Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, April 30, 2021

04/30 Links Pt1: 45 crushed to death, over 150 hurt in stampede at mass Lag B’Omer event in Meron; Abbas delays first Palestinian elections in 15 years, blaming Israel; John Kerry’s anti-Israel stance speaks for itself

From Ian:

45 crushed to death, over 150 hurt in stampede at mass Lag B’Omer event in Meron

At least 45 people were crushed to death and more than 150 people hurt, including many in critical condition, in a stampede after midnight Thursday at a mass gathering to celebrate the Lag B’Omer holiday at Mount Meron, medics said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the incident “a terrible disaster,” promised a thorough investigation, and said that Sunday would be declared a day of national mourning.

Army Radio reported that children were among the dead and injured.

The event is believed to be the worst peacetime tragedy in modern Israeli history, with a death toll higher than the 44 who lost their lives in the 2010 Mount Carmel forest fire.

The wounded were taken to the Ziv hospital in Safed, the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, Rambam hospital in Haifa, Poriya hospital in Tiberias, and Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem. By Friday afternoon, 21 people were still in hospitals, several of them in serious condition.

Several hospitals opened hotlines for people to search for family and friends who may have been injured; Galilee: 04-9850505, Ziv: 04-6828838 and Poriya: 04-6652211. Police could also be contacted at 110. Efforts to identify all the victims and contact all the families were expected to be protracted, with some living overseas.

The Magen David Adom rescue service said the tragedy was caused by a crush and overcrowding.

A police official said the incident was centered on a slippery walkway, with a metal floor, where crowding was at a height. (The harrowing videos below show some of the unfolding tragedy.)

Director of Medical division, United Hatzalah - April 30

Netanyahu: National Day of Mourning to Be Held Sunday for Victims of Mount Meron

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country will observe a national day of mourning on Sunday for the victims of Mount Meron shortly after departing from the scene of the tragedy.

“The Mount Meron disaster in one of the heaviest disasters to befall the state of Israel,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.

“We mourn the victims, our hearts are with the families, and also the wounded whom we wish a full recovery. There were heartbreaking sights here, people crushed to death, including children,” he continued.

After congratulating rescue and medical units for their speedy response, Netanyahu added that “I would like to declare a national day of mourning on Sunday. Let us all unite with the grief of the families and pray for the peace of the wounded.”

Netanyahu arrived earlier in the day at the site of a stampede that killed at least 44 people and injured another 150, including many in critical condition, in one of Israel’s deadliest recent disasters.

Rivlin Lights 45 Candles in Memory of Mount Meron Stampede Victims

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin lit up 45 candles on Friday in memory of those killed in the stampede on the Mount Meron compound earlier in the day.

“I send my heartfelt thanks to those working without a break since last night to rescue and give medical treatment” to those injured, Rivlin said in a statement.

“This is the time to embrace the families, to help all those looking for their loved ones, to take those injured to our hearts. To weep together.”

Rivlin’s office opened a hotline for those seeking assistance with finding their close ones in the wake of the tragedy.

Late on Thursday, thousands arrived at the religious site to celebrate Lag B’Omer, a holiday when many Jews make a pilgrimage to the grave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.

A narrow, slippery and severely overcrowded walkway in the area worked as a bottleneck for the revelers, media reports say, with several people slipping and knocking others off their feet, resulting in the stampede that killed at least 45 people and left about 150 injured, including critically. Other available accounts suggest that the tragedy unraveled differently.

The disaster amounts to Israel’s worst peacetime tragedy, the second-worst one being the Mount Carmel forest fire of 2010.

In the movies about epidemics, a standard subplot -- from Outbreak to World War Z, -- is the attempt to identify and locate patient zero -- the first documented case of the condition.

With that in mind, it may be possible to identify victim zero, one of the earliest victims of the cancel culture that is ostracizing those that do not fall in line with Black Lives Matter on the one hand and the uncovering of white supremacy and racists who support it on the other. The doctor and essayist Theodore Dalrymple wrote about him in 2002 in an essay, The Man Who Predicted the Race Riots, which is included in his 2005 book Our Culture, What's Left of It.

The complete essay is also available online.

Dalrymple discusses the case of Ray Honeyford, the headmaster of a British middle school, who in 1984 was "branded a near-murderous racist and ultimately drummed out of his job." Given the stories today of the excesses and intimidation of the cancel culture, the issues and accusations Honeyford and Dalrymple describe sound familiar, even though they are from over 35 years ago.

The trouble started when Honeyford submitted an article that was originally turned down by the Times Educational Supplement before it was accepted and published by the conservative Salisbury Review. He wrote about what he saw as the flaw in multi-culturalism being used to address the problems of multi-racial inner cities and the reactions of those who were determined to close down debate on the issue. In the article, Honeyford wrote about how:

the race lobby has so managed to induce and maintain feelings of guilt in the well-disposed majority, that decent people are not only afraid of voicing certain thoughts, they are uncertain even of their right to think those thoughts...The term ‘racism’, for instance, functions not as a word with which to create insight, but as a slogan designed to suppress constructive thought. [emphasis added]

Back in 1984, Honeyford did not have recourse to the term "intersectionality" that was coined in 1989, but he was aware of the tactic of uniting minorities as one persecuted group against white 'supremacists':

The word ‘black’ has been perverted. Every non-white is now, officially, ‘black’, be he Indian, Pakistani or Vietnamese. This gross and offensive dichotomy has an obvious purpose: the creation of an atmosphere of anti-white solidarity. [emphasis added]

The use of labels extended beyond the use of the word "racism" in the effort to smear opponents. Also like today, violent riots were peaceful protests and the police were considered the enemy:

And there are other distortions: race riots are described by the politically motivated as ‘uprisings’, and by a Lord of Appeal as a ‘superb and healthy catalyst for the British people’ — and the police blamed for the behaviour of violent thugs

Honeyford quotes a lecturer at the University of London on the need for violence:

Blacks will fight with pressure, leaflets, campaigns, demonstrations, fists and scorching resentment which, when peaceful means fail, will explode into street fighting, urban guerrilla warfare, looting, burning and rioting.

Similarly, back then the attacks on Honeyford took accusations of "racism" to the next level. There was a 'cancel culture' in effect as well. A group of black people wrote in the Caribbean Times:

All teachers, especially those like Mr Honeyford, should be compelled to attend massive [sic] in-service training courses to bring them up to date with modern education theory, and practice, and to purge them of their racist outlook and ideology. Teachers who refuse to adapt their teaching and go on in-service training courses should be redeployed or retired off [sic] early. School books with a racist content... should be scrapped. Racist teachers should be dismissed. [emphasis added]

Dalrymple writes that the abuse and threats thrown at Honeyford were so bad that he required police protection. The intimidation prevented fellow teachers and potential allies, who privately supported him, from coming out publicly on his behalf. Still, attempts at the city council to have Honeyford dismissed failed for lack of legal cause.

In the end, however, Honeyford took early retirement.

Dalrymple makes a point of clarifying Honeyford's position against multi-culturalism. Honeyford felt strongly about the importance of integrating students of different backgrounds, of ensuring their proficiency in British history and the English language -- but he did not support complete uniformity at the expense of the student's native culture or religion.

According to Dalrymple, Honeyford's model for integrating into British society was the Jewish community:

Within a generation of arrival, Jews succeeded, despite the initial prejudice against them, in making a hugely disproportionate contribution to the upper reaches of national life as academics, cabinet ministers, entrepreneurs, doctors and lawyers, writers and artists. The upkeep of their own traditions was entirely their own affair, and they relied not at all on official patronage or the doctrines of multiculturalism. This was Honeyford’s ideal, and he saw no reason why the formula should not work again, given a chance. [emphasis added]

Maybe that was the problem with Honeyford's ideal -- what must be given up to have that success.

In another essay, When Islam Breaks Down, in the same book, Dalrymple writes:

The devout Muslim fears, and not without good reason, that to give an inch is sooner or later to concede the whole territory...The Muslim immigrants to these areas were not seeking a new way of life when they arrived; they expected to continue their old lives, but more prosperously. [p. 287]

Along with the integration that Honeyford believes provides the potential for success, can come a degree of assimilation, and not all minorities are willing to concede their culture.

Assimilation is a major issue for the Jewish community in the US. But in that regard, it may be worth pointing out a key difference between the Jewish communities in Great Britain and the US.

An article in Haaretz in 2016 reports on the stronger sense of Jewish identity in Great Britain:

The current intermarriage rate among self-identifying Jews in Britain (a figure put at about 290,000 people), according to the report, stands at 26 percent. This is the highest level for a generation in Britain: yes. And it reflects an upward trend, yes. But the rate has been rising very slowly since the late 1980s, and remains significantly and consistently lower than the equivalent intermarriage figures in the USA.

With some 5.4 million Jews, the United States has by far the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. It also has the highest intermarriage rates: The most recent figures there, collected in 2013 and published by the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, show intermarriage rates to be 58 percent. [emphasis added]

An explanation for this difference in the intermarriage numbers is suggested by Dr. David Graham, a senior research fellow at the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research:

American society has a more open and fluid approach to identity, where the focus is on the individual’s right to choose their religion. In addition, Britain’s Jewish community is more religious than the U.S.’s, which of course means less intermarriage.

That stronger sense of Jewish identity has helped British Jews, most recently in uniting against the threat of Jeremy Corbyn.

Maybe Jews in the US can forge a similar solidarity based on their Jewish identity.

Yesterday, it became official: The Palestinian Authority has "delayed" the planned legislative elections, as the ruling Fatah party has split into three different lists and Hamas is poised to win the plurality of seats.

Mahmoud Abbas is trying to spin this as a victory for...democracy!

“Faced with this difficult situation, we decided to postpone the date of holding legislative elections until the participation of Jerusalem and its people in these elections is guaranteed,” Abbas said. “There will be no concession on Jerusalem and no concession on our people in Jerusalem exercising their democratic rights.”

Sure - stop millions of people from voting because a few thousand might have to travel a few miles to cast their votes!

Even mainstream media sees the Jerusalem issue as a mere pretext, but the official Palestinian Authority news agency is spinning like a top.

Abbas, when he made his announcement, added something to ensure that he can avoid elections forever: "We emphasized that holding the elections must include all Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem, including candidates, voting and electoral campaigning."

Israel has never allowed Palestinian campaigning in Jerusalem, and the Oslo accords do not require that. Abbas is adding a poison pill to the elections, in case Israel (on its own or under pressure from Europe) officially announces that it will allow ballot boxes in post offices as in the past. Abbas can point to the lack of campaigning in Jerusalem as a reason to cancel the elections altogether.

Abbas appealed for "unity" while telling other parties that if he can't win, he'll take away the ball.

Abbas also added, "It is Jerusalem the basis of our existence and the jewel of our crown, for which thousands of martyrs, wounded and prisoners have fallen, and for which we will not give up a grain of dust from its pure soil."

Funny, the Palestinians were OK with Jordan ruling Jerusalem before 1967. No Palestinian Arab ever referred to Jerusalem as "Palestinian" during those 19 years.

Meanwhile, the secretary of the Fatah movement in Jerusalem, Shadi Mutour, said that the Arabs celebrating Israel removing the barriers at Damascus Gate were really making a statement that they don't want elections at all unless they can vote. "Everyone came out to say no elections without Jerusalem, because elections without Jerusalem are the embodiment of the occupation’s policy of Judaizing it."

One more illustration of @HRW's propaganda methods

I made another alternate version of a Human Rights Watch graphic. It is worth comparing the two.

HRW:

First of all, HRW regards a great portion of Jerusalem to be "east Jerusalem." Neighborhoods with tens of thousands of Jews are all around the city, and many ignore the artificial armistice line that HRW wants to make into a border dividing a great city in two.

Calling the Jews who live in Ramat Shlomo or Pisgat Ze'ev "settlers" is absurd. In no universe would those neighborhoods end up in an Arab Palestine. HRW, by using the word "settlement," is saying that many parts of Jerusalem should be Judenrein.

How liberal!

Regarding their first point: As long as an Arab doesn't commit a terrorist attack or move away for years, he or she will remain a permanent resident of the city. The exact same laws apply for any non-Jew who isn't a citizen.

But Arabs can become citizens if they know Hebrew, renounce foreign citizenship, and take an oath of loyalty to Israel - the same conditions most nations use to become citizens.

Those "Maybe nots" have a lot of caveats, but in the end, it is the difference between being a citizen of a state or not. Zeid can apply and if he is loyal to Israel, he almost certainly would become a citizen - and there would be no difference between him and "Noa."

Actually, that's not true. There would be some differences, which I demonstrate in my version of this infographic:

Zeid can visit the entire land from the river to the sea - even when not a citizen of Israel. Noa can't - there are plenty of areas off limits to her. I'm not sure what kind of apartheid Human Rights Watch considers this, but it sure isn't against Arabs!

Here is how HRW's propaganda works: Emphasize things that support your politics, whether true or not, and ignore or lie about everything that contradicts them (which I freely admit to doing in my graphic as well.)

HRW and its fans never actually bother to answer the many criticisms of the report. They see the word "apartheid" and lots of footnotes, and that is all they need. Anyone disagreeing is a Zionist, and therefore unfit to say anything.

04/29 Links Pt2: The HRW Apartheid Report: Does It Matter?; No Justice for Jews in France; Ramadan reminds me how lucky I am to be a Jew living in the Gulf

From Ian:

The HRW Apartheid Report: Does It Matter?

It's a drill Israel knows all too well. A well-known NGO writes a report blasting Israel. The Foreign Ministry slams it as agenda-driven, anti-Israel drivel. The media runs a few stories. And the issue fades - until next time. How important is a report accusing Israel of apartheid by a veteran anti-Israel activist who was deported from Israel because of his BDS activities, even if that report is put out by one of the world's better known, but wildly imbalanced, human-rights organizations?

It doesn't matter that much anymore in the corridors of power in Western democracies. One Israeli official said the halo of the human-rights organizations has come off over the years and they don't command the same respect or influence among leading governments as they once did.

Where it does matter is among young people who do not have a good grip on the history of the conflict. It will provide ammunition for anti-Israel activists, primarily on campuses and the streets, but also in parliaments. A two-state solution won't be enough for those who view Israel as an apartheid state. For them, it will be necessary to cancel apartheid, which - in their view - means Israel.

The ‘Apartheid’ Smear, Antisemitism and the Unending Battle to Destroy the Jewish State

On December 14, 1979, the UN would apply a libel that Jews would be quite familiar with — that of seeking to control the world. In resolution 34/103, titled “Inadmissibility of the policy of hegemonism in international relations,” the UN declared that “racism including zionism and apartheid are all forces which seek to perpetuate unequal relations and privileges acquired by force and are, therefore, different manifestations of the policy and practice of hegemonism.” It went on to condemn:
imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, racism including zionism and all other forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination and interference, as well as the creation of spheres of influence and the division of the world into antagonistic political and military blocs.

You see, not only are Jews the ultimate racists, they are also seeking to manipulate and dominate the world.

Still, it did not stop there. A few years later, on May 4, 1982, the UN’s Economic and Social Council adopted resolution 1982/18 on the “Situation of women and children in the occupied Arab territories,” in which it:
Consider[ed] that international co-operation and peace are threatened by colonialism. neo-colonialism. fascism, zionism, apartheid and foreign occupation, alien domination and racial discrimination in all its forms.

Not only are Israelis the purveyors of racism and intent on world domination, they’re also fascists, too. Why not compare Jews to Nazis? They’d gotten away with the labels of apartheid and seekers of world domination.

The progression was not accidental. To understand this, one need only look at a 1974 speech at the UN by the head of the PLO’s political department, Faruq al-Qadumi. While boasting about a resolution that told the Palestinians they could use “all means” to achieve their “right of return,” as well as a second resolution that gave the PLO permanent observer status at the UN, Faruq said:
We did not come here to reconcile terrorism with Zionist usurpation. We came here to bear witness to the historic difference between us and the Zionists. We regard diplomatic activities as a part of our activities on the battlefield.

You see, Arab League Secretary-General Azzam Pasha’s 1948 “war of extermination and momentous massacre” had failed. Days before the Six-Day War, PLO founder Ahmad al-Shukeiri famously said of the upcoming war that “[t]hose who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.” He was wrong, too, as were the invading Arab armies in 1973.

Knowing they could not defeat the Jews in conventional war, they still refused to accept the right of the Jewish people to live in their own state in their ancient homeland in peace. They instead chose to continue the battle in other ways, namely terrorism, and, as we see with HRW today, antisemitic libels that won’t end with the “apartheid” label.

The existence of Muslim Only water fountains at the Temple Mount shows that Apartheid does exist.https://t.co/2KoCqBJykK
— Joe Burns (@Joe_Burns_Irish) April 29, 2021

Noa Tishby: A member of ‘The Squad’ is slandering the Jewish state — again

Contrary to Tlaib’s claim that “the violence was not stopped by” the government, a strong police force was present at the LEHAVA protest to curb potential violence, according to The New York Times, a paper not exactly known for its sympathy for the Jewish state.

Police arrested both Israeli and Palestinian agitators, though most of the detained were Jews from West Jerusalem. Plus, Israeli security forces created a buffer on both Thursday and Friday night in an attempt to isolate the two warring camps.

LEHAVA staged an unjustifiable, indefensibly racist demonstration. However, in all the coverage up to that point, I didn’t see a single outraged post or tweet by the Squad or other left-wing heroes condemning Hamas or the many live-streamed hate-crime attacks against Israeli Jews.

The hypocrisy, the double standards, the constant instinct to blame only one side in a complex and nuanced cycle of cause and effect — these amount to dangerous propaganda with immediate and lasting repercussions.

Tlaib and her fellow activists, especially those who hold elected office, should broaden their frame to get the full picture of what’s going on in Israel and the wider region. If they had done so, they might have seen that while a fringe group was representing the worst of Israeli society, another group of Arabs and Jews led by the organization Peace Now were marching jointly in Jerusalem, calling for calm.

Israeli peace marches, unfortunately, get fewer clicks and retweets.

The Tikvah Podcast: Christine Rosen on the New Crime Wave and Its Consequences

The United States is undergoing a spike in violent crime. Murder rates have increased drastically in big cities across the country, from Atlanta and New York to Milwaukee and Seattle. For the roughly 7 million Jews in the United States, four out of five of whom live in cities, incidents of violent crime can’t be ignored. The cities where most American Jews live are the very places that are growing more dangerous.

American Jews aren’t the only ones affected by rising urban crime, of course. Hate crime directed against Jews is very high, but as Christine Rosen wrote in the March 2021 edition of Commentary, “the vast majority of these homicides were black Americans, including many children, 55 of whom were killed in Chicago last year alone.” Here’s a case where two of America’s most urban populations, black people and Jews, are together imperiled by the return of urban disorder.

On this week’s podcast, Rosen joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to discuss her essay, and how different ways of looking at law enforcement reveal different philosophical understandings of the human condition.

From i24News:

The European Parliament on Wednesday adopted a resolution condemning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) for teaching hate and violence in Palestinian Authority (PA) schools.

The resolution expresses concern "about the hate speech and violence taught in Palestinian school textbooks and used in schools by UNRWA" and insists that financial aid be conditioned on the removal of educational materials that promote hatred and incitement to violence.

The facts are incontrovertible. UNRWA teaching materials, with UNWRA's logo, praised violence and "martyrdom" and erased Israel from the map, time and time again, like this one encouraging the "sword" to "free the motherland."

Or this exercise encouraging violent jihad:

Jihad is one of the doors to Paradise.
The Palestinians have become an example of sacrifice.
(Find the verb) in the sentence “The resistance fighter attacked the Enemy’s position”
The Palestinian died as a martyr to defend his motherland.
We shall defend the motherland with blood.
The scent of musk emanates from the martyr.
To redeem their motherland with their blood, for it is the most precious thing they own.

Instead of apologizing and committing to fixing the problem (which was UNRWA's usual method in the past,) this time they are just brazenly denying what anyone can see for themselves.

Adnan Abu Hasna, the media advisor to the Palestinian Refugee Relief and Works Agency [sic] in Gaza, denied the accusations of the European Parliament’s decision, which relates to the Palestinian educational curricula and textbooks inside its schools.

Abu Hasna confirmed on Thursday, that the adoption of this decision was based on false allegations and political motives, pointing out that it did not rely on facts that actually occur in UNRWA schools, "which the whole world praised."

He said that the decision was surprising, because "the European Union is one of the most important investors in the Agency's education system, and it can be proud of this investment in the field of human development."

Abu Hasna said, "It is not true. UNRWA does not teach hatred, violence or discrimination, and we do everything that promotes a culture of social tolerance and non-discrimination."

Even Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh lobbied for UNRWA in the face of these facts.

This episode shows not only that Palestinians teach their kids violence and hate, but they they are very comfortable lying directly to their funders in the West.

This is something that the Western donors to UNRWA and to the Palestinian Authority should keep in mind.

Foes OK With US Aid To Israel If 'Israel' Means 'Palestinians' And 'Aid' Means 'Paying Terrorists' (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

USD denominations Washington, April 29 - Congressional opponents of the Jewish State clarified today that they do not seek to eliminate American funding to advance that country's defense capabilities, but merely to tweak the provisions of that defense package to the minimal degree necessary for the funding to instead reach the violent criminals who want to cleanse Jews from the region between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.

A cadre of progressive legislators explained the reporters today that their continued, vociferous criticism of US defense aid to Israel - currently averaging more than three billion dollars per year - rests not on unequivocal disqualification of such allocations, but on the specifics of the aid package, and that with some minor adjustments, such as replacing "Israel" with "Palestine" and "defense" with "terrorism," their opposition to such funding will all but disappear.

"It's the particulars of the aid to Israel that pose the problem," explained Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN). "It's not the aid per se that I find objectionable. I'm sure that with enough good-faith dialogue among Congressional representatives on both sides of the aisle, we can arrive at some rephrasing of the aid terms that will satisfy the conscience of numerous Americans wary of underwriting Palestinian suffering, while at the same time keeping the aid package intact, and possibly not even reducing it by one penny - provided that we give the money to Palestinians who blow up Israeli buses, dig invasion tunnels into Israeli farming communities to sow mayhem, or have been imprisoned for such actions by a brutal Israeli regime intent on defending its own citizens."

Representative Betty McCollum, also a Democrat of Minnesota, elaborated further on her group's principled stance. "I have proposed oversight of the finds we give Israel, with full knowledge that strict oversight is already in place and none of my stated concerns are real," she noted. "The point here is less to ensure adherence to a robust control mechanism for this funding that's already in place, and has been for decades, and more to signal to Jews that we hate them, with Palestinian rights a convenient pretext."

Experts observed that the technical regulations governing the aid package will also require addressing. "As it stands, US military assistance to Israel isn't simply the US giving Israel money with conditions that it be spent on defense," explained Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA). "No money actually moves from the US Treasury to any Israeli accounts. It's just that the US allows Israel's Ministry of Defense to purchase American products and services, and then, following a periodic review of such purchases, reimburses Israel for those expenses. We will have to address, circumvent, or ignore numerous antiterrorism provisions for our desired adjustments to take place, but it can be done."

04/29 Links Pt1: Israel reels from rockets, riots and arm-wrestlng; Congress Needs to Review UN Agency's Terror Finance Problem; 'There's no such thing as occupied Palestinian land,' legalist says

From Ian:

David Singer: Israel reels from rockets, riots and arm-wrestlng

Rockets from Gaza indiscriminately targeting Israel’s civilian population and Arab riots targeting Israel’s Jewish population in the streets of Jerusalem seem to have not moved Israel’s politicians to stop engaging in arm-wrestlng in pursuit of their own personal political power.

It is hard to know who is to blame for this current sorry state of affairs: the electors who have brought about - what appears on the face of it - four indecisive elections in two years – or the seemingly-intelligent politicians they have elected who have been unable to reach a compromise on setting up a Government with at least 61 of the Knesset’s 120 currently-elected representatives.

A vendetta continues to be pursued to remove Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu - despite the overwhelming vote of confidence he and his party received from Israeli voters on 23 March 2021 - 1,066,892 votes.

The following leaders and their respective parties are seeking to replace Netanyahu as Prime Minister or deny him the right to head a right of centre Government:

Naftali Bennett – 273836 votes
Avigdor Liberman – 248370 votes
Gideon Sa’ar – 209161 votes

All three and their respective parties have similar policies and political ideologies as Netanyahu and his allies. Collectively - as Likud, Shas, Yemina, United Torah Judaism, Yisrael Beytenu, Religious Zionism and New Hope - they comprise 72 of the 120 Knesset members.

These three leaders need to fall in behind Netanyahu to end the political uncertainty steadily eroding Israel’s ability to deal with the challenges it is facing – not only from rockets and rioting – but from the continuing confrontation with Iran, Hezbollah, the International Criminal Court, a hostile United Nations and the Biden Administration.

That this appalling political stand-off could have also been avoided in the three previous elections is an indictment on the common obstructionist denominator in all four elections: Avigdor Liberman

Congress Needs to Review UN Agency's Terror Finance Problem

UNRWA provides no public records detailing its payments or beneficiaries from its cash assistance program. There is also no indication that U.S. authorities run clearance checks prior to making disbursements to UN agencies. In the late 2000s, congressional criticism of how the U.S. Agency for International Development handled Gaza-based assistance forced an overhaul of its anti-terrorism vetting. It now pre-clears every potential recipient of U.S. assistance, including sub-contractors. The same standard should be set for UNRWA.

In this year's foreign aid bill, Congress should condition U.S. assistance to UNRWA on thorough anti-terror vetting for all UNRWA expenditures prior to disbursement. UNRWA staff, contractors and recipients of cash assistance should be vetted to ensure that they don't have ties to terrorism. Legislation should require the State Department to halt and claw back U.S. funding if the agency declines to turn over its payroll, contractor and beneficiary information for vetting.

Congress can also legislate broader reforms. Since UNRWA is a welfare agency—not a refugee agency—the U.S. government should not use scarce refugee assistance dollars to support it. Wherever possible, assistance should transition away from UNRWA and toward bilateral aid programs that help Palestinians achieve self-sufficiency. Any contribution to UNRWA should also be contingent on allowing the U.S. to independently audit its books. American taxpayers should not trust China with ensuring UNRWA's financial transparency.

Congress should consider two other conditions for future assistance to UNRWA: verification that textbooks used in UNRWA schools do not include anti-Semitic content, incitement or extremism and a requirement that UNRWA return all contributions should the U.S. discover its facilities are being used by terrorist organizations to store weapons or equipment.

UNRWA's steering millions of dollars to terror group affiliates should alarm U.S. taxpayers and their representatives in Congress. If the Biden administration wants to restart U.S. funding to UNRWA, congressional appropriators should insist that funding be contingent on verifiable reform. Congress must ensure that humanitarian aid reaches the Palestinian people, not terrorist group affiliates.

'There's no such thing as occupied Palestinian land,' legalist says

Dr. Jacques Gauthier is a Canadian lawyer and international law expert who is currently the greatest expert on the San Remo Conference, during which the legal infrastructure for the Jewish state was laid in 1920.

Gauthier, whose life's work has been devoted to proving the legitimacy of the Jewish claim to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria under international law, says the question of the legitimacy of the settlement enterprise – and the legal basis of Israel's very existence – is one of crucial importance.

He believes that for Israel and the Jewish people, it is imperative not to lose sight of what was theirs in the past.

Over the past two decades, the legal arena has become rife with propaganda by left-wing organizations and by the Palestinians, giving way to the rise of a new term: Lawfare- the misuse of legal systems and principles against with aim to delegitimizing the adversary, wasting their time and money, or winning a public relations victory.

In this reality, the question is simple, Gauthier says: Are Jews living east Jerusalem, or as settlers in Judea and Samaria, or in Hebron, or even within the Green Line legal residents? Do they own land and property that are not actually theirs?

Israel's critics, he explained, claim that Jews should be barred from living in certain areas in the country, so the question of justice and sovereignty is crucial because if the right granted over the entire territory exists within the framework of international law – then the Jews are not in breach of the law.

According to Gautier, Israel lacks sufficient understanding and recognition of the historical rights of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.

Amb. Alan Baker: Refuting the Palestinian Allegation to the ICC that Israeli Settlements Are a War Crime

Israel’s settlement activity cannot be considered as a “war crime” in the context of the ICC Statute. The overriding criteria established by the Statute for war crimes include the requirement that such activity be “part of a plan,” “done on a large scale,” and be “of sufficient gravity as to justify further action by the Court.” Israel’s settlement activity does not fill any of these overriding criteria. Therefore, the allegation of a war crime cannot be considered admissible by the Court.

Israel’s settlement activity is conducted in accordance with the requirements of international customary law, which enables the legitimate use of state and non-privately owned land and property, pending resolution of the conflict. Strict measures are taken by Israel’s investigative and judicial authorities to ensure that violations of laws and norms are duly investigated and prosecuted. Israel’s ongoing legal and juridical supervision fulfills the complementarity requirement of the ICC Statute.

The most important legal document used to evaluate the legality of Israel’s settlement activity has been the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention. As clarified by the ICRC Official Commentary to that document, the population transfer prohibition set out in the Convention was specifically drafted to address a repeat of the mass, forced population transfers conducted by the Nazis during the Second World War. As such, it is not applicable to Israel’s settlement activity.

The “transfer” prohibition in Article 8 of the ICC Statute does not reflect established international law inasmuch as it was deliberately tailored and manipulated to address Israel’s settlement activity. As such, Israel’s settlement activity cannot be seen to fulfill the Statute’s overriding requirement that such a crime be within the “established framework of international law.”

The Oslo Accords established an agreed legal regime enabling each party to conduct planning, zoning, and construction activities within the areas under its respective jurisdiction, pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations. Israel’s investigative and judicial institutions regulate all such construction activity, including, where necessary, investigating and prosecuting violations. Such activity fulfills the complementarity requirement of the ICC Statute.

Israel’s official governmental commission to investigate the legality of construction in the territories established strict criteria prohibiting seizure and use of private property in violation of international law and requiring that construction be carried out in accordance with the law. The observance of such criteria fulfills the complementarity requirement of the ICC Statute.

The Joshua and Caleb Network: Joe Biden's Undercover Building Freeze - on Israel

Adventure Show #2 is here! This week, we’re answering a similar question to our first adventure show, but in a different location. Is there a Jewish housing crisis inside the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria? You might be shocked to find out the answer.

We started the day by visiting what some might call an Israeli outpost. There we talked to Nati Rom, Jewish attorney and a settlement founder. Nati explained how building Jewish homes in the heartland is vastly different than building Arab homes.

The second half of the show we visited an established Israeli settlement that is home to more than 3,000 Jewish people. Here we hear from the city manager, Chaim Margolis about the difficulties that the community faces when building and expanding, even after being in existence for 30+ years!

As the Palestinian Authority and the anti-Israel Left say that Israel has not been helping Palestinians during the COVID-19 crisis, the actual statistics of what Israel has provided the PA from last March through the end of 2020 shows that these are all lies.

According to data provided by the Civil Administration to the organization Im Tirtzu, during 2020 Israel transferred:

110 respirators,

170 monitors,

109 oxygen generators,

87 intensive care beds,

86 hospital beds,

2,313,050 surgical masks,

312,724 N95 masks,

6,967,823 surgical gloves,

248,544 PCR kits

Another 244,500 test kits.

Some of the equipment was transferred by Israel and some by international organizations.

In addition, Israel treated about 20 Palestinian COVID patients in Israeli hospitals, one of whom came from the Gaza Strip.

We don't know what the numbers have been since January.

(h/t iTiIL972)

Human Rights Watch racist propaganda, illustrated

The antisemitic Human Rights Watch report that says that Israeli Jews are guilty of apartheid features three graphics that purport to show how unequal the lives of Palestinians and Jews are between the Mediterranean and the Jordan.

Here's one:

This is propaganda. HRW chooses specific facts, ignores counter-examples, and even lies about the ones it lists.

For example, pre-COVID, tens of thousands of Palestinians visited Jerusalem and even all of Israel for Ramadan. Scroll through Palestinian Facebook pages to see that a large percentage feature photos of them smiling in front of the Dome of the Rock.

Jews have received administrative detention.

Peaceful protesters in the West Bank do not get arrested - only people who encourage or participate in violence.

Jews have to jump through a great deal of hoops to build homes in Judea and Samaria, and there are often freezes - hardly ever publicized.

I made a similar poster to show how this propaganda works - by using the exact same methods to prove the opposite:

If anything, my cherry picked facts are more accurate than HRW's.

The other HRW graphics are equally deceptive. For example, they compare a Jew in an Israeli community to a Bedouin Israeli in an illegal Negev village. If Jews would build haphazard villages in the middle of state land, their homes would be uprooted far faster than the Bedouin structures have been. Even in Judea and Samaria, Israel has demolished Jewish communities built illegally. Israel has built new, recognized communities for the Bedouin, with infrastructure, and have offered to give them free houses and land plots. That doesn't happen to Jews!

However, HRW's infographics are far worse than just being filled with highly selected half-truths and propaganda. They actually cross the line into racism.

Look at the pictures they used to illustrate what Jews and Palestinians look like:

The Jews all have lighter skin. The Jews have light, straight hair. The Palestinians have darker skin and wavy/curly hair.

Both Ashkenazic and Mizrahi Jews tend more towards darker complexion and curly hair. In fact, traditional antisemites actually obsess over Jewish curly or kinky hair as proof of Jewish racial inferiority.

The new antisemites, represented by this Human Rights Watch report, say that Jews have no semitic features or dark skin. The new antisemitism wants to paint Jews as white supremacists, so instead of caricaturizing of Jews as swarthy and coarse as the old antisemites do, they characterize them as being fully white - in a universe where whiteness is something distasteful and darker people are the only righteous people.

This racism is an exact mirror image of racism in the "old" antisemitism. While these new antisemites stress how anti-racist they are, this is proof that they are no different from the old antisemites. The entire point of the illustrations is to subconsciously make the reader believe that only Arabs are indigenous and Jews have no ties to the land that they have prayed to return to for thousands of years.

Those with a worldview that white people are superior say Jews are not white. Those with a worldview that white people are racist say Jews are white. What is the difference between these two types of racism and antisemitism?

I would say that this race-centered antisemitism is ironic coming from a supposed human rights group, but human rights groups have long ago shown that they support human rights only for those they deem worthy. Defining Jews as white leads to the conclusion that Jews do not have human rights worth fighting for.

Fakhri Abu Diab, an anti-Israel activist from east Jerusalem who gets lots of interviews with fellow Israel-haters, is accusing Israel of erasing Palestinian history.

Naturally, he is doing it by trying to erase Jewish history.

In an article in Safa, also published in a Jordanian news site, Abu Diab complains about a new tourist center Israel is building near the Western Wall.

The researcher in Jerusalem affairs, Fakhri Abu Diab, says occupation authorities have taken advantage of the "Corona" period and the decrease in tourism movement in the city of Jerusalem to accelerate the establishment of a Judaic tourist center at the bottom of Al-Buraq Square [the Western Wall plaza.]

He explains that the occupation continued its excavations under the Al-Buraq Wall to establish huge religious and tourist Jewish halls and centers to serve Israelis and extremist settlers, and to establish their Talmudic rituals and prayers.

According to Abu Diab, the tourist center includes several halls and small rooms for displaying films, video clips and theatrical plays that explain false Talmudic narratives, and simulate an alleged Jewish civilization and history, at the expense of real Palestinian narratives.

He added that the center also includes a small hall inside which clothes, collectibles, and tools written on it from the days of the Temple period are displayed for the service of the “temple priests,” and that it also contains pictures of the alleged “temple,” and that there is no other people or civilization in this place.

It states that Jewish guides will supervise the tourist center, by providing historical information about the alleged "Temple", the so-called "Holocaust", and the establishment of the "Occupation State"; To familiarize Jewish and foreign visitors and tourists with the history of the Jews and their forged civilization, and to brainwash them.

Several main Jewish institutions, namely the "Israeli Antiquities Authority, the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs, the Wailing Legacy Committee, the Wailing Development Fund, the Ministry of Religions, the Occupation Municipality in Jerusalem, and settlement associations" are working to Judaize the Al-Buraq Wall.

Funny, the Israel Foreign Ministry has a page celebrating those Muslim Umayyad palaces that Israeli archaeologists discovered to the south of the Temple Mount, and anyone can visit them today.

Jews are as bad at destroying Muslim antiquities as they are at genocide.