Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, January 22, 2021

Islamic Jihad - which supports suicide bombers - denounces suicide bombers in Iraq

The Islamic Jihad terror group "strongly condemned " the double suicide bombing that targeted a popular market yesterday, Thursday, in Tayaran Square in Baghdad, killing at least 32 people.

The terror group offered its sincere condolences and sympathy to Iraq, and to the families of the victims and the wounded.

This is the same group that is proudly behind dozens of similar suicide bombings in Israel, including the Maxim restaurant bombing in 2003, killing 21.

It is also the same group that pioneered double suicide bombings, as they are celebrating the anniversary of the Beit Lid massacre from 1995 today.

Evidently, when the targets are Jews, suicide bombings are something to be celebrated, not condemned. And this is not only Islamic Jihad's thinking, but mainstream Palestinian thinking.

Hespress, one of Morocco's leading news media outlets, has (as of this writing) a front page article about a Moroccan citizen singing Hatikva on top of the mountains near Tetouan.

The video was posted by the Israel in Arabic page. It shows a young man lip-syncing Hatikva in the mountains.

النشيد الوطني الإسرائيلي من جبال مدينة تطوان بالمغرب. فيديو أرسله مواطن مغربي. ما أجمل السلام 🇲🇦🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/WzlTN5OOBN
— إسرائيل بالعربية (@IsraelArabic) January 21, 2021

The tweet says that a Moroccan, presumably the same man, sent this video to them.

On Thursday, Israel and Morocco signed an agreement for direct flights between the two.

On Thursday, thousands of activists in Pakistan who belong to opposition Islamist parties, led by the Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Islam (JUI-F) party, held an "Israel Unacceptable" rally.

Speeches included explicit antisemitism.

Chief of JUI-F, Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Thursday asked President Joe Biden to revert the capital of Israel from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.

While he seemed semi-moderate for an extremist Muslim when he said that the recognition of Israel is unacceptable to the people of Pakistan without the establishment of a Palestinian state. At the same time, the rally welcomed a video address from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who would never recognize Israel.

Haniyeh said that Muslims will never recognize the Zionist state and called the Zionist state "illegal."

Mehmood Khan Achakzai, chief of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, said that Jews faced persecutions all across Europe and were expelled from Poland, England, Germany, and Spain, but acted like their oppressors to Palestinians. He said that Jews inflicted bloodshed on Palestinians and expelled them from the holy land.

He added that Pashtuns respect all religions.

Prisoners in Israel receive vaccine - including Palestinians. Also, PA coordinating with Israel to bring in the Russian vaccine.

Rotter reports that the vaccination program for Israeli prisoners has finished, only three days after it started.

73% of prisoners chose to receive the vaccine. I don't know what percentage of the Arab prisoners chose to.

22 female terrorists in the Damon prison received the vaccines, and 14 refused. Palestinian media also listed vaccines distributed to several other prisons.

The entire plan required cooperation of the Israel Prison Service, Magen Dovid Adom, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Public Health.

Meanwhile, Israel is coordinating with the Palestinian Authority to import 5000 of the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine doses next week, and 100,000 more in the middle of February. Those vaccines will be brought on Russian planes landing in Israel.

Also, Israel coordinated the delivery of hundreds of vaccines to Gaza tonight.

This is all exactly in line with what the Geneva Conventions require for lands under occupation, even though Israel does not accept that definition.

All the newspaper and NGOs and members of Congress that say otherwise are lying. And they know it.

(h/t iTi)

01/21 Links Pt2: Douglas J. Feith: Why I’m a Zionist; Describing Jews as ‘Privileged,’ Ethnic Studies Curriculum Sparks Backlash; Yom Kippur War deliberations declassified

From Ian:

Douglas J. Feith: Why I’m a Zionist

There are negative reasons to be a Zionist - that the Jews need a state because they need a refuge. That argument launched the Zionist movement in the 19th century and it remains valid to this day.

There are also affirmative reasons that relate to Jewish civilization. They boil down to the conviction that Jewish culture is an invaluable inheritance that only in the Land of Israel, in a state with a Jewish majority, can be developed fully and perpetuated reliably. As an adult, I came to appreciate the positive reasons to be a Zionist.

To be a Zionist is to revel in the ways Israel has integrated Jewish principles and traditions into the daily life of a large, modern, democratic society. Israel is where Jewish collective interests prevail, so they enjoy the dignity of self-reliance and self-defense. Hebrew is the main language. Jewish history inspires the geographical names. Jewish subjects have a special place in the schools. The Jewish religious calendar influences the rhythm of life.

In general, the American political tradition is averse to official privileges for particular ethnicities or faiths. But the way Americans practice democracy is not the only way. Most liberal, democratic countries were founded on an ethnic basis. Most give special consideration to the majority population's cultural interests.

CAMERA Op-Ed A Historian Who Forgets History

More than 100 years ago, George Santayana famously intoned that “those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” The Spanish philosopher’s warning has often been repeated. Regrettably, it is often ignored, including by many historians.

Avi Shlaim provides the latest example. In a Dec. 22 op-ed in Foreign Policy magazine titled, “If Biden Wants Israeli-Palestinian Peace, He Must Break with the Past,” Shlaim seeks to provide the incoming U.S. administration with advice on how to “achieve in the Middle East.” The Oxford University professor emeritus has even found the culprit for the lack of Israeli-Palestinian peace.

“The basic flaw in the U.S. approach to Middle East peacemaking since 1967,” he claims, is “the unconditional nature of its economic, military and diplomatic support for Israel.” He elaborates, saying “the United States has posed as an honest broker, but in practice, it has acted more as Israel’s lawyer. This has made its policy for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict incoherent, contradictory and self-defeating.” The United States, asserts Shlaim, has held a “monopoly” over peacemaking efforts and has failed “because it was unable or unwilling to use its massive leverage to push Israel into a final-status agreement.”

The implication is clear: Israel at fault for the lack of a permanent peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. And America shares the blame for its supposedly uncritical support of the Jewish state.

The solution, Shlaim tells Foreign Policy readers, is for the United States to “impose penalties for Israeli intransigence.” The United States should encourage Israel to adopt the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, and should it refuse, the Jewish state should be deprived of aid. That proposal, writes Shlaim, would have provided the Palestinians with an independent state on the Gaza Strip and a capital city in eastern Jerusalem.

But Shlaim’s recommended strategy is based on a selective reading of history.

Indeed, his commentary is replete with omissions and misrepresentations.

In fact, Palestinian leaders have been presented with numerous opportunities for statehood, and they alone are responsible for refusing them. In 1937 and 1947, Palestinian Arabs rejected British and U.N. proposals for statehood—proposals that were accepted by the Zionists.

WaPo, ABC, CBS Run with AP Piece Denouncing Israel’s Defense Against ‘Apartheid’ Smear

Major news organizations, including The Washington Post, ABC News and CBS News reprinted an Associated Press (AP) article that incorrectly portrayed as undemocratic a move by Israel’s education minister to bar members of B’Tselem from giving presentations or conducting other activities in publicly-funded schools. The decision was made after the controversial group, which supports the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, published a report in which it accused the Jewish state of being an “apartheid regime.”

Lost in the mix, however, is that the Israeli government has not banned B’Tselem from assuming any position; rather, Jerusalem has determined, in accordance with the law, that state-funded schools are not appropriate vehicles through which to slander Israel.

Apartheid: Not Part of the Israeli School Curriculum
When announcing the decision, Education Minister Yoav Gallant said that organizations like B’Tselem “contradict the goals of the education system, including calling Israel false disparaging names, opposing Israel as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state, discouraging meaningful service in the IDF, or acting to harm or degrade IDF soldiers during or after their service.”

Yet, the AP story casts doubt on the legitimacy of the move by Israel’s democratically-elected government by quoting a representative of Adalah, another pro-BDS organization that is innocuously described as an “Arab legal rights group:”
Adalah said it had appealed to the country’s attorney general to cancel Galant’s directive, saying it was made without the proper authority and that it was intended to “silence legitimate voices.”

In reality, the Israeli parliament in 2018 passed legislation authorizing the education minister to prevent members of groups that “act against the goals of education and against the IDF from entering schools.” The law was intended to curb organizations from fanning flames of hatred against Israel through the promotion of the BDS movement’s annihilationist agenda.

This critical fact is, by happenstance, mentioned in the AP article — buried in the ninth paragraph below the Adalah quote — but thereafter includes this modifier: “It was not clear if Galant’s decree was rooted in the 2018 law.”

Yes, it was.

B'tselem's Struggle For Relevance Continues To End In Failure (Daled Amos)

B'tselem's accusation of Israeli Apartheid has been a long time coming, after cynical comment made by their then-CEO Jessica Montell in a 2003 interview:

I think the word apartheid is useful for mobilizing people because of its emotional power

She noted approvingly how Palestinian Arabs called Israel's security barrier the 'Apartheid Wall'.

Such cynicism appears widespread within B'tselem --

1.) In 2019, B'tselem hired Simone Zimmerman to be their US director. Zimmerman is one of the founders of IfNotNow, a group that avoids addressing the right of Israel to even exist:

We do not take a unified stance on BDS, Zionism or the question of statehood.

In 2016, Zimmerman was let go from her position as Jewish outreach director for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign for a curse-laden attack on Netanyahu that she posted on Facebook.

B'tselem apparently thought that made her a good fit with their other employees --

2.) B'tselem's International Advocacy Officer, Sarit Michaeli responded to an article in Ha’aretz about a Palestinian psychologist who said that more than a third of the children in a Gazan refugee camp had been sexually abused -- tweeting that it was Israel's fault:

3.) In 2014, journalist Tuvia Tenenbom published his popular book, “Catch the Jew.” In it, he writes about a conversation with B’Tselem researcher Atef Abu Rub, who was serving as a guide to his group at Yad Vashem and told Tenenbom that the Holocaust was a "lie, I do not believe it."

B'tselem originally defended Abu Rub, who claimed the comment was made by a third party. In the end, however, B'tselem fired Abu Rub.

4.) In 2011, a B'tselem photographer, Nariman al-Tamimi providing video supposedly showing Israeli police arresting an 11-year-old Palestinian boy for stone-throwing, and deliberately putting him into a police car without his mother.

In fact, Nariman al-Tamimi staged the scene:

Yet, a careful viewing of the clip (with Hebrew and Arabic dialogue) reveals that the exact opposite was the case; the policemen invited the mother to accompany her child. At 2:07 minutes into the video, one of the policemen says to the mother, “Come, come, get in.” The cop then asks one of the people standing nearby, “Is that his mother?” When the bystander answers in the affirmative, the policeman repeats, “Get in with him” (the boy). The door is opened for her and she is about to get into the vehicle, as the policemen are saying “get into the car,” but then (2:27) the mother is pulled away from the car by the Palestinian man wearing a black jacket. After the policemen closes the van’s door, a woman wearing a pink shirt pushes the mother towards the vehicle, and then the mother bangs on the door, a heartrending scene.

5.) In April 2010, B'tselem staff member Lizi Sagie resigned under pressure for statements she made on her personal blog -- including: “The IDF Memorial Day is a pornographic circus of glorifying grief and silencing voices,” “Israel is committing Humanity’s worst atrocities…Israel is proving its devotion to Nazi values…Israel exploits the Holocaust to reap international benefits.”

6.) On January 8, 2016, the Israeli investigative news program “Uvda” (Fact) reported that B’Tselem employee Nasser Nawaja conspired with Ezra Nawi, a radical activist from the NGO “Ta’ayush,” to entrap a Palestinian man who was interested in selling land to Jews in the West Bank. They did this knowing that the sale was illegal according to Palestinian law and was punishable by death, not to mention the torture that would be likely to precede it.

B'tselem's response?

Responding to the piece with a statement on its Facebook page, B’Tselem said that while it opposed tortures and executions, reporting Palestinians interested in selling land to Israelis to the PA was “the only legitimate course of action.”

When they defended Nasser Nawaja on their Facebook page, B'tselem added a picture describing Uvdah as "Uvdah For Hire"

That is an interesting accusation, considering that B'tselem gets most of its funding from outside of Israel.

NGO Monitor reports that for the years 2012-2019, B'tselem donors include: European Union, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the US, and Germany -- and according to annual reports, donations from foreign countries amounted to 64.7% of total donations from 2012-2016.

And there is a reason that most of B'tselem's funding comes from outside Israel.

Writing in 2016, Shmuel Rosner writes in the context of the above-mentioned Uvda report about the B'tselem employee who helped entrap a Palestinian Arab, noting that "B’Tselem is an organization that many Israelis dislike, and they have reasons to dislike it."

Rosner explains:

Why do human rights activists turn to such immoral methods? Many of them do it because of anger and because of fear. They are angry at a country that refuses to accept their political recipe for Israel. They fear that their activity of many years will be in vain as the country moves in a direction they disagree with.

The angrier they become, the more apprehensive they become – the more they lose their inhibitions. Thus they turn to immoral methods, they turn to other countries to look for the support they cannot get among Israelis, and they turn to language that makes Israel a caricature – a fascist state, an apartheid state, a villain among nations. They say that they act out of love of Israel – and some of them certainly do – but with time and frustration some are made hateful. And hate makes them lose the ability to separate right from wrong, acceptable from unacceptable, useful from not-useful.

Speaking of the name-calling by human rights activists -- and by B'tselem in particular -- B'tselem recently came out with a report fulfilling Montell's admiration for the usefulness of the word Apartheid "for mobilizing people because of its emotional power."

The media jumped at the opportunity to spread the word about the report, with some describing B'tselem as a "leading human rights organization" -- just the shot in the arm B'tselem needed.

But CAMERA's Tamar Sternhal asks the nagging question: Is B'Tselem Israel's 'leading human rights organization'?

Progress in improving human r.ights in Israel and the West Bank is a legal battle waged in the Knesset and the courts, and in recent years B’Tselem has zero presence, activity and accomplishments in these areas. Tellingly, B’Tselem’s 2019 Activity Report mentions no action taken in the Knesset or courts...On the international level of advancing human rights, the battle is waged at the United Nations Council on Human Rights in Geneva, and B’Tselem is absent from that key venue as well.

What's left?

Social media.

That will certainly keep B'tselem in the news -- but those foreign governments may not necessarily feel they are getting their money's worth.

If those foreign governments are really interested in change, they might be better served supporting the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Worker's Hotline. Sternthal lists their activities -- and accomplishments.

The reason for their success might have something to do with the fact that they actually have lawyers among their staff.

B'tselem does not.

The media may have noticed the incongruity of non-lawyers weighing in on the legal definition of Apartheid.

The Seventh Eye reported that while the Israeli media did have stories on the recent B'tselem report, it was covered in English -- not in the Hebrew papers.

It quoted B'tselem's Roy Yellin, who asked Haaretz why they covered B'tselem's Apartheid report in English, but not in Hebrew:

Apparently, B'tselem's attempt to have a any impact inside Israel continues to end in failure.

Will their foreign investors notice?

I Think The Other Hamas Fighters Trapped In This Collapsed Tunnel Are Closer Than 2 Meters (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

I Think The Other Hamas Fighters Trapped In This Collapsed Tunnel Are Closer Than 2 Meters

by Hussein Halabi, Hamas commando

rubble Somewhere underground near the fence between the Gaza Strip and southern Israel, January 21 - Oh God. I think both of my legs are broken. And several ribs. And I can't feel my left arm. There's so little air in here, and it's dark. We were on our way across the border to wreak havoc among the Zionists, but then we heard a rumble and everything came tumbling down. And I think some of my comrades are half-crushed right near me in a non-socially-distanced manner!

This can't be good. No one can hear me, and it hurts to yell - I think that's my broken ribs. I don't hear anyone else, but maybe that's just my ears still malfunctioning after the loud crunch... I don't know. I'm really concerned I could get COVID my being so close to someone carrying the virus by spending all this time cooped up together with them in a confined space. If I don't suffocate or dehydrate and I end up surviving this, I could be in big trouble.

Oh, God, every part of me hurts. There's blood on my head from somewhere, probably a gash. My face feels like it's been battered in a boxing ring. I probably have dozens of cuts that will get infected from all the dirt getting in, but what concerns me most is possibly being near my buddies, one of whom might be a coronavirus vector. It can't be good to be stuck down here with that risk. My mask got torn off in the tunnel collapse and there's no way I can even dig to find it, let alone hope it's in any shape to be used; my guess is the same thing happened to the other seven guys, assuming any of them are still alive, meaning they could be breathing a viral load out into this enclosed area and I've got no choice but to inhale.

I've been so careful! I was always so considerate of the people around me. When we launched incendiary balloons at the Jews I always made sure to social distance. When we launched rockets at their school and hospitals I made sure my mask was always on. Same as when we came down this passage, both during practice runs and this, the real thing. And now, just my luck, I'm going to breathe in the pathogen and contract the disease. After all that preventive behavior. I call B.S.

Wait, is that light someone coming to rescue us? It seems to be drawing me closer... Whoever that is, keep your distance, I don't want to infect you...

01/21 Links Pt1: Michael Oren: The Case Against the Iran Deal; American values are incompatible with funding UNRWA and the PA

From Ian:

Michael Oren: The Case Against the Iran Deal

The JCPOA allowed Iran to both maintain its nuclear program and revitalize its economy. Biden must make clear to Tehran that it can have one or the other, but not both. Tragically, spokespeople for the new administration are proposing to return to the JCPOA and lift sanctions, and only afterward negotiate a longer, stronger deal. Such a course has no chance of success. Even a partial lifting of sanctions would forfeit any leverage that could compel the regime to negotiate a deal that genuinely removes the danger of a nuclear Iran. At best, the regime will agree to cosmetic changes—for example, extending the sunset clauses—but not to dismantling its nuclear infrastructure. A fatally flawed deal would remain essentially intact.

The Biden administration must resist pressure from members of Congress and others who are urging an unconditional return to the JCPOA. Even the deal’s fervent supporters need to recognize that its fundamental assumptions—that Iran had abandoned its quest for a military nuclear option and would moderate its behavior—have been thoroughly disproved.

At the same time, America must consult its Middle East allies about what they think a better deal would look like. Such a deal would verifiably and permanently remove Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons. This means not merely mothballing the nuclear infrastructure, but eliminating it. It means empowering international inspectors with unlimited and immediate access to any suspect enrichment or weaponization site. It means maintaining economic and diplomatic pressure on the regime until it truly comes clean about its undeclared nuclear activities and ceases to develop missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. A better deal will deny Iran the ability to commit the violations it is now committing with impunity.

Achieving these objectives will require close and candid cooperation among the United States, Israel, and concerned Arab states. Such cooperation was not possible in the negotiations leading up to the JCPOA, which America initially conducted behind the backs of its Middle Eastern partners. In the final stages, U.S. officials misled their Israeli and Arab counterparts about America’s negotiating positions. This displayed not only bad faith, but a patronizing presumption of knowing the vital security interests of the countries most threatened by Iran better than they knew those interests themselves.

The incoming administration has declared its determination to restore the trust of America’s allies, along with promoting peace and human rights. But those objectives are incompatible with renewing a deal that betrayed America’s allies, strengthened one of the world’s most repressive regimes, and empowered the Middle Eastern state most opposed to peace.

The JCPOA is also incompatible with President Biden’s long-standing commitment to Israel’s security. At a 2015 gathering celebrating Israel’s independence, then–Vice President Biden said: “Israel is absolutely essential—absolutely essential—[for the] security of Jews around the world … Imagine what it would say about humanity and the future of the 21st century if Israel were not sustained, vibrant and free.”

Reviving the JCPOA will endanger that vision, ensuring the emergence of a nuclear Iran or a desperate war to stop it. Biden is a proven friend who has shared Israel’s hopes and fears. He must prevent that nightmare.

JINSA (PodCast): After the Abraham Accords: Relocating Israel to CENTCOM’s AOR

The recent Abraham Accords have solidified a growing anti-Iran coalition in the Middle East, and the latest decision to move Israel to CENTCOM’s Area of Responsibility reflects and reinforces this changing dynamic within the region. Jonathan Ruhe, Director of Foreign Policy at JINSA’s Gemunder Center, joins Erielle to discuss the importance of this relocation, the reasoning behind the decision, and what we might expect from future administrations when it comes to Israel’s role within CENTCOM.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Victims of an Arab Country

Like most Arab countries, Syria denies citizenship to Palestinians. Children born in Syria to fathers who are Palestinian nationals are considered Palestinians, not Syrian nationals.

Palestinian leaders see no evil or wrong-doing when their people are being killed, injured, displaced, arrested and tortured in an Arab country. The attention of these leaders is solely focused on Israel, which they denounce day and night not only for what it does, but also for what it does not do.

On January 9, Abbas entered the 17th year of his four-year term. He is again talking about his desire to hold new elections. This charade is played at least once or twice a year so that people will believe that he really wants elections.

The Palestinians do not need new elections. They need new leaders who will guide them out from their longstanding morass into a future of promise and peace.

PMW: American values are incompatible with funding UNRWA and the PA - watch lecture by Itamar Marcus

Itamar Marcus explains why funding UNRWA is the international communities’ worst investment ever: ‎because “UNRWA is just growing refugees,” in his recent webinar/lecture to the DC-based EMET ‎organization. ‎

During the 12 years of the last two American administrations, Palestinian refugees have grown by a ‎million from 4.6 million - 5.6 million, according to reports by UNWRA. Billions of American dollars during ‎this period were invested – presumably to solve the refugee problem – but instead UNRWA used the ‎money to literally increase the refugee problem. ‎

Funding of UNRWA should be conditional upon saving 300,000 people a year by removing them from ‎refugee lists and giving them a life and a future. Instead, UNRWA abuses nearly 100,000 additional ‎people each year, by condemning them to be refugees. Funding UNRWA is supporting the abuse of ‎human beings for political purposes.‎

Funding the PA likewise contradicts fundamental American values. The PA uses its money to reward ‎terrorists, glorify terrorists, fund terror organizations, disseminate vicious Antisemitism, celebrate the ‎murder of Israelis and Jews, and deny Israel’s right to exist. ‎

There is no logical reason why any US administration would want to support entities so diametrically ‎opposed to American values.‎

We are only three weeks into 2021. Here's a survey of the antisemitism this year that the socialist Left wants you to ignore.

IfNotNow put up a petition to President Biden demanding that the new envoy to fight antisemitism only attacks right-wing antisemitism - and ignores all others.

The email that it generates says:

Pick a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism who will be committed to fighting neo-Nazis and white nationalists, not Palestinians and students.

Your Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism must be someone who will be a true leader of this larger effort in building long-term structures that can fight and dismantle the far-right and create a multiracial democracy so that everyone in our country can move forward together.

Of course, IfNotNow and the Jewish socialist Left condone and enable antisemitism. They not only ignore most types of antisemitism, but they use far-Right antisemitism as an excuse to attack their fellow Jews who are politically conservative.

And there is plenty of antisemitism that these groups don't want any US antisemitism envoy to battle. Here are some examples from the new year.

One which happened north of the border was the defacement of a Montreal synagogue this month with swastikas.

While it looks at first glance to be a far right crime, in fact the suspect, Adam Riga, is a left-wing BDS supporter who signed a petition against Concordia University hosting an exhibit about Israeli architecture.

It isn't a surprise that a leftist antisemite would deface a synagogue with swastikas., After all, he can claim not that he is promoting Nazism but pointing out how Zionists are Nazis, which is a perfectly valid form of expression to those who fight against the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.

The incessant attacks on Israel by the Left also attracts and emboldens more traditional antisemites.

People who actually care about antisemitism would be careful that their words don' t foment hate. That never happens on the far Left.

In Portland, three restaurants that serve Middle Eastern food were vandalized last week with graffiti accusing them of stealing cuisine.

The restaurants used to say they served Israeli street food but dropped that months ago. Even if they were proudly serving food they call Israeli, it is still clear that attacking a small business based on its cuisine is a hate crime. Imagine attacking Chinese restaurants because of China's human rights abuses.

IfNotNow and other Jewish socialists are silent for these attacks because they agree with the politics of the vandals.

Of course, the biggest antisemitic meme of the month was the libel that Israeli Jews are racists who are deliberately withholding vaccines from Palestinians. Rashida Tlaib said, "I think it’s really important to understand Israel is a racist state and that they would deny Palestinians, like my grandmother, access to a vaccine, that they don’t believe that she’s an equal human being that deserves to live, deserves to be able to be protected by this global pandemic. And it’s really hard to watch as this apartheid state continues to deny their own neighbors, the people that breathe the same air they breathe, that live in the same communities."

Tlaib doesn't have to say "Jews," when she says "they" it is understood that she is not referring to the 20% of Israelis who aren't Jewish and who are in the government, the army and the medical establishment.

She said this just as B'Tselem accused Jews in Israel of enforcing not only apartheid but "Jewish supremacy," an explicitly antisemitic formulation that wasn't rebuffed by the supposed antiracists of the Left - it was embraced by them.

Another example of how the new antisemitism is like the old antisemitism. Yesterday, someone on Twitter widely circulated this image:

This is a classic antisemitic meme - there are hundreds of similar graphics on the web seemingly showing Jews in positions of power in politics, entertainment, news media or banking.

But this one uses Israeli flags to represent the Jews. The designer is deliberately accusing Jews of dual loyalty, which is a common thread between both Left and Right antisemites, including Ilhan Omar.

This month saw "progressive" Jewish groups start a campaign against the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism because it could be "misused" to show that their political partners engage in antisemitism. Nearly all the examples on this page would fall under the IHRA definition of antisemitism under the examples the far Left wants to exclude.

Ironically, many of the people they claim to be protecting by fighting that definition know very well that anti-Zionism is often a mask for antisemitism. The definition was endorsed by the Global Imams Council, by the Muslim majority nation of Albania, the Mimouna Association of Morocco, and by the Kingdom of Bahrain.

If anyone knows that hating Israel is a proxy for hating Jews, it is Muslims who grew up with that idea.

There was plenty of antisemitism on the Right as well - no one is pretending there wasn't. The "Camp Auschwitz" man at the Capitol and the confederate flag at the Jewish museum in NYC were two prominent examples. The difference is that no one on the Right claims that those attacks weren't antisemitic - but the socialist Left is keen to either deny the obvious antisemitism from their side, or at best to sweep it under the rug.

Which makes them complicit.

Cartoon of the Day: I'm just anti-Zionist

Continuing my series of recaptioned cartoons....

Generally when people speak about Palestinians in Jordan, they think about the majority who have full Jordanian citizenship.

They are still treated as not real Jordanians, and the native Jordanians regard them as people who will leave one day to live across the river. But they do have all of the benefits of citizenship.

However, there are a lot of Palestinians in Jordan who have no citizenship, no health benefits, and very few human rights. They are mostly the Palestinians who came from Gaza after the 1967 war.

Although UNRWA counts them as "Palestine refugees," they are not refugees by any measure. They came over voluntarily, well after the Six Day War, because they didn't want to live under Jewish rule. This New York Times article from November 7, 1967 says that even then, hundreds of Palestinian Arabs who couldn't leave Gaza under Egyptian rule were crossing into Jordan every day, and the reporter could not find one of them who said that the Israelis mistreated them.

How many are there? According to UNRWA, there are 158,000 - about 7%. But a census done in 2016 counted an astonishing 634,000 Palestinians who do not have national ID numbers.

This means that they are barred from the majority of positions in the public sector.

They are banned from many professions such as dentistry, engineering and law.

They need special work permits to obtain jobs in the private sector.

They have limited property rights. Up until recently, they could not own land at all.

They have limited or no services from the Jordanian National Aid Fund.

They cannot attend state universities or are forced to pay much higher fees than citizens.

They are ineligible for government health insurance, which means that any major medical procedure keeps them in poverty.

Even the ones born in Jordan are not eligible to become citizens.

There are more stateless Palestinians in Jordan today than there were Arabs who fled Israel in the 1948 "nakba."

Yet who even knows about this huge group of people? Who talks about them? Why is there such a discrepancy between UNRWA's estimates and Jordan's census in even counting them?

This is real apartheid against some 28% of the Palestinians in Jordan. Human rights groups are mostly silent.

And no one calls this "apartheid."

What President Biden Will Mean for Israel (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

As I write this, preparations are underway for the swearing-in ceremony of a new President of the US. Nobody truly knows what this will mean for us in Israel. Caroline Glick, who can be depended on to see the dark side – often, unfortunately, correctly – finds Biden’s appointments of numerous former Obama officials, some of whom are demonstrably anti-Israel, to be evidence that the new administration will return to the almost maliciously anti-Israel policies of the Obama Administration.

On the other hand, as Bret Stephens notes (in a masterful piece that I hope will be required reading for Biden and his people), the situation has drastically changed since Obama pursued his diplomatic assault on Israel. Everything is different (except perhaps the Palestinians). Israel, Iran, the Arab nations, and the situation in the USA have all undergone significant changes. The damage to American interests from continuing Obama’s policy today would be even greater than in 2008-2016.

But not all politics is rational, as history amply demonstrates. Bad regimes sometimes follow policies dictated primarily by the misapprehensions, prejudices or even obsessions of their leadership rather than the interests of their nations. The Obama Administration was one of those.

Indeed, its interpretations of the intentions of the Palestinians and the Iranian regime – which could be determined simply by paying attention to their words – were so far from reality that I often found myself asking, “stupid or evil?” Did American officials really think that the Palestinians would be satisfied with a peaceful state alongside Israel if only the right concessions were forced out of us? Did they really believe that the agreement with the Iranians would prevent them from getting nuclear weapons, or even significantly slow them down?

There was also an ideological element, a clear affinity of Obama himself to the Muslim opponents of Israel that was demonstrated by the speech he delivered in Cairo shortly after his inauguration. There was his comparison of the Palestinians to black Americans, one of the worst possible analogies. And there was his antipathy for our Prime Minister, which he famously shared in an off-mike chat with the French president. Taking all this into account, one can be excused for thinking that one of the deliberate objectives of Obama’s policies was to weaken and hurt Israel.

While these personal characteristics of Barack Obama do not apply to Joe Biden, he does seem to believe in the traditional (and wrong) principles of American Middle East policy, such as the primacy of creating a sovereign Palestinian state in bringing normal relations to the region. He agrees with Obama that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria are “illegitimate and an obstacle to peace,” a position that the State Department reversed under Trump.

American policy toward the Palestinians, going back to the Clinton Administration, has always been to provide ample financial aid to them and get Israel to make concessions up front, both territorial and practical (like freeing jailed terrorists). And Obama’s Iran policy was heavily front-loaded with financial benefits to Iran. One would think that professional diplomats would understand why this strategy failed over and over. Both the Palestinians and the Iranians have objectives that they cannot be paid to give up. Giving them presents only made them ask for more, and in both cases they used the money to pay for terrorism.

The non-professionals of the Trump Administration did understand this. They reversed course and applied economic pressure to both the Palestinians and the Iranian regime, in order to create leverage for negotiations. Unfortunately, the policy hasn’t been in place long enough to tell if it will work, but the desire to be “not-Trump” may cause the new Administration to end sanctions on Iran and re-fund the PA and UNRWA – making failure a certainty. Biden has already promised to restore Trump-suspended payments to UNRWA, the Palestinian refugee agency, thus continuing the decades-long growth of a hostile population of heavily indoctrinated, stateless welfare clients.

We can also expect a resumption of objections from the US against Jewish construction in Judea/Samaria and Eastern Jerusalem, joining the chorus from Europe. It wouldn’t surprise me if another unannounced but near-total freeze on construction will soon go into effect.

In more encouraging news, recent comments by Anthony Blinken, Biden’s nominee for Secretary of State, indicate that he doesn’t intend to reactivate the Iran deal immediately. Nevertheless, we should watch for any loosening of the Trump-applied sanctions on Iran as an indication of the likely direction the administration will take.

Israel has been engaged in a “war between the wars,” against Iranian installations in Syria. The Trump Administration did not interfere. I expect that attacks against these targets will be less frequent under the new administration. A warning sign will be if they stop entirely.

I had hoped that Israel would utilize the last weeks of Trump’s term to destroy the Iranian nuclear installations, perhaps even with American help; but apparently our PM and the IDF believe that their lower-level activities are effective enough that such an ambitious project wasn’t needed. We might regret this later; I will be very surprised if it happens under Biden.

All of the above is based on the assumption that the “moderates” in Biden’s administration, including Biden himself, will be in control. And here is where the real scary stuff begins.

Biden is 78 years old, older than any other American president at the time of his inauguration (Trump was 70 and Ronald Reagan was not quite 78 at the end of his second term). He certainly does not appear to me, admittedly a non-professional, to be at the top of his game … or worse. Even if he remains as president for a full term, it’s hard to imagine that he will be calling the shots. His vice president, Kamala Harris, is an unknown quantity in the area of foreign affairs. And there are strong forces that will be trying to exert their influence on the administration – unfriendly ones.

One is the left wing of the Democratic party, which supported Bernie Sanders for the presidency, and which is strongly anti-Israel. The other is the Obama organization.

When Barack Obama left the White House, he did not retire from politics and retreat to his home state, like so many other ex-presidents. Rather, he bought a home in walking distance to the White House, and transformed his highly effective campaign fund-raising organization into a social action group, with both domestic and foreign policy goals. It’s hard to believe that he will not try to exert influence over the new administration.

I believe that Israel will be able to work with an administration that is somewhat less friendly than that of Trump, as long as it is honestly interested in regional peace. Israel will present the evidence – which is overwhelming – that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons; indeed, is developing them now. Together with its new allies in the Arab world, it will argue that continued maximum economic and diplomatic pressure is the most effective way to stop Iran, short of war.

I believe also that Israel will be able to convince such an administration that the real reason for the lack of progress with the Palestinians is their refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state with any borders. We will explain that the development of Israel’s relations with other Arab states means that Palestinian sovereignty can be delayed indefinitely, until the Palestinians are prepared to accept the legitimacy of the nation state of the Jewish people.

But if the American administration undergoes a sharp turn toward the left, either as a result of a takeover by the left wing of the Democratic Party or from the influence of the Obama organization, we could see a return of Obama-era pressure for concessions, restrictions on our actions, and appeasement of Iran.

We’ve made a great deal of progress in the past four years. It would be a shame if it were reversed.

We’ll find out in the next few months.

-- Victor