Notice how the socialist Left has no problem aligning with the worst terrorists and terror supporters on the planet.
As of this writing on Thursday night I see no comment from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, the Arab League, Indonesia, Malaysia and many other counties.
If you see any other reactions please link to them in the comments and I will update this list.
The Palestinian Lie about Jerusalem Has Legs
“A lie,” according to the well-known saying, “has no legs,” but that does not mean lies do not need them.
The “Al-Aqsa is in danger” libel rests on a huge false leg that, in the end, will collapse. The lie would not have survived so long without it. Today, the Palestinians and many Muslims charge that Israel “seeks to destroy al-Aqsa” and build the Temple in its stead on a site where no Temple ever stood; that the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount is al-miza’um, that is, “supposed,” “fraudulent,” “invented,” or “imaginary;” that the Jews have no connection to the Temple Mount or, for that matter, to the Western Wall.
This is a libel on top of a libel, a double lie. The many Muslims who are convinced that al-Aqsa is in danger are now also convinced that “their” al-Aqsa stands on a place where “our” Temple never stood – the latter being nothing but a fabrication.
Some of the legitimacy that terrorism draws from the libel rests on that added lie. It is more legitimate to libel and murder Jews, so as “to protect the captive al-Aqsa and free it from the Jews who are plotting to destroy it,” if Israel and the Jews who “conspire to attack the site,” have only a false and concocted connection to it. Thus, the lie that undergirds the libel also bolsters the legitimacy to murder in its name. From the standpoint of the “Al-Aqsa is in danger” terrorists and their supporters, they do not murder only those who seek to wrest the Mount from their hands. As they see it, they are also murdering the falsifiers of history, who have no link to the site at all. They also want the Mount to be “liberated” psychologically so that their historical and religious narrative will prevail. This chapter (the appendix of the book) aims to refute this lie as well and to prove that it is nothing but a broken prop.
To grasp the magnitude of the lie, one must go far back on the path the Muslims themselves trod over the past 1,350 years, the path from which they have strayed only in recent times. Despite the misrepresentations and the sweeping denial that many Muslims now adopt regarding the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and to the Temple that stood there, they themselves were the ones who, up until the Six-Day War, identified the Mount – unequivocally – as the site of Solomon’s Temple and as the place where David said his Psalms. Furthermore, Solomon and David, as important prophets in Islam, are seen as the ones who laid the foundations on the Temple Mount for the building of the mosques there. Nevertheless, today, Muslim clerics and leaders remove the Jewish Temple from the Mount and “transfer” it to places like Mount Zion, Nablus, and even Yemen.
Moreover, many of the names and terms the Muslims have used over the years for the Temple Mount, particularly “Beit al-Maqdis,” which is a translation of the Hebrew name Beit haMikdash, derive from the Jewish designation for the site, where the two Muslim shrines were built around 1,350 years ago. Today, Muslims commonly use the name Beit al-Maqdis for Jerusalem, but in the ancient past, they used the name for the Temple Mount itself. The Jewish people and the State of Israel do not, of course, need the Muslim sources – which, for more than 1,350 years, have identified the Temple Mount as the site of the Temple – to prove their connection to the place. Given, however, the dispute on this issue and the resolutions hostile to Israel in the international arena, which espouse the new Muslim narrative, it is worth presenting the primary Muslim documentation and sources for the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and the Temple. Today, many Muslims erase this reliable documentation from memory. From such forgetfulness, the path is short to denial, and this gives rise to a lie. On this lie now rests the libel from which the “Al-Aqsa is in danger” terror derives its inspiration and legitimacy to murder Jews.
Al-Jazeera Arabic channel's promotion of a very tangible and identifiable editorial line is patently obvious to anyone who has watched it over time. Being pro-Islamist (particularly in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood) and anti-West have been benchmarks of its programming and its news coverage from the beginning. That is not to say that these are the only causes the network has trumpeted through the years, but these have been the building blocks for everything else. Both Islamism and anti-West sentiment featured on the channel are often rife with antisemitism. Many strands of this Islamism embrace openly hostile attitudes regarding "the Other," a category that can include all sorts of people, from non-Muslims, to Middle East secularists to gays.
Al-Jazeera's basic affinity for Islamist groups spills over repeatedly over time into giving other groups along the Islamist spectrum, up to and including Al-Qaeda and ISIS – a sympathetic hearing beyond what its regional rivals at Al-Arabiyya and Sky News Arabia would ever do.
While Qatar has at times gone on the record to try to distance itself a bit from the network it created, over secondary issues such as the hiring of Qatari citizens,[58] it has demonstrated its constant support by spending hundreds of millions of dollars over more than two decades faithfully bankrolling a media outlet that has been remarkably consistent in its editorial line. This is eminently logical, given the channel's dogged support in hammering daily Qatari foreign policy points, from North Africa to Pakistan.
The fact that Al-Jazeera became, not surprisingly, one of the points of contention in the ongoing struggle between Qatar and its rivals in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that exploded in 2017, means that the network is here to stay. Al-Jazeera will remain what it has always been, even though it has lost some of its luster over the past three years. The network that has been so influential for so long has become a bit predictable, not just on Islamism but because of the relentless focus on the ongoing blood feud with Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Cairo.
Without radically transforming Al-Jazeera or its editorial line, Qatar has tried to hedge its bets by funding and creating Al-Araby Television out of London since 2015.[59] Al-Araby seeks to propagate a more secular, pan-Arab voice than Al-Jazeera, still nationalist and broadly aligned with overall Qatari foreign policy goals but without the well-worn Islamist baggage. The idea is akin to the creation of leftist/secular Palestinian liberation groups in addition to Islamist ones. If Al-Jazeera is in a way a vision of Hamas on TV, then Al-Araby is Qatar's version of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Different approach, same ultimate goal.
But historically, on issues that Qatar seems to care the most about – political Islam across the world, support for Hamas, for Erdogan's Turkey, and most importantly, for not criticizing Qatar, its rulers, and its policies – there is no daylight between Al-Jazeera and the government in Doha. That is the surest way of gauging the steadfast and enduring official connection between the goals of the network and the goals of the state of Qatar. The convergence of a documented state funding stream and a broad policy direction between the state and the broadcaster is indisputable.
Following the announcement of a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the Tel Aviv Municipality was lit on Thursday evening with the colors of the UAE and Israeli flags.
Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's son, Yair Netanyahu, published a message on Twitter, referring to Huldai's decision to light up the municipality with the Lebanese flag following the devastating explosion that shook Lebanon a few days ago.
"If Ron Huldai doesn't light up the municipality building with the UAE flag tonight or tomorrow night, then you can understand just how much the Left cares about peace," Yair wrote.
Huldai, in turn, did decide to light up the building on Thursday evening with the UAE flag.
"I congratulate the prime minister for the double accomplishment of reaching peace with the United Arab Emirates and canceling the plan of annexation. Both actions are important for the security of the State of Israel," Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai said in a statement.
Bialystock Ghetto, August 13 - Authorities mandated this week that the Jews of this city elect delegates to a council that will represent the community in its dealings with the German occupation administration, sparking a campaign by several dozen prominent Jewish figures to serve on the council, with one ambitious man boasting that he possesses unparalleled abilities in pointless efforts to delay, soften, or otherwise thwart in some measure the inevitable genocide on the horizon.
Mojsze Ufnik, 30, sought today to launch his candidacy for the Judenrat, the Nazi-approved local Jewish leadership council, the body that in the ensuing months and years will play a key role in the rigged game of making vain attempt after vain attempt to shield at least some of the Jews under its aegis from falling victim to Nazi policies of slave labor, summary execution, mass rape, deportation, and other depravities. Ufnik, scion of a prosperous textile manufacturing family, aims to wield his considerable influence in the community to cushion them from their inescapable doom.
"I'm excited for this opportunity for public service," he pronounced to an unenthusiastic crowd of Six Warszawska Street, four of whom bear some family relation to him. "We all hold my fellow candidates in high esteem, and I share our collective confidence in their willingness to do their best, but my best will be the best best. I guarantee that. No one will achieve better results than I in failing to prevent the wholesale isolation, dehumanization, exploitation, oppression, degradation, and eventual massacre of our community in the coming months and years."
"If the Judenrat will toil in vain," he chanted, "it might as well be led by someone vain!"
Nazi intentions called for the existing Jewish community leaders to gain positions on the Judenrat, to lend the council authority among Jews in might not otherwise enjoy, but here, as in many other locales under SS control, the rabbis and other leaders have for the most part refused to grant the Judenrat the legitimacy that such participation would command; they have recognized that the council's role and capacity, as conceived and constructed by the Nazis, is to smooth, not disrupt or delay, the enslavement and extermination of the Jews under Third Reich rule. Others, such as Mr. Ufnik, see opportunity for social or political advancement, however short-lived it might prove.
"Might as well be on the right side of the nepotism, cronyism, favoritism, and corruption that always goes along with scarcity," he explained.
They spent months talking about how awful “annexation” would be but they are not celebrating it getting off the table – because the price to be paid is a peace agreement between Israel and a major Arab country.
They talk about how important negotiations and diplomacy are for Iran but they are dead-set agaist negotiations and diplomacy between Israel and the UAE.
They say they are anti-war, but an agreement that makes another Arab-Israeli war virtually unthinkable gets nothing but condemnation.
They say that this agreement will hurt Palestinians, but they cannot quite say exactly why.
The true agenda of the far Left is revealed: anything that is good for Israel must be opposed. Anything that makes the Jewish State more secure as a permanent part of the Middle East is anathema.
Their goal was never peace, or justice, or a Palestinian state, or morality, or an end to “occupation,” or any of the other myriad excuses they give to justify their hate. Their goal was always, and remains, the destruction of Israel – perhaps in phases, perhaps in one nuclear blast, but that it all these hypocrites really want.
That is the only consistent position they have. All the other stuff they say is to justify their crazed hate for the Jewish state, pretending that it is a moral position.
They have proven themselves to be immoral. All it takes to see this is to open one’s eyes.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates reached a historic peace deal on Thursday that will lead to a full normalization of diplomatic relations between the two Middle Eastern nations in an agreement that US President Donald Trump helped broker.
Under the agreement, Israel has agreed to suspend applying sovereignty to areas of the West Bank that it has been discussing annexing, senior White House officials told Reuters.
The peace deal was the product of lengthy discussions between Israel, the UAE and the United States that accelerated recently, White House officials said.
The agreement was sealed in a phone call on Thursday between Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, who said in a statement that Israel had agreed to stop annexation and that in exchange the UAE and Israel "agreed to cooperation and setting a roadmap towards establishing a bilateral relationship."
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who was in the White House on Thursday, said that "the normalization of relations between Israel and the UAE will make Israel stronger and safer and will likely lead to additional exciting opportunities and incremental prosperity for Israel, its neighbors and the entire region." Full text: Joint statement on ‘normalization of relations’ between Israel, UAE
A great day for peace! Israel commends the courage of MBZ for the historic decision of the UAE to join Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) in making peace with Israel. Israel deeply appreciates all @POTUS Trump has done to make this breakthrough possible. More to come!
Know this: my friends here at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva have over many years done everything in their power for this kind of peace breakthrough NOT to happen, and they will be a sad, sulking, sorrowful lot today. https://t.co/P7QJg7rDcO
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum says “The US-Israeli-Emirati agreement is dangerous and represents a ‘free reward’ for the Israeli occupation for its crimes and violations of the Palestinian people’s human rights.”
“We condemn every form of normalization with the occupation, which we consider a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause. The Israeli enemy benefits from it. [Normalization] will encourage it to commit more crimes and violations of our people’s rights and their holy places,” he says.
He says the UAE and others should not “normalize with the occupation, beautify its face and integrate it in the region.”
There has been no official response from Palestinian Authority leadership.
Muslim Brotherhood's Grand Mufti of Libya Sadiq Al-Ghariani: Severing Relations with the UAE Is Not Enough; We Must Fight It and Strike It on Its Own Turf pic.twitter.com/faWLD7mkmh
By Daled Amos
You don't have to be on social media long before you notice that it is full of people who refuse to let their lack of knowledge get in the way of their self-proclaimed expertise.
One of those topics everyone seems to enjoy sharing their opinion on, is Jews.
Lots of people on social media are only too happy to tell you that Jews are white, and not only benefit from "White Privilege," but aren't the 'real' Jews anyway.
Then there are the people on social media who will eagerly explain to you what antisemitism is -- and isn't, claiming that the term is overused and that it is not nearly as "systemic" as Islamophobia.
So it is not surprising to find people who will knowingly inform you not only that Zionism is racism -- they will go even further, offering to enlighten you that Zionism has no real connection with Judaism anyway
Recently on Twitter, for example, you could find tweets informing you that
But there was a time when Arabs made it clear that Zionism is part of Judaism.
In his book Emdat HaAravim B'SichSuch Yisrael-Arav, translated on the inside flyleaf as The Arabs' Position In Their Conflict With Israel, Yehosofat Harkabi uses sources from political works, periodicals and broadcasts to get the Arab attitude towards Israel. It is based on his doctoral thesis, and was published in 1968, though he wrote the book the previous year, months before the Six-Day War broke out.
An English translation was published in 1972, and that is where translations in this post of the Hebrew are from, unless noted otherwise. (The translation abridges the original -- and still manages to come out at over 500 pages.)
Chapter 4 of his book is dedicated to the Arab attitude towards Zionism -- and Harkabi devotes section 5 of that chapter to Arab writers who saw an "Identification of Zionism and Judaism."
He writes:
Arab writers and leaders repeatedly emphasize that they bear no hostility to the Jews but only oppose the Zionists. However, this distinction is not maintained, and Zionism and Judaism are often used as synonyms, a denunciation of Zionism leading naturally to a denunciation of the Jews. It is not a matter of confusing "Jew," Zionist" and Israeli" in the flow of speech or writing, in the same way as even Israelis do not always preserve the distinction; the identification is deliberate.
One expression of this tendency is the identification of Israeli and Jew as a figure in Arab caricatures, The Arabs draw the Israeli like a Jew in the anti-Semitic caricatures--a bearded figure with a large hooked nose. This image was already in existence before World War II ane was not created merely under Nazi influence.
Here is a typical example, from Al-Watan (Qatar), May 13, 2003, from the Tom Gross Media website:
The U.S. and Israel are shown eating from two sides of an apple that represents “the Arab states”.
But this identification of Zionism and Jews -- which is often exploited to disparage Israel -- was not always done on a purely derogatory level.
In section 2, "Judaism Was Always Zionist", Harkabi describes a recognition by some Arab writers that
The prolonged ties of Jews with Palestine and the place of that country in the Jewish faith show that there is an organic bond between Zionism and Judaism.
For example:
Rushdi explains that Judaism is not only a faith like others, but "also a political movement":
The bond between Judaism and Zionism is primordial, ever since Judaism and Zionism became coupled in the sense that one cannot be separated from the other, representing two sides of the one coin (1965, p. 19)
Obviously, Rushdi did his homework, because he goes on to write that the connection between Judaism and Zionism
...is clearly expressed in many provisions of Jewish law. In the Talmud it is stated that a Jew who leaves the Land of Israel cannot compel his wife to accompany him, and one who emigrates to the Land is entitled to divorce his wife if she refuses to come with him. There is also a similar doctrine in the Jewish faith which says that he who lives in the Land of Israel is forgiven by God for all his sins. (p. 20)
To illustrate the bond between Zionism and Judaism, Rushdi gives quotes from Solomon Schecter ("Wherever Zionists are active, there you will find Judaism alive and active" and "Judaism and Zionism cannot be separated from each other" [my translations]) and from Theodor Herzl ("The return to Zion must be preceded by the return to Judaism")
Harkabi notes that Abdallah Al-Tal, an officer of the Arab Legion during the 1948 War, also sees that Zionism predates Herzl. He did his homework too, giving examples of earlier Zionists such as the Maccabees, Bar Kochba, David HaReuveni, Solomon Molcho, Shabtai Tzvi, the Sanhedrin during the time of Napoleon, Moses Montefiore, Baron Edmond de Rothschild and others.
Another Arab writer, a Dr. Nasr, doesn't find Zionism 'primordial,' but doesn't think it is recent and unrelated to Judaism either. He writes:
Zionism is really nothing but the national behavior of the Jew in his reaction to the nations throughout history as it has taken shape under the pressure of modern Western civilization.
Of course, some Arab writers see a conspiracy -- not that Zionism is unrelated to Judaism, but rather the opposite: Jews have been trying to hide the connection between Judaism and Zionism, by deluding the world that Zionism is merely the actions of a small group.
According to Ahmad Shukeiri, the first Chairman of the PLO, the Zionist plan to rule over Israel is actually part of an old Jewish agenda. Originally, the Jewish infiltration of Israel was accomplished under the veil of religion, with the goal of establishing a religious center --
When the Zionist movement arose, under the direction of Dr. Herzl, they described it as a unique movement limited to a group of Jews, the Zionists. This was a well thought-out act to lead the nations opposed to them astray, a deception against the Arab world, so that they would not think the Zionist movement was a general Jewish movement. This is the source of the idle belief of many that the Zionist and the Jew are separate things when they are a single danger. [My translation]
Just don't tell those experts on Twitter that they have fallen for the Zionist trap.
This 1968 article from The Sentinel features the anti-Zionist rhetoric that we are all familiar with from the Left – but it adds an extra insistence that it is in no way antisemitic.
Which is really funny, because the Soviet article quoted also says that “the religious morality of Judaism isolates religious Jews from other nations and justifies any crimes against the gentiles.”
They also accused Jews of being a fifth column in any nation they are in.
Yet they continued to say that “both Zionism and antisemitism are alien to Soviet society since they are equally a product of the bourgeois class system.”
This all sounds exactly like the writers of Jewish Currents and other socialist publications today. The idea that Zionism is antisemitism is a staple of Electronic Intifada and other outlets. It all came from the Soviets.
And just like the antisemitism of the Soviets is obvious nowadays, so is the antisemitism of today’s socialist Left – and they deny it just as vehemently as the Soviets did.
Palestinian detainee Mahmoud al-Ghalidh, 17, who has tested positive for coronavirus, is subjected to psychological torture in Israeli jails, al-Dameer Association for Human Rights said on Tuesday.
Al-Dammeer called for the immediate release of al-Ghalidh who is staying at an isolated room in Raymond Prison where he is denied basic necessities, such as clothing.
Israeli occupation forces arrested al-Ghalidh from his home in Jalazone refugee camp in Ramallah on 23 July, and on 3 August, the Israel Prison Service announced that he has coronavirus.
The head of the Prisoners and Editor s' Affairs Authority, Major General Qadri, said that the Government of Israel is practicing the policy of deliberate medical killing against prisoners, which is a crime that amounts to serious violations against sick detainees.
So if Israel would take al-Ghalidh out of quarantine, they would be deliberately killing other prisoners. Keeping him in quarantine is psychological torture.
This“child” was 18 when he was arrested. But “incarcerated children” get more headlines so a year was taken off of his age since he was found to have been infected with the coronavirus.
On the night of 31 July 2015, someone firebombed two homes in the Palestinian village of Duma, in the northern part of Judea, about 55 km. west of Tel Aviv. One of the buildings was empty, but sleeping in the other were Saed and Riham Dawabshe, and their children Ali (18 months) and Ahmad (5). Ali died in the fire, and the parents succumbed to their injuries a short time later. Ahmad was carried out by his father or grandfather and survived, though he was severely burned. Almost immediately, government officials, including President Ruben Rivlin, let it be known that the attack was likely “Jewish terrorism” and the culprits would be found among “extremist settlers,” specifically the “hilltop youth,” religious teenagers and young adults who lived independently of their parents in Judea and Samaria, and who wanted to replace the democratic state with one governed by Jewish law. The nation was gripped by a paroxysm of guilt and self-flagellation over the allegation that Jews had done such an awful thing, although there were as yet no suspects. This happened at about the same time a religious fanatic stabbed several people, one fatally, at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem, and left-wing elements connected the events and blamed “settlers,” religious Jews, and PM Netanyahu for the “outbreak of Jewish terrorism.” The Shabak (Internal Security Service) arrested several suspects in early August. They were held in administrative detention – that is, without being charged – and subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a euphemism for torture that may or may not fall short of the acts that are prohibited by customary international law.
Even at this point, there were good reasons to wonder if the official account that Jewish extremists had done it fit the evidence. On August 21, then-Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said he was “confident” that the murderers were Jewish extremists, and that the exceptional measures taken against the suspects were justified. But there was a very good alternative explanation, which was that the firebombs were thrown by Arabs involved in an ongoing feud with the Dawabshe family. There were several other suspicious fires in property owned by the Dawabshes before and after the murderous attack. And the Shabak was unable to provide a sensible explanation (Hebrew link) for why this line of investigation hadn’t been pursued. By December the Shabak had not succeeded in getting a confession out of the various suspects in its custody, and the best that Ya’alon could do was say that their actions (presumably “price-tag” vandalism of Arab property) “led to [הובילו], among others, the murder of three innocent Palestinians, and as a result, contributed to instability in the region, and worsened the security situation.” But “led to” is not the same as “committed.” Although there was still no proof that Jews were responsible for this atrocity, it became part of the accepted narrative in almost all segments of Israeli society.
In January 2016, one of the initial suspects was released (ultimately, they all would be), and two additional suspects arrested: Amiram ben Uliel (21), and an additional minor. Ben Uliel was charged with murder – the first time anyone had been charged in connection with the crime. He too was subjected to “enhanced interrogation,” and by 2018 he produced a “confession” and “reenactment of the crime.” While the other (minor) suspect also “confessed,” he was alleged only to have participated in the planning of the crime and was not accused of being present at the scene. Ben Uliel was accused of having perpetrated the firebombing by himself. Some confessions were thrown out after attorneys argued successfully that they were obtained by torture, but some of ben Uliel’s statements, plus the reenactment, were allowed to stand.
On 18 May 2020, Amiram ben Uliel was convicted by a three-judge panel (there is no jury trial in Israel) of murder, attempted murder, arson and “conspiracy to commit a crime motivated by racism.” His wife testified that he was at home with her all night, but the judges did not believe her. The prosecution asked for three life sentences, and he was to have been sentenced on 12 July. But in a dramatic development, lawyers for ben Uliel convinced the judges to delay sentencing in the light of new evidence (see also Hebrew link here).
Apparently, the one survivor of that terrible night, Ahmad Dawabshe, now ten years old, was interviewed in Arab media and described the events that occurred five years ago in detail; in particular, he said that there were several attackers and they came into the house and struggled with family members. This contradicts the official version that ben Uliel was alone and threw firebombs through the windows. It also agrees with other testimonies of Arab witnesses who said at the time that there was more than one attacker (of course the Arabs say it was a group of “settlers”).
The court agreed to consider the evidence and pass sentence next month (ben Uliel could be acquitted of murder and convicted of other offenses).
Can a 5-year old be a reliable witness? Maybe yes and maybe no. Certainly the events he witnessed were likely to be engraved in his mind. “If he saw what he said he saw, ben Uliel is innocent” says ben Uliel’s lawyer. But memory is a tricky thing, and who knows if he is capable of reporting events without interpretation.
This has been a long road. The state does not come out looking good, no matter what the outcome. In the best case, the Shabak is guilty of mistreatment of numerous suspects, most of whom were guilty of nothing more serious than vandalism and adolescent fantasizing. It is likely that the agency engaged in a theatrical provocation intended to slander the hilltop youth as vicious murderers taunting their victims. Many public officials – including President Rivlin and right-wingers like Naftali Bennett – jumped to conclusions when they should have kept quiet.
The worst case has the Shabak deliberately ignoring evidence that the arson/murders were carried out by Arab enemies of the Dawabshe family, and using the case to crush and discredit the admittedly extremist, and to some extent criminal, underground Jewish movement.
For what it’s worth (nothing, really) my personal opinion is that Amiram ben Uliel is innocent, perhaps guilty only of having grandiose plans for revenge. But of course I am only privy to the details that I can read in the media. In any case, the court will decide next month if he will be freed or spend the rest of his life in prison.
Former vice president Joe Biden made history Tuesday by choosing California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. The 55-year-old senator will be a VP candidate of many firsts: the first woman of color, the first daughter of immigrants and the first Indian American to be on a major party’s presidential ticket.
When it comes to US policy on Israel, her positions more or less reflect mainstream Democratic thinking over the last 10 years.
Harris supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and believes in a robust US-Israel relationship, including the continuation of American military aid to the Jewish state.
She backed the Iran nuclear deal and vowed to re-enter the landmark pact as a presidential contender last year, aligning her closely with Biden, who was a champion of the agreement in the Obama administration.
Unlike some of the more liberal members of the caucus, such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she has not bucked the party’s traditionally supportive posture toward Israel, or called for fundamental changes to the nature of the alliance.
In November 2017, she visited Israel and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In April 2019, the senator’s then campaign communications director Lily Adams told McClatchy that her “support for Israel is central to who she is.”
Even as insurgent progressives like Ocasio-Cortez have been deeply critical of Israel’s tactics in Gaza during flareups, Adams told McClatchy that Harris was “firm in her belief that Israel has a right to exist and defend itself, including against rocket attacks from Gaza.”
The Howard University graduate has also maintained a close relationship with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The former prosecutor was very public about her private meetings with AIPAC officials in March 2019, amid the pro-Israel lobby’s annual policy conference.
At the time, there was pressure from liberal groups such as MoveOn to boycott the event. The public announcement of the private meetings was seen as a tactic to dispel the rumors that the campaign had been successful.
The California senator, who made history Tuesday as the first Black woman to join a major party presidential ticket, is still in her first term. But during several years in public office, the 55-year-old lawmaker’s outspoken opinions on a range of issues and her presidential run have given Jewish voters plenty to scrutinize.
She is also married to Jewish lawyer Douglas Emhoff, who would become the country’s first Jewish second husband.
As a senator, Harris has been aligned with Biden on Israel: She is seen as a strong supporter with ties to AIPAC, the country’s largest pro-Israel lobby, and unlike some Democrats has not broached the idea of conditioning aid to Israel to influence its policies. During her presidential run, Harris separated herself somewhat from even the mainstream moderates in the pack, firmly opposing the idea of condemnatory UN votes or even strong public criticism aimed at swaying Israeli policy.
While the more liberal pro-Israel group J Street has endorsed the centrist Biden, who also has committed to keeping spats with Israel private and the idea of not allowing any “daylight” between the US and Israel in diplomatic terms, it has not backed Harris. J Street, which lobbies for a two-state solution, has endorsed more than half of Senate Democrats.
However, Harris has said that she would rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, an agreement that conservative Jews despise over its aid to Iran, a regime that routinely calls for Israel’s destruction. That keeps her aligned with Biden, who was part of the Obama administration that brokered the 2015 agreement over vehement objections by Israel.
“This nuclear deal is not perfect, but it is certainly the best existing tool we have to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and avoid a disastrous military conflict in the Middle East,” Harris wrote in a statement in 2018 after Trump pulled the US out of the deal. “As the international community and the Administration’s own national security team has confirmed multiple times, Iran remains in compliance with the deal. In the absence of an Iranian violation, it is reckless to break this agreement without presenting any plan on how to move forward.”
1. She smashed a glass at her wedding
She met her Jewish husband, Douglas Emhoff, on a blind date in San Francisco, arranged by friends. They married in 2014 — Harris’ sister Maya officiated — and smashed a glass to honor Emhoff’s upbringing. It was her first marriage and his second — Emhoff has two children from his first marriage.
You thought Jews can be parochial? “Most eligible Indian American bachelorette marries fellow lawyer” is how one Indian American media outlet reported the story.
Emhoff took the Washington, D.C. bar exam in 2017 so he could work in the same city.
Emhoff’s Twitter feed is pretty much “I love my wife” all the time (take that, Kellyanne and George Conway).
2. She did the blue box thing
“So having grown up in the Bay Area, I fondly remember those Jewish national fund boxes that we would use to collect donations to plant trees for Israel,” she said at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 2017. “Years later when I visited Israel for the first time, I saw the fruits of that effort and the Israeli ingenuity that has truly made a desert bloom.”
3. She’s more AIPAC than J Street
Since being elected in 2016, Harris has spoken twice at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Her 2018 speech, with the California delegation, was off the record (itself not unusual, although critics of Israel were unnerved), but she gave a good picture of where she stands in her 2017 speech.
She’s for two states — so is AIPAC, although, sometimes less than emphatically — but she doesn’t believe in big-footing either side.
“I believe that a resolution to this conflict cannot be imposed,” she said. “It must be agreed upon by the parties themselves.”
More than half of the Democratic caucus in the Senate gets the endorsement of J Street, the Jewish liberal lobbying group that believes pressure is necessary to start peace talks. J Street did not endorse Harris. Her only association with the group was in November 2017, when she was one of 17 local and federal politicians on the host committee (i.e., “yes you can stick my name on the invitation”) of a party thrown by J Street’s Los Angeles chapter. She also met in 2018 in her office with the group’s director, Jeremy Ben-Ami.
harris on stage speaking at a podium with an AIPAC logo behind her
Harris also co-sponsored a Senate resolution in early 2017 that essentially rebuked the Obama administration for allowing through a U.S. Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s settlement policies.
She supported the Iran nuclear deal, although she was not a senator in 2015 when Congress voted on it, and is on the record opposing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.
It can be difficult to explain Israel’s right to exist to
the online haters and debaters. After all, not all of us are Eugene Kontorovich. And since
we’re not, how can anyone expect us to have all the complicated legalese at the
ready to plead the legal twists and turns of Israel’s case? It’s better, instead, to keep things as simple as
possible: We were here first. It’s ours.
But that’s not always as easy as it sounds. Take Quora, where I’ve
been answering questions about Israel since 2011. I try to keep my answers uncomplicated
so they will be easy to remember in future debates.
Quora, however, has a policy called “Be Nice, Be Respectful.”
Violate this policy and Quora will collapse your answer. At this point, the
moderators generally give you the option of editing your answer and allow an
appeal. For me, that’s good enough, since I can usually find a workaround and rephrase.
An edit may mean changing “Palestine doesn’t exist” to “At
this point in time, there is no state called "Palestine.” Which is a lot more
complicated, but satisfies everyone, all around. You get to the point where you
can spot what language is likely to trigger a report, so you can avoid such
language right out of the starting gate. And if there’s a hiccup and an answer is
collapsed, I edit and resubmit, and there’s no further problem.
Note that the Israel-hating Quorans stand ready to pounce on
any perceived policy violation by the Israel-loving Quorans. It’s a war out
there on Quora. The hope is that by reporting us, the Israel haters will get us
permanently banned from the site. Once that happens, our truthful answers about
Israel will disappear.
I was a top writer in 2018, and the best Quora answers come
up in Google queries. I therefore see it as kind of mission to keep my content
diplomatic enough to suit Quora moderators so my responses will stay up there
on the ‘net, offering a truthful account of what Ruth Wisse calls “The
Arab War Against the Jews.”
This can be a delicate balancing act. Not everyone is
capable of coloring inside the lines. That goes for either side of the fence.
Rima Najjar, for instance, was permanently banned on Quora
for her (apparently) anti-Israel/antisemitic content. I never read her stuff so
I’m only guessing. I’m not sure what, exactly, was objectionable. But according
to her Jewish friend Benay Blend, Quora is biased in favor of pro-Israel voices
like my own and in banning her, is discriminating against Najjar.
This supposed bias is the reason Najjar
filed suit against Quora and it’s nonsense, as I explained a little over a
year ago in this space (see: Blend
and Najjar Implicate Me and the Israel Forever Foundation for Getting Banned on
Quora). If Najjar was banned, it wasn’t because of a pro-Israel bias, but
because she couldn’t figure out how to speak Quora-ese. She likely found it hard
not to sound hateful when discussing the Jewish State. Thus, Najjar violated
Quora’s Be Nice, Be Respectful, one too many times and was banned for life.
It would have been difficult for Najjar to prove bias, since
Quora is an equal-opportunity hand-slapper, collapsing answers and banning
users on either side of the Israel/Anti-Israel divide. Najjar must have
realized this fact. Because the academic subsequently dropped
her suit in March (h/t Elder of Ziyon).
As I said, there’s always a work-around on Quora and Najjar
could have still been on Quora today, happily typing out her hate for Israel,
as long as she couched things in neutral, inoffensive terms. But hiding
the truth of what one really thinks is an art and it’s definitely not always easy.
The other day, for example, I answered a question:
“Can you explain the Israel-Palestinw [sic] conflict to me
like I'm 10 years old?”
“This will be fun,” I thought, rubbing my hands together
with glee, before formulating an answer, which was this:
A long time ago, God gave the land of Israel to the Jews. It
is a beautiful and special land, so everyone was jealous and they are still
jealous now. Other people keep trying to take bits and pieces of the land, and
when the Jews won’t let them, they attack the Jews in all sorts of cruel ways,
for instance sending exploding balloons over the border so Jewish children will
play with them and get hurt. Or they’ll explode a pizza shop at a time when it
is likely to be full of Jewish kids on summer vacation, having fun.
Instead of seeing how wrong it is to steal Jewish land and
hurt Jewish children, the world sides with the thieves, the people that keep
trying to take Jewish land, the people hurting Jewish children. Why? Because
the world is mad that the Jews don’t want to switch religions. They figure it
makes their newer religions look phony and false and that hurts their feelings.
Also, Jews tend to be smart and successful, and even though
there aren’t a lot of them, they tend to rise to the top no matter what they
decide to do with their lives. This makes other people jealous of the Jews.
Which is stupid. They should instead study the Jews and try to copy them.
Not long after I posted this response, I of course received
a message that the moderators had collapsed my answer for violating the Be
Nice, Be Respectful policy. I was invited to edit and appeal.
But for some reason, this time, I balked. I knew exactly
what language needed changing to suit the moderators, but I just didn’t care. I
had written the truth: this is what I would have said to a ten-year-old to
explain things, to MY ten-year-old. To any ten-year-old.
I saw no reason to change my answer if that’s not the way I’d
say it to a ten-year-old. Ten-year-olds don’t understand political correctness.
It makes no sense to add a lot of language to obscure the truth and give it a
neutral makeover. Such language would lengthen my answer and overly complicate
things so that a child would come away more confused than before.
Which is why, after thinking it over for a couple of days, I
opted to submit an appeal without
editing my answer, as follows:
Dear Moderator, the question asks how I would explain things
to a ten-year-old, not how I would couch things in a politically correct manner
to satisfy the Quora moderators. This actually is what I would say to a
ten-year-old. Using more neutral terms would render the explanation
unintelligible or confusing to a young child. I say that as a parenting expert
and a mother of 12.
Kids understand only the simplest language. As such, I would
venture to suggest this was a trick question intended to trip up a pro-Israel
Quoran, triggering by design, perceived violations of the Be Nice, Be
Respectful policy. I believe this is the reason the question was edited after
the fact: after I answered the question. This gives the question an entirely
new meaning, so that my answer may seem mean-spirited in some lights, instead
of merely honest.
Just as there are frivolous lawsuits, this was a frivolous
report, to get me in trouble: collapsed or banned. I hope you will reconsider
your decision in the interest of freedom of speech on Quora.
Thank you for your consideration.
Note that somewhere between when I answered the question and
my response was collapsed, the original poster changed the question. It now
says: “Can you explain the Israel-Palestine conflict to me (I'm 10 years old)?”
The edit is meant to exaggerate the supposedly harmful effect of my response. We’re
no longer discussing a thought experiment. Instead, my answer stands retroactively,
as an actual response to a ten-year-old child.
Which is why I didn’t expect for a moment that I would win my appeal. I figured the moderator would determine that my answer is “hate speech” and collapse it for
good. This has happened on occasion.
"So be it," I thought.
What some Quora moderators call "hate speech" I call "the truth.”
And sometimes I’m just not willing to lie.
I had a surprise, however, when I looked at my inbox this morning. There was a new notification: Quora had uncollapsed my answer.
Rima Najjar would say the moderator's decision reflects the same pro-Israel bias that led to her permanent ban from the social media network--that in responding favorably to my appeal, the moderator sided with Israel. But I think the decision is a sign that sometimes reason prevails, at least on Quora. On Quora, it turns out that speaking to a moderator like an adult, allows me to explain Israel to a ten-year-old.
This is a refreshing contrast to the prevailing ethos at social media giant Facebook, where "Death to Israel" fails to violate community standards. It's a whole 'nother ballgame from Twitter, where despots are deemed to be just rattling sabers when they call for the annihilation of Israel and the Jews.
Quora is different. At Quora I sometimes lose. But sometimes I win. In this round, I got to explain Israel to ten-year-olds. Which seems a good enough reason to stay in the game.
For now.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
A Lebanese journalist asks Nasrallah a simple question and reveals to the world the truth about Hezbollah and Israel! Must Watch video!
עיתונאית ליבנונית שואלת את נאסראללה שאלה פשוטה וחשפת לעולם את האמת על חיזבאללה וישראל! חובה צפייה! pic.twitter.com/dy6UcsA8tR
— יוסף חדאד - Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) August 7, 2020
This isn’t the only Lebanese person I’ve seen who hates Hezbollah. The comments on Naharnet often are filled with people arguing about Israel with plenty of people defending it.
But Ben Norton, a pseudo-journalist who works for Max Blumenthal’s Grayzone site, is incensed at the Haddad tweet:
A white Westerner who considers himself a liberal is saying that Lebanese people who disagree with his rabid hate of Israel are “sellouts” for hating Hezbollah more. This is a typical racist condescending attitude that the only Arabs who are allowed to have an opinion are those whose opinions match the Leftist white man.
The Grayzone’s apologetics for the Hezbollah terror group are something to behold. Here’s a video where they blame everyone but Hezbollah for Lebanon’s problems, and where the person being interviewed says flatly that Israel doesn’t want a functioning, civil Lebanon but prefers that it be divided into sectarian groups that hate each other, because that is what Zionism demands. (starting at 20:00)
In the end, these people’s hate for Israel is so off-the-wall crazy that they feel that they must support any group that opposes the Jewish state, no matter how illiberal or murderous they might be.
This is the power of antisemitism – anyone who hates Jews is an ally.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Thursday, August 13, 2020
Elder of Ziyon
Bialystock Ghetto, August 13 - Authorities mandated this week that the Jews of this city elect delegates to a council that will represent the community in its dealings with the German occupation administration, sparking a campaign by several dozen prominent Jewish figures to serve on the council, with one ambitious man boasting that he possesses unparalleled abilities in pointless efforts to delay, soften, or otherwise thwart in some measure the inevitable genocide on the horizon.
