architectof the San Remo Resolution and Treaty of Sevres in 1920 that led to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922 – has yet again shamefully betrayed the Jewish People by warning Israel not to extend its sovereignty into Judea and Samaria.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that any such action would be in violation of international law – which Netanyahu disputes – despite the Mandate vesting in the Jewish People the right to “close settlement” in Judea and Samaria for the purposes of reconstituting the biblical Jewish National Home in what had been the heartland of the Jewish People 3000 years ago.

Britain had betrayed the Jewish People in 1950 after all the Jews living in Judea and Samaria had been ethnically cleansed by the invading Arab army of Transjordan in 1948. Britain – supported only by Pakistan and Iraq – recognised Transjordan’s illegal annexation of Judea and Samaria, the renaming of the newly merged entityas “Jordan”whilst “Judea and Samaria”was renamed“West Bank”.

Johnson told Netanyahu:
"I am immensely proud of the UK’s contribution to the birth of Israel with the 1917 Balfour Declaration. But it will remain unfinished business until there is a solution which provides justice and lasting peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.
The only way it can be achieved is for both sides to return to the negotiating table. That must be our goal. Annexation would only take us further away from it."

Peace for both “Israelis” and “Palestinians”?

Neither existed until 1948 and 1964.

There were only “Arabs” and “Jews” in 1917. The Arab residents of Palestine then comprised part of “the existing non-Jewish communities”.

Johnson seems apparently unaware that the “Palestinians”:
• were defined for the first time in recorded history by article 6 of the 1964 PLO Charter
• did not claim “regional sovereignty in the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan”or“on the Gaza Strip” under article 24
• were Jordanian citizens between 1954 and1988.

Biden’s Foreign Policy Team Looks to Repeat a Legacy of Failure

It was under Obama’s watch that Bashar Assad burnt Syria to the ground and Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. The Obama administration’s policies in Syria and Ukraine were a disaster that handed victory after victory to Putin, none more so than the total abdication of responsibility following the crossing of Obama’s own chemical-weapons “red line.”

Even the much-vaunted Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Obama’s defining foreign policy legacy, while seeking to use diplomacy to prevent a future war with Iran over its imagined potential ability to build a nuclear weapon, was signed by largely ignoring its very real ability to cause untold human suffering through conventional slaughter, further fueling the fires burning in Syria and Iraq.

Speaking last week on whether Biden’s team had learned anything from the Iran deal and its impact on the region, former U.S. special envoy to Syria, Ambassador Frederic Hof said, “the Obama administration and in particular with the president, there was faith in the proposition that by signing the nuclear agreement, Iran would begin to modify its other regional policies. Many of us believed from the beginning that this was false, that it was not going to happen. And I think it’s a lesson learned.”

One of the principal architects of the Iran deal, Colin Kahl, has taken on the Iran file for Biden’s foreign policy team. Kahl’s appointment likely signals a reversal of Trump’s maximum pressure policy and, at least in policy terms, an attempt to return to the JCPOA, but is there any real evidence that lessons have been learned? While it’s important not to read too much into social media reactions, Kahl’s smug social media post following the assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, stating, “In death, Soleimani accomplished one of his ultimate objectives: getting the US kicked out of Iraq,” displays a worrying naivete, not just of internal Iraqi politics, but also of his own brief. Just what did he think his own administration’s policy was towards Iraq?

A thread posted by Kahl in January laid bare the moral bankruptcy of the previous administration’s failed Middle Eastern pivot, as Kahl concedes “there is no question that Iran’s military spending went up by a few billion after the JCPOA,” before concluding that the best strategy should be “playing the long game to counter their influence in places like Iraq and Lebanon through engagement and institution building.”

2020 is already infamous for being a historically bad year. Beyond COVID-19 and George Floyd and government incompetence, though, is that this year is shaping up to be a year of publicly expressed antisemitism – by celebrities who have massive followings.

And most of that has been in only the past couple of months.

Roger Waters tells a Hamas-linked TV station that a rich Jew is the “puppetmaster” controlling the US government, and that religious Jews think non-Jews are subhuman.

Rosanna Arquette tweeted that Israel had a vaccine for COVID-19 for a year already and implied that Jews were behind the virus so they could profit from the vaccine.

Louis Farrakhan, who has millions of fans, says that Jews are “satanic” and said that when he dies, the Jews who opposed his hate would be at fault and will be destroyed.

Chelsea Handler, before apologizing for posting an old Farrakhan video, defended his antisemitism, tweeting, “perhaps Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic views took form during his own oppression.” The implication is that Jews are responsible for Farrakhan’s hate. Oh, and she said that anyone who didn’t like her post – meaning, Jews - can “go f--- themselves.”

Rick Wiles, the antisemitic head of TruNews, said, “There is a plague moving upon the Earth right now, and the people that are going into the synagogues are coming out with the virus. You are under judgment because you oppose his son, Jesus Christ. That is why you have a plague in your synagogues.”

Ice Cube has been sharing a series of blatantly antisemitic tweets, blaming Jews for the world’s ills.

DeSean Jackson posted as fact a fake antisemitic quote from Hitler, and was supported by other sports stars Malik Jackson and Stephen Jackson.

Peter Beinart said Orthodox Jews are racists and started a huge publicity campaign for the idea that the entire idea of a Jewish state is immoral and it should be dismantled.

And now Nick Cannon, along with Professor Griff, are happily riffing on the idea that Jews aren’t really Jews although they do control the world and are inherently savage and evil.

All of these people have hundreds of thousands, some of them millions, of fans.

All of these people still have careers.

None of them have been “canceled.” Sometimes there is some press coverage, sometimes they are forced to apologize to keep their jobs, but in the end antisemitism is not something that is considered to be as bad as other forms of hate.

This is especially jarring when there is an entire “cancel culture” for other kinds of bigotry that skips over this kind.

The only conclusion is that Jew-hate is not considered to be “real” hate. Outrage is cosmetic. There are always extenuating circumstances to consider, as Chelsea Handler asserted. The antisemites are seen as victims too, of rich Jews or Israel or the Jewish media.

And because the outrage is false, the antisemites are emboldened. It is becoming mainstream to attack Jews and to defend the haters. Conspiracy theories are not countered. Jews are expected to turn the other cheek because there is “real” hate we have to tackle first.

When celebrities – the most reputation-conscious people on Earth - can spout Jew-hate in public without fear, American Jews are in big trouble. And the rest of America isn’t that far behind.

The American Jewish Committee announced the appointment of Holly Huffnagle to be their US Director for Combating Antisemitism.

Huffnagle’s resume is impressive. She was previously the policy advisor to the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism at the U.S. Department of State and a researcher at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. She has a master’s degree from Georgetown University where she focused on 20th century Polish history and Jewish-Muslim relations before, during, and after the Holocaust. Huffnagle was also a Scholar-in-Residence at Oxford University with the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.

Howard Dean, the former presidential candidate and governor of Vermont, criticized the appointment of someonewith excellent credentials to lead the fight against antisemitism – because of her religion.

He tweeted, “Unfortunately Christians don’t have much a reputation for anything but hate these days thanks to Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell and other trump friends. AJC gets no points for this.”

Excuse me?

The AJC highlighted that she was Christian. In her words, “Antisemitism is not a problem for Jews to solve. It is a societal problem….It effectively requires non-Jews to fight it.”

Then, the purportedly Jewish organization IfNotNow doubled down on the criticism, by saying that a “white Christian” is inherently unqualified for a major role in fighting antisemitism.

This bigotry is even more astonishing when you realize that IfNotNow and other anti-Zionist socialists fully support Ali Abunimah, most definitely a non-Jew, when he defines Zionism itself as antisemitism as he has been doing for at least a decade:

And they are fully on board when Columbia University professor Joseph Massad, another gentile, says that Zionism and antisemitism are virtually identical.

Their affiliate Jewish Voice for Peace actually brought an Arab Muslim, Linda Sarsour, as an expert on antisemitism on a panel that was meant to whitewash, not teach, what antisemitism is. No objection from the Left about that.

A white person who defines racism in a way that most Black people would object to would rightfully be called a racist themselves. But IfNotNow and other socialist groups are fine with non-Jews defining antisemitism in a way that most Jews find abhorrent.

And then these hypocrites say that a “white Christian” cannot be a leader in the fight against Jew-hatred. (Their deliberate use of the word “white” is apparently meant to defend their use of Sarsour and Massad and Abunimah as definers of antisemitism – but all it does is prove how fundamentally bigoted they are.)

I would be thrilled if the AJC would hire members of groups where Jew-hatred is smoldering to be leaders in fighting it. It would be fantastic if the AJC could hire Arabs and non-Jewish Blacks to lead the way, to teach their communities what antisemitism is by the accepted Jewish definition and how to fight it.

Only a bigot would object.

There are very few Jews left in Yemen as most of them have decided to leave in recent years because of the Yemeni civil war. As was reported in 2017:

Yemen’s information minister said his government is unaware of the fate of the country’s few dozen remaining Jews, most of whom reside in the Houthi rebel group-controlled capital of Sana’a, Israel Radio reported.

Speaking to an Israel Radio reporter on the sidelines of a conference on the civil war in Yemen in Paris, Moammer al-Iryani also said Saturday that the Houthis view the tiny remaining Jewish population as an enemy and are engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing that includes ridding Yemen of its Jewish community.

One of the tiny Jewish communities left is in Kharif, where things have been getting increasingly worse since at least 2007.

Now there is a report that even those that didn’t leave Kharif are in extreme danger.

Al Mesryoon reports that the pro-Iranian Shiite Houthi militia arrested the remaining Jews of the Kharif and imprisoned them simply for being Jews. The Houthis forced the Jews to sign over their properties for a nominal price and they are being pressured to leave Yemen.

The report says that previously the Houthis have cut off the supply of water and electricity to the Jews.

Hopefully the Jews really will be able to leave before something even worse happens to them.

When I say Beinart’s “peace plan” resembles Hamas’ plan, I’m not joking

I tweeted last night:

I think I figured out what being a "progressive" Jew means.

Peter Beinart "progressed" from supporting Yasser Arafat's vision of a "solution" into adopting Hamas' vision.
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) July 12, 2020

This was not entirely facetious.

In 2017, Hamas famously took out the blatantly antisemitic language in its manifesto that was supposed-to-but-not-really replace their original Hamas charter.

Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. …

Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage.

See? Hamas doesn’t say it wants to persecute Jews in its one state solution.

Other parts of the 2017 Hamas manifesto sounds very close to what Beinart would want:

Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. It provides an umbrella for the followers of other creeds and religions who can practice their beliefs in security and safety. Hamas also believes that Palestine has always been and will always be a model of coexistence, tolerance and civilizational innovation.

Hamas believes that the message of Islam upholds the values of truth, justice, freedom and dignity and prohibits all forms of injustice and incriminates oppressors irrespective of their religion, race, gender or nationality. Islam is against all forms of religious, ethnic or sectarian extremism and bigotry.

Life in an Islamic state under Hamas rule sounds like a dream!

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar said this also in 2006:

"I dreams of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it," he said. "I hope that our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine (including Israel)."

"This dream will become real one day. I'm certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land," said al-Zahar.

However, he didn't rule out the possibility of having Jews, Muslims and Christians living under the sovereignty of an Islamic state, adding that the Palestinians never hated the Jews and that only the Israeli occupation was their enemy.

Does anyone believe Hamas? Beinart was skeptical in his 2012 “Crisis of Zionism” book, but he felt that their conciliatory statements should be considered by Israel and Zionists as reflecting an evolution of Hamas’ thought. Now? Outside the Islamic part, Hamas’ manifesto sounds remarkably like Beinart’s plan for peace and happiness in the Middle East.

Now, Beinart will claim that his solution is different, because Isratine would not be defined as an Islamic or even an Arab state. But how can that be stopped? Every Arab-majority state defines itself as an Arab state; every one except for Lebanon refers to its Muslim identity in their constitutions, and Lebanon is a perfect example of how a nation that is constitutionally committed to equal rights is not the same as one actually committed to equal rights.

Many Arab states claim equal rights for non-Muslims in their constitutions, but that isn’t stopping Christians from fleeing as fast as they can.

Officially calling the state “Islamic” or not is a distinction without a difference. And that is the only difference between Peter Beinart and Hamas’ stated vision of the future of the borders of British Mandate Palestine.

Of course, Beinart studiously ignores the thousands of statements from Hamas every year that contradict the language of tolerance in its manifesto.

To Beinart, Arabs must be judged favorably; only Jews must be judged harshly; Palestinians must have sovereignty, Jews should be happy with the crumbs of dhimmitude that may come their way under a benevolent Muslim-majority rule.

Which is exactly what Hamas believes.

UPDATE: Only last week, a Hamas MP described the evil of Jews.

07/12 Links: Senior Rabbi Rebukes Junior Rabbi’s Viral Tweet Claiming Jews Aren’t Indigenous to Israel; For PA 'peace' means destroying Israel with 5.6 million refugees

From Ian:

Senior Rabbi Rebukes Junior Rabbi’s Viral Tweet Claiming Jews Aren’t Indigenous to Israel

The tweet quickly went viral, surpassing 10 thousand likes. In the expanded thread, Kahn went on to argue that “Jews, as a people, have not been part” of the indigenous rights struggle because they have not been included in the work by the United Nations for Indigenous Peoples “over the past 20+ years.”

The statement drew criticism from numerous Jewish voices, including Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson, the Senior Rabbi at Kahn’s synagogue.

“I disagree with Rabbi Kahn’s statement in both its facts and its effects, nor does it speak for Temple Emanu-El,” Davidson wrote in a letter to The Forward. “Beyond the Bible, numerous historians argue the Jewish people’s national identity was forged in the land of Israel.”

The senior rabbi also noted that Kahn’s tweets can be harmful and easily exploited.

“Whatever point Rabbi Kahn sought to make, and whether Jews meet the United Nations measure of an indigenous people or not, such claims are too easily manipulated by those who seek to undermine Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish homeland,” Davidson wrote.

He then went on to argue that Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel.

“Archeology suggests an ancient Jewish presence there 3,000 years ago corresponding to the period of the Davidic monarchy,” Davidson said.

One group who took major issue with Kahn’s comments were Jews of color.

“You do realize that over half of Israeli Jews never left the Middle East — ever. So, how are we appropriating the suffering of others? Sorry if our indigeneity, oppressions, and culture are inconvenient truth to your political agenda,” Jews Indigenous to the North East and North Africa (JIMENA) tweeted in response to Kahn.

Siamak Kordestani, who is on the young professionals board of JIMENA, penned an open letter to Kahn.

“The fact you a) blocked a large number of Jews including Jews indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa and b) failed to note that these communities have been living in the Middle East for well over 2,000 years deeply concerns me,” Kordestani wrote. “Can you see how this is extremely offensive and even prejudiced against non-European Jews?”

Mitch Albom: Anti-Semitic posts — and tepid reactions — should enrage us

These days, you can lose your job for a tweet. You can lose it for a retweet, or a spouse’s tweet. If your message is considered racist or hateful, it can bring an onslaught of condemnation, followed swiftly by an erasure of your reputation and your career.

So it might seem surprising that after NFL star DeSean Jackson posted several anti-Semitic messages on Instagram last weekend — including a quote he (wrongly) attributed to Adolf Hitler claiming Jews “will extort America” and “have a plan for world domination” — there was no mass outrage from his industry, and no immediate punishment from his team.

In fact, although they labeled the posts "offensive" and "appalling," it took nearly a week before the Philadelphia Eagles finally announced the consequences for Jackson’s hateful messages: An undisclosed fine.

Think about that. A fine. Meanwhile, despite Jackson repeating the worst form of Jewish stereotyping and citing not only Hitler but Louis Farrakhan, who has called Jews “satanic” and likened them to “termites," only a handful of athletes (several of them Jewish) and some notable media voices criticized him.

Jackson did, however, receive support from other sports stars, including former NBA player Stephen Jackson, who initially said DeSean was “speaking the truth” and claimed Jews “are the richest” and “control the banks," then later said, “I don't support Hitler, I don’t know nothing about Hitler and I could give a [expletive] about Hitler!”

Fellow Eagle Malik Jackson supported DeSean Jackson as well, and echoed praise for Farrakhan, even though Farrakhan has referred to Hitler as “a very great man.”

Malcolm Jenkins, an NFL player with the New Orleans Saints known for social justice advocacy, seemed bothered that this was “a distraction” from the Black Lives Matter movement, saying: “Jewish people aren’t our problem, and we aren’t their problem ... We’ve got a lot of work to do, and this ain’t it.”

Respectfully, Malcolm, yes, it is.

Because you can’t separate one hate from all hate, any more than you can separate a breeze from the wind.

Honest Reporting: Activism through Racism: Celebs share Farrakhan video

Social media giants Twitter and YouTube have still not totally deplatformed infamous antisemite Louis Farrakhan. Despite breaching YouTube and Twitter's hate speech policies, his hateful messages continue to reach literally hundreds of thousands of people.

Yet the media remains silent. Why?

EoZTV: Hen Mazzig

I had the privilege of interviewing well-known Israel advocate Hen Mazzig today on EoZTV. We spoke about the Peter Beinart kerfuffle, Black Lives Matter and Israel, intersectionality, the terror attack Hen witnessed as a child, his experiences in the Israeli army for COGAT in Hebron, "annexation," his optimism about the future for Israel in the Middle East and and the importance of Jewish pride in Israel.

A lot of stuff for 35 minutes! Check it out!

This was my 27th EoZTV interview since I started these in April. Check out the ones you missed!

Nick Cannon is an actor, comedian, rapper, director, writer, producer. Most people are familiar with him as being the host on NBC’s America’s Got Talent and Fox’s The Masked Singer.

Two weeks ago, he hosted Professor Griff, who was part of the rap group Public Enemy and had already been known to be antisemitic and anti-gay. In 1988 he said, “If the Palestinians took up arms, went into Israel and killed all the Jews, it'd be alright” and then followed that up with "the majority of them [i.e., Jews]" are responsible for "the majority of the wickedness that goes on across the globe." He added that "the Jews finance these experiments on AIDS with black people in South Africa," and that "the Jews have their hands right around Bush's throat." He was forced out of Public Enemy after this, and his resentment towards Jews as a result is still there.

The entire show is 90 minutes long, but it includes long stretches of pure Jew-hatred by both Cannon and Griff, punctuated with the insistence that they don’t hate Jews.

I edited several sections here.

In the first, Griff says that blacks cannot be antisemitic because they are the real semites (implying, of course, that Jews are fakers.) Then Griff says that “they” drove him out of his group.

The second clip is a conversation where Griff says that Jews have taken the Black people’s birthright and are now scared because Jews know that Blacks know that they are fakes. Cannon then clarifies that, yes, they are really talking about the Rothschild and Illuminati families and global corporations that are trying to silence Blacks for being the people that these white Jews and others want to be.

Griff then goes on to compare this supposed theft of identity to someone who steals the bicycle of another, and then the victim comes back to claim their bike. So that’s why “they” silence Michael Jackson when he sang, “Jew me, sue me, everybody do me/ Kick me, kike me, don't you black or white me” and when Puff Daddy wrote in “All About the Benjamins”, “You should do what we do, stack chips like Hebrews.”

The next clip shows Cannon go on a truly racist screed saying that white people are naturally savage because they lack melanin. He says that “they” have to rob, steal, and rape in order to survive. He then clarifies that when he says “they” he is referring to “Jewish people, white people, Europeans, the Illuminati.”
There’s more that I didn’t highlight here.

Both of them are reverent towards Louis Farrakhan, and Griff seems to be a follower of the Nation of Islam while Cannon is merely a fan.

The video already has 250,000 views on YouTube and who knows how many watched it or listened to it as a podcast.

The week before, Cannon highlighted this part of his show where another guest, also a Nation of Islam follower, absurdly claimed that the US gives Israel $80 billion a year as Holocaust reparations.

This is crazy conspiracy theory nonsense that is accepted as mainstream thinking among many Blacks – with very little pushback. And these kinds of antisemitic conspiracy theories are what prompted the Jersey City shootings.

Nation of Islam-fueled antisemitism is a major problem in the Black community, and too many people are too frightened to push back against it for fear of being labeled racists. As we see from this video, when there is pushback, the Black community to often considers that to be proof of Jewish power rather than a legitimate objection to Jew-hatred. The result? More Jew-hate.

But if you are against bigotry, you should be against all bigotry. It does no credit for people who claim to be anti-racists to condone antisemitism, and we have seen too much of that happening.

(h/t Judean People’s Front)

Nothing is eternal, except antisemitism

This tweet has been shared by the usual Arab and leftist Jewish crowd:

Now, why can one not take a train from Alexandria to Haifa nowadays? Israel and Egypt have had a peace agreement for over 40 years now. What’s the issue?

The issue is Arab antisemitism. Israel would welcome such a train ride, and happily allow it to go into Jordan and Saudi Arabia too.

Everyone knows this.

But the commenters are somehow pretending that Israel is the problem:

No one, net least the Jewish socialists who retweeted this, even considers that Israel is not the obstacle here – it is Arab hate for Jews. It is axiomatic to them that no Arab nation could possibly allow a train line to the Jewish state. But their minds cannot quite take the next step to ask why that is.

The train line used to go from Alexandria through Palestine to Aleppo, Syria and on to Baghdad, Iraq. More recently, Israel has been talking about a railway that could link Saudi Arabia with Haifa, resurrecting the old Hejaz Railway.

Israel sure isn’t opposed to such a railway.

This tiny thread shows, yet again, that the obstacle to peace isn’t Israel. It is Arab antisemitism.

Perhaps, as the last person posted, nothing is eternal, but antisemitism seems as enduring as the stars.

07/11 Links: Peter Beinart’s One-State Call Earns Praise of Israel-Hater Linda Sarsour; 56% of Israelis prefer Trump over Biden as next US president - poll; Has Israel infiltrated Hamas’s military wing?

From Ian:

Peter Beinart’s One-State Call Earns Praise of Israel-Hater Linda Sarsour

While widely panned by mainstream commenters, US Jewish journalist Peter Beinart’s New York Times op-ed earlier this week in which he called for a one-state solution to the Middle East conflict did earn the praise of some on the far-left — including anti-Israel firebrand Linda Sarsour.

In a Facebook post about Beinart’s “I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State” article, the Israel-hating Sarsour wrote, “Palestinians have made some of the same arguments that Peter Beinart is making about why a one-state solution is the only way forward but have often been dismissed as antisemites. Maybe Zionists will listen to one of their own. Peter has evolved over the years and I welcome his evolution.”

“Justice, equity, safety and security for ALL is what democracy is supposed to be,” she added. “You can’t be a democrátic state that favors one group over another. You can’t be a democratic state whose survival requires the occupation and dehumanization of another people.”

“Take a read,” Sarsour concluded.

When @PetetBeinart’s essay calling for dismantlement of the Jewish state, gets such glowing endorsements from fellow One Stater, rabid racists and Antisemites like Linda Sarsour & Ali Abunimah, that oughta tell you all you need to know! pic.twitter.com/2oJ6D5dKn4
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 10, 2020

Elan Carr calls J Street annexation tweet antisemitic, sparking argument

The United States Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Elan Carr, sparked a heated online argument among renowned global Jewish community contributors when he called out a tweet posted by J Street, a liberal Jewish Middle East lobbying group.

The tweet used an image of US President Donald Trump, his son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, and was captioned "Stop Annexation." Under its call to action, the organization wrote "tell the US Senate: US tax payers should not foot the bill for West Bank annexation."

The tweet references Trump's Middle East peace plan, which allows Israel to to annex up to 30% of the West Bank.

Following J Street's July 7 tweet, Carr denounced the image the next day, stating in his own post.
“How dare @jstreetdotorg use this picture in this context. Their imagery uses #Antisemitism and crude anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to advance their agenda. They should withdraw this and apologize to @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and to #Jewish Americans who serve our great country,” Carr tweeted.

How dare @jstreetdotorg use this picture in this context. Their imagery uses #Antisemitism and crude anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to advance their agenda. They should withdraw this and apologize to @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and to #Jewish Americans who serve our great country. pic.twitter.com/g4nz13g8K3
— U.S. Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism (@USEAntiSemitism) July 8, 2020

Student leaders at historically Black US colleges join Israel advocacy effort

As Marvel Joseph walked down the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem for the first time, his grandmother’s words echoed in his head: “Have love for the Jewish people.”

It was 2018 and Joseph, now 23, was visiting Israel as part of AIPAC’s African-American student leader trip. An emotional trip, it was just one stop on the way to his new job as coalitions coordinator with the Maccabee Task Force (MTF). In this role he aims to build support for Israel at historically black colleges and universities, also known as HBCUs.

HBCUs were established in the United States, mostly post-Civil War, to educate freed slaves, who were prohibited from most universities due to racism. Today, about 214,000 students attend about 105 HBCUs nationwide.

Because the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement isn’t as entrenched at HBCUs at other US campuses, the 23-year-old said he considers his job to be “proactive, rather than reactive.”

“My biggest goal is to get pro-Israel advocates on campus. Israel is not a top five issue for a lot of students at HBCUs. BDS is not a big topic either, but I don’t want to wait for the day BDS comes on campus,” Joseph, a recent graduate of Florida Atlantic University, said in Zoom call with The Times of Israel.

Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson founded the Maccabee Task Force in 2015 to oppose BDS and to cultivate support for Israel on campuses across the US. Today the group has a presence on more than 100 campuses.

“There was a time for obvious reasons when Jews and Blacks were united in struggle in America. For a lot of people that was the golden era,” said David Brog, MTF’s executive director.

Oh look, the propaganda arm of the Qatari govt, which has modern-day salves build its football stadiums, is spreading poison about US & Israel. Woke AF. https://t.co/KMx0xSU3WV
— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) July 11, 2020

07/10 Links Pt2: Dershowitz: Is the ‘Black Lives Matter’ Platform Antisemitic?; Melanie Phillips: Conversation the eclipse of liberalism and the failure of conservatism

From Ian:

Candidates must adopt IHRA definition of anti-Semitism

Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, an organization that takes no position on BDS, told The Jewish Week in late 2018 that BDS is not about free speech. “Lawmakers from both parties are working together to erode the First Amendment in a joint effort to create a new political free speech exception for Israel,” she wrote. “The potential ramifications of this effort are far-reaching and should provoke deep bipartisan alarm.”

Jonathan Tobin, editor-in-chief of JNS, has also written quite often of the erroneous conflation of BDS with free speech. “Political speech is broadly defined in American law, and the courts have chosen to include activity like flag-burning or paying for political advertisements under that rubric. But it has never been defined as granting impunity to those who wish to discriminate against religious or racial groups in the course of conducting business,” he wrote in a Dec. 18, 2018 column titled “Discrimination against the Jewish state isn’t free speech.”

The other concerning statement in Kreibich’s position is: “Advocate for the end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank through settlements.” While the word “occupation” should have signaled concern to Kreibich’s Jewish neighbors, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. This statement shows that the candidate does not believe that Israel has the right to self-determination.

The territories to which Kreibich apparently refers are certainly disputed, but they have been part of Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. It must then be assumed that she means the disputed territories must all be returned to the pre-1967 lines, regardless of Israel’s self-determination through armed conflict. That is a position supported by Sanders and was a position supported by former President Barack Obama in the final months of his term, though not by current Democratic leadership and not even by the current leading Democratic candidate for president, former Vice President Joe Biden.

The IHRA definition includes as anti-Semitic “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.”

Saying that she will “advocate for the end of Israeli occupation” means that to Kreibich, Jews do not have the right to self-determination. According to the IHRA, this is inherently anti-Semitic and provides ammunition to those who would demonize Israel and its right to exist.

In this day and age, editors and reporters at The Jewish Link have learned that it is no longer enough to go to Washington once or twice a year with NORPAC or AIPAC to advocate as a group for America to support Israel. Israel must be accepted as the only democracy in the Middle East and America’s loyal ally since 1948, the establishment of the modern-day nation. Americans should know that Israel has a right to defend its borders and live in peace like any other country. In an era of rising anti-Semitism, xenophobia and violence, the need for American Jews to have a safe haven in the world is more important than ever.

It is incumbent upon every community member who cares about Israel and the survival of the Jewish people to read statements made by would-be elected leaders. This is not a time for complacency or quiet. If Jewish constituents care about the topic, then they must ask for representation from their elected leaders as well as explain, with specificity, why they cannot be supported with views like these.

The IHRA definition is a great place to start.

Pro-Israel activist Richard Millett wins first stage of High Court libel case against Jeremy Corbyn

A High Court judge has ruled that statements made by Jeremy Corbyn on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show in September 2018 could be held to be defamatory of the pro-Israel activist Richard Millett.

In a judgement delivered on Friday Mr Justice Saini rejected the claim by lawyers representing the former Labour leader that he was not referring to Mr Millett when he appeared on the programme and was asked to defend earlier remarks made about “Zionists” who, he believed, “do not understand English irony”.

Handing down his judgement, Justice Saini concluded: "To summarise my rulings on the preliminary issues, I find that the words complained of referred to Mr Millett; that they bore a meaning defamatory of Mr Millett as identified above; and I find that the allegations were factual.”

A June 23rd hearing at the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court took place to enable Mr Justice Saini to determine whether the meaning of Mr Corbyn’s remarks on the show justified a libel action.

The libel case revolves around an appearance by Mr Corbyn on the BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show in September 2018.

Mr. Millett launched a libel action alleging that the words spoken by Mr Corbyn in the programme were defamatory of him and their publication caused and is likely to cause serious harm to his reputation.

Mark Lewis, of Patron Law, who is representing Mr Millett told the JC: "The judge rejected the argument that Mr Corbyn was not referring to Richard Millett when he appeared on the Marr Show defending his 'irony statement'.

"The Court accepted that these were factual allegations that have a defamatory meaning."

Cool. I hit the target. https://t.co/KofnqS4ExI
— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) July 9, 2020

A Polish govt institute honors Poles who saved Jews. Scholars say it’s whitewash

In February 1943, Stanisława and Henryk Budziszewski decided to help a family of Jewish escapees at their farm in the Polish village of Żebry-Laskowiec where they lived with their three sons, Wacław, Stanisław, and Konstanty. The Jewish family consisted of a husband and wife — shopkeepers from the nearby village of Nur — along with their three children. Their surname remains unknown.

Everyone in the local villages knew that hiding Jews was illegal and, if discovered, the crime brought a sure death penalty.

The Jews were successfully hidden for just two weeks before they were discovered by German gendarmes and the Gestapo in the Budziszewskis’ farm, covered in hay in one of the barns. The adults in the Polish family were separated and interrogated; Waclaw, aged just 18, lied to the Germans and claimed that he had been helping the Jews without his parents’ knowledge.

The Jews were deported and murdered at an unknown location. Wacław was sent to the Stutthof concentration camp, where he died on April 1, 1943. The rest of the Budziszewski family was sent to perform forced labor for the Third Reich.

Recently, the Budziszewskis are among 17 cases identified and honored by Poland’s Pilecki Institute as part of a project launched in March 2019 entitled Called by Name.

According to the Pilecki Institute website, the project is “devoted to persons of Polish nationality who were murdered for providing help to Jews during the German occupation.” Once identified, the rescuers are honored with a ceremony in which a memorial stone is unveiled in their name.

While the honor sounds admirable enough, numerous scholars claim that the initiative launched by the Pilecki Institute — an entity founded in 2017 with government funds — is part of an organized campaign to whitewash Poland’s wartime narrative and portray ordinary Poles as rescuers of Jews while ignoring their many acts of betrayal and anti-Semitism.

New blog feature: Printing (and PDF)

I was asked yesterday if it would be possible to add a “print” feature to my articles without the stuff on the sidebars.

I found a solution.

Now, below each article, you can see a widget:

Click on that and you can print the article, or create a PDF. (The email feature isn’t so great, it just links to the article.)

For those who don't have time to read articles during the week, this is a good way to read them on Shabbat for those Shabbat observers who are so inclined.

Ian's linkdumps from Thursday totaled 61 pages!

Enjoy!