Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, April 07, 2021

UPDATE: Yom Hashoah: Or That Time I Didn’t Want to Do The Handmaid’s Tale in Book Club (Judean Rose)

So Yom Hashoah is coming up and I’m in this book club. There’s a scheduling snafu: we’d been set to meet on the eve of Yom Hashoah to discuss The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s story of a creepy and salacious alternate world. The question arose: Should we postpone the meet? Is it appropriate to have book club on that night?

I didn’t think it appropriate to meet on Yom Hashoa, not because it isn't appropriate to have book club on the eve of Yom Hashoah, a day we remember the Final Solution, but because Atwood is an antisemite and antisemitism is what brought about Hitler's (yemach shmo) Final Solution. Which is why I didn’t want to read the book again. I’d read it when it first came out, of course, and loved it and read everything Margaret Atwood wrote thereafter, until she came full out as a violent antisemite who calls for the destruction of the Jewish State.

All this put me in a funny position because the group had decided not to talk or read about politics or Jewish subjects in book club. They aren't intolerant, mind you. They just feel they have enough of that in their daily lives. As one member put it: "What if the point of literature is to rise above our own worlds and see things from a larger perspective?"

Here’s what happened: when all of us had been asked to suggest books, a few months ago, one of the suggested books was The Handmaid's Tale. An anonymous survey was held, and though I voted for a different book, Atwood's book was chosen. In my opinion, we had chosen a book by a horrible antisemite, but I was hesitant to speak out as I knew that politics didn't really belong in the context of this group.

I could have been wrong. Maybe I should have said something. Instead, I shut up, kept my feelings and opinions to myself and rather than give Atwood royalties, I took an old beat up copy of the book from the local library and reread it. I didn't want to bug the book group with my personal bugaboos.

Now, however, some members of the book club were asking the group for input. Well, here is mine: a discussion of this book OR READING IT AT ANY OTHER TIME will never be appropriate, all the more so on Yom Hashoah. Because Atwood has accused Israel of ethnic cleansing, framing it as a “holocaust.” Which makes her an antisemite:

As "Egypt" at a Model U.N. in 1956, my high school's delegation had presented the Palestinian case. Why was it fair that the Palestinians, innocent bystanders during the Holocaust, had lost their homes? To which the Model Israel replied, "You don't want Israel to exist." A mere decade after the Camps and the six million obliterated, such a statement was a talk-stopper.

Get it? According to Atwood, Jews stifle free speech with their damned Holocaust.

Next, Atwood says Jews are child-killers accusing Israel of withholding snack foods (there must be a logical progression here somewhere) from civilians who live under Hamas rule in Gaza. :

Having been preoccupied of late with mass extinctions and environmental disasters, and thus having strayed into the Middle-eastern neighbourhood with a mind as open as it could be without being totally vacant, I've come out altered. Child-killing in Gaza? Killing aid-bringers on ships in international waters? Civilians malnourished thanks to the blockade? Forbidding writing paper? Forbidding pizza? How petty and vindictive! Is pizza is a tool of terrorists? Would most Canadians agree? And am I a tool of terrorists for saying this? I think not.

We forbid them pizza, says Atwood. But hey, she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, so it must be true, despite evidence to the contrary:

2/ Chicken pizza at Viola Restaurant, #Gaza beach.
2nd day of #EidAlFitr. Photos of the food uploaded to Instagram before eating, of course! #TheGazaYouDontSee #Gaza4real https://t.co/apTGcEB4wp pic.twitter.com/TWIK4bLU19
— Imshin (@imshin) May 28, 2020

Italiano Pizza-Gaza:

Gaza's Pizzeria:

Pizza Branch-Branch Gaza:

Gaza Grande:

Neapolitana Gaza:

But back to our question: is discussion of a Margaret Atwood book appropriate for Yom Hashoah? No. Nor at any other time.

What follows is Atwood’s op-ed for Haaretz, in full and yes, it does run on and on, a rant. I think we should read most of it, and then never read or discuss her ever again. (Pfffffft, she never existed, evil person. A wannabe latter-day Haman.)

The Shadow Over Israel
by Margaret Atwood
June 2, 2010

"Until Palestine has its own 'legitimized' state within its internationally recognized borders, the Shadow will remain."

This article is part of a special edition of Haaretz, to mark Israel's book week.

The Moment

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage,
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
Climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

Recently I was in Israel. The Israelis I met could not have been more welcoming. I saw many impressive accomplishments and creative projects, and talked with many different people. The sun was shining, the waves waving, the flowers were in bloom. Tourists jogged along the beach at Tel Aviv as if everything was normal.

But … there was the Shadow. Why was everything trembling a little, like a mirage? Was it like that moment before a tsunami when the birds fly to the treetops and the animals head for the hills because they can feel it coming?

"Every morning I wake up in fear," someone told me. "That's just self-pity, to excuse what's happening," said someone else. Of course, fear and self-pity can both be real. But by "what's happening," they meant the Shadow.

I'd been told ahead of time that Israelis would try to cover up the Shadow, but instead they talked about it non-stop. Two minutes into any conversation, the Shadow would appear. It's not called the Shadow, it's called "the situation." It haunts everything.

The Shadow is not the Palestinians. The Shadow is Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, linked with Israeli's own fears. The worse the Palestinians are treated in the name of those fears, the bigger the Shadow grows, and then the fears grow with them; and the justifications for the treatment multiply.

The attempts to shut down criticism are ominous, as is the language being used. Once you start calling other people by vermin names such as "vipers," you imply their extermination. To name just one example, such labels were applied wholesale to the Tutsis months before the Rwanda massacre began. Studies have shown that ordinary people can be led to commit horrors if told they'll be acting in self-defense, for "victory," or to benefit mankind.

I'd never been to Israel before, except in the airport. Like a lot of people on the sidelines – not Jewish, not Israeli, not Palestinian, not Muslim – I hadn't followed the "the situation" closely, though, also like most, I'd deplored the violence and wished for a happy ending for all.

Again like most, I'd avoided conversations on this subject because they swiftly became screaming matches. (Why was that? Faced with two undesirable choices, the brain – we're told – chooses one as less evil, pronounces it good, and demonizes the other.)

I did have some distant background. As "Egypt" at a Model U.N. in 1956, my high school's delegation had presented the Palestinian case. Why was it fair that the Palestinians, innocent bystanders during the Holocaust, had lost their homes? To which the Model Israel replied, "You don't want Israel to exist." A mere decade after the Camps and the six million obliterated, such a statement was a talk-stopper.

Then I'd been hired to start a Nature program at a liberal Jewish summer camp. The people were smart, funny, inventive, idealistic. We went in a lot for World Peace and the Brotherhood of Man. I couldn't fit this together with the Model U.N. Palestinian experience. Did these two realities nullify each other? Surely not, and surely the humane Jewish Brotherhood-of-Manners numerous in both the summer camp and in Israel itself would soon sort this conflict out in a fair way.

But they didn't. And they haven't. And it's no longer 1956. The conversation has changed dramatically. I was recently attacked for accepting a cultural prize that such others as Atom Egoyan, Al Gore, Tom Stoppard, Goenawan Mohamad, and Yo-Yo Ma had previously received. This prize was decided upon, not by an instrument of Israeli state power as some would have it, but by a moderate committee within an independent foundation. This group was pitching real democracy, open dialogue, a two-state solution, and reconciliation. Nevertheless, I've now heard every possible negative thing about Israel – in effect, I've had an abrupt and searing immersion course in present-day politics. The whole experience was like learning about cooking by being thrown into the soup pot.

The most virulent language was truly anti-Semitic (as opposed to the label often used to deflect criticism). There were hot debates among activists about whether boycotting Israel would "work," or not; about a one-state or else a two-state solution; about whether a boycott should exclude culture, as it is a bridge, or was that hypocritical dreaming? Was the term "apartheid" appropriate, or just a distraction? What about "de-legitimizing" the State of Israel? Over the decades, the debate had acquired a vocabulary and a set of rituals that those who hadn't hung around universities – as I had not – would simply not grasp.

Some kindly souls, maddened by frustration and injustice, began by screaming at me; but then, deciding I suppose that I was like a toddler who'd wandered into traffic, became very helpful. Others dismissed my citing of International PEN and its cultural-boycott-precluding efforts to free imprisoned writers as irrelevant twaddle. (An opinion cheered by every repressive government, extremist religion, and hard-line political group on the planet, which is why so many fiction writers are banned, jailed, exiled, and shot.)

None of this changes the core nature of the reality, which is that the concept of Israel as a humane and democratic state is in serious trouble. Once a country starts refusing entry to the likes of Noam Chomsky, shutting down the rights of its citizens to use words like "Nakba," and labelling as "anti-Israel" anyone who tries to tell them what they need to know, a police-state clampdown looms. Will it be a betrayal of age-old humane Jewish traditions and the rule of just law, or a turn towards reconciliation and a truly open society?

Time is running out. Opinion in Israel may be hardening, but in the United States things are moving in the opposite direction. Campus activity is increasing; many young Jewish Americans don't want Israel speaking for them. America, snarled in two chaotic wars and facing increasing international anger over Palestine, may well be starting to see Israel not as an asset but as a liability.

Then there are people like me. Having been preoccupied of late with mass extinctions and environmental disasters, and thus having strayed into the Middle-eastern neighbourhood with a mind as open as it could be without being totally vacant, I've come out altered. Child-killing in Gaza? Killing aid-bringers on ships in international waters? Civilians malnourished thanks to the blockade? Forbidding writing paper? Forbidding pizza? How petty and vindictive! Is pizza is a tool of terrorists? Would most Canadians agree? And am I a tool of terrorists for saying this? I think not.

There are many groups in which Israelis and Palestinians work together on issues of common interest, and these show what a positive future might hold; but until the structural problem is fixed and Palestine has its own "legitimized" state within its internationally recognized borders, the Shadow will remain.

"We know what we have to do, to fix it," said many Israelis. "We need to get beyond Us and Them, to We," said a Palestinian. This is the hopeful path. For Israelis and Palestinians both, the region itself is what's now being threatened, as the globe heats up and water vanishes. Two traumas create neither erasure nor invalidation: both are real. And a catastrophe for one would also be a catastrophe for the other.

______________________

[EoZ:] I just want to point out that Atwood's citing her 1956 Model UN experience representing Egypt as defending Palestinians is supremely ironic. The Egyptians in 1956 kept all Palestinians in Gaza by law - they were not allowed to leave the enclave and enter Egypt. The Egyptians cynically created a puppet "government" for Palestinians in Gaza that the entire world dismissed, but it allowed Egypt to pretend to be a champion for Palestinian rights at the same time they were quashing them. In other words, Atwood pretending to represent Egypt in 1956 is similar to her pretending to love Palestinians today - just an excuse to spout hate for Israel.

04/07 Links Pt1: US to restore UNRWA funding when it gives Palestinians $150m; Photographic Evidence Shows Palestinian Leader Amin al-Husseini at a Nazi Concentration Camp

From Ian:

US to restore UNRWA funding when it gives Palestinians $150m. - report

The Bidden administration is prepared to restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees, thereby reversing US president Donald Trump's 2018 decision to cut such assistance, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

US President Joe Biden had promised during his campaign for the presidency that he would resume such funding, but has yet to make good on his pledge.

Palestinian Authority Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said he was pleased to hear from Reuters about the US policy change, when he spoke at UN event on UNRWA in New York on Wednesday.

Until the Trump era the US had been the largest single county donor to the UNRWA, spending over $350 million annually on the organization.

According to Reuters the State Department could announce the $150 million assistance package as early as Wednesday.

The Trump administration and many on the Israeli Right are opposed to UNWA, primarily because it classifies as refugees, descendants of some 750,000 Palestinians who fled their homes as a result of the 1948 War of Independence and who now live in east Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Exposing the EU and Palestinian Authority’s Plans to Takeover Judea and Samaria, and Jerusalem

After a year of documentation, infiltration, and surveillance of Palestinian Authority senior officers, we reveal the European Union’s masterplan of taking over the Judea and Samaria Judea and Samaria Territories and Jerusalem

Photographic Evidence Shows Palestinian Leader Amin al-Husseini at a Nazi Concentration Camp

In 2017, Jerusalem’s Kedem auction house posted three of six previously unknown photos on the internet, in which the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, inspects a Nazi concentration camp along with Nazi senior officials and government figures. According to the auctioneers, an expert was of the opinion that these inmates performed forced labor at the Trebbin camp near Berlin, which was, from 1942 to 1945, an SS artillery training place with a branch of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg. Built after World War I as a Christian “City of Peace,” it was taken over by the SS in 1935. Among the prisoners were Jews from Hungary. Forced labor, terror and violence characterized their daily lives. Kedem hoped viewers would help identify men in the photos.

As it turns out, I can now shed light on five of the foreign guests in the pictures—global leaders whose presence reflects the transregional history between Europe, the Middle East, India, and America. The photographs also provide irrefutable proof that all of the men present had precise knowledge of the fate of Jews in Hitler’s Germany—and of the likely fate of Jews in their own home countries under Nazi rule. According to Kedem, the photos are stamped “Photo-Gerhards Trebbin.” This stamp indicates that they were probably photographed in Trebbin, 30 kilometers south of Berlin, “around 1943.” The six photos were auctioned for $12,300 to a private individual who, I would argue, should post the remaining three images on the internet as a humanitarian gesture to families of the prisoners.

Only three of the seven men pictured survived World War II and its immediate aftermath. The two German officials in uniform were both directly involved in the Holocaust. Before and after their trip to the camp, Adolf Hitler met separately with each of the foreign guests, who included the Palestinian leader al-Husseini, the former Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Kailani, the Croatian Ustasha ideologue Mile Budak, and the Indian Hindu leader Subhas Chandra Bose. So who were they?

True Grit in Lebanon

When Mrs. Browning published “A Court Lady” 161 years ago, the contemporary concept of individual human rights did not yet exist. But we recognize its seed in the innate human drive to make right what is wrong not only in personal relationships, but in relations among nations. It is well we should remember Browning’s words at a time of renewal for human rights in U.S. foreign policy, for while applying human rights is rarely a straightforward exercise in a world of competing equities, values and interests do at times fully converge. The case of Kinda El-Khatib is one of those convergences.

Kinda El-Khatib, a twenty-three-year-old Lebanese citizen from the northern province of Akkar, was arrested on June 20, 2020, by the internal security arm of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). Sixteen masked men barged into her home and took her away to be interrogated at length, deprived of food for two days, denied counsel and contact with her family, and brought to a court-martial—though she is a civilian—without being apprised of the charges against her.

When finally informed of the charges in court—“violating the law boycotting Israel” and “communicating with enemy agents”—Ms. El-Khatib was astounded. The LAF indictment contained a scintilla of truth, several partial truths, and a bumper crop of outright falsehoods, including a purported trip to Israel and liaison with “agents” of several states.

What was Ms. El-Khatib’s real offense? She had been politically active on social media, accusing Hezbollah and its allies of responsibility for most of Lebanon’s governmental dysfunction, corruption, and suborning of its armed forces. Earlier run-ins as her popularity grew enabled her detractors to get permission to tap her phone. She was not intimidated.

Ms. El-Khatib’s efforts attracted the attention of an Israeli TV journalist. Roi Kais asked Ms. El-Khatib via Twitter to consent to a virtual interview, to be aired on Israeli media. She declined, but suggested Mr. Charbel El-Hajj, a dual Lebanese-U.S. citizen then living in Portland, Oregon, as an alternative. Mr. El-Hajj did the interview. Ms. El-Khatib had never personally met either Mr. Kais or Mr. El-Hajj. The LAF indictment’s only hint of truth is that she did communicate, albeit at a remove, with an Israeli.

Although Ms. El-Khatib was convicted of no crime, she was held in prison anyway awaiting trial. News of her arrest triggered a wave of protest by her sympathizers in Akkar Province. Still, on December 14 the LAF tribunal sentenced Ms. El-Khatib to three years’ prison and forced labor. (Mr. El-Hajj was sentenced in absentia to ten years’ prison and forced labor.)

Pinsker Centre PodCast: Ep. 8 - Turkey on the World Stage: an Insider's Perspective - with Ceren Kena?r?

Ceren Kenar is a Turkish journalist and columnist. In this week's episode, she sits down with Lawrence, the Associate Director of the Pinsker Centre, to discuss Turkish-Israeli relations, Turkey's role as a bridge between the West and East, and more.

Tune in to Counterbalance and listen to me and @makosloff discuss China, Iran, and the future of American Foreign Policy with @SecPompeo | https://t.co/WRp6OEG4Pu
— Mike (@Doranimated) April 7, 2021

Last week, I created a definition of antisemitism that I felt addressed shortcomings of the other ones that have popped up.

The definition is:

Antisemitism is

hostility toward,

denigration of or

discrimination against

Jews

as individual Jews,

as a people,

as a religion,

as an ethnic group or

as a nation (i.e., Israel.)

Since then, I've been trying to poke holes in this definition to see if it is complete and accurate. The best way to do that is to find obvious examples of antisemitism and see if they are covered.

So, for example, BDS is covered, since it is discrimination against the Jewish state.

The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is covered because it is hostility towards Jews as a people.

Holding individual Jews as being responsible for actions of other Jews (or Israel) is discrimination against Jews.

But what about Holocaust denial? Here is something that is obviously antisemitic, but isn't easily covered by this (or any other) base definition.

Using the "Jerusalem Declaration of Antisemitism" formulations of looking at different examples "on the face of it," Holocaust denial is simply people seeking the truth about a historic event, just like BDS is "on the face of it" simply a quest for justice for Palestinians, or seeking Israel's destruction is "on the face of it" just an anti-nationalist viewpoint.

While JDA adds a separate clause saying that Holocaust denial is antisemitic, their base definition doesn't address it - unless you agree that it is obvious that Holocaust denial cannot be evaluated based on the perspective of the claims of Holocaust deniers.

Why? Because they are liars.

Both JDA and the IHRA working definition discuss "context" in evaluating what it antisemitic, but JDA chooses when to believe the antisemitic lies (BDS, Palestinians who want one Arab majority state) and when not to believe them (Holocaust denial, people who claim that the Rothschilds control the world.) Which means that their definition isn't a definition at all - it is a pretense to allow the types of antisemitism they support and to condemn the antisemitism they dislike.

Outside of the extreme Right, antisemites rarely say explicitly that they hate Jews because of the stigma against public Jew-hatred. So they hide their hate behind moral arguments - they only want to protect animals from the evils of ritual slaughter (while protecting hunting), they only want to protect innocent babies from the horrors of circumcision (while allowing ear piercing of minors), they only want to protect Palestinians from the terror of the Israelis (while remaining silent about Lebanese and Jordanian anti-Palestinian laws.) We know they are antisemitic because of the lies they say as well as their hypocrisy. Their morality rarely extends beyond the examples that affect Jews.

I don't like any definition that requires examples, especially when the examples aren't obviously covered in the base definition. And if Holocaust denial isn't covered in the base definition of antisemitism, then it isn't a good definition - for IHRA, JDA or me. One can arguably say that Holocaust denial is denigration of Jews because it indirectly says that Jewish witnesses to the genocide are all liars, but that is not as clear as it should be from a definition.

So I think I need to add a clause to this definition to include "malicious lies" towards Jews. This would cover not only Holocaust denial but also all sorts of lies about Jewish history that aren't addressed by the other definitions, like the Khazar myth, or claiming that Jews have no historic ties to Jerusalem, or that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis.

My new definition is:

Antisemitism is

hostility towards,

denigration of,

malicious lies about or

discrimination against

Jews

as individual Jews,

as a people,

as a religion,

as an ethnic group or

as a nation (i.e., Israel.)

(I'm also wondering if I need to add something like "violence against Jews" but I think that it is covered with "hostility towards." )

Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry has issued an extract of its annual report on antisemitism.

Its main findings are that during 2020, violent antisemitic incidents were reduced because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but much Jew-hatred migrated online and specifically to the darknet where it is more difficult to monitor and combat. The most notable antisemitism for the year was blaming Jews for the pandemic itself, as well as comparing the pandemic or vaccines to the Holocaust. There were other important events like the far-Left groups using anti-racism riots as an excuse for antisemitism and BDS, EU's Court of Justice in Luxembourg permitting states to ban kosher and halal slaughter, and the increase of mostly right-wing antisemitism in Germany especially attacks on Holocaust memorials.

The news isn't all bad, though. The report mentions promising events of 2020 in the battle against Jew-hatred, which would typically not be mentioned in the media. Here are the highlights:

First, more special envoys, responsible for combating antisemitism, were appointed in several countries, like the Netherlands, Romania and Canada, and the envoy of the US State Department was promoted to the rank of Ambassador. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed Miguel Moratinos as UN Focal Point for combating antisemitism.

Second, the Working Definition of Antisemitism was adopted during 2020 by a growing number of countries, universities, sports clubs, municipalities and local councils, and this trend continues in 2021. The Kantor Center is currently mapping the adoption of the Definition worldwide, and the total number exceeds 450. Recently Bahrein also adopted the Definition, and most important: it was adopted by the Global Imams Council, following the signing of the Abraham Accords.38 The EU published a detailed handbook recommending a correct and comprehensive use of the Definition, as part of a more general decision to recognize the battle against antisemitism as a clause in its political plans.

Third, allocation of funds for protecting Jewish communities: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, former President Donald Trump, Germany's Office of the Interior, the Sachsen-Anhalt state where the city of Halle is located, the Austrian government – have all announced that they would increase their existing funding or allocate new funds to the protection and development of security means for the Jewish communities.

Fourth, Jewish education and Jewish life: Morocco has announced that it would include chapters on the history and culture of Moroccan Jews in its curriculums. Germany plans a series of events in 2021, to celebrate 1700 years of Jewish life in Germany, including the battle against antisemitism. Former President Trump approved the Never Again Education Act, authorizing the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington D.C. to promote the teaching and awareness of the Holocaust. The European Council regards antisemitism as an "attack on European values", and indicates the need to combat it decisively.

There has been progress in developing tools enabling the detection of antisemitic discourse on the internet, based on the Working Definition. Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs has developed the Antisemitic Cyber Monitoring System, which identifies antisemitic expressions in several languages on several networks, and in 2020 even began to monitor websites in the darknet, which are more difficult to access. However, despite repeated declarations on the part of the leading services, and some progress made so far, there is still a long way to go...Financial interests, the ignorance of younger generations about antisemitism, the Holocaust and the situation in the Middle East, the wish to address broad audiences and create visibility for the companies, still prevent full progress in removing antisemitic content from open networks.

Dr. Ramy Abdu is the founder and chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based NGO.

The organization is viciously anti-Israel, but this tweet from Abdu on Tuesday takes the cake.

Yesterday we discussed Israel's release of DFLP terrorist Rushdi Abu Mokh, who was part of a cell that kidnapped, tortured, mutilated and murdered 19 year old Moshe Tamam. He was given a hero's welcome in his home town, and Arab village in Israel.

Ramy Abdu was also enamored of this terrorist, tweeting this:

Aw, the poor terrorist wasn't released before his mother died! How cruel that Israel kept a person who helped castrate and gouge out the eyes of a Jew in prison!

Needless to say, torture and mutilation and murder and kidnapping and hostage taking are all violations of international humanitarian law - but this founder of a "human rights monitor" has no problem with any of those things when done by a Palestinian against a Jew.

He only shows sympathy for the monstrous terrorist and doesn't even admit that there was a victim.

We already knew that the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has nothing to do with human rights and only uses that issue as a weapon against the Jewish state. But rarely do we see such naked hypocrisy from the founder of a human rights NGO.

(h/t Ian)

04/06 Links Pt2: The Wicked Lie of ‘Medical Apartheid’; Why can’t we talk about ideology’s role when killers aren’t white?; Israeli data shows world's Jewish population now as high as in 1925

From Ian:

Emily Schrader: New 'Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism' definition unneeded - opinion

In recent weeks, a new definition of antisemitism has popped up, titled the “Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism,” aimed at undermining the widely accepted International Holocaust Remembrance Association definition. But at a time of rising antisemitic incidents around the world, in particular those in the name of “anti-Zionism not antisemitism,” we don’t need another definition of antisemitism, and certainly not by some of the same groups who are making antisemitism a political issue like the fringe groups IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace.

The new definition, signed onto by 200 academics, criticizes the IHRA definition by claiming it is overly broad not in the definition itself, but “in its use.” The IHRA definition is used as a tool for the US government, the EU and 30 other nations to help them define and recognize antisemitic incidents. It is also widely accepted by numerous academic institutions, sports teams and even private companies. It is unique in that it outlines specific examples of what antisemitism looks like today – from classical antisemitic tropes, to comparing the Jewish state to Nazis, to demanding Jews abroad answer for the policies of Israel, to using “Zionism” as a replacement word for Jews. Naturally, this concerns not only classical antisemites, but also modern ones who have made it a priority to demonize and defame Zionists.

The controversy over the IHRA definition has arisen as a result of several fringe Jewish groups launching a campaign against IHRA, falsely claiming it “censors” free speech and that it “silences” Palestinian advocacy. This is not only untrue, but tremendously offensive to pro-Palestinian activists in claiming they cannot advocate for Palestinians without being antisemitic. Additionally, IHRA does not advocate any form of censorship. If it is used as such, that’s not a problem of the definition but the person or institution misapplying it.

Scholars of antisemitism and advocates for the JDA – Joshua Shanes and Dov Waxman – wrote in Slate, “the IHRA definition – specifically some of its examples pertaining to Israel – has been misused to target pro-Palestinian advocacy,” meaning that even advocates and signatories to the JDA admit that the IHRA definition itself does not, in fact, advocate censorship or unfair targeting. Yet at a time when one in four American Jews have experienced antisemitism, these scholars choose to throw their weight behind dividing the community over a new definition of antisemitism that lends credence to extremist groups?

It should also be noted that among the signatories of the JDA are Peter Beinart, who routinely uses his platform to demonize both Israel and Zionists; Naomi Chazan, the former president of the left-wing New Israel Fund and Richard Falk, who served as the UN special rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.” Falk, a conspiracy theorist who believes 9/11 was an inside job, has been widely criticized for his comments on both Israel and Jews, including but not limited to: claiming that Israel was planning a Holocaust of the Palestinians, claiming the US government and Jews were conspiring to take Palestinian land and publishing antisemitic cartoons on his blog, where he defended outrageous antisemitic authors, including those supporting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

More Than 350 Academics Sign Letter Supporting IHRA

More than 350 academics, professionals and intellectuals worldwide signed a letter supporting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.

The letter, which was signed by UCLA Computer Science Professor Judea Pearl, University of Ottawa Holocaust History Professor Jan Grabowski and McGill University Professor Gil Troy, stated that while all of the various scholars hold differing political viewpoints, they all believe that the IHRA definition is an “invaluable tool” in combating the rise of anti-Semitism globally.

“This new antisemitism has its roots in a noxious mixture of classical, modern racial, Islamic and Soviet anti-Zionist antisemitism,” the letter stated. “It marks out the Jewish state as uniquely demonic, deserving of boycott and opprobrium. In a world full of states and national movements, it calls for the dismantling and ultimately violent destruction of the State of Israel. This antisemitism justifies the harassment, exclusion and ostracism of Israelis and Jews worldwide. It continues centuries old traditions of boycotting, rejecting and shunning Jews.”

The Vaccine Blood Libel: The Wicked Lie of ‘Medical Apartheid’

An egregious lie has been making the rounds lately. It is a timeworn smear against the Jewish people in a modern guise.

The ancient blood libel—“Jews are poisoners,” used to stoke antisemitic violence through the ages, from the Black Death to tainted wells—has reappeared. This time, it is the claim that Israel is denying COVID-19 vaccinations to its non-Jewish citizens and to the residents of the not-yet-sovereign Palestinian Authority. This lie is the same as its predecessors.

Yet the vaccine slander is being widely disseminated by Israel’s enemies, especially on college campuses. On March 2, for example, the Palestine Solidarity Committee held a teach-in at the University of Texas at Austin alleging “medical apartheid” not only as part of Israel’s COVID-19 response but in the ability of pregnant Palestinian women to access hospitals, allegedly leading to roadside deaths related to childbirth.

Also in March, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) Chicago held a three-day campaign called “End Medical Apartheid,” alleging that Israel denies Palestinians proper health treatment, drawing parallels to healthcare inequities for non-white Chicagoans. Likewise, SJP at the University of Maryland held an open Zoom call to share the claim of “medical apartheid.”

One misleading claim pushed by the medical apartheid libel is that Israel is responsible for, but has failed, to vaccinate all Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Similar assertions have been advanced in The New York Times and on MSNBC, as well as by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The Vermont senator called it “outrageous” for Israel to send vaccines to its allies before the Palestinian population is fully vaccinated. One writer in The Forward alleged that Israel is “classifying people by ethnic identity—and allocating a life-saving resource accordingly”—a slander that The Forward later retracted.

Jonathan S. Tobin: Why can’t we talk about ideology’s role when killers aren’t white?

Though Green’s problems didn’t begin with a belief that Farrakhan was “Jesus, the Messiah,” the Nation of Islam’s paranoiac, anti-white and anti-Semitic ideology may have tipped him into taking violent action.

A lack of corroborating evidence didn’t stop the elite blue-check class from attributing the Atlanta killings to white supremacy. Yet those same talking heads appear to be completely uninterested in whether Farrakhan’s bigotry may have been a factor in Green’s motivations. see also

True, the presence of Farrakhan’s hateful ideology in his life shouldn’t lead us to brush aside Green’s illness. But we also shouldn’t quickly consign to the memory-hole the killer’s interest in the Nation of Islam.

Our media betters wouldn’t hesitate to focus exclusively on white racist groups if Green had been one of their adherents. But the Nation of Islam receives different treatment.

The New York Times, for example, almost instantly cast doubt on any links between Farrakhan’s hate and violence. The paper quoted an “expert” who dismissed the connection, noting that the Nation of Islam has a lower “body count” than white racists.

The problem here isn’t just that society still doesn’t prioritize helping the mentally ill. Our mainstream media and pop culture continue to give a pass to Farrakhan, a man with a following of hundreds of thousands. With statistics showing that most hate crimes against Jews and Asians are committed by African Americans, it’s time to start treating his widespread influence as a serious problem.

Yet the Grammy telecast recently featured the Farrakhan supporter and Black Lives Matter advocate Tamika Mallory, and mainstream political figures like former President Bill Clinton have no problem sharing a stage with the Farrakhan.

As the probe proceeds, it may well turn out that Farrakhan’s hate triggered Green’s final descent into violent madness. The old bigot doesn’t deserve the free pass he still receives from a media establishment that believes racism is worth discussing only when it comes from one direction.

Of course, I'm referring to this, which was a Zionist poster that Palestinians now claim shows that there was an Arab Palestinian state before 1948.

From Palestinian Media Watch:

Official PA TV host: “How was the expulsion (i.e., the Nazi genocide) of the Jews carried out? German [Nazi] Minister of Propaganda Goebbels, together with Hitler, disseminated that the Jews are like rats: They spread diseases, rob the wealth of Germany, and must be expelled... They reached the land of Palestine hungry, sick, lacking everything, infected with typhus and malaria. We gave them fresh water to drink and fed them oranges, and they betrayed the hand that was extended to help them....In Palestine there were only very few Jews who arrived fleeing diseases, hunger, and fear. The people of Palestine welcomed them at the ports of Haifa and Jaffa, and they began to live here. But in 1929 [the Arabs] discovered that they were not people escaping who wanted to find refuge among the Palestinian people, but rather they are a colonialist project that wants to kill the Palestinians.”

Were Jews welcomed by Arabs before 1929?

Well, not according to Arab media at the time.

"Sowt Ashaab," quoted in the Palestine Bulletin of February 25, 1925, complains that Britain and the US restrict Jewish immigration, but the British authorities in Palestine continue to encourage Jews to immigrate. "When will England close the doors to Jewish immigration to Palestine? All Palestinian Arabs ask that question," it wrote.

In May, the paper quoted "Filastin" about the dangers of selling land to Jews in Qalqilya:

The October 21, 1925 edition quoted another Arab paper, Carmel, decrying the fact that some Arabs are selling and renting real estate to the Jews that are supposedly being welcomed. (Notice that they say that the threat is not only to Palestinian Arabs but to the entire Arab world.)

04/06 Links Pt1: Strained Saudi-US ties will likely bring Gulf kingdom closer to Israel; Sudan Repeals Law Mandating Boycott of Israel; Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Starts Direct Passenger Flights to Israel

From Ian:

Strained Saudi-US ties will likely bring Gulf kingdom closer to Israel

This will, on the one hand, bring Saudi Arabia closer to Israel, he added, since Riyadh will not feel that it can trust Washington as much. On the other hand, the lack of U.S. backing and ongoing U.S. pressure will cause Saudi Arabia to be cautious about doing this publicly.

These developments “encourage the Iranians to increase their daring with negative consequences for regional stability. However, the Iranians have prioritized the goal of reaching a nuclear agreement at the moment. After that, everything will be open,” said Zisser.

‘Aim to achieve a greater balance of power in the Middle East’

Professor Benny Miller, an expert on international relations from the School of Political Sciences at the University of Haifa, told JNS that the Biden administration will show “much greater sensitivity to the Saudi human-rights violations than [former President Donald] Trump, and to some extent, will go beyond Obama in ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.”

However, he added, “the commitment of the U.S. security umbrella in relation to external threats—Iran—will persist.”

The Saudis, in turn, “will have an incentive to ‘compensate’ for their human-rights violations by upgrading their relations with Israel,” continued Miller. “At the same time, this issue [the normalization of Israeli-Saudi ties], even if welcomed by Biden, will not have the high urgency it had under Trump before the 2020 elections.”

In terms of regional security, “while Trump tried to create a ‘hegemonic’ alliance of Israelis and Arabs vis-à-vis a much weakened Iran, Biden—like Obama, in this sense—will aim to achieve a greater balance of power in the Middle East between the Israel-Arab alliance vs. Iran, but this also heavily depends on the Iranian response,” assessed Miller. “If Iran continues to endorse a hardline and aggressiveness, Biden will give more support to the Israel-Arab alliance.”

“The key objective of the administration will be to stabilize the region,” he added, “so as to enable a gradual U.S. disengagement from the region militarily, and so that the U.S. will be able to focus on its foreign policy issue—the competition with China.”

Report: Sudan Repeals Law Mandating Boycott of Israel

The Sudanese government has decided to repeal its law that mandates boycotting Israel, six months after it reached a normalization agreement with the Jewish state.

Israeli daily Maariv reported that the decision was announced by the Sudanese government Tuesday.

Israel and Sudan officially normalized relations on Oct. 23, 2020, following up on the decision by the UAE and Bahrain to sign the Abraham Accords the month before. To facilitate the deal, the US removed Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Sudan also paid reparations to US terror victims in the amount of $335 million.

Sudan’s boycott law was originally enacted in 1958, and applied to all diplomatic, economic, and trade relations with the Jewish state.

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid tweeted that all but one of Sudan’s cabinet ministers voted in favor of repealing the law, but that it must now receive further governmental approval, including from Sudan’s parliament.

The decision follows close contacts between Israel and Sudan, who consulted on the precise wording of their agreement to begin full diplomatic relations — a major part of which was Israel’s desire to see the boycott law repealed.

Ironically, as more and more Arab countries are repealing their boycott of Israel, die-hard ideologues in the West like HRW's Ken Roth feverishly lobby the UN Human Rights Council to expand its boycott blacklist of Israeli companies. https://t.co/QxCsjAFmGm
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 6, 2021

Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Starts Direct Passenger Flights to Israel

Abu Dhabi state carrier Etihad Airways began direct commercial passenger flights from the United Arab Emirates capital to Tel Aviv in Israel — the latest direct air link between the two countries that established diplomatic relations last year.

UAE Ambassador to Israel Mohamed Al Khaja and Israel’s head of mission to the UAE Eitan Na’eh were on the inaugural flight.

“As our countries recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have much to look forward to in commercial, diplomatic, technological, health, and tourism exchanges,” Khaja was quoted as saying by UAE state news agency WAM.

Etihad said it would initially offer two weekly flights between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi, which has placed Israel on its green list of countries, meaning visitors do not need to quarantine due to the coronavirus.

Other UAE and Israeli airlines have launched direct flights.

The Gulf Arab state has become a popular destinations for Israeli tourists even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt travel globally.

استقبال طائرة الاتحاد الاماراتية وترحيب خطوة تدشين خطوط الطيران بين البلدين 🇦🇪🇮🇱pic.twitter.com/JYQegQxTYN
— Lorena Khateeb | لورينا خطيب (@kh_lorena) April 6, 2021

The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism would not consider a call to nuke Israel to be antisemitic

Some idiot with a podcast who calls himself Vaush (350K subscribers on YouTube) said that if Israel was destroyed in a nuclear attack, the Middle East would be a more peaceful place.

Here's the moron's video:

I wondered if the desire to annihilate the world's only Jewish state, in the interests of world peace, would be considered antisemitic by the "Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism."

Not at all.

The declaration says, "Evidence-based criticism of Israel as a state [is not antisemitic]. This includes its.... policies and practices, domestic and abroad, such as the conduct of Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, the role Israel plays in the region, or any other way in which, as a state, it influences events in the world."

The imbecile hides his hate behind a façade of caring about Palestinians (even though they would be incinerated,) so - according to the geniuses who spent months putting the Jerusalem Declaration together - nothing about condoning the nuclear holocaust of Israel is antisemitic.

A definition is an algorithm, and one can run test cases through the definition to see what it would say for any arbitrary case. Calling Israelis "Nazis" is not antisemitic according to this definition. Calling for the murder of 7 million Jews to eradicate any vestige of Jewish nationalism from the Middle East doesn't fit that definition.

If even one outcome of an algorithm is spectacularly wrong - if 1+1 results in 29 - then it is obvious that the algorithm is fatally flawed. And this is what the Jerusalem Declaration's definition is.

(Although people have quibbled about some boundary cases in my new definition of antisemitism, I have not yet found a flaw in it.)

On August 6th, 1984, 19 year old soldier Moshe Tamam was hitchhiking home for a weekend leave to spend time with his family in Netanya. He first visited his girlfriend in Tiberias, and then took the bus towards Tel Aviv. At the Beit Leed Junction he got off and hitched a ride with four Israeli-Arabs from Baka El Garbiya.

These Israeli Arabs were members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine who had been tasked with kidnapping an Israeli soldier to smuggle to Syria for a prisoner exchange.

For two days, Moshe Tamam was held in a house on the outskirts of Baka El Garbiya. When the terrorists realized that they could not get him across the border into Syria, they decided to kill him.

First they gouged out Moshe’s eyes, and then they mutilated him by cutting off parts of his body starting with his sexual organs. Finally, they shot him in the chest, and dumped his body in an olive grove near Jenin. Moshe’s mutilated body was discovered on August 10th. The DFLP immediately claimed responsibility for the heinous murder.

One of the murderers, Rushdi Abu Mokh, was just released from prison.

He is being treated as a hero by hundreds of his fellow Arabs - in an Israeli town.

These are Israeli citizens celebrating someone who castrated, blinded and murdered a 19 year old IDF soldier.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa has a glowing tribute to Abu Mokh as well.

According to Arutz Sheva, the reason his life sentence was commuted to 35 years was because Shimon Peres made a deal with the Arab parties for them to support him becoming president.

(h/t T Moran)