Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, August 13, 2021

08/13 Links Pt2: The Abraham Accords: For the generations to come; Melanie Phillips: When the Jew-bashers are Jews; How CUNY’s Faculty Union Bet on Israel Hatred, and Lost

From Ian:

Fleur Hassan-Nahoum: In praise of the Abraham Accords, one year on

Two weeks ago, at the end of a fairly standard meeting in City Hall with a group of East Jerusalem businessmen, Mahmoud, a local entrepreneur, pulled me aside.

He told me that as the result of his attendance at one of the webinars organized by the UAE-Israel Business Council, an organization I co-founded over one year ago, he now has a promising new business with an Emirati investor which utilizes Israeli technology and Moroccan raw materials.

At that very moment I truly understood the power of people-to-people peace. This is the new model of peace and co-existence we are building every day.

Up until now, Israel was a lone player in the region and we were not part of any regional cultural, sporting or business alliances. Our network faced west rather than to our own neighborhood, where we share much in common.

This past year has changed everything. In June 2020, my co-founder Dorian Barak and I saw that a shift was taking place, but we did not know just how quickly it would boom.

The minute the Abraham Accords normalization agreement was announced, we created an online platform for people to connect, the first of its kind for the accords.

Within weeks thousands of Israelis and Emiratis had joined in order to interact with each other, to talk, to do business and to become friends.

This is embarrassing. Un-grit your teeth and show some damn pride in America's accomplishment. https://t.co/JwsEoFacN9
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) August 13, 2021

Houda Nonoo: The Abraham Accords: For the generations to come

The signing of the Abraham Accords will no doubt be one of the biggest Middle East milestones in our lifetime and as we celebrate its first anniversary, it is an opportunity to reflect on this auspicious time for the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the region more broadly. It is also the time to look forward to the limitless opportunities ahead of us.

As one of the few indigenous Jews in the Arabian Gulf, it is particularly meaningful to me. As a citizen of this region, I am filled with excitement to see the construction of a new Middle East, one focused on coexistence and prosperity.

I would like to thank His Majesty, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and His Royal Highness, Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, for their leadership, vision, and courage to lead our nation proudly and boldly into the future through the signing of the Abraham Accords.

These Accords represent a promise that the leaders in the region have made to build a better life with security and opportunity for all of us and for future generations still to come.

This is the fundamental accomplishment of the Abraham Accords. In the past, the nations of the world dealt with Israel in the shadows. The Jew was to be used but not seen with. Now the Jew's place in the world is open, acknowledged, and *equal.* Long live the Abraham Accords!
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) August 13, 2021

Seth Frantzman: The Abraham Accords a year later: Challenges and hope

Asked about the expectations, she says that the peace deal has not met expectations in the UAE. “There have been so many missed opportunities on both sides. However, the UAE has repeatedly demonstrated good faith and that it delivers on its promises. Israel, on the other hand, hasn’t been meeting the UAE with the same amount of dedication and risk-taking. In fact, Israel has so far over promised and under-delivered. While normalization between Israel and the UAE, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan was a calculated risk and took into consideration potential political and economic gains, it also took tremendous courage to pull it off. This courage is often overlooked and under-appreciated by Israelis. Economic benefits will take a long time to show.”

She points out that while the agreement can benefit trade and innovation, “its real value and incentive lies in a political and ideological agenda. The Arab Spring exposed the danger of Islamist groups.” This means that many countries in the Gulf and officials in Egypt realized the threat of the Brotherhood. “We are already starting to witness the largest effects of the normalization deals and to witness Islamist delegitimization and the dismantling of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist ideology in the region.” I also asked Dan Feferman, communications director for the organization Sharaka, which has been helping advance person-to-person connections in the wake of the peace deals. “Looking back one year, I could not have imagined that the relationships would have moved this quickly across all issues. I am so impressed and surprised by the scope and pace of normalization… I don’t know what the expectations were. I can only imagine they exceeded them. There are still many challenges ahead... There were and will be again policy disagreements.” He pointed to major trade implications. He says the new path with the Gulf will “reshape the Middle East as we know it. I believe this is the beginning of the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict. A path to taking extremism head on, a path to diplomatic engagement and cooperation in the region. The regional implications in fighting extremism are the most important here.”

These contrasting views share some commonalities but also point to some major conceptual differences between the Gulf and Israel. In Washington the change in administration has created a mixed bag of results. While there is hope the new administration will continue to stick with the Abraham Accords, and build on them, there are some who wonder if the administration will indeed do that, or will it put an emphasis on a new Iran deal and other agendas.

David Weinberg, vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, points out that the “real shadow hanging over the future of Abraham Accord-type peace treaties in the region comes from the incipient reconciliation between Washington and Tehran in the form of a renewed nuclear deal.” He pointed out that while the Gulf states could seek closer ties if they see instability in the region, they could also “hedge their bets by minimizing open ties to Israel and their full alignment with the United States. To a certain extent, this process may already be underway. For the first time in many years, the Saudis and Emiratis recently held direct and public talks with Iranian leaders.”

This leaves many questions about the challenges and hurdles that lie ahead for the Abraham Accords. While much has been accomplished, and the current Israeli government is hosting delegations and taking positive steps, there are complex hurdles. For instance, the pandemic has papered over questions about when Emiratis will get visas easily. If and when Israel opens to tourists, people from the Gulf will want the same ability to travel to Israel as Israelis enjoy going to the Gulf.

D'var Torah: Shoftim: Justice in America, by Rabbi Reuven Mann

I was just sent this, and it is a nice thought for this week's parasha.

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Justice In America

Rabbi Reuven Mann

This week’s Parsha, Shoftim, takes up the rules of engagement pertaining to warfare. It should be noted that some religions are entirely pacifistic, believing that their exclusive vocation is to be dedicated to matters of peace. War, they believe, entails destruction of human lives and the uprooting of societies not to mention the harmful effects on the environment.

However, what troubles the Christian conscience the most is the notion of killing, which they regard as murder. For they ask, what right do we have to take anyone’s life in order to preserve our own interests?

Judaism takes a different view of these matters. The Torah makes it clear that there are times when it is man’s moral responsibility to take up arms. In Bereishit it depicts the heroic midnight “commando” raid launched by Avraham and his 318 men to rescue his nephew Lot from captivity. Subsequently we read in Shemot that Moshe slew the Egyptian taskmaster who was beating a “Jew from his brothers.” He was operating on the principle that innocent life must be protected even at the cost of the existence of the aggressor.

Judaism takes a very practical stand on issues of self defense and the protection of innocent life. Our religion is also very committed to the importance of maintaining societal order as our Parsha proclaims, “Shoftim v’Shotrim teeten lecha bechal shearecha…” (“Judges and police officers shall you appoint for yourselves in all your gates so that they can judge the nation righteously.”)

Civilized society is under constant threat by external enemies but also by internal forces that seek to undo the social balance that preserves freedom while maintaining security. The principle of societal order has been gravely tested recently in America. Tragedies have occurred which unleashed powerful forces of resentment among certain sectors of the population. This group saw no other way to proceed than to take to the streets. Peaceful protest and civil disobedience have come to be accepted in America as a legitimate mechanism to generate necessary social change. But there has to be a limit.

It is important to be able to address injustices that prevail in America and protest movements can be helpful in galvanizing the necessary public opinion to achieve that goal. However there is a very subtle and delicate line between constructive activism and harmful lawlessness. The fabric of society is very fragile and can be seriously damaged by those who seek to nullify the authorities whose job it is to enforce the statutes and protect the law abiding citizenry.

The Rabbis were very wary of ideologies that tended to diminish the effectiveness of the legitimate law enforcement agencies. They famously said, “One should pray for the welfare of the government for without it each person would swallow his brother alive.”

The warning of the Rabbis has been confirmed by the outbreak of crime and violence that has surged in the wake of the “Defund the Police” and other movements. Street violence and social chaos are not the way to achieve necessary and desirable social change.

At present we desperately need courageous leaders who can organize “Shoftim and Shotrim” who can protect the rights of citizens to peace and quiet while providing non-violent channels for legitimate grievances to be expressed and dealt with.

Over the course of its long history America has shown itself to be a country in which injustices can be ameliorated while the bonds that keep us together can be maintained. The message of Parshat Shoftim is very relevant to our situation. We need judges and police officers who are firm, resolute and who provide righteous judgement. May we merit to attain it.

Shabbat Shalom

(h/t Anne)

This week, a married couple went to the new luxury Bianco hotel in Gaza and rented a private villa with a pool.

The husband took video that showed a fraction of a second of his wife swimming in the nude and posted it to Facebook.

He is now under arrest in Gaza.

Hamas police issued a statement saying that the husband had "obscenely" photographed his wife at a resort “in a scandalous manner and in violation of the law, religion and morals.”

For its part, the Bianco resort issued a statement that thanked the security services in the Gaza Strip for their swift response to the incident and the arrest of the perpetrator of this "heinous act."

The statement said the resort operates around the clock in accordance with the law and according to the customs and morals of our conservative people, and "there is no legal error on our part."

08/13 Links Pt1: France to boycott UN anti-racism conference, citing previous antisemitism; New report digs into Hezbollah's vast 'land of tunnels'

From Ian:

Bernard Henri Levy: Why Durban IV must be boycotted - opinion

Something shameful is in the works.

It’s the UN General Assembly’s plan to mark the 20th anniversary of the Durban Conference, on September 22.

What was the Durban Conference?

On paper, it was the name of a UNESCO conference held in the eponymous city in South Africa, at which the world was supposed to recommit to the fight against “racism, xenophobia and intolerance.”

But in reality, it was the occasion of an inexcusable three-faceted failure.

First, as soon as the Palestinian question took center stage (which was very early on), the stigmatization of Israel became the leitmotif of the proceedings.

Yasser Arafat denounced “apartheid.”

Fidel Castro feigned alarm at a “genocide.”

The sinister 1974 resolution equating Zionism with “racism” was resurrected, despite having been repealed in 1991.

The struggle against “occupation” was turned into the mother of all present and future political battles.

And some of the six thousand NGO representatives invited to the event slid easily from rabid anti-Zionism to good old-fashioned antisemitism. Jewish delegates were insulted.

People wearing yarmulkes were threatened, harried by cries that they “didn’t belong to the human race.”

Stands sprang up selling The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in various languages.

Demonstrations led by groups of radical Islamists, with whom antiglobalists militants did not seem to mind mingling, marched to shouts of “One Jew, One Bullet” behind placards proclaiming that Hitler should have “finished the job.”

It was Act I of neo-antisemitism. Never had we witnessed its full expression on such a scale and with such dark force.

France to boycott UN anti-racism conference, citing previous antisemitism

French President Emmanuel Macron will boycott a United Nations conference on the fight against racism next month over concerns about “antisemitic statements” at previous editions, the presidency said on Friday.

The follow-up meeting of the Durban Conference, named after the South African city where the first edition was held in 2001, is scheduled to bring together world leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September.

But the format has been controversial since its inception, with critics, led by Israel, charging that the first edition in Durban was tarnished by virulent and undisguised antisemitism.

Several countries, including France, also boycotted follow-up meetings in 2009 and 2011.

The United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, Israel and numerous other European countries have already announced they are boycotting this year’s meeting.

The French presidency said in a statement that Macron “has decided that France will not take part in the follow-up conference due to take place this year as he is concerned by antisemitic statements made within the Durban Conference.”

The significance of #France now pulling out of antisemitic #DurbanIV 'Festival of Hate' at @UN, is that all 3 democratic UNSC Permanent Members have withdrawn. https://t.co/Gq4wrOsw7V
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) August 13, 2021

David Singer: Hussein and Abdullah's difference of opinion

It is rare for CNN host Fareed Zakaria to issue an apology – but he did so after interviewing Jordan’s King Abdullah II last week.

Zakaria had wrongly attributed the following comments to prominent Israeli diplomat Dore Gold when questioning the King:

“Jordan needs to start thinking of itself as the Palestinian state. In other words, there is a two-state solution, the Palestinian state is Jordan.”

Abdullah’s response to Zakaria was dismissive:
“Jordan is Jordan. We have a mixed society from different ethnic and religious backgrounds… it is our country. The Palestinians do not want to be in Jordan; they want their lands, they want their football team, they want their flag to fly above their houses.”

The facts:
Jordan – then called Transjordan - was founded on 77% of the territory contained in the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (which was to be the Jewish National Home) - following the San Remo Conference and Treaty of Sevres in 1920 and the 1921 Cairo Conference.

The planned reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Transjordan was postponed or withheld under article 25 of the Mandate with the result that no Jews live there today – the population being entirely Arab.

Transjordan achieved independence in 1946 – changing its name to Jordan in 1950 after unifying its territory with Judea and Samaria (aka 'West Bank') and East Jerusalem conquered by Transjordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Only Great Britain and Pakistan recognised Transjordan’s decision.

Antsemitism exploding in France

From The Times of London:

The ghost of antisemitism has returned to haunt France, prompting criminal action against a website that claimed Jews control the country and the prosecution of a teacher who allegedly suggested that President Macron was part of a Jewish plot.

The government ordered the crackdown after incidents that showed how much the pandemic has fuelled a return of the old ugly currents that have stained French history.

On Wednesday a monument in Brittany to Simone Veil, the feminist, former minister and Holocaust survivor, was daubed with swastikas.

It was the third time that monument was desecrated in a week.

Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, sent in prosecutors after a site called IlsSontPartout.com [They Are Everywhere] laid out the names and profiles of Jewish politicians, media owners, financiers and arts figures who supposedly connive to control the country. The site’s name is an allusion to Je Suis Partout [I Am Everywhere], an anti-semitic newspaper during the Nazi occupation of 1940-44.

The site attracted government attention after Cassandre Fristot, 34, a schoolteacher and councillor for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, marched in an anti-vaccine protest in the eastern city of Metz with a placard police said was “manifestly antisemitic”.

It called Macron and Jewish ministers, media figures and financiers “traitors” and included the words: “Mais Qui?” [But who?].The question is the latest code for the conspiracy theory that a Jewish cabal is behind the epidemic and Macron’s imposition of health passes to compel vaccination. Fristot was charged with incitement to racial hatred.“Antisemitism is a criminal offence, not an opinion, and such expressions will not remain unpunished,” Darmanin said.

Fristot received support from thousands of people on social media, who expressed their belief in the old conspiracy theory of a global cabal.

The source for the word "Qui" as a codeword for Jews comes from a June interview on French TV of French ex-general Dominique Delawarde, who in November accused a secret group of controlling the media. The host repeatedly asked him "Qui?" - Who? - is behind this cabal.

Now the antisemites are running with this question, and the answer that everyone knows.

Social media cannot police the use of the word "Who?"

This month the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, the Jewish human rights body, wrote to the government about a campaign that claims Jewish doctors are behind the epidemic. Shimon Samuels, director for international relations, likened it to medieval charges that Jews poisoned wells and to the 1940s round-up of Jews by the wartime government.

Antisemitism is an epidemic. We've already seen how quickly an epidemic can become a pandemic.

(h/t Jonathan H)

A 1976 book documents the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Jerusalem in 1948 with stunning photographs

Richard Pollack writes in JNS:

I recently stumbled upon a photography book shot by the acclaimed Life magazine wartime photographer John Phillips. The large, innocuous-looking book was simply titled, A Will to Survive. After flipping through the pages, I realized I entered a time capsule that memorializes the Arab destruction of Jerusalem’s ancient Jewish Quarter in 1948.

Not only is it a dramatic firsthand account of the fall of the Jewish Quarter in 1948, but it documents the Arab Legion’s scorched-earth tactics that razed and burned to the ground every structure there, including all its synagogues and yeshivahs. The Arabs expelled all of the city’s residents, mainly defenseless, old Orthodox Jews. They were given about an hour to vacate homes that most extended families had lived in for centuries.

And there never has been a reckoning by any international body about the Arab Legion’s barbaric actions after it captured the Quarter.

To get his shots in May 1948, Phillips posed undercover in Jerusalem as a British officer in the Arab Legion. He also smuggled out his photos to avoid Arab censors who were eager to keep the sacking of the Jewish Quarter secret.

Phillips faced personal danger to do the shoot. He entered the Middle East undercover and wore the uniform of the Arab Legion, a British-created Arab army led by British officers, many of whom stayed on with their units to fight the Jews. “Mistaking me for a British officer, the Arab populace left me alone,” he wrote.

He was appalled about the Arab censorship. “Aware that the sack of the Jewish Quarter would shock the western world, Arab authorities across the Middle East tried to prevent the news from leaking out. Jerusalem could not be mentioned under any circumstances,” he wrote.

“I knew my pictures of the agony of the Jewish Quarter would end up in a censor’s wastepaper basket. I did not want this to happen and decided to smuggle them out of the Middle East.”

I found a copy of the book online. The photographs in the book are stunning.

Here is the Hurva synagogue in ruins.

A view of the destruction of the Jewish Quarter from what is now the Kotel plaza, with the Porat Yosef synagogue and yeshiva in the center.

Jews gathering for deportation in front of the destroyed Tiferet Israel synagogue.

More photos of Jews as they rush to leave - they had one hour to gather their belongings.

Here are Arabs looting the remains - including taking the Torah covers from a Sephardic synagogue, and a woman with a box of matzohs on her head.

This is what ethnic cleansing looks like.

Phillips returned in 1976 and interviewed dozens of Jews who had lived or fought in the final battle for the Old City in 1948.

The number of stories of deadly clashes between Egyptian army forces and ISIS has been increasing lately.

In late July, militants from "ISIS" ambushed a checkpoint in the northern part of Sinai, killing at least 5 security personnel.

On August 9, an Egyptian brigadier general was killed when an explosive device exploded in an Egyptian army vehicle in Rafah.

The next day, Egypt said it killed 5 ISIS terrorists.

Eight more Egyptian soldiers were killed in Rafah on Thursday evening. Egypt says it killed 13 ISIS members.

This is a low-intensity war that no one is really talking about. But it is happening on Israel's doorstep.

Brand new Daily Beast writer is a textbook case of modern antisemitism

This week, the popular TV game show Jeopardy announce that Mayim Bialik will become one of the permanent hosts for the show, hosting prime time specials. Since she is a proud and observant Jew, I've lightly followed her career and I am very happy for her.

The Daily Beast just hired a new writer named Tirhakah Love and he is very, very angry at this choice. As we will see, it is either because he is functionally illiterate or an antisemite.

The headline says, "‘Jeopardy!’ Host Mayim Bialik’s Ugly History of Shaming Weinstein’s Victims and Being an Anti-Vaxxer."

Say what?

After saying that Jeopardy! should have chosen a black man like him instead of a....woman(!) he writes:

From promoting anti-vaccine literature in her own writing, where in one breath she wrote that she doesn’t want to “dismiss” the families who’ve endured horrible tragedies due to being unvaccinated, but in the next defended her anti-vax stance by sharing that a “friend’s brother had an adverse reaction to a vaccination and he is never going to develop mentally past the age of 6 because of it,” seems really tacky and insensitive and wrong (even if true). She conveniently pivoted to admitting that she and her sons are vaccinated more recently, just in time for her Jeopardy! audition.

What did Bialik actually write in the 2012 article for Kveller?

She said that while she herself feels that vaccines are overused for children nowadays, and she has an anecdote of a friend who had a horrible experience, she would never tell parents not to vaccinate their children. And in 2020, she said, "I have never, not once, said that vaccines are not valuable, not useful or not necessary — because they are." She is not an anti-vaxxer; she is a parent with an opinion but one who does not try to push her opinion on anyone else or disparage other people for their choices.

Unlike, say, Tirkhanah Love.

What is his next fictional complaint about her?

Then there was her victim-blaming New York Times op-ed about Harvey Weinstein, concluding that she was never a “perfect ten” and therefore wouldn’t be subject to his kind of predation. While self-identifying as a feminist, in a piece written just days after the Times broke the news of Weinstein’s violent and predatory behavior, she wrote, “I still make choices every day as a 41-year-old actress that I think of as self-protecting and wise. I have decided that my sexual self is best reserved for private situations with those I am most intimate with. I dress modestly. I don’t act flirtatiously with men as a policy.”

If you read her actual op-ed, Bialik was not victim blaming at all. In fact, she explicitly said the opposite: "Women should be able to wear whatever they want. They should be able to flirt however they want with whomever they want....Nothing — absolutely nothing — excuses men for assaulting or abusing women. "

If you actually read the article rather than trying to play "gotcha," you see that Bialik's point is that Hollywood is obsessed with women's looks and minimizes stories where women who are not perfect "10"s can make an impact. She pointed out that the same men who make those decisions on which women get employed are the ones like Harvey Weinstein who prey upon those same women. And she pointed out that things are getting better for women - which, since 2017, they have.

So why would this nobody named Tirkhanah Love have such strong opinions about Mayim Bialik to make it look like she holds opinions that are the exact opposite of what she really believes?

The answer comes from his third example:

Bialik loudly proclaimed her donation toward bulletproof vests for the genocidal Israeli Defense Forces back in 2014 just out of “a need to do something.” After facing backlash, she quieted for a time until May of this year, where she self-identified as a “liberal Zionist” who, like many other celebrities, spouted bothsidesism: “Israel deserves to live as an autonomous free and safe nation,” she told Fox News. “The Palestinian people deserve the same. What is happening now by extremists on both sides is tragic. It’s horrendous. It’s unacceptable. And I have to hold out hope that peace and justice will prevail.”

There you have it - Bialik once expressed support for what Love says is a "genocidal" army.

Anyone who thinks that the IDF is genocidal is ignorant about the IDF, ignorant about genocide and insulting to actual victims of genocide who would have love to have traded places with Palestinians any day of the week.

Here we have it: Tirkhanah Love is a modern antisemite, hiding his hate behind a pretense of caring about Palestinians but attacking someone who is possibly the most public observant Jew in Hollywood today,. Bialik supports the Jewish state's existence, and to haters like Love, that is enough to attack her and to make up lies about her.

The fact that most fans of Jeopardy! are quite happy with Bialik as a host - she evidently did a fantastic job when she guest hosted - seems to have really gotten under this antisemite's skin.

The real questions are: why did the Daily Beast hire such an hateful ignoramus? And why did they allow this stupidity to be published without any fact checking?

08/12 Links Pt2: What Shakespeare knew about anti-Zionism; Black Community Pays Dearly for Israel-haters’ Agenda; The Ford Foundation and Anti-Semitism

From Ian:

What Shakespeare knew about anti-Zionism

This past week, there was an anti-Israel protest in Brooklyn. It was promoted by, among other groups, Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Israel group.

The demonstrators chanted: “We don’t want no two states, we want all of it.” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

The gloves are off; the pretenses, gone.

They want a world without Israel.

Their banners: “Zionism is terrorism”; “We will free Palestine within our lifetime.”

And: “Globalize the intifada.”

“Intifada” is Arabic for uprising or rebellion. In its most current usages, it refers to organized acts of violence and terrorist attacks against Israelis. There have been more than a thousand victims.

The intifada has centered itself on Israel proper.

No longer.

“Globalize the intifada” means that Jews will be uncomfortable and unsafe, wherever they are.

Let me remind you: Jews. Not Israelis. Not Zionists.

Jews.

Let us imagine the scenario. On the Upper West Side, for example. Protesters walk through the streets, accosting passersby.

You think they will ask: “Are you Israeli?”

No. They will be going after Jews. How they will know who is Jewish is a whole other question.

But, let us imagine the frightening dialogue.

“Are you Jewish?”

“Yes, but … ” (guilty with an explanation).

I am a victim of history. This triggers every fear of Jewish vulnerability that is within me.

What else did you think that “globalize the intifada” was supposed to mean? A letter-writing campaign?

Joshua Washington: Black Community Pays Dearly for Israel-haters’ Agenda

Cori Bush rose to power, defeating incumbent Lacy Clay, and running on an anti-Israel, anti-law enforcement platform. One of her positions is that aid to Israel should stop and be used for homelessness in the US, because, according to Bush, “the same equipment that they used to brutalize us is the same equipment that we send to the Israeli military to police and brutalize Palestinians.” This lie is what has been coined by anti-Israel activists as the Deadly Exchange Campaign, in which a lie is propagated about Israel that it teaches the US how to kill Black people in America. Not only is this not true, it disproportionately focuses on the one Jewish state while US police departments work with many other countries as well. Along with this distortion of the truth, Bush also calls Israel an “apartheid state,” and Jews in Israel “occupiers” of their own indigenous land. Now that she is in Congress, she continues to champion these points and policies while violence in her district grows and her constituents, many of them children, are being killed.

This is the anathema that is Black Lives Matter, and all those who bear the “defund the police” slogan. Not only is the slogan not supported by the vast majority of Black Americans, the implementation of this slogan as policy is actually destroying vulnerable black communities. It was not the police that burned down Pastor Corey Brooks’ Project H.O.O.D. facilities in Chicago. It was not the police that destroyed the black business district in Kenosha, WI in 2020. It was not due to the police that parents of Oakland, CA were mourning the recent murders of their children; that mourning was, however, disrupted by an anti-police group called Antifa, who began shouting down the parents who were speaking to further their anti-police agenda. When speaking of tone-deafness, it is difficult to get much more tone-deaf than disrupting a group of people you claim to support to force your narrative of their oppression onto them. Yet, here we are.

Congresswoman Cori Bush is wildly hypocritical and a danger to the black community for the policies she pushes, but she is not a trailblazer. She is simply carrying out the reckless, anti-Israel agenda set by Black Lives Matter. Not speaking the truth about this matter will result in the deaths of more of the people they purport to protect, while using their wealth and privilege to protect themselves from their own failed and destructive policies.

Obscene antisemitism - BLM in NYC tonight equates Zionists with Nazis. pic.twitter.com/oEw6S01y1m
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) August 12, 2021

Ruth Wisse (WSJ): Anti-Semitism Isn't Merely Another Kind of Hate

The Arab League launched the original pan-Arab boycott of Israel in 1945, defining any Jewish presence in Palestine as an occupation of Arab territory. The U.S. intervened to thwart the boycott because Israel's destruction was inconsistent with American values. But America has changed. At the end of the 20th century, a home-grown boycott, divestment and sanctions movement became an American arm of the war against Israel, uniting a self-defined progressive coalition on the side of Arab-Muslim rejectionism.

Anti-Semitism is more than just a form of hatred; people organize against the Jews as part of an ideological struggle. Zionists who thought anti-Semitism was directed against them because of their dispersion were surprised to find it was even easier to blame them in their homeland. Since 1945, the driving force of anti-Jewish politics has been the Arab-Muslim war against the Jewish state, supported by Marxist ideology.

Unpacked: Beyond Left or Right: Whose Fault is Antisemitism? | Antisemitism, Explained

While the Holocaust may be over, antisemitism is still very much alive. So, whose fault is it? And how do we address it? The sad truth is that antisemitism has always been spread by offenders across the ideological spectrum. That's why it is key to focus on the fighting antisemitic ideas and not get hung up on the identities of whoever is perpetuating them. When we learn to rebuke anti-Jewish bigotry no matter who spreads it, we will be one step closer to defeating it.

Hamas loves Human Rights Watch. And the feeling is mutual.

If Human Rights Watch's report on Hamas rockets was so damning, then one would expect that Hamas would be upset, right?

Hamas responded to the report instead by understanding that the report was a propaganda piece to make HRW pretend to be even-handed and it was really part of a larger campaign against Israel.

In a statement, Hamas said:

The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas stressed the importance of what was stated in the report of Human Rights Watch accusing the Israeli occupation of committing crimes that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas noted the need for the international community to move to hold the occupation and its leaders accountable, and to take all necessary measures to stop this continuous aggression and end the occupation.

Hamas and HRW, in perfect sync.

What about the rockets that HRW said were war crimes? Hamas mostly ignored that, and addresses the issue obliquely:

The group stressed the inherent right of our people to defend themselves and their sanctities, and to resist occupation by all available means, including armed resistance, which is guaranteed by international laws.

This is Hamas' excuse for terror - one that HRW didn't take issue with.

It indicated that the resistance, in its defense of our people and the response to aggression, only targeted Israeli military gatherings and targets. However, the Palestinian resistance affirms taking all necessary measures and precautions to avoid targeting civilians wherever they are.

She pointed to the resistance's constant keenness to develop its capabilities to enable it to target only Israeli military headquarters and activities, stressing that the occupying power systematically uses civilians as human shields, as it builds its security and military headquarters inside cities near schools, hospitals and civilian airports.

Guess who tweeted that absurd accusation?

Yes - it was Ken Roth, HRW's head!

The head of a human rights organization implicitly justified Hamas targeting Tel Aviv because Israel has its headquarters there!

Of course Hamas will mimic Roth's arguments!

The HRW report didn't even mention that Hamas and Islamic Jihad bragged about targeting civilians. They published articles and videos crowing about Jews hiding in shelters.

HRW and Hamas are united in their goals of destroying Israel. Anyone who thinks that HRW's report today on Gaza rockets was anti-Hamas can see that even Hamas welcomed it - because they know who their allies are.

Squad Discovers Its Candidates Lose Elections When Opponents Allowed To Run (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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The Squad Cleveland, August 12 - More than a week after a Democratic Party primary race for a crucial Congressional seat resulted in the victory of a mainstream, pro-Israel candidate over one favored by the party's vocal left wing, prominent figures in that wing have realized that this latest failure to bolster its representation in the halls of power bespeaks a trend: if others are permitted to run against the progressives' choice, those others will siphon votes away from the progressive in sufficient numbers to deny the progressive the sought-after position, an aide to one of those figures disclosed today.

Members of the progressive Democratic Congressional group known as The Squad - Rashida Tlaib (D-MN), Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), and Cori Bush (D-MO), and backed by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and activist Linda Sarsour - voiced their conclusion Thursday that the August 3 victory by Shontel Brown over Nina Turner in the primary to run for Ohio's 11th District indicates a recurring challenge facing The Squad's endorsements: opponents almost always run rival campaigns that attract enough votes to win, and that phenomenon must cease.

"It's different from their home districts," explained the aide, who requested anonymity. "Each member of The Squad enjoys a solid Democratic safety net; there's virtually no chance for a Republican to take the seat. That's just not the case for all these swing districts, where voters are up for grabs and a candidate has to offer something that's actually appealing to the electorate as a whole, and can't just rest on party loyalties while taking a radical rhetorical tone."

"The problem is there are other people running against our people," stated Ocasio-Cortez in the third group consultation The Squad has held since the 11th District defeat. "I don't just mean Republicans in the regular election - I mean other Democrats who don't share our progressive politics! Can you imagine? And those other people convince voters that in order to attract enough voters in that upcoming election the party needs a candidate with policies and rhetoric that don't alienate large swaths of voters. That's what happened in Ohio. There has to be a way to keep those others from running."

"Not just in the primary," added Omar. "When I ran for my seat, I ran unopposed. The Republicans simply didn't field a candidate. Why can't we prevent them from fielding a candidate in all the other important elections as well? That way we can advance our Justice Democrats agenda more easily, and protect our democracy from those who are trying to destroy it."

08/12 Links Pt1: Biden Admin Decision to Hide Info About Palestinian Terrorism From Congress Broke Law; HRW’s Inconsistency and Incoherence Continues; Abraham Accords, one year later

From Ian:

Biden Admin Decision to Hide Info About Palestinian Terrorism From Congress Broke Law, Watchdog Says

Biden administration officials may have broken the law when they erased information about the Palestinian government's terror incitement from a mandatory compliance report submitted to Congress in July, according to a legal watchdog group.

The America First Legal Foundation (AFLF) in a letter sent Wednesday is asking the State Department inspector general to investigate the Biden administration's decision to omit references to the Palestinian government's calls for violence, as well as its support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement—issues that are being closely monitored by Congress as the Biden administration restarts millions of dollars in U.S. aid to the Palestinians. Information about Palestinian terror incitement and support for the BDS movement were included in the outgoing Trump administration's October 2020 version of the report, but removed by the Biden administration when it came into office, as the Free Beacon first reported.

The AFLF letter says the Biden administration removed this information to downplay Palestinian intransigence as it renews taxpayer aid to the government. Lawmakers, including a large portion of Republicans, criticized the resumption of U.S. aid, particularly since the Palestinian government subsidizes terrorists and advocates for Israel's destruction. The AFLF has also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the State Department for all internal records related to the decision to nix information from the latest congressional report.

The Biden administration "unlawfully [concealed] multiple material derogatory facts regarding the Palestinian Authority's ongoing economic, political, and ideological support for terrorism; economic warfare against Israel; and opposition to regional peace," Reed Rubinstein, AFLF's senior counselor, wrote to acting State Department inspector general Diana Shaw. "It seems these derogatory facts were deleted, expunged, and concealed not because circumstances on the ground had changed, but rather because officials in the Department's Bureau of Near East Affairs and in the Biden White House decided to cover them up, at least in part to facilitate the planned transfer of hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Palestinian Authority in potential violation of U.S. law."

If the information was removed in order to keep Congress in the dark about the Palestinian government's ongoing transgressions, it could constitute a violation of U.S. law, according to AFLF's letter.

The watchdog group says the State Department must "immediately open an investigation" into any decision by officials "to conceal and cover up material derogatory facts regarding the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority from the Congress."

Murphy urges U.S. to deprioritize Iran, says Saudis should to ‘come to terms’ with Hezbollah influence

Murphy warned that Lebanon, which has been besieged by a series of crises, is on the brink of becoming a failed state and a source of instability and terrorism that could last decades. He blamed the deteriorating situation in part on a lack of Saudi engagement due to Hezbollah’s influence inside Lebanon.

“[The Saudis] are deeply uncomfortable with the role that Hezbollah plays. The Saudis should come to terms with the fact that — at least in the short term — Hezbollah is going to be part of the political infrastructure there,” he said. “It would be much better for the Saudis to be a partner with the United States, with the French and other countries to try to offer the kind of economic support that might provoke political reform that would eventually allow for technocrats and non-sectarian actors to have greater influence in the government. That would lessen the influence of Hezbollah.”

Murphy’s proposals on Iran and Lebanon reflect his broader view of U.S. Middle East policy as severely out of date.

“What we want is to try to midwife a conversation about a regional security architecture, in which the Iranians and the Saudis and the Emiratis aren’t constantly battling with each other through proxy fights,” he said. “I don’t think that our current position in the region — whereby we are essentially giving the Saudi side whatever they need — is actually leading to that détente or to that conversation happening.”

A key part of an altered U.S. strategy must include “play[ing] hardball” with the Saudis,” Murphy continued, dismissing concerns that decreased U.S. influence could create openings for its geopolitical rivals.

“I don’t believe this argument that the Saudis are going to walk away from a security alliance with the United States,” he explained. “They will never get from the Chinese nor the Russians what they get from the United States today… They want us to be tougher on Iran, but they don’t have another potential partner like the United States.”

Gaza rockets killed Palestinians, Israelis in 'flagrant' war crimes - HRW

The report did not mention attacks on Jewish-Israelis that took place in the days leading up to Operation Guardian of the Walls. “Hamas authorities should stop trying to justify unlawful rocket attacks that indiscriminately kill and injure civilians by pointing to Israel’s violations,” Goldstein said. “The laws of war are meant to protect all civilians from harm.”

Abu Hamza, spokesman for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Gazan-based terror group, told Al Jazeera that when the terrorist organization discovered that there were children present at targets, “these missions were stopped,” adding “the enemy knows very well what I am talking about.”

Two Israeli children were killed by rocket fire from Gaza during the operation: five-year-old Ido Avigal and 16-year-old Nadin Awad. Abu Hamza’s statement echoed statements the IDF often makes during operations to explain its policies to avoid civilian casualties. The IDF often calls off missions if civilians are spotted at the targeted location.

Palestinian terrorist groups have repeatedly been found to violate the rights of children and place children at risk.

HRW Executive Director Ken Roth, who in May accused Israel of being an apartheid state, came under fire in July after he retweeted a report on the severe spike in antisemitism in the UK during Israel’s war with Gaza in May, implying that Israeli government action was responsible for antisemitism.

Typical: Even as Ken Roth's HRW belatedly reports on Hamas rocket attacks, he pretends that the terrorist group merely "ignores" war crimes, when in fact the double war crime of attacking Israeli civilians from within Palestinian residential areas is Hamas' entire modus operandi. https://t.co/jPthePdl0H
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) August 12, 2021

HRW’s Inconsistency and Incoherence Continues: EJIL: Talk! Symposium on A Threshold Crossed

On 5-9 July 2021, EJIL:Talk!, an influential international law blog, hosted a symposium on “Apartheid in Israel/Palestine”. According to Marko Milanovic, co-editor of the blog, its purpose is to discuss legal issues related to the “increasing trend amongst human rights activists and NGOs of labelling Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians as constituting apartheid”, and specifically to focus on Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) April 2021 publication, A Threshold Crossed. The symposium does not purport to be a comprehensive examination. Rather, it is intended to explore whether and how the crime against humanity of apartheid, initially proscribed specifically in relation to the situation in southern Africa, might be applied to other situations; additionally, as Milanovic noted, how “labels such as apartheid” are employed to create political narratives to “mobiliz[e] and (de)legitimiz[e] power.”

The charge of apartheid against Israel is not new, nor does it reflect a novel or increasing trend.1 However, the five articles written for the symposium and HRW’s response are illuminating in two respects: first, they provide confirmation that the central agenda of the “apartheid campaign” is to delegitimize and demonize Zionism and the existence of Israel within any borders; and second, that HRW’s Threshold is based on an invented legal definition. HRW’s artificial and manipulative process under the façade of systematic legal analysis is used to provide support for, and mutually reinforces, the political objective – to delegitimize Jewish self-determination. HRW’s response also reflects what can (charitably) be described as ongoing incoherence concerning their methodologies, policies, and control over media coverage.

Predictably, the contributions offered by Noura Erakat (Rutgers University and associated with multiple Palestinian NGOs) and Rania Muhareb (Al Haq) attack Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, regardless of borders. Erakat’s post is an historically false screed, labeling Zionism as “defined by discrimination”. Erakat promotes conspiratorial theories, including that “Israel is manifesting to the world what Palestinians have long known: it wants the land without the people and seeks to remain the sole source of authority from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” Erakat invokes the calumny, popularized in the 1920s by the antisemite Henry Ford and later revived by the neo-Nazi, KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, of “Jewish supremacy”. Erakat’s conspiracies, rejection of Jewish self-determination, and characterization of Israel as racist could be considered as antisemitism under the International Holocaust Remembrance Association Working Definition.2 It is hard to imagine that a post expressing similar sentiments directed at any other ethnic or religious group would have been published. For example, how many academics in the field of international law call for the dismantling of India because of the 1947 partition and allegations of ongoing discrimination against its Muslim population, much less advocate for it in a highly respected legal publication.

Carola Lingaas, a Norwegian academic, and Joshua Kern, Barrister at 9 Bedford Row and counsel to the Institute for NGO Research, offers in-depth analyses of the legal definition of apartheid, noting material differences between the standards delineated in international legal instruments and those posited by HRW. Professor Eugene Kontorovich details the factual and political distortions endemic throughout Threshold.