The havdalah ceremony involves wine. Muslims are forbidden to drink wine. So the Muslim policeman stopped the Jews from their own weekly religious ritual because it violates Muslim precepts.
The Palestinian Arabs at the time (and today) would argue - but what about our religious practices? Don't they deserve to be protected?
And the world, facing a disagreement between the (seen as fanatic) Arabs and the (seen as reasonable) Jews, would take the Arab side - because, really, is this something worth fighting over? The Jews should concede to keep the peace.
Now, every single Jewish holy place in the region is also (by sheer coincidence, of course!) also considered a Muslim holy spot. If the Palestinian Authority - which defines itself as Muslim - has physical control over an area, it would always place the Muslim demands over the Jewish demands, on sites that were Jewish for may centuries before Mohammed was born.
This incident is a blueprint of what happens when Palestinian Arabs are given control of Jewish holy places.
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Saudi writer Osama Yamani wrote a bombshell article published by the official Saudi Okaz news agency that questions whether the Al Aqsa Mosque mentioned in the Quran is actually in Jerusalem.
While traditional Islamic orthodoxy says that Mohammed's miraculous Night Journey to the "farthest mosque" went to Jerusalem, nowhere in the Quran is that location identified.
The mosque known today as Al Aqsa on the Temple Mount was built decades after Mohammed died.
Yamani brings a number of sources, even saying that it is not definitive that the first qibla (prayer direction) for Muslims was towards Jerusalem.
He then says that the original "farthest mosque" was in Al-Jarana, between Mecca and Taif in Saudi Arabia, some 18 miles from the Kaaba in Mecca.
He further asserts that the only reason Muslims say Al Aqsa is in Jerusalem is political, not historic.
This is causing an earthquake of anger in the Muslim world, especially since this was published by the official Saudi news agency which would not publish anything not approved by the Kingdom. Articles and television reports are claiming that the Saudis have swallowed Zionist lies. Palestinians are incensed.
Notably, Saudi currency features both the Jerusalem mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
Why would the Saudis want to publish such an article? They might want to align with Israel against Iran but they are not suddenly Zionist, claiming that Jerusalem is primarily a Jewish holy city.
It is possible that the Saudis are nervous about the potential flood of Gulf Arabs flying to Israel to visit the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, feeling that it is a threat to the Mecca tourist industry, especially hard hit during the pandemic. Videos and photos of UAE pilgrims visiting the Temple Mount must sting. Promoting another Saudi site as the original site of Mohammed's Night Journey is a way to counter that.
Daniel Pipes has written the most definitive article in English debunking the idea that the Al Aqsa mentioned in the Quran is in Jerusalem. He continually updates it here with new information.
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.
Six years ago today, two Palestinian terrorists equipped with axes, a meat cleaver and a gun entered the Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue while worshipers were praying the silent Amidah prayer. They hacked four rabbis to death and injured seven other worshipers, one of whom died nearly a year later after never waking from his coma. They also shot a Druze policeman to death.
At the time, the PFLP claimed responsibility. The terrorists were cousins and were related to a PFLP terrorist convicted of attempted murder who had been released earlier in 2014 as an Israeli goodwill gesture to restart "peace talks." Israeli police say that the murderers, who worked in a nearby grocery store, seemed to have acted alone.
Its disgusting article says, "Today the sixth anniversary of a heroic operation at the hands of the mujahideen Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal inside a synagogue, using a large ax and two revolvers, on the land of Deir Yassin, west of Jerusalem, where the Abu Jamals managed to attack five rabbis, killing them and wounding others."
"Uday and Ghassan were distinguished by high morals and humanity, as they were distinguished by love, patience, will, strength and courage, and they were very keen to provide assistance to every needy person. Uday was always sitting near his 90-year old grandmother, inviting her to chant the songs of the Palestinian revolution and the fedayeen, which had a great impact on his upbringing, and paving the way for his path towards martyrdom. As for Ghassan, the compassionate father of three children (Walid, Salma and Muhammad), he was distinguished by his intense love for his children, and perhaps this love was a reason for him to sacrifice his blood to secure a future free of humiliation and dishonor, full of pride and dignity," the article continues.
As usual, there is not the slightest pushback from other Palestinian media denouncing a major news site celebrating the massacre of people because they were Jews. I have never seen any Palestinian (outside the ones who are famous for their dissent like Bassem Eid) condemn this bloodlust in website comments or social media. Articles like this that celebrate the most heinous attacks are part of the fabric of Palestinian society and no one in that world - no "moderate" PLO member, no newspaper columnist, no Facebook poster - finds this celebration of murdering rabbis the least bit objectionable.
This is Palestinian society. Celebrating the murder of religious Jews at prayer is mainstream, not fringe.
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Today, Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said that the Palestinian Authority will continue to pay the salaries of terrorists and their families.
Speaking at a videoconference call, Shtayyeh said, "We will continue to pay aid to the families of martyrs and prisoners to ensure a decent life for their families, and we will not abandon them."
The Palestinian leadership pretends that these are some sort of welfare payments, but the amount paid is proportional to the severity of their crimes.
In 2017, the Washington Post estimated that payments reached over $350 million, which is a significant percentage of the total PA budget.
Remember, in an honor/shame society, financially supporting people who have murdered Jews is on the "honor" side.
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Should she apologize? She did, but I don’t care. We know what’s in her heart, and that’s enough, or too much, for me.
Anyway, you cannot come clean after airing thoughts like this. The stain will always be there, and it will always be part of her legacy. Her bed to sleep in.
What should offend me more, the Holocaust inference, or the Trump reference? I don’t know. As a Jewish-American Trump supporter, I’ll take a spoonful of each.
By way of saying that we do not watch CNN in our home. So we do not know what goes on in that universe, and when something like this gets out, we say, “consider the source.”
For decades, CNN was PLO headquarters, where Hanan Ashrawi was only a dial away from Ramallah to blood libel Israel.
Now they are in the building. Well, they always were, but Amanpour’s obscenity amounts to doubling down.
Oddly, by the way, she said what she said at about the time when Biden’s Antifa and BLM goons were beating up MAGA men, women and children on the streets of DC.
Shades of the Reich’s Brown Shirts, if you ask me…speaking of Kristallnacht.
But I do not think Amanpour is hip enough to get the timing, nor the connection.
I have read the articles where she is being implored to understand the pain she has caused by bringing up the Holocaust…all useless to closed minds and deaf ears.
You can lead a cow across all the wonders of the world, but when it comes back it is still a cow.
You are a well-known journalist with a global audience both on CNN and social media. What you say matters to many.
That’s why your commentary on November 12 likening Kristallnacht to the Trump era was so troubling. Because it comes from you. Because it carries with it an aura of authority and credibility. Because you haven’t backed away from it.
Since we all carry our own “baggage,” let me put mine on the table up front.
I am the first person in my extended family born in the United States. Every relative older than me was touched by the Second World War and Holocaust. That includes my father, who was a target of Kristallnacht in Austria.
Moreover, I represent a strictly nonpartisan organization, American Jewish Committee, so I have absolutely no political axe to grind in writing to you.
What was wrong with your commentary? Two main things.
First, in setting the stage for your attack on the Trump administration, you purported to describe the events of November 9-10, 1938, which came to be known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.
You said it was an assault on “fact, knowledge, history, and truth.”
But something striking was missing from your description. Not a single word about the actual targets of the Nazi assault in Germany and Austria. Those targets were Jews, synagogues, and Jewish-owned businesses.
In the opening segment of her regular daily affairs program on Thursday, Amanpour spoke of the anniversary of Kristallnacht and how the Nazis upended human civilization, which led to genocide.
While showing footage of the events from that November 8/9, 1938 night, she maintained, “and, in that tower of burning books, it led to an attack on fact, knowledge, history, and truth.”
“After four years of a modern-day assault on those same values by Donald Trump, the Biden-Harris team pledges a return to normal,” she declared.
Israeli officials and Jewish groups denounced the comparison and called for an immediate apology. However, some commentators and analysts noted that at no point in her apology did Amanpour mention the words “Jews” — the people against whom the 1938 pogrom was committed.
Surprised by the @camanpour apology, yes. Satisfied by it, not so much.
While she admitted that Trump isn't as bad as Hitler, she said nothing about her complete Jew-washing of Kristallnacht. The thousands of victims of the pogrom were only the Jews of Germany & Austria. Say it.
The reason was because the Vatican worried that Jews would take over Christian sites in Jerusalem.
The Pope at the time, Leo XIII, was not just an anti-Zionist. He (and the Church altogether) was antisemitic.
From Encyclopedia Judaica:
CIVILTÀ CATTOLICA, LA, official Catholic bi-monthly.
Founded in 1849 by Jesuit writers, and published first in Naples (1850) then in Rome, this review has been the faithful interpreter of papal thought and gained an influence far beyond Catholic circles. ...
With the accession of Pope Leo XIII (1878), the casuistic approach was replaced by systematic defamation. Civiltà wrote of “Jewish hatred… against mankind – Jews excepted” (vol. 32 (1881), no. 5, 727); of the “anti-social spirit of Judaism”; and of the “necessity of hating it” (ibid., no. 6, 603, 608). Worst of all was the review’s attitude concerning the blood libel. More than a century earlier Cardinal Ganganelli (later Pope *Clement XIV) had declared the accusation groundless but Civiltà Cattolica nonetheless wrote of the Jews of Trent, “mingling unleavened bread with Christian blood, every year, at Passover,” and of the “present Jewish use of Christian blood in paschal bread and wine.” Civiltà dwelt further on “the reality of the use of Christian blood in many rituals of the modern synagogue” (vol. 34 (1883), no. 1, 606ff.) as “demonstrated” in the Tiszaeszlar case, which Civiltà considered to be authentic beyond doubt. Likewise Captain Dreyfus could be nothing but a traitor, while France was governed by Freemasonry, which itself was controlled by the Jews. However, the Jews should not be exiled from France for they were a people accursed by God, scattered to the four corners of the earth in order to testify by their ubiquity to the truth of Christianity (vol. 49 (1898), no. 1, 273–87). Thus, anti-Jewish prejudice had again been given a moral nihil obstat and an encouragement to proceed with the worst excesses. Nor did Civiltà relent during the following decades, although “blood” charges were dropped.
Note that the bolded part was also a reason for anti-Zionism.
That publication got worse. Much worse.
Three years after the advent of the Third Reich, the review actively competed with Nazi propaganda, setting out in detail all the arguments for Christian antisemitism as distinguished from the racial antisemitism of the Nazis. The Jews, stated the writer, “have become the masters of the world” (vol. 87 (1936), no. 37–8); “Their prototype is the banker, and their supreme ideal to turn the world into an incorporated joint-stock company” (ibid, 39–40).
Even after the Holocaust, the publication blamed the Jews for their own genocide!
Later, the “unprecedented cruelty of the massacres of Jews and Poles,” and “the horror of concentration camps, gas and torture chambers,” were mentioned in an article which raised doubts about the very principle and objectivity of the Nuremberg trials and stated, among other things, that “conceding even that, on the diplomatic ground, Germany had been the one to set the gunpowder on fire, historically, they had been compelled to do so” (vol. 97 (1946), issue 2297).
Antisemites and anti-Zionists. Peas in a pod.
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Palestinians have now said that they would accept the money Israel owes them for tax revenues, and will resume coordination with Israel, after stopping both in June when Benjamin Netanyahu made noises about annexing part of Judea and Samaria.
That annexation never happened, but Netanyahu didn't say it was permanently off the table, so the Palestinian leadership couldn't resume the previous arrangements - without losing its "honor."
Meanwhile, it went further and further into debt, it slashed salaries of public workers, and it pretended that it would have elections or unify with Hamas - all while hoping that Biden would win and they would have a little leverage against Israel.
Still, there was the honor issue. How to reverse this policy and appear to have won?
Today, they announced that things will go back to the way they were before June.
The PA's civil affairs minister Hussein Al-Sheikh said that "in light of the international contacts made by President Mahmoud Abbas regarding Israel's commitment to the agreements signed with it, and based on the official written and oral messages we received, confirming Israel's commitment to that, the relationship with Israel will be resumed."
PA prime minister Muhammad Shtayyeh said that the Palestinian Authority received a document from Israel pledging to abide by existing agreements.
Some five months of pain could have been avoided if the PA was not so hung up on "honor." This honor/shame mentality is truly the main obstacle for peace in the Middle East. The PLO is literally willing to make their people suffer so as to avoid perceived shame - even though no one in the world would have blinked if the PA had accepted the funds in August after Israel said it was putting the annexation plans on hold.
That is the refreshing part of the normalization with the UAE. There is no shame there. On the contrary, the Emiratis seem eager to take advantage of peace with Israel to create win/win scenarios.
To the PA, a win/win scenario is a violation of honor - the enemy must appear to have lost. This is why they are making up a story about Israel signing an agreement to abide by existing agreements. Maybe some Israeli minister scribbled something on a Post-it Note to make the Palestinians feel that they won, but there was almost certainly nothing official from Israel. It is as if the PA insisted that someone throw a shoe at an Israeli flag and Israel said, sure, if that makes you happy.
In a sense, BDS is also an "honor" initiative. The BDSers insist it is shameful to treat Israelis as normal human beings and they use shame to keep people in line.
It used to work. It doesn't any more. The sooner the Palestinians learn that the only ones being hurt by their fake pride is their own people, and take responsibility for it, the sooner everyone benefits.
UPDATE: Here's the letter Israel sent to the Palestinians. As I suspected, it simply says that Israel never stopped abiding with the existing agreement, and it was the Palestinians that changed the rules. But the Palestinians are reading this as a huge honor win.
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In terms of power, commerce, and security co-operation in the region, more has transpired in the last four years in the Middle East than the previous forty. The Democrats’ loathing of President Trump aside, reaffirming a commitment to an utterly discredited policy experiment would be a disastrous early foray into foreign policy.
Iran is now thought to have accumulated enormous amounts of enriched uranium. It continues to finance global terrorist networks and, most importantly, because of this leaked information, is now publicly linked to support of al-Qaeda.
And that, perhaps, is most interesting of all in this intrigue. Shi’ite Iran is not a natural ally of Sunni al-Qaeda, but the Iranians have proven to be accommodating when it comes to financing and controlling terrorist entities with aligned interests. But now, this exposure of a key al-Qaeda operative being protected by the regime makes it much more difficult for the Biden administration to court Iran. American forgiveness of al-Qaeda is not a popular position and would appear to play into the extreme left-wing of the Democratic party, which Biden is under extraordinary pressure to control and marginalize.
The leak of this operation will surely heighten the pressure on Biden to rethink his approach to JCPOA and Iran. Perhaps that was the point.
Americans are likely to be enraged by the prospect of appeasing a nation that harbors and supports al-Qaeda’s leadership. And that will mess things up for Biden. It has far less to do with Trump and much more to do with the alliances forged between Israel and its neighbors in the wake of Obama’s JCPOA dream. Whether they can see clearly through their hatred of the outgoing president and properly assess the Middle East four years on remains to be seen.
What is clear is that the prospect of getting all chummy with al-Qaeda benefactors makes JCPOA 2.0 way more difficult.
The emerging coalition between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and others brokered by the Trump administration has greatly checked Iran's ambitions. The Gulf Arabs now understand that Israel is the "only regional element that has a strong enough motivation to fight Iran" and "can be trusted because it must fight Iran for its own good."
However, Schueftan believes the "one major mistake" in the Trump administration's Middle East policy is its underestimation of the danger of Turkey, which he suggests is "going in the direction of a totalitarian regime" under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Not only is Turkey projecting its military power, notably in Syria and Libya, but it is sponsoring the Muslim Brotherhood, which has a presence throughout the Arab world. "The Muslim brothers are extremely dangerous because they have learned to pretend to be moderate ...They are as radical as you can possibly get, but smart enough to hide it."
Schueftan strongly recommends "persisting with the existing [U.S.] policy of maximum pressure on Iran" and "supporting local allies" against it, and he believes the same two-fold approach should be applied to Turkey. This means "see[ing] to it that Erdoğan's economy is undermined ... once he is economically challenged, he may lose a lot of support in Turkey." It means not only "backing the Greeks and the Cypriots against the Turkish attempt to dominate the Eastern Mediterranean," but also supporting the Kurds.
"Anything that the Iranian regime agrees to is ipso facto bad and dangerous for the other side."
Trying to reach an accommodation with either Iran or Turkey is a bad idea in Schueftan's view. "Anything that the Iranian regime agrees to is ipso facto bad and dangerous for the other side, if they agree to something, it means that we have been given a raw deal." The same zero-sum principle applies to Turkey. "Whatever is bad for Erdoğan, I think is good for the region."
What is the hardest part of brokering a peace agreement?
-- Sometimes, it's just getting the two sides to sit down in the same room.
-- Other times, the problem is getting the two sides just to talk.
-- Even then, there is the problem of getting them to negotiate and be willing
to make concessions.
And then there is the problem when you just run out of time.
Following the Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt and Syria were nearly victorious,
a unique possibility for peace between Israel and Egypt presented itself.
Nixon's airlift of crucial arms during the war was critical to Israel's
victory -- and created an opportunity.
Richard Nixon. Public domain
Seeking to take advantage of this opportunity, in June 1974, Nixon became the
first US president to visit Israel while in office.
As Rabin explained in a press conference after Nixon returned to the US:
"Ever since the airlift of the Yom Kippur War, the Arabs have come to
understand that America will not allow Israel to be weakened. A defeat of
Israel is a victory for the USSR.
Paradoxically, this is what has raised America's prestige in the Arab
world, and has given Washington leverage. Today in the Middle East, Moscow is a synonym for instability and war,
Washington for stability and negotiation." (Yehuda Avner, The Prime
Ministers, p. 270)
Yitzhak Rabin. Public domain
This leverage as an honest broker would make it possible for the US to go
beyond being a supporter of Israel's interests, and show that it was a strong
and reliable ally to address the interests of the Arab world as well.
Meanwhile, Nixon began discussing with Egypt's Sadat the possibility of a
final settlement, going step-by-step. On June 25, Nixon wrote to Sadat:
Mr. President, I am convinced that we have witnessed in recent months a
turning point in the history of the Middle East -- a turning toward an
honorable, just, and endurinable peace -- and have ushered in a new era in
U.S.-Arab relations. A direction has been set, and it is my firm intention
to stay on the course we have chartered. (p. 271)
Two months later, Nixon resigned.
The following month, Rabin was meeting with President Ford -- and Kissinger --
to continue what Nixon had started. The following year, in March, Kissinger
came to the Middle East to conduct his "shuttle diplomacy," bouncing back and
forth between Israel and Egypt. Kissinger pressured Rabin on a withdrawal from
the Sinai, especially from the Mitla and Gidi passes, while Rabin wanted Sadat
to commit himself to a "termination of the state of belligerency" with Israel.
Kissinger's efforts failed -- and he blamed Israel.
In the end, however, another attempt was made, culminating in an interim
agreement known as Sinai II.
Just to get an idea of what Rabin was up against, here is an excerpt from
the notes of a conversation between Sadat and Foreign Minister Fahmi with Ford
and Kissinger. The context is the early warning stations in the Sinai that Rabin wanted to
retain -- and Sadat's idea of a compromise, where they would be manned by US
troops. Note the highlighted portions.
The term "honest broker" is overrated.
In any event, Rabin too ended up resigning because of the 'scandal'
surrounding his wife, who had retained a bank account from the years when
Rabin was Israel's ambassador to the US from 1968 to 1973. After that, the
Israeli law forbidding citizens from holding bank accounts abroad came into
play. However, another law prevented Rabin from resigning outright once the
date for the next elections has been set. Instead, Rabin withdrew from the
race as leader of the Labor Party, to be replaced from Shimon Peres to face
Menachem Begin.
Begin became prime minister -- and it was during his term that a peace treaty
with Egypt was signed.
Rabin felt his role in making that peace treaty possible was never
acknowledged, but at the same time he understood that was the way of things.
In his memoirs, Rabin wrote:
When President Sadat made his historic visit to Jerusalem on 19 November
1977 I was no longer prime minister. Yet that visit -- and the subsequent
moves toward achieving a peace treaty -- could never have come about were it
not for the course my government adopted in signing the 1975 interim
agreement. That our policy provoked the anger of Likud has not prevented Mr.
Begin's government from reaping the fruits of our labors.
Of course, that is how things should be, since the quest for peace is not
a contest between political parties...The 1975 agreement with Egypt was never meant to be an end in itself. As
its title implies, it was designed to advance the momentum toward peace, and
in that sense it achieved its purpose. [emphasis added] (quoted in The Prime
Ministers, p.302)
Begin benefited from the foundation set by Nixon and the groundwork laid by
Rabin, both of whom left their work unfinished.
But that was not the last we heard from Rabin.
After serving as prime minister from 1974 to 1977, Rabin became prime minister
again in 1992.
And he was still focused on peace. In 1994, he received the Nobel Peace Prize
for his part in the Oslo Accords, along with Shimon Peres and Arafat. Rabin
also signed a peace treaty with Jordan that same year.
In late 1995, Rabin described to Yehuda Avner his view of the Middle East, a
description that 25 years later sounds familiar:
Number one: Israel is surrounded by two concentric circles. The inner circle
is comprised of our immediate neighbors—Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon,
and, by extension, Saudi Arabia. The outer circle comprises their
neighbors—Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen and Libya. Virtually all of
them are rogue states, and some are going nuclear.
Number two,
Iranian-inspired Islamic fundamentalism constitutes a threat to the inner
circle no less than it does to Israel. Islamic fundamentalism is striving to destabilize the Gulf Emirates, has
already created havoc in Syria, leaving twenty thousand dead, in Algeria,
leaving one hundred thousand dead, in Egypt, leaving twenty-two thousand
dead, in Jordan, leaving eight thousand dead, in the Horn of Africa—the
Sudan and Somalia—leaving fourteen thousand dead, and in Yemen, leaving
twelve thousand dead. And now it is gaining influence in the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip.
Iran is the banker, pouring millions into the West Bank and Gaza in the form
of social welfare and health and education programs, so that it can win the
hearts of the population and feed religious fanaticism.
Thus, a confluence of interest has arisen between Israel and the inner
circle, whose long-term strategic interest is the same as ours: to lessen
the destabilizing consequences from the outer circle. At the end of the
day, the inner circle recognizes they have less to fear from Israel than
from their Muslim neighbors, not least from radicalized Islamic powers
going nuclear.
Number three: the Arab-Israeli conflict was always considered to be a
political one: a conflict between Arabs and Israelis. The fundamentalists
are doing their level best to turn it into a religious conflict—Muslim
against Jew, Islam against Judaism. And while a political conflict is
possible to solve through negotiation and compromise, there are no solutions
to a theological conflict. Then it is jihad—religious war: their God against
our God. Were they to win, our conflict would go from war to war, and from
stalemate to stalemate. [emphasis added] (p. 707)
The context for this description of the Middle East is Rabin's response to
Avner's question as to why he shook Arafat's hand at the signing of the Oslo
Accords:
He and his PLO represent the last vestige of secular Palestinian
nationalism. We have nobody else to deal with. It is either the PLO or
nothing. It is a long shot for a possible settlement, or the certainty of no
settlement at all at a time when the radicals are going nuclear.
With the growing threat of Islamic fundamentalism, negotiating with secular
Palestinian Arabs made sense to Rabin.
Neither he -- nor then-President Clinton -- saw the potential in negotiating
and working with other Arab states within those concentric circles. There's no
reason they would, when all the contemporary thinking was focused on the
Palestinian Arabs as a key to peace, a cold peace in line with the peace
treaties signed with Egypt and Jordan with no thought of normalization.
According to that thinking, it is either the Palestinian Arabs or nothing.
The Middle East achievements of the Trump administration this year took
Rabin's outline and acted on it.
What Rabin might have further accomplished, we will never know.
He was stopped again, this time by a bullet, from pursuing peace.
But like Nixon and Rabin, Trump too will not be pursuing his vision for peace
to its full extent.
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The FBI Hate Crimes report for 2019 has been released, and - as usual - more than half of all the anti-religion hate crimes recorded are against Jews.
This year 62.7% of all hate crimes are against Jews, but since 2012 that number has averaged some 59%. This year is worse because the total number of hate crimes incidents against Jews increased from 835 to 953, a 14% increase.
People want to find easy to understand reasons for the increase in hate crimes against Jews in recent years, but that is virtually impossible. Many articles automatically blame Trump for the increase, but if that was true, one would expect a much faster increase of anti-Muslim hate crimes. In reality. anti-Muslim hate crime rates has been an almost perfect inverse of anti-Jewish rates, with the anti-Muslim rates increasing during the Obama administration and decreasing during the Trump administration:
Given that Trump is considered to be pro-Jewish and anti-Muslim, if the president exerts so much influence over hate crimes, one would expect the trends to be quite different.
What is indisputable is that Jews are targeted far out of proportion to their population in the US, no matter who is President.
As far as I can tell, the FBI has not embraced the IHRA definition of antisemitism in determining what an anti-Jewish hate crime is. So, if the leaders of AIPAC or the Zionist Organization of America get death threats, I don't think these would be included in the hate crime statistics.
They should be. The hate exhibited by self-declared anti-Zionists is the same as that exhibited by any other bigots.
Think about it: Among the far Left, the worst insults that one can possibly give to another person are:
* Colonialist
* Nazi
* Apartheid-enabler
* White supremacist
* Racist
* Genocidist
* Baby killer
* Islamophobe
* Antisemite
* Anti-gay
* Sexist
* Global warming denialists
The first eight of these epithets are routinely hurled at Zionists by the socialist Left. Some have tried to accuse Zionists of antisemitism as well. And the last three, which Israel cannot remotely be accused of being guilty of, are inverted into the "X-washing" meme that the only reason Israel does anything admirable is an attempt to whitewash its crimes. This proves that the irrational hate of these people is so intense that they must turn virtues into vices as well - they cannot even conceive that there is anything good one can say about Israel or Zionists.
This is not "criticism." This is hate. The psychology behind it is every bit as irrational as any kind of bigotry.
And it is impossible to say that the irrational hate of one nation, which outweighs the hate of any other nation, has nothing to do with the fact that that nation is filled with and controlled by Jews.
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According to Arab media, the Saudi film "3-2-1 Action" that premiered on November 5 closed after five days with absolutely no revenue.
A few days into the release, the distributors tried to give away tickets for free - and no one wanted to go.
On IMDB, it is rated 1/10, with 209 reviewers, so somehow people saw it. However, they universally hated it, with some hilarious reviews like "To be honest, the book is way better than the movie...because it doesn't exist."
Apparently many of the actors are social media stars who have no idea how to act.
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To even consider using Kristallnacht in the same sentence as Donald Trump, let alone in an attempt to compare Trump to the Nazi Party, is to stand on the ashes of European Jewry. Hitler and the Nazi Party openly acted upon their expressed desire to eradicate the Jewish people. Given that the Trump administration has yet to discriminate against Jews in any manner, when Amanpour said “after four years of a modern-day assault on those same values,” what exactly does she mean?
Donald Trump and the Republican Party do not have an official paramilitary wing, and any relevant policies during Trump’s first term have been overwhelmingly pro-Jewish and pro-Israel. When it comes to the targeting of Jewish businesses, homes, or places of worship, there are certainly anti-Semites on the radical wings of both sides, but the mainstream implicit endorsement of such actions are unique to one side of the political spectrum, and it’s not the political Right.
After all, it was not a Republican who used the same rhetoric of “hypnosis” and “wealth” when condemning the “evil doings” of the Jewish state. It was not a Republican who supported the boycott of Jewish businesses. It was not a Republican who endorsed a one-state solution which would result in the expulsion or mass murder of millions of Israeli Jews.
So, we must conclude that Amanpour is using one of the darkest moments in Jewish history as a proxy to describe a supposed attack on some unknown set of “values” which Biden and Harris will somehow defend and prevent. For her, the suffering of Jews is a disposable weapon which can be wielded in pursuit of Leftism and the Democratic Party.
It doesn’t matter that it is the mainstream Left who are burning books. It doesn’t matter that it is the mainstream Left who wish to actively enable nations who have called for the destruction of the Jewish State. And it doesn’t matter that it is the mainstream Left who are using the very same language which fueled Kristallnacht and the Holocaust.
Israeli Consul-General in Atlanta Anat Sultan-Dadon wrote a letter to CNN executive vice president Rick Davis, obtained by The Jerusalem Post on the condition that it not be quoted. The letter, sent two days after Amanpour’s remarks, explained that the Nazis murdered at least 90 Jews on Kristallnacht. They also arrested over 30,000 Jews and deported them to concentration camps. The night of Kristallnacht was the opening chapter of the Holocaust.
The consul-general expressed outrage at Amanpour’s use of the Holocaust for political means, and said it disrespects those who perished.
Amanpour’s statements set off an immediate backlash on Twitter.
Former Israeli consul-general in New York Danny Dayan tweeted that “the foolish comparison Amanpour made between Kristallnacht and Trump must bring about her immediate dismissal from CNN. There is no immunity for Holocaust deniers.”
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany called Amanpour's remarks "despicable," and said the CNN anchor "must apologize for trivializing the Holocaust & the tragic genocide of millions of Jews.
"They must also apologize for slandering the most pro-Israel President in history," she said.
2. Amanpour has thrived because her hatred for the Jewish state is considered "sophisticated" in her little, sick bubble of Western elitists who have spent the past 70 years pretending that anyone could have been Nazis -- especially the Jews. This erases Germany's culpability..3
In about a year, Israel will send its second astronaut into space.
Former fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe will be trained in the United States, Germany and Russia before taking off from Florida in December 2021 for a 200-hour stay on the International Space Station (ISS).
This mission will be the first to the ISS manned entirely by private astronauts. Stibbe is donating his time and all costs of the journey, including expenses related to the experiments to be chosen for him to bring into space designed by Israeli scientists, entrepreneurs and students.
The announcement was made today at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem by the Ramon Foundation, the Israel Space Agency and the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology.
Ran Livne, CEO of the foundation, will lead the project. He plans on special broadcasts from the space mission for Israeli children, including dozens of demonstrations, experiments and live calls from the ISS with schoolchildren across the country.
Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, died in the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia in February 2003. Receiving his pilot wings in 1978, Stibbe flew under Ramon’s command in the 117 F-16 squadron.
Ramon’s son Tal said that Stibbe “and his family escorted us through the years through everything we went through, the good and the bad, and their family has become our family.”
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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Elder of Ziyon
