Amnesty International has spent untold thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of time to attack Airbnb because that company decided not to discriminate against Jews in Judea and Samaria.
Today, Amnesty issued yet another press release attacking Airbnb, this one right before its public offering at Nasdaq. The excuse they used for this was that Airbnb didn't include the reputational risk of allowing Jews to rent out properties - according to the so-called human rights group, only Arabs should be allowed to host Airbnb.
How many other corporations does Amnesty attack?
Outside of arms manufacturers, and mining/energy companies, I found very few, certainly none with the zeal that Amnesty has attacked Airbnb.
Specifically, Amnesty has never investigated the manufacturers of cranes that Iran uses to hang gays.
And Amnesty is even aware of these campaigns - it mentioned one of them in their death penalty report of 2011. Yet it decided not to use its power to go after the remaining crane manufacturers who sell in Iran, including Atlas.
Why would Amnesty decide to incessantly attack a company like Airbnb with no connection to any human rights violations and ignore the companies whose names are literally on weapons of murder?
Because when it comes to Israel, the rules are completely different than in the rest of the world.
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.
Sharansky’s story counters the lie our foes – and some fellow Jews – peddle about Judaism, Israel and Zionism today. Those who claim that Judaism is “just” a religion have to acknowledge the power of peoplehood, of national pride, that courses through that story, just as those secular types who say the religion is meaningless, should admit the tale’s spiritual, theological magic.
In fact, the entire holiday refutes all these false choices. Try telling the Hanukkah story without any religious dimension, or while pretending the Jews are not a people with a national consciousness, or while claiming we have no ties to the land. The fight was about our freedom of religion. The Maccabees were nationalist warriors. And the Temple that had to be purified was in Jerusalem in Eretz Israel, the land yearning to be liberated.
Similarly, try telling the Hanukkah story as an either-or fanatic, choosing only freedom or only identity, only liberalism or only nationalism. Hanukkah reminds us that we need freedom just as we need the air we breathe; it represents the world of possibilities and open doors. But we also need our own particular identity, just as we need the substantive food that sustains us, just as we need guardrails and milestones, maps and a sense of mission, in the journey of life once the doors swing open.
And through it all, we feel blessed by that sense of Jewish national consciousness, that Zionist sense of peoplehood, that reminds us that wherever we are, whatever challenges we face, when we are part of this amazing network called the Jewish people we are never alone.
NATAN TOLD his story as we filmed an episode of “Drinking with Adam” (Bellos) for Wine on the Vine. I noted how remarkable it is that despite my never having suffered, spending the 1980s studying history at Harvard, and Natan’s having spent much of the ’80s suffering in the gulag, we remain ideologically on the same page.
Natan wondered: “Who really suffered most?” He quipped: “In the gulag, I had moral clarity; at Harvard, there was moral confusion.”
How sad that our universities so often fail to stand for moral clarity – or for open, critical inquiry. And how unnerving that the problems transcend partisanship, as cancel culture on the far Left oddly parallels the bullying totalitarianism of the far Right.
But how lucky we Jews are to have this holiday of freedom, along with freedom fighters in our own lives who stand up for personal liberty, for national identity, for the constructive, creative confusion of both – and against the false choices so many wish to impose on us.
Happy Hanukkah.
On December 9, 1917, British forces accepted the Turkish surrender of Jerusalem. Two days later, British forces officially entered the walls of the city.
As the world was engulfed in brutal armed conflict of an unprecedented scope, fighting raged in the Holy Land between Allied troops and the Ottoman-Turks (allied with the Central Powers) who had ruled the land for most of the past 400 years. On October 30, the strategic city of Be’er Sheva fell to the allies who then drove towards Jerusalem.
A London dispatch, on November 24, reported that the mosque containing the tomb of the prophet Samuel was bombarded. The ancient site of Mitzpeh, 5,000 yards west of the Jerusalem-Nablus road, was stormed by the British. The major battle for Jerusalem was in full swing. British cavalry ferociously fought their way into Jerusalem.
On December 11, the second day of Hanukkah, British troops marched into Jerusalem. British commander General Edmund Allenby respectfully entered its walls by foot through the Jaffa Gate.
Excited crowds lined Jerusalem’s streets to welcome the city’s liberators. Their very presence signified an end to the terrible suffering the people of Jerusalem had endured during the war.
One British officer described his entry into Jerusalem and the reception by its residents this way: “Swarms of children, Arab, Jew, and Christian, ran with us as we marched along, and the populace clamored to any point of vantage, waving and clapping their hands, cheering and singing. Jews clad in European dress came running up, singled out any one of us, wrung him by the hand, and — talking excitedly in broken English — said that they, the people of Jerusalem, had been waiting for … two and a half years.”
The German government has officially apologised after its consulate in Melbourne refused 82 years ago to accept a letter of protest from the Australian Aborigines' League about the Nazi persecution of the Jews.
On Sunday Felix Klein – the Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Anti-Semitism – issued the historic apology via video link on behalf of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government.
The apology was screened at an event marking the anniversary of the 1938 delegation of the Australian Aborigines’ League – led by Aboriginal spokesman William Cooper [Yad Vashem] – to the German consulate in Melbourne.
According to The Argus newspaper, the delegation wanted to convey a resolution voicing "on behalf of Aborigines of Australia, a strong protest at the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government of Germany, and ask that this persecution is brought to an end".
The Australian Aborigines' League, which used Mr Cooper's home in Footscray as its meeting place, drew a parallel between the treatment of Aboriginal people and a pogrom against Jews carried out by the paramilitary wing of the Nazis on November 9-10, 1938, that became known as Kristallnacht.
The league felt moved to protest at the violence from the other side of the world, and a delegation walked from Footscray to the German consulate in Melbourne on December 6, 1938.
But the consulate refused to admit the delegation.
"Officially, on behalf of the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, we are sorry that the 1938 Consul General in Melbourne would not accept the letter of the Australian Aborigines' League, nor forward it onto the political leadership here in Berlin as would have been the right and morally correct thing for a consulate official to do," Dr Klein said on Sunday.
Yorta Yorta activist and educator Lois Peeler said she was happy to accept the apology on behalf of her people.
"It’s a long time coming but we accept the apology," she said.
The Jewish Agency
for Israel is actively partnering with evangelical Christians who seek to
bring Israeli Jews to Jesus. That’s because 1) These missionaries are saving
the Jewish Agency money by setting up and running absorption centers for new
immigrants, lone soldiers, and young pre-army students and 2) The missionaries
swear up and down until they’re blue in the face that they’re not missionaries—they
swear they’re not here to bring Israeli Jews to Jesus.
That promise of innocence is of course, ridiculous. They are
missionaries. Full stop. If the Jewish Agency believes them, I’ve got a bridge
I can sell them for cheap.
As mentioned in an earlier column: Shannon
Nuszen is working to expose the mission of evangelical Christians in Israel—Jews
are trying to shut her down, regular Jewish Israelis, not unlike the Jewish
Agency, are happy to save money. And just like the Jewish Agency, these Jews
swear up and down that the missionaries aren’t missionaries. The evangelicals,
meanwhile, harvest grapes in the Jewish orchards of Samaria for free—a dream
come true for any farmer. (But at what ultimate cost?)
With all that free labor, is it any wonder that some Israeli
Jews fight the notion that in actual fact, these Christians are here to bring
Israeli Jews to Jesus? But Jews looking the other way on the presence of
missionaries in Israel has, perhaps, another subtext: some Israeli Jews retain a
pathological need to seek constant approval from outsiders. These remaining
vestiges of the ghetto mentality of these Israelis living free and easy in
Israel is almost understandable: What happened to past generations in the
diaspora has no doubt scarred the less emotionally hardy of our people.
So if just regular Israeli Jewish Joes support the
evangelicals in their mission, it only stands to reason that the Jewish Agency
believes it can get away with underwriting projects like the Aliyah Return
Center for Lone Soldiers, run by, yes, missionaries.
Now it wouldn’t happen in America. This is made clear in
this most recent clip from Beynenu, narrated by Rabbi Tovia Singer.
From the film:
"What's going on here in Israel would not go on in the
United States. Both the Reform and Conservative movements have bylaws that
they will not work with messianics, who are evangelical fundamentalist
Christians who use Jewish terminology, symbols, and icons in order to bring
Jewish people to know Jesus in a Jewish way.
“Here in Israel there seems to be no separation.
“The Reform Movement [in America] is the most liberal, and
even they would not allow anybody of the messianic movement to be involved in
any aspect of their education, much less run their programs.
"Jewish Community Centers around the world deal with
the problem of messianics working to infiltrate their centers and social
networks all the time, and they work very hard to address it.
"Yet here in Israel we have messianics partnering with the
Jewish Agency running absorption centers for new olim, lone soldiers, and young
pre-army students. Nowhere else in the world would Jews think to cross this
line!
"The Jewish Agency is partnering with the Aliyah Return
Center, a Christian organization headed in this country by a Messianic Jew.
It's astounding!"
This latest—some would say shocking—clip from Beynenu is, in
part, a response to the Jewish Agency, which has accused the organization of
doctoring footage to back the narrative that the evangelical Christians are
missionaries. Here is the official press release from the Jewish Agency for
Israel on the subject:
“The Jewish Agency runs an educational facility near the Sea
of Galilee called Bikat Kinarot. The site, fully managed by The Jewish Agency,
includes facilities for lone soldiers, new immigrants, preparation for service
in the IDF and serves as a regional center for those involved with civic
projects.
“We have a formal agreement with the Canadian Christian
Zionist organization Return Ministries to provide volunteers and to assist with
construction, maintenance and landscaping work on the campus. This is done
within a very clear contractual framework, stipulating that any kind of
missionary activity is strictly prohibited.
“We are familiar with Beynenu and while the videos are
heavily edited, using old and irrelevant footage and containing many false
statements, they do raise grave questions and concerns for us regarding our
relationship with Return Ministries.
“Let us emphasize that Return Ministries has no involvement
whatsoever with any Jewish Agency programming. Any involvement of Return
Ministries or the Aliyah Return Center beyond the very clearly demarcated roles
mentioned above is in clear violation of their agreement with The Jewish
Agency. The Jewish Agency will make no compromise on allowing any missionary
activity. We are examining the allegations and intend to take firm action if
they are found to be correct. We reject any effort to apply pressure on our
internal process by any outside body, who is trying to tarnish our good name.
If necessary, we will take steps to prevent this besmirching of The Jewish
Agency’s reputation and unwavering dedication to keeping the Jewish people
connected to each other and to Israel.”
That’s the official statement to the press. An internal
email from the Jewish Agency, however, tells a different story:
“From this examination we have issued a very strong formal
letter of complaint sent to Return Ministries. As we have searched for the
facts, numerous violations of our contractual agreement have been discovered
which have been included in our letter.”
As a result, Beynenu, went ahead and sent the following
letter to the Jewish Agency:
As for claims by the Jewish Agency that Beynenu is using doctored,
old, and irrelevant clips to prove a specific and unfounded point, Shannon
Nuszen has this to say:
"We wish we could say that this is Hollywood, but these
videos are real and it's happening in Israel. We understand that leaders are
upset about this, and I think we all understand that mistakes happen. However,
it would be a bigger mistake to be defensive rather than taking this seriously
and addressing the problem.
"Whether they are baptizing olim, or just doing the gardening,
we should not be partnering with Messianics. Legitimizing Messianics undermines
Jewish communities, and as the Jewish Agency emphasizes, these communities are
the building blocks of Jewish life.
"This would not happen anywhere else in the world, but
for some reason this grave mistake has happened here in Israel.
"I assure you we are on the same side, and we would be
happy to help the Jewish Agency address this serious matter."
So what exactly is Beynenu, and why are they going after
these evangelical Christians like a dog with a bone that just won’t let go? Nuszen
says that Beyneynu is a team of former missionaries, counter missionary experts,
and “concerned persons of influence.” Here is Beynenu’s official mission
statement:
Beyneynu is a
non-profit organization that monitors missionary activity in Israel and works
with government and community leaders to create awareness of the challenges
facing the public and to facilitate the establishment of proper boundaries in
their partnerships with faith-based organizations.
Establishing “proper boundaries” would seem to be something sorely
lacking here between the Jewish Agency and organizations like Return
Ministries, Hayovel, and the Aliyah Return Center. As a Jewish Israeli, I
am happy that organizations like Beynenu exist. Because the last thing I want
Jewish Israelis (such as my children) to encounter, is a missionary hiding the
fact that what he really wants is for you to come to Jesus.
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.
We are the descendants of the Canaanites who lived in the land of
Palestine 5,000 years ago, and continuously remained there to this day. Our great people remains
rooted in its land. The Palestinian people built their own cities and
homeland, and made contributions to humanity and civilization. [emphasis
added]
They [the Jews] are thieves who stole the land, and who want to steal the
history, but history cannot change and cannot be falsified. The facts bear
witness to it. We have been here for the last 5,000 years, and have not left
this land. We have not left this land.
Our forefathers are the monotheist Canaanites and Jebusites. They are
the ones who built Jerusalem, before Abraham was even here. [emphasis added]
What drives the Palestinian Arabs in general -- and Abbas in particular -- to
such obvious fabrications?
On the one hand, there is the Palestinian Arab goal to usurp the strong
indigenous Jewish connection to Israel.
But there is another element.
There is the attempt to establish a basis for Palestinian nationalism.
In his book The Seed of Abraham, Rafael Patai discusses the development
of Arab nationalism in general --and why Palestinian nationalism by definition
pales in comparison.
Many of the Arab countries in the Middle East are newly created as a result of
British, French and Italian machinations. The straight borders of many of
those Arab countries testify to the arbitrariness of both the borders and the
states themselves.
Writing in 1986, Patai notes
It is remarkable how rapidly the population of each of the newly created
Arab states developed a national consciousness and patriotic feelings of its
own. This process was facilitated in the major Arab states by historical
memories that the leadership soon learned how to utilize. Sentiments in
French mandatory, and later independent, Syria were thus related back to the
great days when Syria, with Damascus as its splendid capital, was the center
of the great Umayyad caliphate, while the newly reestablished Iraq saw
herself as heir to the Abbasid empire whose center was the Iraqi capital of
Baghdad. However, no other Arab country had as solid a basis for priding
itself of its glorious past as Egypt, which, although its greatest age lay
far back in the millennia of the jahiliyya [Arabia before the advent of
Islam], nevertheless came to view that early Pharaonic period as part of its
national history.
Some Arab countries could create a national consciousness based on their place
in Arab history. Other Arab countries, lacking that tie, could instead boast
of their ancient history -- even if that history belonged to a land they had
conquered and was not actually their own.
Where did that leave the Palestinian Arabs?
Up the creek.
In Palestine, such attempts at establishing a great Arab national past ran
into a vexing problem.
Since Palestine had never been an independent Arab country, its period of
pride had to be sought in the biblical Israelite age.
As we have seen in an earlier chapter, the Arabs considered themselves heirs
of Abraham the hanif [maintained pure monotheism], and claimed that Abraham,
with his son Ishmael, was the founder of the sanctuary at Mecca. One writer
even claimed that Abraham himself was an “Arabian.” Thus the more general
claim could be made, even though it retained tenuous at best, that Palestine
was the scene of part of Arab prehistory. [emphasis added]
That is where Jewish history got in the way.
The difficulty arose in connection with the long period between Abraham
(whose Arab progeny settled in Arabia) and the end of the Hebrew monarchy,
during which there was no Arab presence in Palestine, while the Banu
Isra’il (“Children of Israel”) were undeniably masters of the land. Hence,
in contrast to Egypt, the Arabs could not claim that they had also in
Palestine a national history going back to the long millennia of the
jahiliyya. (p.309; emphasis added)
But according to Patai, a sense of Palestinian nationalism did develop, and
Patai describes it as a slow process that started with Arab differences with
the Jews of the Second Aliyah who -- unlike the First Aliyah -- insisted that
only Jews be employed as workers to work the land.
That nationalism continued after the reforms of the Young Turks led to the
modernization of the Ottoman Empire and Arab representation in the new Turkish
Parliament.
And this reaction against the Ottoman Empire led to the possibility of an
unlikely (from today’s vantage point) alliance:
At the same time Arab nationalist leaders recognized that their cause could
benefit from Jewish help. In June 1913 was held in Paris the first
conference of Arab nationalists which was an overt anti-Turkish
demonstration, and in preparation for which
Arab approaches were made to the Jews with a view to setting up an
Arab-Jewish alliance. In the course of these contacts it appeared that most Arab leaders in
Cairo and Beirut took a positive view of Zionism were basically in favor of
Jewish immigration to Syria and Palestine, and expressed their understanding
of “the valuable assistance that the capital, the diligence, and the
intelligence of the Jews can provide to the accelerated development of the
[Arab] areas of Turkey.” (p.312; emphasis added)
Patai quotes Ahmad Mukhtar Bayham, an Arab leader from Beirut at that
conference who declared, “The entry of Jews--yes! But the entry of Turks--no!”
The president at that conference, Abd al-Hamid Zahrawi made a statement:
Because they [the Jews] are our brothers in race, and we regard them as
Syrians who were forced to leave the country at one time but whose hearts
always beat together with ours, we are certain that our Jewish brothers the
world over will know how to help us so that our common interest may succeed
and our common country will develop both materially and morally (p. 313)
It sounded promising, but in the end, no agreement was reached on Zionist
issues such as Jewish immigration and land purchases.
But it is in this context of the potential alliance between Arabs and Jews
that we can appreciate how it is that Chaim Weizmann and Emir Faisal were able
to come to an agreement that recognized Zionist goals in then-Palestine.
Today, the Abraham Accords are not necessarily a bolt out of the blue. Perhaps
the potential for Jewish-Arab cooperation existed all along.
At one time, they faced a common enemy: the Ottoman Empire.
Today, that common enemy is Iran.
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.
In November 2015, a newspaper in the United Arab Emirates dedicated a long editorial to the European Union’s newly issued guidelines about special labels for products from Israeli settlements.
“The decision by the 28-nation bloc has come after months of procrastination, but evidently underscores the bloc’s anger over Israel’s continued expansion of settlements on territory that Palestinians seek for their future state,” Gulf Today wrote at the time, calling for sanctions against the Jewish state. “Inaction on the part of the world community would be deemed by Israel as support for its oppressive actions.”
Four years later, after the European Court of Justice ruled that products made in Israeli settlements must be labeled as such, the Sharjah-based daily ran another editorial about the issue, hailing the judges’ “appropriate and welcome decision.”
Blind support by the US administration “has emboldened Israel to embark on a dangerous path,” the paper went on. The November 12, 2019, article ended with a call for all European countries to “implement what is a legal and political obligation regarding labeling of products.”
Fast forward 12 months. Israel and the UAE have signed the so-called Abraham Accords, quickly establishing diplomatic ties and vibrant trade relations. Emirati supermarkets proudly display Israeli products, apparently including some made in Israeli settlements — but no one is talking about labeling.
In this new era of peace, the idea of distinguishing between goods from Israel proper and those that come from areas Israel gained control over in 1967 is no longer in vogue in the Arab Gulf.
On Monday, Tura Winery, which is based in the West Bank settlement of Rehelim but proudly labels its products as being “from the Land of Israel,” inked a deal with Dubai-based FAM Holding.
We welcome the news that Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, a member of the United Arab Emirates’ royal family, has purchased a 50 percent stake in the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club, and congratulate him with the Arabic term, “Mabruk!”
“A historic and exciting day for Beitar Jerusalem,” the capital’s Premier League team tweeted to its followers, noting that the deal had been signed by the Israeli co-owner, Moshe Hogeg, and Sheikh Hamad on Monday – three months after Israel and the UAE established diplomatic ties as part of the US-led Abraham Accords.
Perhaps now, Beitar – which is infamous for its refusal to sign an Arab player and the anti-Arab chants of some of its hardcore fans, known as “La Familia” – can shed its racist image and become a sporting model of Jewish-Muslim teamsmanship.
Beitar’s announcement quoted Sheikh Hamad as saying: “I am thrilled to be a partner in such a glorious club that I have heard so much about and in such a great city, the capital of Israel and one of the holiest cities in the world.”
Pledging to invest NIS 300 million in the team over the next decade, he said this represented “the fruits of peace and brotherhood between the nations” and would “bring people together through sport.”
Saying he would strive to put together the best team possible, he concluded with the fans’ famous chant, “Yalla, Beitar!”
Hogeg said, “On the eve of Hanukkah, Beitar’s menorah is lit in a new and exciting light. Together, we all march the club to new days of coexistence, achievements and brotherhood for the sake of our club, community and Israeli sports.”
Israel Advocacy Movement: The Middle East past and present (Israel, UAE, Bahrain)
The first batch of Pfizer Corona-virus vaccine landed in Israel today. PM Netanyahu announced that he will be the first to get it, live on television, in order to build public confidence. Although it’s impossible to get Covid from it, there is still a possibility of other side effects, and many people would prefer to let others be the pioneers with the arrows in their backs. Even the Israeli Doctors’ Union has insisted on reviewing the research data (Hebrew link) on the vaccines before medical staffs receive it. “We don’t want to be guinea pigs,” said a spokesperson (literally, “experimental rabbits”). The plan is – assuming the doctors are satisfied – is to immunize them first, followed by older citizens. I suggested that bus and taxi drivers, who are both at risk to catch the disease and to infect others, should be included, but apparently they didn’t listen to me.
This first shipment is small, only about 3,000 – 4,000 doses, intended to test the methods of shipment and distribution. Later this month there will be a larger shipments, up to 4 million doses. By the Spring, there should be enough for all of Israel’s population. The Health Ministry was waiting for the American FDA to approve it before giving the final go-ahead, and that occurred yesterday.
Meanwhile, people are still getting sick, some are dying, and the dysfunctional government is still flailing ineffectually as we approach our third wave. A nighttime lockdown was supposed to go into effect today, but at the last moment the Justice Ministry announced that such a lockdown would have “legal problems” because it would “limit the motion of citizens.”
This encapsulates the absurd situation perfectly: a nighttime lockdown would have minimal effect on the epidemic, because people have nowhere to go at night anyway, with restaurants and bars closed. But it would be an obstacle to the continued anti-Netanyahu demonstrations in front of his residences in Jerusalem and Caesarea, so Bibi’s government wants it. On the other hand, the Minister of Justice, who is the former head of the Histadrut labor federation and a bitter foe of Netanyahu, wants the demonstrations to continue. No lockdown. Such dedication on both sides!
I wasn’t going to write about politics, but I should note that the process of dissolving the Knesset and calling new elections is proceeding apace. A preliminary motion to do so passed last week, and a Knesset Committee set the next vote (there need to be three more) for this coming Monday. At the same time, Netanyahu’s biggest rival in the Likud, Gideon Sa’ar, announced yesterday that he is quitting the Likud and starting a new center-right party, which has already attracted several heavy hitters from the opposition. A snap poll showed that Sa’ar’s party would get the third greatest number of seats if the election were today. Most of his support would come from Netanyahu’s party.
A sidelight: the party may be named “New Hope,” which immediately brought up comparisons to Star Wars and the appropriate campaign music (video) for the new party.
This has completely upended everyone’s calculations, since that kind of performance in the election would mean that Netanyahu and the Haredi parties would not come close to the 61 seats needed to form a government. There will now be a huge amount of maneuvering and dealing both before and after the election, which will make it even less likely that the parasites government ministers will be able to spend time on their actual jobs, for which they are very well paid by the citizens. It’s too early to predict, but I am hoping that this will break the deadlock and we will get a real government, instead of this “unity” government in which the various members are more interested in cutting each other’s throats and not being jailed than governing.
In other news, an Emirati billionaire has bought 50% of the Beitar Jerusalem Football [soccer] Club, which has a fan base that includes a sometimes violent anti-Arab group called “La Familia” which insults Arab players on opposing teams and has made it impossible for Arabs to play on the team (even non-Arab Muslims didn’t last). I’m making no predictions here, either.
Finally, speaking of Star Wars, a well-respected Israeli scientist who was head of Israel’s space security program for many years has published a book in which he says that aliens have a contract with the US government and an underground base on Mars, where they are working with American astronauts. According to Prof. Haim Eshed, they have not revealed themselves to us yet because “humanity is not ready.”
He got that part right.
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.
Mako reports about Ahmad Abu Halima, a 4 year old boy from Gaza whose life was saved by doctors at Schneider Hospital in Petah Tikva,
Ahmed originally came to the Israeli hospital with what appeared to be a tumor in his abdomen that was too large to remove, so he was prepared for chemotherapy. However, within a few days the child became very ill and it was found that the tumor was massively bleeding. In a series of complex operations, surgeons catheterized the many blood vessels that were connected to it while Ahmed was on a heart bypass.
Now his parents need to pay for the Ahmed's hospitalization - but the Palestinian Authority refuses to pay for any medical procedures that happen in Israel.
So the hospital set up an account for Israelis to help pay for Ahmad's medical expenses.
One would think that with all the supposed pride that Palestinians have, they would be embarrassed that Jews are paying for the medical expenses of a Palestinian. But honor is a weird thing - to Palestinian leaders, the bigger shame is to pay Israelis to help cure Palestinian kids.
It is a perverted culture.
One must wonder, though, how come none of the tens of millions of dollars that pour from European countries and NGOs to fund anti-Israel organizations can be used to help people like Ahmad Abu Halima.
Being pro-Palestinian seems to have little to do with actually caring about Palestinian lives.
(Donations can be wired to Bank Leumi Bank 10, Branch 812, Account 31789/72, Account holder: Wiesenberg in trust for Ahmad Abu Halima.)
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.
I originally wrote this for publication in a major media site, but they do not publish from pseudonyms, so here it is.
____________________________________________
On December 4, Time magazine published an article partially entitled "Here’s What You Need to Know About BDS" by Sanya Mansoor.
BDS stands for the demand to Boycott, Divest from and Sanction Israel. The Time piece pretends to be an objective look at the controversial movement to treat Israel as a pariah state, but it is a one-sided and inaccurate, reading more like a press release for the BDS movement than an informative article.
It turns out that "all you need to know" leaves out a lot of important information.
Here is an accurate description of BDS' history, goals and philosophy.
How did BDS start?
BDS advocates claim that it was started in 2005 by a group of Palestinian civil society organizations and that it is a Palestinian-led movement.
In fact, the strategy was created in 2001 during the NGO Forum of the infamous Durban Conference, the United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance - an event that was so anti-Israel and antisemitic that even the conference secretary-general, Mary Robinson, said included "horrible anti-Semitism."
The NGO Forum published a lengthy statement, of which paragraphs 424 and 425 are the blueprint for the BDS movement that would be declared four years later:
424. Call for the launch of an international anti Israeli Apartheid movement as implemented against South African Apartheid through a global solidarity campaign network of international civil society, UN bodies and agencies, business communities...
425. Call upon the international community to impose a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state as in the case of South Africa which means the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel.
However, even this was preceded and inspired by the League of Arab States boycott of Jewish-owned businesses in the Middle East that started in 1945 and is actually still in force today in Syria and Lebanon.
What are BDS' goals?
The movement claims not to care as to whether there is one state or two states in the area of what used to be British Mandate Palestine.
However, it demands the so-called "right to return" of the descendants of Palestinians displaced in the 1948 war, a right that simply doesn't exist anywhere else - there were between 10 and 20 million people displaced after World War II and no one seriously claims their descendants have the right to return to their ancestors' homes.
The so-called "right to return" has been used to keep Palestinians stateless and without protection for over seven decades. The reason, as Arab leaders have admitted candidly, is to use them as cannon fodder against Israel. It is one unyielding demand by the Palestinians - not to have the Palestinian diaspora come to build a Palestinian state but to have them "return" to Israel by the millions and ensure an Arab majority there.
In short, BDS does not and cannot accept the concept of a Jewish state. It would accept one Arab majority state or two Arab majority states, but it vehemently opposes the existence of any Jewish state - even as there are plenty of states that identify themselves as Arab states (and Muslim states) without anyone accusing them of apartheid or racism.
Is BDS antisemitic?
BDS leaders insist that they are not antisemitic. However, their demand for "return" and their refusal to accept Jewish self-determination while insisting on Palestinian self-determination shows that they are the ones who are discriminating against Jews.
Beyond that, the BDS movement and their allies in the far Left insist that Jews are held to standards that no one else is held to. Jews who wish to become leaders in feminist, LGBTQ or other causes must renounce Zionism - the right of Jews to a homeland of their own. Jews who want to become student leaders are examined to see if they support Israel's existence, and saying they do makes them suspect at best, disqualified at worst. Israeli Jews who want to speak on campus are likewise subjected to litmus tests to have the simple right to speak.
BDS says that they want the world to boycott Israeli businesses, but in fact the entire list of businesses listed by BDS groups are owned by Jews. Even though there are Arab owned businesses in Israel and in the disputed territories, only Jewish businesses are targeted.
For all practical purposes, BDS is an ant-Jewish movement. Even the German parliament recognizes this fact, and they know a thing or two about what boycotting Jewish businesses looks like.
Is BDS pro-Palestinian?
The BDS Movement claims that it follows the will of the Palestinian people, listing some 170 "civil society" organizations - many of which had only one or two people - that signed on.
Ilan Pappe, a prominent BDS supporter and critic of Israel, has suggested that the international anti-Israel NGOs created BDS and part of the fiction was to pretend that it was a Palestinian-led movement - and it is important to maintain that fiction.
The BDS movement and its leaders have very little to say about improving Palestinian lives, whether in the territories or in places like Lebanon and Syria.
It goes without saying that most Palestinians do not boycott Israeli goods themselves, including luxuries like chocolates and ice cream.
The highest-paying Palestinians work for Israelis, with an average income of double what they can make domestically according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. A significant part of the Palestinian economy is dependent on workers in Israel. BDS wants all of these people to lose their jobs with no plan on how new jobs could replace them.
In fact, when BDS pressure succeeded in getting Sodastream to move its factory from the West Bank to the Negev, hundreds of Palestinians lost their well-paying jobs. BDS leaders were happy at this "victory."
Given the assumption that Israel is not going to be destroyed in the foreseeable future, BDS advocates have a choice: work towards helping Palestinians within this reality, or working towards the destruction of Israel anyway, to the detriment of the people they claim to represent.
Invariably, BDS chooses the latter.
The BDS apathy towards actual Palestinian lives goes well beyond Israel and the territories. Palestinians in Lebanon who have lived there since the 1950s are banned, by law, from many jobs. They cannot buy land. They cannot build new housing even in overcrowded camps. Yet you would be hard pressed to find a BDS advocate that demands that Lebanon offer basic human rights protections to their Palestinian residents. On the contrary, Lebanese bigotry against Palestinians is ignored and silenced, since the BDS narrative is that Israel is the only evil that may be discussed.
Even more horribly, during the first months of the Syria civil war, Israel offered to allow Syrians of Palestinian heritage to move to the West Bank to save their lives, if only they would sign a paper saying that they forego the "right to return" to Israel proper. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas angrily rejected the offer, saying that it was better for the Syrian Palestinians to die in Syria. He didn't offer the Palestinians of Syria a choice of their own, but made their choice for them. No BDS group objected to this decision that may have contributed to the deaths of thousands.
Does BDS support peace?
BDS advocates are emphatically against any peace initiatives that treat Israeli Jews as human beings. They denounce anyone who participates in peace initiatives, whether it is bereaved Israeli and Palestinian mothers speaking to each other or sports programs for Palestinian and Israeli youth.
The Muslim Leadership Initiative, which allows Muslims to learn Israel's point of view, had its participants boycotted by the BDS leaders.
Their intransigence extends even beyond that. When popular artists decide to perform in Israel, while the official BDS movement doesn't support threats, the effect is the same - some artists are bullied into canceling their shows, and the BDS movement celebrates these as victories.
Do American Jews support BDS?
BDS advocates claim that they have dozens of Jewish progressive organizations on their side, and use them as proof that they are not antisemitic. Yet every poll shows that the number of anti-Zionist Jews is minuscule in the US.
A 2018 Mellman poll of Jewish voters found that while plenty of Jewish Americans had plenty of criticisms of Israel, only 3% of them self-identified as "generally not pro-Israel." Although the question wasn't asked of that minority, but many or most of that 3% would not identify as an actively anti-Zionist subset. It can be assumed that only those very few who self-identify as anti-Zionist would wholeheartedly support BDS.
So while anti-Zionist Jewish groups like "Jewish Voice for Peace" and "IfNotNow" manage to get a large amount of press relative to their actual numbers, they are on the fringes of US Jewish life today, and their influence among Jews is similar to the all-but-forgotten anti-Zionist "American Council for Judaism," an anti-Zionist group that likewise gained publicity but very few adherents in the 1950s.
Is BDS successful?
By the standards of actually harming Israel economically or diplomatically, the answer it clearly no. Israel's economic growth is the envy of the world and it has relations with more nations than ever before. Only in the UN is Israel still somewhat of a pariah.
Yet using the yardstick of whether BDS has managed to demonize Israel in the eyes of the world since 2001, the answer is certainly yes. After all, this very Time magazine article quoted BDS leaders, without comment, saying flatly that Israel is a racist and apartheid state - an absurd statement given that some 20% of Israeli citizens are non-Jews, mostly Arabs, and they have equal rights under the law and enjoy more freedom than anyone living under Arab rule. When major media parrots false or contested BDS claims as facts not worth checking, it shows huge inroads in BDS attempts to brainwash the world to hate Israel, especially youth.
Ironically, it is the same Arab world which started the idea of boycotting Jews in Israel to begin with that is the biggest threat to BDS today. Israel's treaties with the UAE and Bahrain, along with unofficial ties with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states, has hurt BDS and its claims of being the only solution. Emiratis walking around Tel Aviv and enjoying the company of Zionist Jews - while still working to help Palestinians - reveal a model of peace and prosperity that is transforming the Middle East, a model where BDS is not only irrelevant but positively backwards.
BDS is not progressive, it does not support peace, and it is increasingly aligned only with Iran and its allies. This is the truth about BDS that its adherents don't want the world to know.
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.
The repulsive "Jewish Voice for Peace" tweeted this celebration of the anniversary of the first intifada:
The poster, proudly made by a JVP member, equates Jewish heroes during the Holocaust with bloodthirsty terrorists who killed 277 Israelis during that time - and has the unmitigated gall to call the murderous riots the "L'Chaim Intifada."
There are no words for how disgusting these so-called Jews are. They are spitting on the graves on Holocaust victims while praising those who want to complete the Nazi genocide.
Beyond that, during the first intifada nearly a thousand Palestinians were killed by other Palestinians - often after being accused of "collaboration." In fact, less than half of them had any contact with Israel, meaning that Palestinians would label their own enemies as "collaborators" to get them executed.
So not only does Jewish Voice for Peace not care about Jewish lives, but they don't give a damn about Palestinian lives either. They are an immoral organization. Anyone who gives them the slightest bit of respect is giving credit to those who celebrate murder and terrorism.
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 group of 122 Palestinian academics, journalists, writers and filmmakers signed a letter last month taking issue with the widespread adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA)’s definition of anti-Semitism. Their statement has gotten a lot of attention and been rightly criticized as both disingenuous and illegitimate since it is absurd for a group that is the object of prejudice, as is the case with the Jews, to be denied the right to define the hatred that is directed at them.
But as much as the Palestinian protest against the IHRA declaration is deserving of scorn, it should not be our primary focus of concern in this controversy. The real problem is not the unsurprising fact that a cause that has become the main engine driving anti-Semitism would seek to redefine it so as to make their hate seem more legitimate. Rather, it is the willingness of so many Jews, including those who have labeled themselves as “liberal Zionists,” to support their objections and to undermine the growing international support for the IHRA definition.
Groups like Americans for Peace Now and the New Israel Fund are now weighing in against adoption of the definition. That has made it clear that the line between groups that were heretofore deeply critical of Israel but still avowedly Zionist and those that are open about their opposition to Israel’s existence and, as in the case of Jewish Voice for Peace, guilty of themselves spreading anti-Semitism has become completely blurred. In doing so, these groups aren’t merely expressing criticism of Israeli policies or society, but materially aiding an anti-Semitic cause that targets the sole Jewish state on the planet for elimination, in addition to subjecting Jews who speak up for Zionism to anti-Semitic slanders and attacks.
The IHRA’s definition has become a rallying point in the effort to roll back the rising tide of Jew-hatred that has swept across the globe in recent years. The definition has been a useful tool to combat anti-Semitism because it focuses the discussion on actual examples of prejudicial conduct and discourse. In doing so, it allows communities to avoid being sidetracked by the attempts of anti-Semites to distract from what they are doing by uttering meaningless platitudes about the subject, whose only purpose is to allow them to continue propagating hate while not being held responsible for their conduct. Simply put, the IHRA definition correctly labels those who want to discriminate against Jews in a way that they would never think of treating anyone else—as is true of all anti-Zionists—as anti-Semites. That the United States and many other governments have officially adopted it is an encouraging sign that a coalition of decent people of all faiths will stand up against this hate.
As the exhibition describes, Jewish resistance also reached deep into the heart of the Reich itself. It recounts the tragic story of the Baum group. Founded by Herbert Baum along with his wife and friends in the 1930s, it eventually grew to over 100 members in 1940; many, like Baum himself, were young Jewish forced laborers.
The group’s activities — which included distributing leaflets highlighting the atrocities committed by their fellow Germans in the East — were perilous. But an arson attack on May 18, 1942, which targeted “Soviet Paradise,” an anti-Semitic and anti-communist exhibition staged by the Nazis in Berlin, led to the arrest of many of the group’s members. Baum was murdered in prison in June 1942 and other members of the organization were executed that summer.
But, for the organizers of “Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust,” remembering the heroism and sacrifice of Baum and his comrades — together with the countless other Jews who resisted the Nazis — is not simply about finally telling a story which has remained untold for too long. It is also a matter of setting straight the historical record.
“It’s important to challenge this myth about Jews not resisting, which perhaps was an attitude that was held quite widely [at one time] and maybe some people still have that view today,” says Warnock.
“There were so many examples of resistance in the most extreme and difficult circumstances, and this research and exhibition show that whenever they had the chance to, people resisted in some way or another,” she says.
Rabinovich recounts how innovative Israeli naval officers developed the concept of the missile boat with approval from the Ministry of Defense (primarily Shimon Peres) and harnessed modest resources to complete the project. Israel's defense establishment helped the navy procure the necessary equipment from abroad, and finally, smuggled the boats from Cherbourg to Israel despite a French embargo.
In 1960, opposing larger and better equipped navies, including Soviet destroyers and missile boats, Israel's naval command faced immense challenges. Neither the required missiles nor suitable boats existed in Western arsenals. So the Israelis developed a weapons system indigenously. The German government feared repercussions from Arab governments and refused to build a revised version of the Jaguar fast-attack craft for the Israelis. Instead, Israeli naval engineers modified the German design and moved construction to a French shipyard in Cherbourg. The Gabriel missile was developed for use with these boats.
Rabinovich describes how once the technological challenges were met, Israel's naval officers developed battle tactics to accommodate the new weapons system and trained for a variety of scenarios. They achieved optimal readiness only a few months before the 1973 war. Syrian and Egyptian boats outnumbered their Israeli counterparts by more than two to one, and their missiles had more than twice the range of the Gabriel. Nevertheless, the Israeli missile boat flotilla came through the war with no losses while sinking almost every Arab ship it encountered.
The knowledge gained building the Saar class Cherbourg boats was essential for construction of the Haifa shipyards, which later produced larger vessels. Similarly, the flourishing Israeli radar industry benefited from the Saar project.
Despite several sections not relevant to the boat-missile project, this is a fascinating and accessible book most suitable for lay readers and analysts interested in how military innovation occurs, as well as for followers of the doctrinal and technological evolution of the Israel Defense Forces.
Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution wrote an article there that attempts to explain "Pay for Slay." All it really does it attempt to obfuscate the issue that a significant part of the Palestinian budget goes to pay prisoners and families of those killed while trying to kill Jews.
But, what obfuscation!
Let’s start with the facts. Whatever one says about the PA and its president, Mahmoud Abbas — including its governance shortcomings, divisions, and political paralysis — Palestinian policing and security coordination with Israel have been an essential and highly successful element of Israeli security for years.
Irrelevant.
Abbas himself has consistently opposed violent resistance, including opposing the Palestinian embrace of the second intifada, the uprising that followed the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2000.
Hmm.
Pay for Slay shows how important the concept of violent, armed resistance is to Palestinian honor, even if it is not officially supported for tactical reasons today.
Punishment aside, one would have to assume that Palestinians are unlike other people in being able to ignore not only the personal risk of being killed or jailed, but also the emotional devastation and disruption that [home demolitions] would cause to the lives of their loved ones, simply for the promise of monetary stipends for the family.
It isn't that hard: knowing that they would not need a breadwinner if they get killed is a pretty clear incentive that overrides the chance of losing a home - temporarily, since the Palestinians build new homes for them quickly.
The context for the broad support among Palestinians for those imprisoned by Israel is that they see most of those jailed as victims and resisters of an illegal occupation.
How does that justify the practice?
Thus, Palestinian attitudes toward the prisoner family payment system have to be understood through the lens of their lived experiences. Under occupation, Palestinians have few protections from violence carried out by Israeli settlers or soldiers. According to the Israeli group Yesh Din, between 2005 and 2019 over 90% of cases of crimes against Palestinians were closed without any indictments.
How does that justify the practice?
In this context — with universal mistrust of the Israeli occupation system — there is strong public support among Palestinians for prisoners and their families.
How does that justify the practice?
The PA has also argued that if innocent families of those imprisoned or killed are left without support, more would be radicalized, increasing rather than decreasing the likelihood of violence.
An argument with no merit whatsoever, no studies to back it up.
In the end, Telhami gives not one reason why the PA should pay terrorist families outside of it being a popular program.
And its popularity is in fact the problem.
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.
James Zogby writes a truly insidious piece that was published in Responsible Statecraft where he claims that Palestinian voices are being "canceled" by Zionists.
While it is shameful for the US State Department to consistently ignore Israel’s systematic violations of Palestinian human rights, it is beyond shameful to now seek to call Palestinians and their supporters anti-Semites for speaking out against these violations or calling for a non-violent boycott.
This is a violation of Palestinian human rights – the right to freely speak out and to act against injustice. But then, if the US officials in question can only see Israeli humanity and do not see Palestinians or Arabs as full human beings, then it follows that Palestinian rights should be subordinated to the concern that Israel be protected from criticism.
Who is being silenced? Somehow Zogby got this piece published without anyone "silencing" him.
No one is saying that one cannot advocate for Palestinian rights, as Zogby shamefully claims. Absolutely no one says that being pro-Palestinian is antisemitic.
The issue is when that advocacy crosses into antisemitism. When Israel and Zionism is demonized beyond any possible crimes, when Israel is the only nation whose very existence is called into question, when the Jewish people are called a mere religion and not a nation, when the concept of a Jewish state is considered "racist" but not an Arab state - that is when criticism of Israel crosses the line into antisemitism.
No one is trying to silence pro-Palestinian voices. But articles like this are meant to silence Jews who are calling out antisemitism.
When Baruch Goldstein, an extremist Israeli settler, massacred 29 Palestinian worshipers in a mosque in Hebron, the Washington Post carried a feature article asking the question – “What happened to drive this Jewish doctor to do what he did?” There was no mention of the Palestinian victims. Nor were there interviews with the victims’ families or those who survived the mass murder. Goldstein, a troubled man, was the subject of the story. His victims were mere objects – an abstract body count, a number to be noted and then dismissed.
But when a 20-year-old Palestinian American attempted to understand why a young Palestinian would be in such despair that he would commit suicide in an act of terror, she is condemned today. She was no more justifying the Palestinian’s act than the Washington Post was justifying Goldstein’s. Her’s was an effort to understand what could have led any young person to commit such an atrocity. That this involved speaking about a Palestinian as a person, albeit one who was deeply disturbed, was deemed unpardonable.
This is sick. Goldstein was condemned across the board by Israelis and Jews worldwide, while a majority of Palestinians support specific terror attacks against Jews. Goldstein was an outlier - a doctor - which is what made his actions so hard to understand, while there have been hundreds of Palestinian attacks against Jews and the terrorists are celebrated. Finally, the woman he is referring to was indeed justifying terror, and the Washington Post was not.
To go from this to seeing all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic not only strains logic, it distorts the meaning of the word. It is also a crude effort to shield Israel from criticism, while at the same time rendering people powerless to oppose the crimes Israel commits daily against the Palestinian people.
No one says all criticism of Israel is antisemitic. And Zogby knows it, as he shows:
To rebut this charge, advocates of this expansion of the definition of anti-Semitism say that they will allow for “legitimate criticism.” What concerns them, they say, are critics who focus exclusively on Israel or those whose criticism is “excessive.”
He made this up. The IHRA definition doesn't use the imprecise word "excessive." It says that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. " Zogby knows this and ignores it to make his argument:
Using that same logic, would we say that human rights advocates should be seen as Sinophobes because they criticize China’s oppression of Uighurs or its oppressive behavior in Hong Kong? Or does one become a Russophobe because they oppose Russian aggression in Ukraine or its threatening behavior toward its Western neighbors? Or is it anti-Arab if someone criticizes the domestic or foreign policies of Arab governments?
Zogby makes up a straw man of "excessive criticism" and then says that criticism of Israel that is called antisemitic is exactly like criticism of Russia, China or Arab nations. But that is completely false - such criticism is not antisemitic by anyone's definition.
Zogby is knowingly lying about the IHRA definition in order to silence Jews who call out antisemitism from the Left and from Arabs - exactly what he accuses Jews of doing.
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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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