Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 03, 2021

Cartoon of the Day: Double standards are woke

Continuing my series of recaptioning old cartoons...

The Iran Policy Shipwreck (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

The other day YouTube decided that I wanted to see a compendium of large ships crashing into each other or into docks, cranes, and other installations. What impressed me was the unavoidability of the crashes: the ships moved ponderously, inexorably, toward their fates as tiny humans scuttled around on the decks, horns blowing with great urgency (I imagine the ship’s captains shouting “Full astern!”), but all for nothing when the almost irresistible force of the ship meets the almost immovable object of its nemesis in a crescendo of crushing, grinding, and snapping.

Whew. And this reminded me of the situation with Iran. The Iranians have ramped up their production of enriched uranium and activated advanced centrifuges in their Natanz facility, and they are threatening to kick out IAEA inspectors on 26 February. They are telling US officials that if they want to reenter the (worthless) deal, they’d better hurry and start removing sanctions while there is still time. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, for his part, is demanding that the Iranians first “return to compliance,” although what that would mean in practice considering the progress they have made is unclear.

What is becoming clear is that the Biden Administration is dead set on a course of returning to the deal, although Blinken, at least, wants to renegotiate it. On the other hand Robert Malley, President Biden’s choice for Special Envoy to Iran, wants to jump back in to the deal as it was when President Trump took the US out of it. Malley’s think tank published a position paper a few days ago, which contained this:

The Biden administration should pursue U.S. re-entry into the 2015 nuclear deal, starting by revoking the 2018 order ending U.S. JCPOA participation and initiating a process of fully reversing Trump-era sanctions while Iran brings its nuclear program back into full compliance. As further confidence-building measures, Washington could support Iran’s International Monetary Fund loan request as a sign of good-will in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and perhaps engage Tehran in discussions on a prisoner swap.

Do you hear the horns blowing and the captains shouting yet?

Persia was among the earliest known places where the game of chess was played, and the Iranians have proven to be very good negotiators. A strategy that calls for American concessions up front (“confidence building”) will fail, as it did under Obama. Only a tough strategy that demands action by Iran as an alternative to more pressure (“an offer that they can’t refuse”) will succeed. The Trump Administration left the US in a strong bargaining position toward Iran, with very painful sanctions in force. The US should insist on concrete, verifiable steps by Iran before removing any sanctions, and should threaten to take even stronger action if Iran does not comply.

Biden’s administration is replete with former Obama Administration officials (conservative blogger Jeff Dunetz calls it “the reBama Administration”), including Malley, who incidentally is also very out front about his pro-Palestinian sympathies. From the standpoint of American or Israeli interests, Malley is a wretched choice. He is far more pro-Iranian than even Blinken, Jake Sullivan, or Wendy Sherman, all former Obama-era Iran hands retreaded by Biden.

One wonders why Biden picked a team that is unlikely to produce better results than it did under Obama, and may even do considerably worse. Maybe Blinken vs. Malley is a good-cop bad-cop routine. But who knows if Biden was responsible for those choices, or if they were made for him?
Fortunately I am not Prime Minister of Israel, but if I were I would not expect better performance from a reBama Iran team than from the original one. And I think this could have been known for some time. Biden announced his intention to reenter the deal in September of 2020. From then on, it became clear that any military action by Israel – even special operations short of war – would be construed by the new administration as a slap in the face.

This could be the reason that Biden announced so early that he would be re-entering the deal: so that the “slap in the face” argument could be used against any last-minute Israeli action before Biden took office, or even before the election. And it was indeed deployed (by Obama surrogates Ben Rhodes and John Brennan) to criticize Israel’s assassination of the head of Iran’s nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, on 27 November.

Rhodes and Brennan said that Israel’s act was “aimed at undermining diplomacy” between the US and Iran, and that seemed ridiculous. How could anyone see it as anything but an attempt to slow Iran’s progress to the bomb? But in fact they were sending a message: after Biden becomes president, we’ll remember anything you do now, and you’ll be sorry.

I missed this. On 1 October, I wrote that I had expected that if Biden won the election, Israel would act against the Iranian nuclear facilities in the last weeks of the Trump Administration. I was wrong. Apparently our government got the message that the Americans would not forgive Israel if she eliminated the need for an Iran deal before Biden could sign one.

The weeks passed, Iran ramped up their processes, and Israel did nothing. Now that Biden is in the White House, it is even less likely that Israel will act, despite the recent sabre-rattling of our Chief of Staff.

Israel is in the position of a helpless observer on the deck of a small vessel who can only watch as a huge cruise ship or supertanker plows into it – which is just where the people pulling Biden’s strings want us.

02/03 Links Pt1: Joe Biden needs to understand that the Middle East has changed; Biden’s New Asst Sec of State Worked for Islamic Terror State That Funds Hamas

From Ian:

Joe Biden needs to understand that the Middle East has changed

It is very apparent that America will not stand against its interests in the Gulf in order to favour Iran. However, what America is required to know, is that if the Gulf states are forced to make a firm decision, they will do so. As they did during the presidency of Obama. During March 2011 the GCC responded to the request from Bahrain by sending its Peninsula Shield Force to assist the Bahraini government in defeating Iranian backed riots in the country (which were supported and backed by Obama’s administration).

Times like these cannot be forgotten, as countries like the Emirates and Bahrain have a strong and resolute ally, which is the State of Israel. Over the years, this ally has not changed its position and has continued to refuse any negotiations with the Iranian regime. However, the USA has and will continue to change its positions and allies with every change of presidency.

What needs to be made clear to Biden, is that the Arab world view and can compare the Iranian regime to the Nazis, however, the only difference is that Iran located within the Middle East. The Iranians have continuously proven to be fascist and racist towards all kinds of Arabs. Since the 1970s, the Iranians have occupied three of UAE’s islands. Iran has murdered millions of Arabs by inflicting and supporting multiple wars such as the ones located within Iraq, Syria, and Yemen and they’ve supported every terrorist attack in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

The citizens as well as the governors of GCC people know that Israel were not responsible for blast explosions near the Kaaba, and they did not target Makkah with its missiles. Israel did not manufacture militias that kill the people of Iraq and Yemen, nor did they swing pictures of Netanyahu in southern Lebanon, or occupy Syria, Ahwaz, and the Emirates Islands. Israel did not kill 4,000,000 people and make 7,000,000 migrate. Rather, Iran is responsible for all of the aforementioned situations and Iran continues to prove that they are the enemy of humanity as well the enemy of the Arab nations.

Now is the time that we should unite together in order to thrive together and to stand together as one against one enemy. Regardless of Biden’s suggestion to take a step back to square one by re-joining the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, we need to live in peace and prosperity and coexistence and have a mutual culture and religious understanding.

MEMRI: A New Alliance Rising In The East – Turkey, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, China – And Its Enemies – The U.S. and India

The year 2021 marks the emergence of a new Eastern alliance. MEMRI has been the first to richly document its rise, illustrated by a wide variety of media content.[1] Brought into sharp relief by the bloody November 2020 war between Azerbaijan and the Armenians of Artsakh, the alliance between three authoritarian regimes – in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan – seems to have acquired a surprising silent partner in the People's Republic of China. This is surprising because the first three countries are Muslim states, which are not shy about using religion as a tool of statecraft, but not so surprising because this alliance is as much about mutual cooperation as it is directed against a disparate group of potential adversaries large and small – India, Armenia, and the United States.[2] Some might add Russia and Iran to this list, but both countries are as often collaborators as they are rivals of their authoritarian neighbors.

The connections are not new. Religious, political, and emotional ties between the Muslims of then-British India and Turkey date to the end of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. Both Turkey and Pakistan (along with Pahlevi Iran and Hashemite Iraq!) were members of the ill-fated U.S./U.K.-supported Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) in the late 1950s. Pakistan reportedly facilitated the sending of 1,500 Afghan fighters belonging to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's faction to fight against Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians in 1993. But it is with the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as Turkey's president and the failed 2016 coup against him that these trilateral ties have blossomed. The first trilateral summit between Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan was held in 2017, while the second just concluded last month in Islamabad.[3] Islamabad has supported Turkey on Northern Cyprus and Azerbaijan on Nagorno-Karabakh, while those countries have reciprocated in supporting Pakistan on Kashmir.

Turkey's ties now make it Pakistan's second-largest arms supplier, after Islamabad's longtime patron China.[4] Pakistan has been helpful to Turkey in the defense field as well, especially in pilots after the Turkish purge of its air force after the failed 2016 coup. Of greater concern is the specter of Turkish-Pakistani nuclear cooperation.[5] Some observers were startled by Pakistan's recent reminder that it is not bound by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (no nuclear power is a signatory).[6] But perhaps more significant was the latest (the 15th) session of the Turkey-Pakistan High Level Military Dialogue Group (HLMDG) and the fact that Turkish engineering students are the second-largest group by nationality studying nuclear science in Russia (Russia is building four nuclear power plants for Turkey).[7]

While China has been an ally of Pakistan for decades, there was a time when the Islamist Erdoğan was an open critic of China and its treatment of Uyghur Muslims. Those years are long gone.[8] Since then, the Turkish leadership has been able to appease China, even on the Turkic Uyghur issue, where Turkey hosts a significant exile community of Uyghurs. China and Turkey are now linked by rail, bypassing a jealous Russia, with Turkey becoming an enthusiastic partner of China's Eurasian ambitions.[9] In December 2020, the first transport train from Turkey to China (through Azerbaijan) carried household appliances from Istanbul to Xian in just two weeks, having covered 5,402 miles, two continents, two seas, and five countries.[10]

Seth J. Frantzman: America Gets Middle East 'Withdrawal Fever' Again

To underpin the new bout of fatigue in dealing with the Middle East a group of experts have been publishing articles that they hope will be required reading in the new administration.

Robert Ford, former ambassador to Syria, argued recently that the U.S. had failed in eastern Syria and that it could rely on Turkey and Russia in Syria. Turkey's authoritarian regime, which is buying Russia's S-400 system and working with Iran, likes this idea. Russia surely likes it. The argument is that the U.S. isn't good at "nation-building." This is a false reading of the successful U.S. role in Syria.

Washington never tried "nation-building" in eastern Syria. The U.S. actually did very little there but its partners in the Syrian Democratic Forces accomplished a lot. It seems a bit strange the U.S. help would rid eastern Syria of ISIS and then just turn the area over to adversaries or countries like Turkey which have proven that their role in Syria is to ethnically cleanse minorities, the same minorities like the Kurds the U.S. was working with.

The strange thing about the constant argument that the Middle East is a "quagmire" and the U.S. "failed" and should "leave" is not how other countries view the region.

Russia doesn't view the region as a quagmire. It is building influence in Syria and Libya, as well as offering weapons for sale across the region. Turkey is working with Iran, Russia and China to do trade. Iran wants to do more business with China and Russia and is increasing influence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. China is moving into the region also.

None of these countries appear worried about open-ended commitments or state-building or forever wars. They want influence and to increase trade and military sales and support for proxy groups or governments. Only the U.S. appears to get a fever every four years about its role in the Middle East. It would be good to take a short rest, and disabuse ourselves that another haphazard withdrawal is helpful.

The region is not a quagmire and the U.S. should play a role supporting allies and friends in the Middle East.

Nada Elia teaches American Cultural Studies at Western Washington University. She's a frequent contributor to Mondoweiss.

She recently wrote an article in Middle East Eye that shows both her ignorance and her antisemitism.

After Israel’s interior ministry recently announced that members of the Jewish community of Uganda are not allowed to immigrate to Israel, many progressive Israelis and diaspora Jews denounced the decision as racist.

Of course it is; racism is a defining characteristic of Zionism, which privileges one ethnic group over others. The decision is also in keeping with the virulent anti-Black racism plaguing Israel, equalled or surpassed only by the country’s anti-Palestinian racism.

As anyone with even a passing knowledge of Israel understands, this decision by the Interior Ministry has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the Ugandans. It is because the State of Israel only recognizes conversions done by Orthodox rabbis, and the Abayudaya Ugandan community was converted by Conservative Jewish rabbis.

One can argue about whether Israel should accept non-Orthodox movement conversions, but this is not at all an issue of ethnic superiority or racism. If it was, then Israel would not have welcomed over 100,000 Ethiopian Jews.

Anyone who visits Israel can also see that there is no "virulent anti-Black racism" there; an entire generation of Hebrew-speaking Ethiopian Jews have integrated into society and no one blinks an eye. There is some racism similar to every single other Western nation and it is not condoned by anyone.

So why does Nada Elia lie?

Because calling someone a racist is the worst insult that one can hurl today. And Nada Elia delights in calling Israel (meaning, the Jews of Israel) racist. As a pejorative, it is the Leftist equivalent of "kike."

"Ethnic cleansers," "colonialists," "racists," "apartheid," "white supremacists" - all of these terms are conscious insults against Jews and only Jews when referring to Israel. They are the modern progressive versions of "sheeny," "Christ-killer" and "Shylock."

Calling Israeli Jews "Nazis" - which is what the critics of the IHRA definition condone - is the direct moral equivalent, and designed to cause the exact same pain, as using the other "N" word against Black people.

In a way, these insults are worse, because they pretend to be portrayals of the truth about Zionist Jews, and may be used in polite company. The main argument against saying these slurs as antisemitic is that, in the twisted minds of the haters, they are accurate. Entire papers are written justifying Israel being called an "apartheid" state or a "racist" state without showing the obvious counterexamples that prove the arguments are nothing but insults with no basis in reality.

The IHRA recognizes this and portrays these slurs accurately. Modern antisemites like Nada Elia pretend that the insults are so obviously true that they are barely worth proving.

(h/t Aryeh Meir)

On Monday, Israel and Kosovo formally established diplomatic ties. At that time, Kosovo recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and formally requested to open an embassy there.

This is especially significant because Kosovo is a Muslim-majority state and it is European.

Since then, there has been almost no reaction from Israel's usual critics. The hysterical condemnations that followed the UAE and Bahrain announcements are nowhere to be seen today.

The Palestinian Authority did not issue a statement.

The Arab League remained silent.

Some Arab newspapers published wire service versions of the story, with no comment for or against.

The UN refused to condemn the decision when it first was announced in September - even though it is in direct violation of UN Security Council resolution 478 (1980).

The only negative reactions came from Hamas - and the EU.

On Wednesday, Hamas condemned the recognition of Israel and Jerusalem as its capital, saying that it was a violation of international resolutions and humanitarian covenants.

On Tuesday, the European Commission spokesperson on foreign affairs, Peter Stano, said, “This is a regrettable decision […] because this decision is diverging Kosovo from the EU position on Jerusalem.”

The EU foreign service issued a veiled threat against Kosovo, saying, "Kosovo has identified EU integration as its strategic priority. The EU expects Kosovo to act in line with this commitment so that its European perspective is not undermined."

Except for Turkey, no one else expressed any opposition to the Jerusalem announcement. The new Biden administration didn't comment on the Jerusalem part, but it welcomed the agreement, with a tweet from the State Department spokesperson congratulating Israel and Kosovo.

This lack of reaction to the embassy announcement is in itself a big deal. Arab opponents of Israel have realized over the past year that their screaming is not only ineffective, but counterproductive - they can no longer force the UN to issue condemnations whenever they want. They would rather not take a position on Kosovo than show how impotent they are.

It is that impotence that is forcing them to be silent. They cannot get the Arab League to do what they want. They cannot shame a Muslim state to do what they want. They cannot even force Arab states to do what they want.

The only allies the haters of Israel have left is the EU.

In Ma'an, Dr. Rafiq Al-Husseini writes an analysis of the political moves Israel is making to keep American pro-Israel in the Biden era.

In the middle of the article, he writes:

Biden is the second Catholic to become President of the United States after John F. Kennedy, who did not tolerate Ben-Gurion at all. [Kennedy] had threatened him in 1963 to impose a boycott on Israel if it did not commit to disclosing its nuclear program, and his assassination was carried out by unknown hands a few weeks later!

Kennedy did want to make sure that Israel's nuclear program would remain peaceful and there was a series of letters between US and Israeli leaders from 1962 through after Kennedy's assassination. I am unaware of any threat to boycott Israel by the US, and that seems to be made up.

Husseini's clear implication, though, is that Israel was behind the murder of Kennedy.

Which fits in well with the conspiracy mindset of many Palestinians.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Biden administration embraces IHRA working definition of antisemitism; socialist Left seething

On February 1, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kara McDonald spoke at the Expert Meeting on Combating Anti-Semitism in the OSCE Region where she officially announced that the Biden administration accepts the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.

We must educate ourselves and our communities to recognize anti-Semitism in its many forms, so that we can call hate by its proper name and take effective action. That is why the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism, with its real-world examples, is such an invaluable tool. As prior U.S. Administrations of both political stripes have done, the Biden Administration embraces and champions the working definition. We applaud the growing number of countries and international bodies that apply it. We urge all that haven’t done so to do likewise. And we commend OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) for using it.

When she said "with its real world examples" she said in no uncertain terms that saying Israel has no right to exist, or calling Israel an apartheid nation, is antisemitic.

This is a huge blow to the progressive groups who have been trying to set the Biden administration agenda.

Americans for Peace Now expressed its frustration:

Americans for Peace Now (APN) is disappointed at the Biden administration's support of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, as expressed yesterday by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kara McDonald.

We at APN applaud the Biden administration's commitment to fighting antisemitism and are committed to doing whatever we can as part of this effort. But we believe that the IHRA Working Definition is the wrong vehicle for such action.

They say that the examples used, including "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor," "applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation," "using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (like the blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis" and "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" is not antisemitic.

As with virtually every critic of the IHRA, APN lies about what it says:

Americans for Peace Now is proudly pro-Israel. And because we care about Israel, we denounce government policies that we believe are detrimental to Israel's future and wellbeing. Doing so is not antisemitic. And criticism of Israeli policy, including the occupation, whether by Jews or non-Jews, is not automatically antisemitic. IHRA's definition, however, uses a broad brush to paint legitimate criticism of Israel and Israeli government policies as exactly that.

The IHRA says the exact opposite to what they claim. "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic."

Why does Americans for Peace Now and its far-Left supporters have to lie? Because the truth is not on their side.

Why do they have to denounce the best definition of antisemitism? Because they condone some kinds of antisemitism..

02/02 Links Pt2: Israel's hasbara efforts - it's time for an anti-propaganda agency; 170 Celebs, Execs to Launch New ‘Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance’

From Ian:

Israel's hasbara efforts - it's time for an anti-propaganda agency

The antipropaganda issue is a complex one, which people know very little about. The answer to the above two questions requires spelling out a number of key aspects in some detail. Perhaps the most important is that such a private agency would have to collaborate closely with the Mossad, the domestic security agency Shabak, the military intelligence agency Aman, and the Israel National Cyber Directorate. These are all government agencies, which cannot disclose state secrets to a non-government body.

I raised the idea of the anti-propaganda agency for the first time in my book, The War of a Million Cuts, The Struggle Against the Delegitimization of Israel and the Jews, and the Growth of New Anti-Semitism, which was published in 2015. At the time I consulted with a number of people who were somewhat familiar with the field. We estimated the annual budget for a properly functioning state anti-propaganda agency to be approximately US$250 million. Even for a number of the largest private pro-Israel donors together, this is a very large amount.

Yet there are further aspects that differentiate a state anti-propaganda agency from an aggregate of private pro-Israel bodies. The American CAMERA organization is an example of a pro-Israel organization that does very good work in exposeng media distortions in the US and some other countries such as Great Britain. One of its executives follows the Guardian and regularly depicts the many fallacies about Israel in its articles. His rhetoric, however, has to be restrained. The same is true for another valuable organization active in this area, Honest Reporting.

An Israeli anti-propaganda agency would operate in a very different way. It would start from the realization that the Guardian is an extreme anti-Israel paper. It can be considered a part-time enemy of the country. The anti-propaganda agency would not spend time pointing out to the public what is wrong in articles in the Guardian, identifying lies, or noting instances where this newspaper mobilizes extreme anti-Israelis including Jews and Israeli hate mongers against the state such as the head of the Israeli B'zelem organization.

Instead, the Agency leaders would ask themselves: “How are we going to damage this enemy as fast as possible with minimal effort. The originator of such damage could be open or hidden. The answer to these questions is not very difficult but disclosing it here would be counterproductive.

170 Celebs, Execs to Launch New ‘Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance’

More than 170 leaders of the entertainment industry released a unity statement on Feb. 1 after launching the Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance (BJEA), a joint initiative by Black and Jewish entertainment industry professionals devoted to countering racism and anti-Semitism.

In the face of institutional racism and rising anti-Semitism the members of the Alliance feel it is critical to stand together and support one another.

Signatories of the statement include Billy Porter (“Pose”), Mayim Bialik (“Call Me Kat”) Jeremy Piven (“Entourage”), Sharon Osbourne, Tiffany Haddish, Nick Cannon, Jason Alexander (“Seinfeld”), Co-chairman & CEO of Warner Records Aaron Bay-Schuck,, Antoine Fuqua (Director/Producer), President of Motown Records Ethiopia Habtemariam, CEO/Chairman of Columbia Records Ron Perry, Dulé Hill (“The West Wing”) The late-Larry King, Gene Simmons, Pittsburgh Steeler Zach Banner and Jeff Ross among many others.

“The Black and Jewish communities, who have a long history of supporting and working together, are so much stronger when we stand together in the fight against hate,” said Aaron Bay-Schuck, Co-Chairman & CEO of Warner Records. “This Alliance will elevate voices in the entertainment community that can help the public to better understand the causes, manifestations, and effects of racism and antisemitism, ensuring that our industry is doing its part to be a voice for hope, unity, and healing in our country.”

While many organizations combat anti-Semitism and racism individually, the Alliance will aim to create a unified voice against both. It will host programming to highlight their common mission to fight hate and facilitate collaborative events to build solidarity between the Black and Jewish communities. They will also work to elevate voices within the entertainment community to help the public better understand the causes, manifestations and effects of institutional racism and anti-Semitism.

The unity statement (which can be read in full here) starts by acknowledging the “subjugation and persecution” that both Black and Jewish Americans continue to face in the U.S. daily, and continues with a promise to condemn hate when they see it take place.

American Jewish Committee, U.S. Conference of Mayors Launch Campaign Against Antisemitism

American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) announced today the launch of a national effort to combat antisemitism. The two organizations, which have partnered on other projects, are calling on mayors across the country to sign a statement declaring that antisemitism is incompatible with fundamental democratic values.

“Antisemitism is a growing societal menace, it comes from multiple sources, and mayors are uniquely positioned to lead their cities in taking concerted steps to fight it,” said AJC CEO David Harris. “By launching this joint effort on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we recall the darkest period of genocide against the Jewish people, and the constant need for vigilance to guard against any and all forms of antisemitism.”

“In the last few years we have seen a significant increase in hate crimes directed at individuals and institutions based on faith, with the biggest increase among these incidents having been those directed at Jews,” said Conference of Mayors CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran. “We have always called on mayors to speak out against hate crimes when they occur, and the statement we are inviting mayors to sign today provides a way for them to register their opposition to the dramatic increase in antisemitism we have experienced in our country and work together to reverse it.”

Mayors United Against Antisemitism
The AJC-USCM initiative comes as incidents of antisemitism, some of them violent, continue to rise across the United States, confirmed in FBI reports and AJC public opinion surveys. American Jews, who make up less than 2% of the American population, were the victims of 60.2% of anti-religious hate crimes, according to the FBI 2019 Hate Crimes Statistics report.

AJC’s 2020 State of Antisemitism in America report found that 88% of Jews considered antisemitism a problem today in the U.S., 35% had personally been victims of antisemitism over the past five years and 31% had taken measures to conceal their Jewishness in public. Moreover, the AJC report revealed that nearly half of all Americans said they had either never heard the term “antisemitism” (21%) or are familiar with the word but not sure what it means (25%).

Cartoon of the Day: Equal opportunity employer

Continuing my series of recaptioning old cartoons...

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski (Z”L) died this week, age 90, one more in a long line of important rabbis to succumb to COVID-19. The loss of Rabbi Twerski to the Jewish people is, of course, enormous. But for those of us from Pittsburgh, the loss is more personal, more poignant. Rabbi Twerski was a local celebrity, someone who made us proud, and it didn’t matter whether or not you were Jewish.

He was a symbol of tolerance, because everyone knew this scion of several Hassidic dynasties worked at St. Francis Hospital, alongside the nuns. And he was a symbol of sweetness to all who suffered from addiction. Because he understood you, and cared about you. He had compassion.

Rabbi Twerski became an authority on the subject of addiction. He was known to pop into local AA meetings and to him, it was probably no big deal. But everyone in those meetings knew it was an honor to have him there. They felt it, and they loved him for just being there alongside and among them, as if he were one of them. More importantly, I think they felt he loved them. Their religion didn’t matter. They were people who were suffering, and he cared. He wanted to help.

Rabbi Twerski was real. He retained his Milwaukee accent to the end. And he didn’t mind using secular culture to make important points. Among the more than 60 books he authored were two books (see HERE and HERE) illustrated with Charles Schultz’s Peanut comic strips, intended to serve as commentary to the Twelve Steps. These books with their comic strips made the steps more accessible and somehow more possible, to just plain folks.

Rabbi Twerski had a face that shone like an angel. When I would see him, in person, or in a photo or video—it didn’t matter which—I always thought of the verse from Ethics of the Fathers (1:15) that describes sever panim yafot: a pleasant countenance.

Shammai says, "Make your Torah study regular; say little and do much; and greet every person with a pleasant countenance."

Some translate “pleasant countenance” as a smile. But it’s that and something more: it’s the thing that shines from a face of goodness and kindness. An extra-special something that emanates from beyond what we see on a face or in a facial expression. I can recall numerous articles in local Pittsburgh papers describing Rabbi Twerski as “saintly.” But what he had was sever panim yafot. Rather than the face of a saint, he had the face of an angel.

One of the most striking things about Rabbi Twerski is that he was balanced. He stressed self-esteem while projecting modesty and humility. In 2019, I included a clip of Rabbi Twerski speaking at the Mayanei HaYeshua Medical Center in Bnei Brak, in my Rosh Hashana roundup. He spoke about the right way to raise a child: not to punish, but to increase self-esteem. Rabbi Twerski illustrated the concept with several stories, including a personal anecdote of a minor misdeed as a young boy, and how his father handled the matter. The story hit all the right notes for me as a mother, and as a person, though I’d heard it before. These precious Rabbi Twerski stories were all a part of growing up in Pittsburgh.

Rabbi Twerski’s stories were a joy to hear and always left you with a little shock of recognition: "Yes! That’s the thing. The right way to respond, to behave, in response to a sticky situation."

And the stories were also just plain funny. They changed depending upon who was doing the retelling. But also because sometimes Rabbi Twerski told you a little bit more of the story. So you never minded hearing a well-loved Rabbi Twerski tale, retold. It was all part of the lore, and yet there was no mystique. He was a completely open book, a very beautiful, humorous, light-hearted, yet meaningful and impactful book.

My dear friend @MyShtender emailed Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski about the Christmas play story.

He responded with the details.

And frankly it’s even better than I remembered it.

Wow. https://t.co/3cSRrQZYyI pic.twitter.com/SctHzVJgYM
— D Bash (@DBashIdeas) December 25, 2020

I was curious to see what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette would write about this favorite son, but I hadn’t counted on learning something new: Danny Thomas was instrumental in enabling Rabbi Twerski to complete his medical studies.

Married and ordained by age 21, he worked as an assistant rabbi in the Milwaukee congregation of his father, Rabbi Jacob Twerski.

But with psychiatry and psychology on the rise in the 1950s, “I noticed that people weren’t flocking to me for counseling the way they had to my father,” he later recalled in Pittsburgh Quarterly. “I decided that if I wanted to be the kind of rabbi my father was, I had to become a professional. So I went for broke, going to medical school to become a psychiatrist.”

He was going for broke almost literally.

He and his wife, Golda, already had a growing family. Even with help from members of his congregation, he fell behind on tuition. Then a gift of $4,000 arrived from an unexpected source, he wrote — the actor Danny Thomas, who had read a newspaper article about the young rabbi struggling to get through medical school at Marquette University. (Time magazine, too, caught interest early, profiling the “Rabbi in White” in 1959.)

Special pictures shared with my by my dear friend @shuaros.

Rabbi Twerski, from beginning to end, was a healer.

❤️ pic.twitter.com/B8pDAdEQal
— D Bash (@DBashIdeas) January 31, 2021

But back to Pittsburgh, St. Francis, and the nuns. Rabbi Twerski led the psychiatry unit at St. Francis Hospital for 20 years, and then founded Gateway Rehabilitation Center. In a 1991 Post-Gazette article, Rabbi Twerski estimated he had worked with some 30,000 alcoholics, and he was far from finished with his work. It was an awesome source of pride to Pittsburghers that an august rabbi could work together with nuns day in and day out with no awkwardness, but a great deal of goodwill and harmony. The rabbi chronicled this story of coexistence in The Rabbi & the Nuns. In the days that followed his death, fellow Pittsburghers were scanning and sharing vignettes from the book.

Aside from the unexpected discovery that Danny Thomas helped Rabbi Twerski go to med school, there was a second surprise: Rabbi Twerski was the composer of the popular Jewish tune Hoshea et Amecha. “Save Your people, and bless Your inheritance; and tend them, and carry them forever.” Psalms 28:9.

Everyone knows this song. It’s sung everywhere, for every occasion. But I’d never known the song originated with Rabbi Twerski. And now I’ll always think of him when I hear this song.

It was all part of Rabbi Twerski’s perfect balance of humility, modesty, and self-esteem that he asked that there be no eulogies at his funeral. He requested only that mourners sing the melody he composed. It was like he was saying: "This is how I want to be remembered. I want to be remembered as the guy who made a holy song acknowledging that salvation and sustenance come from God alone."

The song he’d written some 60 years ago, said Rabbi Twerski, had made many Jews happy, and that is what he wanted to take with him to the world of truth.

Rabbi Twerski requested that he should not be eulogized.

Instead he asked for a song to be sung.

“Save and bless Your very own people; tend them and sustain them forever.”

~Psalms 28:9 pic.twitter.com/c3LLH0fVIT
— D Bash (@DBashIdeas) January 31, 2021

02/02 Links Pt1: UN Watch report highlights anti-Israel bias at UNHRC; US all but admits nuclear deal has failed; London: Firebomb thrown near Golders Green synagogue

From Ian:

UN Watch report highlights anti-Israel bias at UN Human Rights Council

The watchdog organization UN Watch published its first-ever report on Monday detailing the strong anti-Israel claims made at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) by various countries.

The release of the report comes amid the 46th session of the UNHRC, which is scheduled to take place on February 22 in Geneva and will run until March 23.

The 58-page report titled “Agenda Item 7: Country Claims & UN Watch Responses” focuses on how claims put forward against Israel by notorious human rights abuses, such as the Palestinian Authority, Syria, North Korea, and dozens of other council members that frequently accused Israel of various crimes and human rights violations.

Among the claims made against Israel at the UNHRC include Israel hindering the Palestinians in their fight against COVID-19, Israel occupying Palestinian land, Israel committing apartheid against the Palestinians, damaging holy sites, and the blockade of Gaza being illegal.

Under Agenda Item 7, Israel is the sole country discussed at the council, while all the other 193 countries in the world are addressed under Agenda Item 4. Likewise, the report notes that no special agenda items were filed on Iran, Syria, North Korea, and other prominent human rights abusing countries.

“Israel has become a convenient punching bag and scapegoat for non-democratic states, many of them members of the UNHRC such as Cuba, Pakistan, and Libya, to divert attention away from their own gross and systematic human rights abuses," said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer in response to the report.

At the same time, the report notes that all Western countries have refused to participate in the Item 7 debate, due to the claim it is biassed against Israel.

London: Firebomb thrown near Golders Green synagogue

A Molotov Cocktail was thrown at a synagogue in the Golders Green neighborhood of London Tuesday.

Police cordoned off the area around the Munks Beit Midrash after a suspicious individual was spotted at the site. Footage from the scene showed firefighters attempting to put out a small fire near the building.

Local councilor Alex Prager wrote on Twitter that "Golders Green Road is closed due to a security incident. Police and fire brigade on site. Appears to have involved a molotov cocktail next to a synagogue on The Riding."

Police stated that the incident is not believed to be related to terrorism.

Breaking 🚨 news out of London - Fire happening, molotov cocktail thrown near the Golders Green synagogue.

Men in the video can be heard asking "why did he wait all that time to throw that little bottle?"

More here: https://t.co/vcliU2wvkV pic.twitter.com/kfMTKfd3dr
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) February 2, 2021

Pakistan orders man acquitted in Pearl murder off death row and into safe house

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Pakistani-British man acquitted of the 2002 gruesome beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl off death row and moved to a so-called government “safe house.”

Ahmad Saeed Omar Sheikh, who has been on death row for 18 years, will be under guard and will not be allowed to leave the safe house, but he will be able to have his wife and children visit him.

“It is not complete freedom. It is a step toward freedom,” said Sheikh’s father, Ahmad Saeed Sheikh, who attended the hearing.

The Pakistan government has been scrambling to keep Sheikh in jail since a Supreme Court order last Thursday upheld his acquittal in the death of Pearl, triggering outrage by Pearl’s family and the US administration.

In a final effort to overturn the acquittal, Pakistan’s government as well as the Pearl family filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, asking it to review the decision to exonerate Sheikh of Pearl’s murder. The family’s lawyer, Faisal Siddiqi, however, said such a review had a slim chance of success because the same Supreme Court judges who ordered Sheikh’s acquittal sit on the review panel.

The US government has said that it would seek Sheikh’s extradition if his acquittal is upheld. Sheikh has been indicted in the United States on Pearl’s murder as well as in a 1994 kidnapping of an American citizen in Indian-ruled sector of the divided region of Kashmir. The American was eventually freed.

Last Friday, during the White House Briefing led by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, we were treated to the following exchange:

Q Thank you, Jen. Two quick foreign and one domestic, if that’s okay. Can you confirm officially that Robert Malley has been appointed Special Envoy for Iran? Is that —

MS. PSAKI: I can. I believe it was announced this morning. Yes? Or I guess I can confirm it here too for you.

Q That would be great. And then the — as you know, settlements have been a major obstacle to getting the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. Would President Biden consider it — does he believes settlements are — should be halted in the West Bank so that the Palestinians will come back?

MS. PSAKI: I don’t have any new comments from President Biden on this or the current circumstance. He’s obviously spoken to this particular issue in the past and conveyed that he doesn’t believe security assistance should be tied. But I don’t have anything more for you on the path forward toward a two-state solution. [emphasis added]

The journalist's question contains 3 mistaken assumptions -- assumptions that at this point have also been accepted without question by the media as fact.

Assumption #1: Settlements are an obstacle to the Palestinian Authority coming to the negotiating table.

Just last month we noted that historically this claim is simply not true. Jackson Diehl -- the deputy editorial page editor for The Washington Post -- made the point in 2010 that Abbas admitted that he demanded a settlement freeze before coming to the table because Obama did:

When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped. If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?

Going a step further, the settlements are part of the negotiations as per Oslo, not a sweetener to encourage the Palestinian Arabs to first come to the table:

Settlements are only one of the six issues to be negotiated by Israel and the Palestinians according to the original Oslo Accords from 1993. To single out the issue of settlements ahead of any negotiations while ignoring other bilateral issues constitutes a fundamental distortion of these signed agreements.

Yet this distortion has taken hold, including in the minds of the journalists who are supposed to be in command of the facts.

Assumption #2: Israel should make unilateral concessions

Why should the assumption be, as this journalist clearly believes, that unilateral concessions by Israel owes it to the Palestinian Arabs -- and the peace process itself -- to make immediate sacrifices?

Why does nobody suggest a freeze on Abbas's pay-to-slay policy that encourages terrorism and the murder of Israelis?

In fact, we have already seen Israel commit to a freeze in the settlements in 2009, in a sign of good faith that Abbas would come to the negotiating table.

Did it work?

To the contrary, when Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu implemented a 10-month security freeze in order to coax the Palestinians to the negotiating table, Abbas essentially responded with a 9-month negotiating freeze. And after the moratorium on Israeli building expired, he again refused to talk peace.

Those unilateral concessions to the Palestinian Arabs do not work.

Assumption #3: Settlements are being built

The building of Israeli settlements is supposed to be a a major obstacle -- and that is a claim that was made over and over by the Obama administration:

Back in 2014, in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg about his Middle East policy, Obama claimed:

we have seen more aggressive settlement construction over the last couple years than we've seen in a very long time.

Obama's deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes claimed, on December 23, 2016, that "thousands of new settlements are being constructed...you saw tens of thousands of settlements being constructed"

On December 28, 2016, following the US abstention that allowed the passing of UN Resolution 2334, then-Secretary of State Kerry claimed, "We’ve made countless public and private exhortations to the Israelis to stop the march of settlements."

In a speech Biden gave before J Street in April 2016, he copied that heated rhetoric, condemning "the actions that Israel’s government has taken over the past several years – the steady and systematic expansion of settlements..."

In January 2017, I wrote a post debunking the claim of settlement expansion in detail -- and showed how even then the media parroted these fabrications.

In point of fact:

o There were 228 settlements -- not tens of thousands

o What Kerry calls a march of settlements in 2016 is 3 settlements in 2012 -- with none from 1990 till then and none from the end of 2012 to 2016 when Kerry made his claim

o If you look at what is actually going on, you see the issue is not the building of an expanding number of settlements, but of homes inside those settlements.

Even taking into account that the issue is the houses being built, according to Haaretz in 2015 -- the number of houses constructed was down under Netanyahu:

According to data from the Housing and Construction Ministry, an average of 1,554 houses a year were built in the settlements from 2009 to 2014 — fewer than under any of his recent predecessors.

By comparison, the annual average was 1,881 under Ariel Sharon and 1,774 under Ehud Olmert. As for Ehud Barak, during his single full year as prime minister, in 2000, he built a whopping 5,000 homes in the settlements.

So:

o Israeli settlements are not the obstacle to negotiations, they are one of the issues to be discussed at the negotiations

o There is no justification for Israel to concede on a negotiating point, while Abbas merely pockets those concessions

o Settlements are not expanding. Houses within the settlements are being built to meet the need.

There was a time when journalists asked the kinds of questions that kept the administration on its toes -- attacking the points, not the people presenting them.

Of course, that would require a certain level of knowledge as well as a willingness to challenge the common perception.

My favorite example is a daily press briefing held on November 17, 2009, when the following exchange took place between the State Department Spokesperson Ian Kelly and Matt Lee, reporter for the Associated Press. The topic was what the Obama administration had accomplished till then in advancing peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs:

MR. KELLY: Well, I would say that we’ve gotten both sides to commit to this goal. They have – we have – we’ve had a intensive round or rounds of negotiations, the President brought the two leaders together in New York. Look --

QUESTION: But wait, hold on. You haven’t had any intense --

MR. KELLY: Obviously --

QUESTION: There haven’t been any negotiations.

MR. KELLY: Obviously, we’re not even in the red zone yet, okay.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: I mean, we’re not – but it’s – we are less than a year into this Administration, and I think we’ve accomplished more over the last year than the previous administration [under President George Bush] did in eight years. [emphasis added]

QUESTION: Well, I – really, because the previous administration actually had them sitting down talking to each other. You guys can’t even get that far.

MR. KELLY: All right.

QUESTION: I’ll drop it.