Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 05, 2016

Lessons I learned from Shimon Peres (Forest Rain)

The only time I ever saw my grandfather cry was when we were watching the signing of the Oslo Accords.

At 15 I wasn’t really aware of what was happening but his reaction shocked me so much that the scene is forever seared in to my memory…

My grandmother was sitting in stony silence in her chair in the living room, watching tv. As I came in to the room I saw my grandfather standing, leaning over the back of the other chair. I stood next to him and we watched the ceremony. My grandfather, wiping the tears from his face, saw me staring at him. He was pale. My undemonstrative grandfather, a man who (unlike my grandmother) rarely expressed any thoughts on politics said: “He just signed away Israel.”

My heart skipped a beat.

His were not tears of joy. At the time while most Israelis were overcome with a feeling of euphoria, truly believing (or at least wanting to believe) that this event would reign in a new area of peace, his reaction was highly unusual.

Both my grandparents were extremely concerned and it wasn’t long before I began to see how correct they were…

Lesson 1: People are complicated

The death of Shimon Peres has triggered a slew of articles and segments about him (including this one). Some lauded Peres, practically deifying him. Others demonized him. In Israel, between his death and his funeral, the media focused on nothing else, as if the world had stopped because the man who seemed like he would live forever stopped.

The media coverage has bothered me enormously, largely because it has been horribly one dimensional. People are complicated and Shimon Peres was a prime example of this. He deserves better than being flattened in to a character that is “the good guy” or “the bad guy,” depending on who is writing the story.

The influence of my grandparents could have put me in the demonization camp but it was those same grandparents who taught me to look deeper than that.

Like his wife, Sonia Peres, who loved the man but hated the visibility of political life, like Prime Minister Netanyahu who utterly rejected the politics of the man but, at the same time, loved his personality, I too differentiate between Shimon the man and Peres the politician.

It is fascinating that one person can encapsulate such complexity…

Shimon Peres was a diaspora Jew in a time when it was cool to become a sabra, a new Jew. He had a heavy accent and he was an administrator, not a fighter. In many ways he was exactly the opposite of the image the new Israelis wanted for themselves – and yet he was no less revolutionary. It was his vision that helped actualize much of the security platforms Israel has today (including a very important “textile factory”). Things others declared impossible, Peres made happen. He was a politician but he was also a poet.

Lesson 2: Determination

One of the most outstanding characteristics of Shimon Peres was his determination. Many called him an incorrigible optimist, assigning to him extreme, almost unexplainable naiveté. These qualities would seemingly suggest a failing in intelligence however, considering that Peres was a highly educated, intelligent man, I believe that these are a mistaken perception of his almost superhuman determination.

Contrary to what it might seem following the infatuated media coverage, Peres spent most of his political life disparaged and reviled, even by his own party. He wasn’t looked at as a visionary statesman, he was considered a wheeling and dealing politician. It was Rabin who called Peres: “A tireless underminer.” Time and again Peres lost to political rivals and yet he never gave up. He had a vision and faith and was willing to do whatever it takes to see that become reality.

Differences of opinion regarding the correctness of his vision or actions are irrelevant in the consideration of his extraordinary determination. How many people can you think of with such a strong sense of conviction? What could you achieve in your own life if you dealt with your challenges in the way Peres dealt with his?

Lesson 3: Maybe I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one

I’ve been laughed at for being a dreamer, an idealist. Shimon Peres was a dreamer too. His dreams of peace in the Middle East were both beautiful and dangerous but those were not his only dreams.
He dreamt of tomorrow with a passion associated only to the greatest inventors in history, people like Leonardo da Vinci and Nikola Tesla who envisioned things way before their time. Peres read while others were sleeping. He thought that resting was a waste of time. He taught himself about the latest developments in science and technology and was able to hold deep conversations on an astonishing breadth of subjects. Peres was a true futurist and he was proud that his nation, Israel, is instrumental in inventing and developing a better tomorrow.

Peres was widely embraced around the world for his vision of peace but it was his enthusiasm for the future that endeared him to many at home and abroad.

Perhaps the most important dream Peres had for himself was the desire to be loved. He served the public most of his life but only received widespread admiration in his final public role, as President of Israel. His tireless determination finally paid off. His controversial political past was largely set aside and, for the most part, he was warmly embraced by the nation he loved.

I’m certain knowing that tribute to his vision and personality brought so many world leaders together, brought them to Israel, would have given him great satisfaction.

Lesson 4: Age is an attitude

It seemed like Shimon Peres would live forever. He had an air of timelessness about him. While most people remain in the timeframe of what was contemporary in their youth, Peres kept his mind flexible, changing with the times, always focused on the future. As he grew chronologically older, his attitude remained contemporary. He kept up with the swiftly changing technology, adopted the use of social media and participated in the creation of viral videos. For those of us who were born into the technological age it is difficult to comprehend the enormous flexibility it takes to change with the times. My grandmother was born before electricity was common in homes and she lived to see the invention of television, a man on the moon, cell phones and the internet. Peres not only saw all those changes, he made use of them.

Peres proved that age is a mindset, an attitude. He was always excited to see what tomorrow would bring and that made it seem like there would always be a tomorrow for him. This attitude made the epitaph he requested for himself seems so apt: “Died before his time.”

Lesson 5: Narrative appropriated

Watching the media response to the death of Shimon Peres left me wondering about the validity of the narrative we are taught about other historical figures. The Israeli media, like most media around the world, aligns mostly with the political left. Our artists, musicians and other celebrities tend to identify with the left as well. Peres was the spokesperson of the Israeli left, he gave dignity to their ideas, presenting them in world forums, gaining acceptance abroad which, in turn, reinforced the perception of his colleagues that their way was the right way. Even following the utter failure of the Oslo Accords, additional land-for-peace and prisoners-for-peace deals, the left still upheld Peres as their symbol of Israel’s undying hope for peace. His death created a vacuum for the Israeli left. They have no more representatives for their ideas. While the general public still wants peace and would willingly make enormous sacrifices for peace, Israelis, in general, no longer hold the belief that the next deal signed will bring peace. With no leader to look to, the left has done everything in their power to transform Shimon Peres the man, with all his complexities, in to a symbol with which they can justify themselves. Considering that the people who set the tone for the culture are the ones redefining the man and deciding what his legacy is, there is very little room for anyone with a different perspective. This, combined with a rigid taboo on speaking poorly of the deceased, makes an honest discussion of his peace initiatives (or the people hurt by them) almost impossible.

Watching this unfold raises so many questions….

Is it so difficult to discuss someone or something we don’t like without being disrespectful? Or being accused of being a “hater”/”racist”/whatever other shut-you-up label is currently popular?

Is it so difficult to differentiate between a man and his actions? What in the world makes it so easy to convince people that any person is one dimensional? Only good or only bad? Who says we have to completely agree or completely disagree with anyone? Why do we have to choose “teams”? Isn’t it possible that we may have the same goals while still disagreeing about how to achieve them?

Last but not least, I am left to wonder - if the narrative of a man’s life can be appropriated so swiftly, so close to his death, how much of what we know about historical figures is true?

I remain with more questions than answers. Possibly the historical facts matter less than the principles we choose to remember and uphold. I know others will define Peres as the symbol for peace and teach that his methodology is the correct way to attain peace. To me it seems disrespectful to turn someone so complex in to a one-dimensional tool to use to further a political agenda…

Personally, I choose to remember the lessons I’ve learned from Shimon, the man, the poet, not the politician. To me his legacy isn’t about politics, it’s about a way of being in the world, an attitude towards life:

People are complicated. No one is a saint, no one is a devil.

Determination pays off in the end. Never give up.

Focus on the future.

Age is an attitude.

History is taught according to the narrative convenient to the people in power. This is a very disturbing realization however I still hold on to the belief that it is the principles we choose to uphold that will determine our future.

Maybe I’m a dreamer but, at least, I’m not the only one.

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AFP reports:

A group of women will try to reach the Gaza Strip on board a boat on Wednesday in a bid to break a decade-long blockade by Israel, a spokeswoman said.

Gaza has been under an Israeli blockade since 2006 but it was tightened in 2007 after the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas seized control in the tiny enclave.

Israel says its maritime, land and sea blockade of Gaza is aimed at preventing Hamas from receiving supplies which could be used for military purposes.

Fifteen women will try to breach the blockade aboard the Zaytouna-Oliva boat early on Wednesday, said spokeswoman Claude Leotic.

"But we fear there will be an Israeli attack" to prevent the boat from reaching Gaza's shores, she told AFP Tuesday in a telephone interview.

Israeli media, quoting unnamed officials, have reported in recent days that the navy will intercept the boat and escort it to the Israeli port of Ashdod to prevent it from reaching Gaza.

A different narrative was given to i24News:

Asked if they have any fears about encountering the Israel Defense Forces, Maguire says not at all.

"We are not afraid of the IDF. We understand that they are doing their job and we are a group of unarmed women bringing a message of peace," she says.

"We expect that they will treat with us dignity and [we] will treat them with dignity as well."

To their own fans, they say the exact opposite in an "urgent press statement":

From past Israeli interceptions the possibility of a violent military attack as was experienced by the Mavi Marmara flotilla in 2010 is a reality.

It is deplorable that despite the loss of lives resulting from Israel’s unlawful piracy in international waters, the Israeli regime has once again threatened to repeat its criminal conduct. By the same token, it is inexcusable that the United Nations and its Security Council have failed to warn Israel not to proceed with its threat to attack the WBG.

There were supposed to be two boats, but one of them dropped out.

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Hamas law and order news

Two stories from Gaza:

A teacher is being investigated for systematically beating students, in this video that one student made:

Hamas also sentenced a woman to death by hanging for killing her husband.

I have never seen any death sentence for any man for killing his wife.

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Jerusalem exhibition at the Met overstates Muslim connection, mixes up Al Aqsa and Dome of the Rock

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a new exhibit about Jerusalem called Jerusalem 1000 - 1400: Every People under Heaven:

Beginning around the year 1000, Jerusalem attained unprecedented significance as a location, destination, and symbol to people of diverse faiths from Iceland to India. Multiple competitive and complementary religious traditions, fueled by an almost universal preoccupation with the city, gave rise to one of the most creative periods in its history.

This landmark exhibition demonstrates the key role that the Holy City played in shaping the art of the period from 1000 to 1400. In these centuries, Jerusalem was home to more cultures, religions, and languages than ever before. Through times of peace as well as war, Jerusalem remained a constant source of inspiration that resulted in art of great beauty and fascinating complexity.

This exhibition is the first to unravel the various cultural traditions and aesthetic strands that enriched and enlivened the medieval city. It features some 200 works of art from 60 lenders worldwide. More than four dozen key loans come from Jerusalem's diverse religious communities, some of which have never before shared their treasures outside their walls.

Diana Muir Appelbaum reviews the exhibit. Excerpts:

The curators [present] a soft-focus version of medieval Jerusalem as a city shared equally by Muslims, Christians and Jews, with the differences among them no more significant than the choice of whether to make falafel with fava beans or chickpeas. Imposing such a narrative requires a major elision of reality.

In one display case, a copy of a history of the First Crusade by William of Tyre is opened to show images of the coronation of Queen Melisende and her consort Fulk in Jerusalem. It is paired with a handsomely illuminated Quran. One of a number of magnificent Qurans on exhibit, it conveys the idea that the Quran, like the Bible, contains material about Jerusalem. The Quran, however, never mentions Jerusalem.

The curators have my sympathy. Given that Jewish objects related to Jerusalem in these centuries consist largely of manuscripts, and recognizing the advantages of displaying at least a sample of the enormous number of splendidly illustrated medieval Christian books about Jerusalem, the curators needed to find a type of Muslim text that appears not to exist.

'Umra certificate

The most interesting Muslim manuscript on display with a connection to Jerusalem is a pilgrimage certificate with folk art illumination testifying that a man named Sayyid Yusuf bin Sayyid Shahab al-Din Mwara al-Nahri went as a pilgrim to Mecca, Medina, Karbala, Hebron and Jerusalem. There is also an alcove filled with illuminations of the Path of Paradise of al-Sara’I made for Abu Sa'id Mirza in 1466 that includes a delightful image of Muhammad astride his flying horse. Beautiful as they are, it is hard to say why they are included in an exhibition about medieval Jerusalem.

While the major failing of this exhibit is that the curators have built it around a false premise, it suffers also from a lack of focus apparent in the inclusion of many objects with little or no relationship to the city.

Much of the time, however, the exhibit is so detached from Jerusalem as to make me wonder whether the curators, experts in medieval art, had ever visited Jerusalem or studied these faith traditions. Without some explanation of the sort, it is hard to understand the statement on a wall devoted to The Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque, that “At the southwest corner of the great esplanade that overlooks Jerusalem stands the Dome of the Rock.” The southwest corner is, of course, the location of Al Aqsa; the Dome of the Rock is at the center of the enormous platform. This may be an easily corrected mistake; what comes next is more problematic, because it reveals the ease with which a well-intentioned effort to produce a politically acceptable exhibition can lead instead to the distortion of fact.
In large letters, the text on the wall explains that the Dome enshrines a natural stone outcropping “variously understood as the site of Abraham’s sacrifice, the location of the tabernacle in the Temple of Solomon, and the point of departure for the Prophet Muhammad’s Ascent to Paradise.”

“Abraham’s sacrifice” is an odd phrase, not in common use in English where the traditional phrase is “the binding of Isaac.” It appears to have been chosen to elide the distinctiveness of these faith traditions.

In the Jewish and Christian Bibles, Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac, and Jews and Christians traditionally identify the location as the stone at the center of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Islam has a similar story, but the name of the son is not given in the Quran; in Muslim tradition Abraham is usually said to have been about to sacrifice Ishmael, and the location was the black stone in Mecca known as the kaaba.

The exhibit’s litany of “Abraham’s sacrifice, the location of the tabernacle in the Temple of Solomon, and the point of departure for the Prophet Muhammad’s Ascent to Paradise” is problematic in an additional way, because one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong.

Muhammad’s ascension to Heaven and Abraham’s near sacrifice of his beloved son are legendary accounts. The location of the ancient Temple, by contrast, is an archaeological and historical fact. The curator responsible for the text may have attempted to stay just inside the bounds of accuracy by referencing the “Temple of Solomon.” The construction of a temple on this spot by a king named Solomon—as opposed to the later Temple built on the site by the exiles returning from Babylon—cannot be proven, which gives the text the uncomfortable appearance of what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness”—a very different thing from truth.

The 'Umra certificate pictured above is the one and only piece of pre-19th century Islamic art depicting Jerusalem I have ever seen, and it is part of a depiction of Mecca, Medina, Karbala and Hebron.

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10/04 Links: Palestinian Murderers and their Western Enablers; Ten Places the Obama Administration Says Are Not In Israel

From Ian:

Palestinian Murderers and their Western Enablers

The Palestinian Authority not only celebrates murderers: it produces new ones every day -- and does so knowlingly and voluntarily. For this it uses textbooks, television and radio programs, and articles in newspapers, all paid for with money from Western governments.
The Palestinian Authority also financially rewards the murderers' families and the murderers themselves. These financial rewards are also paid for with money from Western governments.
How can Western politicians explain that they condemn the murders and still fund the incitement to kill? How come they keep giving money that rewards murdering Jews "by all available means"?
How can they define as "moderate" an organization such as the Palestinian Authority that admits sending terrorists to kill Israelis and that teaches children, on its Facebook page, how to stab Jews to death? And how can they consider it urgent to give such an organization its own State?
Israeli Jews know they can only rely on themselves. They know that others, such as France, are holding knives that are sharpened.

Which Nation is (Still) the Number One Sponsor of Terrorism?

Iran has evidently harbored senior Al Qaeda operatives since 9/11, including facilitating the flow of fighters and funds to al-Qaeda through Iran -- a kind of jihadi pipeline. In the mid-1990s, reported the Clarion Project, Iran negotiated an agreement with Osama Bin Laden to allow al-Qaeda terrorists to freely transit Iran.
And, of course, Tehran's senior leadership financed and facilitated, along with Hezbollah, the training of the 9/11 hijackers that killed nearly three thousand people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. According to a December 2011 decision by Judge George B. Daniels "Iran and Hezbollah materially and directly supported Al Qaeda in the September 11, 2001 attacks."
But 9/11 was not Iran's first terror attack against the United States. The Iranian government also financed the attack on the Pan Am flight that blew up over Scotland in December 1988, and was also responsible for the 1996 terror attacks against Americans at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 1983 bombings of our Marine barracks and embassy in Lebanon.
A number of American courts, upon hearing the evidence of Iranian government support for terrorism, found Iran guilty of terrorist attacks against the United States and its citizens, culminating in at least $56 billion in damages, which included being found guilty complicity in the 9/11 attacks.
Even more chilling has been Iran's joint missile and technology cooperation with North Korea, making the potential use of weapons of mass destruction against the US a growing possibility.
If any UN action is taken to stop terrorism, it should start with shutting down the number one source of state-sponsored terrorism in the world -- the Islamic Republic of Iran.

J Street ad campaign to back pro-Iran deal Congressional candidates

The liberal Jewish political action group J Street is set to launch a $500,000 ad campaign aimed at supporting Congressional candidates who supported the Iranian nuclear deal signed last year.
The campaign will run in two swing states, according to a press release sent out on behalf of the organization, without specifying which two. Details on the new initiative will be made public on Wednesday.
J Street said it seeks to “ensure House and Senate candidates who have backed the Iran nuclear deal in Congress and on the campaign trail prevail at the polls, and in doing so prove that diplomacy-first policies also make for good politics.”
The campaign will include television and internet advertising, direct mail and polling and is part of a “multi-state effort focusing on competitive Senate races in which candidates have been attacked for their support of the Iran deal.”
The organization has maintained that the nuclear deal, signed between Tehran and six world powers last year and implemented in January, is good for the United States and for Israel — whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been a vociferous opponent of the controversial agreement.

!Shana Tova u'Metuka שנה טובה ומתוקה!

I want to wish all of my readers a Shana Tova u'Metuka, a happy and sweet year 5777.

May this be a year of good health, prosperity, joy and peace.

Actress Mayim Bialik has a video explaining the customs of the day:

Aish.com came out with one of their annual music videos:

It is not too late to support EoZ and to start the new year with a mitzvah!

(h/t Mike Tan)

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10/02 Links: Prince Charles and Israeli Funerals; 7 Myths About Bibi Busted

From Ian:

Elliott Abrams: Prince Charles and Israeli Funerals

Prince Charles attended the funeral of Shimon Peres last week, in Jerusalem. This was not his first visit: he also attended the Yitzhak Rabin funeral in 1995.
In the 21 years since then he has visited Arab countries repeatedly, but Israel has remained on the blacklist. No official visit, no tourism, sum total of visits there = two visits to Mount Herzl Cemetery.
Why? Is it his own prejudice against the Jewish State, or is the Foreign Office telling him to stay away? (The Queen has never set foot in Israel.)
There is actually a very good reason for him to visit another cemetery in Jerusalem, at the Mount of Olives: his grandmother is buried in a convent there. That woman is Princess Alice of Battenberg, the mother of Prince Philip. Philip actually did visit there, in 1994, in a trip the Foreign Office insisted was entirely private.
Princess Alice was an extraordinary woman. She was the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and was born at Windsor Castle in 1885. Earl Mountbatten of Burma was her younger brother. Congenitally deaf, she nevertheless learned to speak English and German. She led a most difficult life, in and out of exile from Greece (she had married Prince Andrew of Greece in 1903).
During the Second World War she lived in Athens and sheltered Jewish refugees there, for which was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations.” That ceremony at Yad Vashem was in fact the occasion for Prince Philip’s visit. She lived the final years of her life in Buckingham Palace and died there in 1988, after which in accordance with her request her remains were interred on the Mount of Olives.
Her spirit is nicely suggested by this story: during the Second World War the Nazis occupied Athens. When a German general asked her “Is there anything I can do for you?” she replied “You can take your troops out of my country.”
I suppose it is far too much, diplomatically, to expect Israel to disinvite someone like the heir to the British throne from a funeral. But the Prince’s attendance was an act of hypocrisy. If he wants to honor Shimon Peres, a better way is simply to schedule a visit to the country to which Peres devoted his life. And he can see his grandmother’s grave while at it.

Elliott Abrams: In What Country is Shimon Peres Buried?

Last week President Obama spoke at Shimon Peres’ funeral and watched him buried–in some sort of No Man’s Land. Not in Israel, it seems.
The Obama White House actually issued a correction of its press release of Obama’s remarks, to strike the world “Israel.” You can see a screen shot of the corrected release here at the McClatchy news site.
The absurdity of this move is striking. The ceremony was at Mount Herzl, the Jerusalem cemetery where many of Israel’s greatest figures are buried: Herzl himself, Jabotinsky, Begin, Golda Meir, Rabin, and innumerable military heroes.
It lies in Western Jerusalem, near Yad Vashem and Jerusalem Forest–a place Palestinians do not even claim when they claim a share of Jerusalem; only those who seek to destroy Israel think this place will ever be anything but a part of the Jewish State. U.S. policy is that Jerusalem is a final status issue, so we have our embassy in Tel Aviv. But there is no dispute about west Jerusalem, where the Knesset, Prime Minister’s office, and Supreme Court, and the National Library, and Yad Vashem–and Mount Herzl–all lie.
One wonders if President Obama, speaking about the meaning of Peres’s life for Israel, actually thought as he spoke those words at the grave site that he was not standing in Israel, and that Shimon Peres was not being buried in Israel. I doubt it. Which suggests, again, how foolish the current and longstanding American policy really is.

Anti-Semitism at My University, Hidden in Plain Sight

Last semester, a group came to Providence to speak against admitting Syrian refugees to this country. As the president of the Brown Coalition for Syria, I jumped into action with my peers to stage a counterdemonstration. But I quickly found myself cut out of the planning for this event: Other student groups were not willing to work with me because of my leadership roles in campus Jewish organizations.
That was neither the first nor the last time that I would be ostracized this way. Also last semester, anti-Zionists at Brown circulated a petition against a lecture by the transgender rights advocate Janet Mock because one of the sponsors was the Jewish campus group Hillel, even though the event was entirely unrelated to Israel or Zionism. Ms. Mock, who planned to talk about racism and transphobia, ultimately canceled. Anti-Zionist students would rather have no one speak on these issues than allow a Jewish group to participate in that conversation.
Of course, I still believe in the importance of accepting refugees, combating discrimination, abolishing racist law enforcement practices and other causes. Nevertheless, it’s painful that Jewish issues are shut out of these movements. Jewish rights belong in any broad movement to fight oppression.
My fellow activists tend to dismiss the anti-Semitism that students like me experience regularly on campus. They don’t acknowledge the swastikas that I see carved into bathroom stalls, scrawled across walls or left on chalkboards. They don’t hear students accusing me of killing Jesus. They don’t notice professors glorifying anti-Semitic figures such as Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt or the leadership of Hezbollah, as mine have.

Maude Vallet

Well, perhaps not "joy" exactly, but before we plunge into things let's get something out of the way, immediately.

A "Jihadi," as I am using the term, is anyone who believes in the restoration of the Muslim Caliphate for the purpose of spreading al-Sharia throughout the known universe and who justifies violence in that "noble" pursuit.

In a piece for the Gatestone Institute entitled, France's New Sharia Police, Yves Mamou tells us that:

For years, "big brothers" have been obliging their mothers and sisters to wear a veil when they go out. Now that this job is done, they have begun to fight non-Muslim women who wear shorts and skirts -- no longer just in the sensitive Muslim "no-go zones" of the suburbs, where women no longer dare to wear skirts -- but now also in the heart of big cities.

The cultural enrichment is just stupefying.

Mamou's examples include the beating of a French girl by a Muslim man in Brittany for daring to wear "provocative" clothing; the attack by ten young Muslims in Toulon of two European families on a bike path as they yelled "whores!" and "strip naked!" before beating the holy crap out of one of the husbands; also in Toulon, 18-year-old Maude Vallet was spat upon by a gang of Muslim girls for the crime of wearing short pants; in a resort in Garde-Colombe, the Alps, a Moroccan guy stabbed a woman and her three daughters for being "scantily dressed" and then complained that he was, in fact, the "victim" by accusing one of the men of making an obscene gesture in front of his wife; and last April a 16 year-old-girl in a suburb of Paris was severely beaten by three young Muslim women for wearing a skirt.

The rise of Political Islam is not limited to Sharia-enforcing states like Iran or ISIS, nor to Jihadi organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Gaza, or Hezbollah in Lebanon. It also includes regular Muslim on the streets of western cities, when those Muslims approve of imposing Islamic law on non-Muslim societies. Your average work-a-day Muslim in the West, however, despite their disinclination to condemn their Jihadi brothers and sisters is not a problem. Like Muslims everywhere they are simply trying to put food on the table and take care of their families.

Nonetheless, what we are seeing today is the contemporary example of a thirteen-hundred year old imperial project designed by Muhammad in the early 7th century. It is good that most Muslims are not Jihadis, but this does not change the fact that the rise of Political Islam is, perhaps, the most significant geo-political phenomenon since the demise of the Soviet Union.

Just as the conflict against Nazi Germany in World War II was not "racist" towards Germans, so those of us concerned about the rise of Political Islam are not "racist" toward Muslims. Political Islam (or Islamism) is a highly significant and toxic political movement throughout the Middle East and Europe and, like any political movement, it can be friendly or unfriendly, but always open to criticism. Unfortunately, given the brutality and the goals of Political Islam as expressed in the various Jihadi organizations, like the Islamic State and the Muslim Brotherhood, finding necessary and harsh criticisms is like picking apples from a tree.

Beheadings. Stonings. Slavery.

Where do you start?

Mamou believes that "the Islamic dress code is the Trojan horse of Islamist jihad..." and quotes Professor of Philosophy, Berenice Levet, of the École Polytechnique, telling the French daily newspaper, Le Figaro that, "In the war that Islamism is leading with determination against civilization, women are becoming a real issue." And:

... I want it recognized once and for all that if today the roles of the genders are forced to regress in France, if domination and patriarchy are spreading in our country, this fact is related exclusively to our having imported Muslim values.

This is, of course, exceedingly touchy terrain and I can practically hear the ice cracking beneath my feet as I write.

However, the primary question is whether or not we are seeing the emergence of "Virtue Police" in the streets of Paris.

Mamou tells us:

In France, no organized Islamist brigades patrol the streets (as in Germany or Britain) to fight alcohol consumption or to beat women for the way they are dressed. Yet gangs of "youths", again, both men and women, are increasingly doing just that in practice.

And this is precisely why Political Islam is already having a profound influence on western culture.

As a movement, it is not merely a top-down phenomenon, but an organic, bottom-up phenomenon, as well. It is the organic nature of this fascist-like movement that makes it so slippery and difficult to pin down. It is for this reason that Jihadi apologists in Europe and the United States, including Barack Obama, always explain away Jihadi attacks as the psychotic doings of lone maniacs who suffer from schizophrenia or homophobia or work-place discontentment or who are driven to kill non-Muslims by the NRA or the Trump campaign or the evil behavior of ordinary, privilege-strutting, white guys.

It can never be about Islamic teachings, as we find them in the Qur'an or Hadiths, because that is far too inconvenient for international elites such as Angela Merkel or Hillary Clinton who want an enlightened progressive system of open borders with a significant degree of top-down control as we see in the non-democratic European Union.

The grassroots imposition of Islamic dress codes on the indigenous European population is merely one way of normalizing a system of jurisprudence that is completely at odds with the western political tradition as handed down from from Magna Carta via the Constitution of the United States and the western liberal political tradition, more generally.

If al-Sharia is encroaching onto western legal terrain, the implications should be sobering for anyone concerned about the maintenance of free speech or the fundamental rights of individual liberty.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

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The Jordanian Tourism Ministry said that the total number of Israeli tourists decreased by 14.3% for the first eight months of this year compared to last year.

91,333 tourists came this year from Israel compared to 106,538 tourists during the same period last year.

The number of Israeli tourists who stayed overnight also fell by 13.8% compared to the same period last year.

What a surprise!

Jews are not allowed to bring in religious objects to Jordan, so observant Jews cannot stay overnight because they cannot bring in what they need to pray in the mornings.

Recently, archaeologists discovered a menorah carved into a stone in a Byzantine church in Abila, Jordan, that is assumed to have been taken from a destroyed synagogue.

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Saudi scholar says Arabs need to follow the example of Jews

Dr. Ibrahim Matroudi, a Saudi scholar of Arabic and religion, told an Arab newspaper that the Arabs should follow the example of the Jews.

Matroudi says that the Jews revived their culture and language and that they have had many prominent scientists and scholars.

The culture of revenge is deeply rooted in Arab/Muslim society, he said, although this culture contradicts Islam. "All the people are fanatics. We inherited intolerance. Everyone sees his doctrine as right and others are wrong," he told Elaph.

He notes that the Jewish people went from being reviled throughout history to becoming leaders of the world, culturally and intellectually, today. Should not such a people be studied, rather than shunned?

(H/T Ibn Boutros)

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Jordanians protest gas deal with Israel, saying it is "occupation"

From Telesur:

Jordanians swarmed through the streets of Amman on Friday in a large demonstration titled "The Enemy's Gas is Occupation." Chanting "Raise your voice for dignity" and "No to the shameful deal," Jordanians of all backgrounds and occupations expressed their rage at a secretive US$10 billion gas deal that will supply 1.6 trillion feet of gas to Jordan from the offshore Israeli-controlled Leviathan natural gas field over the course of 15 years.

The peaceful demonstration was dispersed by security forces after only half an hour, yet the demonstrators' message demanding that officials in the Hashemite monarchy be held accountable was widely broadcast throughout global media.

The march reflects the widespread Jordanian antipathy toward the Israeli state, and the view that their future utility bills will benefit the continued occupation of Palestine. Half of Jordan's population is estimated to have Palestinian roots, while approximately 2.1 million refugees from Palestine are registered in the kingdom.

Jordan Times adds:

Activists also called for switching off the lights for an hour at 9pm on Sunday “to show the public’s rejection of the gas deal”, she added.

Demonstrations have also taken place in the southern governorate of Karak, some 130km from Amman, where residents headed to the city centre to denounce the agreement, locals said.

The engineers’ association and other organisations will “step up” protests over the coming weeks in Karak, a city that has boycotted Israeli products since 2015, said Wissam Majali, the director of “A city free of Zionist merchandise” campaign.

“This week’s protests, campaigns, and activities will mark the start of demonstrations and initiatives to demand the total reversal of the gas deal and to show the public’s outrage towards the agreement,” Majali told The Jordan Times.

Notice the antisemitic poster in this photo of a lightbulb turned into a religious Jew with blood coming out of his fangs:

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10/01 Links: Double Standards for Aleppo and Gaza; Dershowitz: Shimon Peres, a Leader for All Seasons

From Ian:

Security guard shot by gunman in attack on Moscow synagogue

A security guard at a Moscow synagogue was wounded Saturday evening when a man armed with a gun and a gasoline canister attempted to break into the Jewish institution and set it alight, Russian media reported.
Initial reports said the guard was in critical condition after being shot in the head and chest while trying to stop the assailant from entering the Choral Synagogue.
The attacker was arrested by police, according to media reports.
A rabbi at the synagogue said the assailant arrived during a Sabbath prayer service, when about 150 worshipers were inside, and asked to meet Moscow Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, Ynet news reported. Several security guards then took him across the street, at which point he shot one of them.

Double Standards for Aleppo and Gaza

Israeli efforts to minimize civilian casualties go unreported or even ignored by the press, and Israel instead finds itself regularly judged in the court of public opinion, which is led by a lazy or hostile media.
So Israel is subjected not only to a different standard than the deplorable militaries of Syria and Russia, but even to a different standard than other Western militaries.
If and when the Syrian conflict comes to an end, will anyone be held to account for what certainly appear, at face value, to be genuine war crimes? Will there be a UN investigation and a Goldstone-style report? Will the International Criminal Court issue indictments? Given Russian involvement and the lack of American global power projection, it is unlikely that anyone will be held to account.
The next time open conflict between Israel and Hamas breaks out, will the parameters of judgment have changed as a result of the carnage in Aleppo and other parts of Syria? Or will Israel continue to be held to a standard of behavior unlike any other military in the world?
The likelihood is that nothing will have changed when it comes to how Israel is treated, and we will be left to conclude that, ultimately, the world will be outraged by Israel defending itself and its citizens irrespective of how ethically it behaves.

Bystanders to Genocide

The essay was titled “Bystanders to Genocide.” Ms. Power later expanded the article into a book, “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” for which she was widely praised. Barack Obama read the book and promoted her rise in government.
Fast forward to the present, and Ms. Power can sound like those officials she once scolded for thinking they were doing everything they could given the complexities of the situation.
“Well, Syria is a very complex picture,” Ms. Power told CBS earlier this month. “There are thousands of armed groups. The question again of what military intervention would achieve, where you would do it, how you would do it in a way where the terrorists wouldn’t be the ones to take advantage of it—this has been extremely challenging. But the idea that we have not been doing quote anything in Syria seems absurd. We’ve done everything short of waging war against the Assad regime and we are, I should note, having significant success against ISIL on the ground.”
Ms. Power’s list of achievements in Syria might seem grimly funny to the more than 10 million Syrians driven from their homes in the civil war and the families of its 400,000 dead, most killed by the Assad regime. The starving residents of Aleppo and other besieged Syrian cities also know that until last week the Obama Administration was eager to team up with the Russians—going so far as to share critical battlefield intelligence—so they could jointly attack Islamic State targets, thereby further freeing the Assad regime to do its dirty work. Another stab at U.S.-Russian cooperation hasn’t been ruled out.
President Obama bears ultimate responsibility for doing so little to stop the five-year Guernica that is Syria, and we don’t know what Ms. Power’s private policy advice has been. But in public she has become an echo of the officials she once denounced for justifying American inaction in the face of mass slaughter. The honorable decision would be to resign.

09/30 Links Pt2: George Soros’ Israel-Hatred Spills Out Into the Open; 5 feel-good stories from Israel in 5776

From Ian:

George Soros’ Israel-Hatred Spills Out Into the Open

Billionaire George Soros generally does not hide the fact that he uses the considerable funds at his disposal to support his extremist, leftist ideals.
So when he does hide something, it should raise some serious questions. A series of leaked documents recently revealed that Soros’ philanthropy network, the Open Society Foundations, has been giving money to a number of anti-Israel organizations with the goal of smearing the Israeli government and undercutting its relationship with the United States.
The list of organizations is a veritable who’s who of hostile, anti-Israel actors. One of the leaked documents shows that between 2001 and 2015, Soros funneled over $9.5 million into a range of groups including Adalah, the Al-Tufula Center, the Arab Association for Human Rights, Baladna, The Galilee Society, Molad, the New Israel Fund and others.
Even worse, these documents showed that while the Soros network was systematically and methodically doling out its funds to these controversial groups, it was also working extremely hard to keep its donations and advocacy work quiet.
According to the private documents, which have now been published online, Soros and his network are engaging in these subversive tactics in an effort to “hold Israel accountable” for its supposed violations of international law. In truth, it seems more fitting that Soros be held accountable for his inscrutable policies. His so-called Open Society Foundations certainly don’t appear to be so open after all.
By secretly dispersing his money to influence politicians and the media, Soros hopes to drive a wedge between America and Israel without anyone noticing. This approach is wrongheaded and shameful. And it’s not new.

Michael Oren On Trump, Clinton, American Leadership And His Future Ambitions

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren won’t take sides in the U.S. election — but that doesn’t mean he won’t express concerns about aspects of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s policies.
During an appearance on “The Jamie Weinstein Show” podcast, Oren opened up about how Israelis view the U.S. election, his view of America’s role in the Middle East, whether he has ambitions to be foreign minister or even prime minster one day, and so much more.

The Mottle Wolfe Show: The Case For Trump

Mottle and Brian John Thomas discuss the loss of Shimon Peres. Brian John Thomas then goes on to layout the reasons why he supports Donald Trump for president.

White House strikes out "Israel" from transcript of Obama's speech at Peres memorial

The original White House page, from Google cache:

The current one:

The White House sent a "correction:"

Unbelievable.

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It's that time of year

People are Googling "Shana Tova U'Metuka" (wishes for a happy and sweet New Year) and my blog comes up as #1 and #2:

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