Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 06, 2016

Pity the anti-Zionist Snowflake (Michael Lumish)

One of the most pathetic and hypocritical aspects of contemporary western campus politics is the Crybully / Snowflake phenomenon.

University administrations throughout the West have brought back en loco parentis in a manner that would have absolutely disgusted - in its treacly infantilization of young adults in "safe spaces" - college students from the 1960s and 1970s.

Young radicals from that period would not have demanded common spaces where they could suck their collective thumbs, while instigating hatred toward white people and Jews who stand with Israel.

Whatever they may have thought about allegedly insidious white-anglos, radical students from the 1960s - who were mainly middle-class white-anglos, themselves - emphatically did not want the university administration's parental embrace. What they wanted, frankly, was for the administrations to get the hell out of their faces and to stop enabling the "war machine."

The late 1960s, and the early 1970s, saw the emergence of a hodge-podge of radical types ranging from the Panthers to the psychedelic-counterculture people to the variety of hard political types, blending criticisms of race and gender with economic class, to those like the Weathermen who wanted to burn the "system" down entirely.

But whether these young people wanted social and economic justice for non-white people or women or Gay people, or whether they wanted to end the Vietnam War or to float away into a haze of smoke and acid, the very last thing on this planet that they wanted was to be treated like small children by parental university help-mates.

What they wanted, more than anything else, actually, was the freedom to be who they are.

And it is this that makes the Crybully / Snowflake phenomenon on today's university campuses pathetic. It is not merely that the university infantalizes these students, but that the students infantalize themselves when they go into such rooms, sometimes containing coloring books and stuffed animals.

At Brown University, or so Judith Shulevitz tells us in the New York Times, the "safe spaces" are:

intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma. Emma Hall, a junior, rape survivor and “sexual assault peer educator” who helped set up the room and worked in it during the debate, estimates that a couple of dozen people used it. At one point she went to the lecture hall — it was packed — but after a while, she had to return to the safe space. “I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs,” Ms. Hall said.

When did the university experience become kindergarten?

Why do university administrators insist upon treating young adults, who are old enough to fight and die in war, as 8 year olds? And why are so many students seem eager to avail themselves of their own dimunition?

But this is just why the Crybully / Snowflake Phenomenon is pathetic.

If it were merely pathetic I would not bother writing about it because, so what? If students who think of themselves as on the cultural cutting-edge wish to be pathetic, who am I to say "no"?

The thing is, of course, they aren't children and many of them carry anti-white and anti-Zionist hatred which they wield with abandon. That is, many of the the same people who require safe spaces are also the same people who spit hatred at whiteness, defame those Jews who refuse to toe their political line, and encourage violence toward cops.

Here, for example, are a bunch of student racists, just days ago, refusing to allow white kids through the main gate of UCAL, Berkeley:

And this is what makes this creepy campus political trend hypocritical and entirely toxic.

A student activist cannot, after all, be racist and anti-racist, both, at the same time.

A student activist cannot call for the blood of random Jews in Jerusalem (in calls for intifada) while simultaneously requiring that the university provide a special place to rest their head from trauma if the mayor of that town drops in for a chit-chat.

If today's crop of college radicals wish to spit fire at white people, and Jewish supporters of Israel, for our decadent and evil ways, that is their right, but one cannot inspire hatred toward others while also demanding child-like coddling from public universities.

And why would any self-respecting young political activist want such coddling, anyway?

Coddling, after all, is not the stuff that young rebels are made from... or is it?

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.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

From JPost:

The Palestinian Authority is preparing to lay a claim to the Dead Sea Scrolls at the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Israel Radio reported on Saturday night.

The scrolls – a large cache of mostly Hebrew writings from the Second Temple period and its immediate aftermath – were discovered in Qumran between 1947 and 1956. They include many biblical texts and are believed to have been penned by members of a Jewish sect known as the Essenes.

Qumran, which is near the Dead Sea, was under British, and later Jordanian, rule at the time of the discoveries.

It is now located in Area C of the West Bank, which is under Israeli civil and military control.

The PA considers Area C to be part of its future state.

Qumran is on the list of preservation areas which the PA wants to see registered under the “state of Palestine” on the World Heritage List.

This isn't the first time that they have made this claim. In 2009, when an exhibit of some of the scrolls was to be opened in Canada, they tried to shut it down:

Last April, the Palestinian Authority appealed to Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, to cancel the show, citing international conventions that make it illegal for a government agency to take archaeological artifacts from a territory that its country occupies.
The P.A. and Muslim activists claimed that the scrolls were “stolen” from Palestinian territory and illegally obtained when Israel annexed East Jerusalem — where the scrolls were stored — in 1967. “The exhibition would entail exhibiting or displaying artifacts removed from the Palestinian territories” by Israel, wrote Hamdan Taha, head of the archaeological department in the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism & Antiquities, in a widely publicized letter, calling the show a violation of international law.
Echoing those sentiments on the day of the press preview, Canadian Arab Federation executive director Mohamed Boudjenane called the scrolls “stolen property… seized from an occupied territory,” and repeated the call to close the show on a national newscast.

Interestingly - Jordan also claims ownership:

The Jordanian government has asked Canada not to release the Dead Sea Scrolls that have been on exhibit in Toronto for six months, claiming their ownership is "disputed."
Jordan alleges that Israel took illegal possession of the 2,000-year-old Isaiah scrolls from the Rockefeller Museum in east Jerusalem during the Six Day War.
The Jordanian government claims that the scrolls fall under the auspices of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which allows "cultural property" from "any occupied territory" to be seized by countries that signed the ruling.

Does anyone think for a minute that the Arabs care about the Dead Sea Scrolls as a hugely important historic artifact?

The desire is to erase Jewish history from the region, not to protect any "Palestinian" heritage of the area.

And as was evident from the beginning, the entire purpose of "Palestine" joining UNESCO was that same desire to erase Jewish history.

This is the real politicization of archaeology - and it is not being addressed.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

In 1947, Eleanor Roosevent asked Harry Truman to look into the situation of Jewish stowaways who were stuck on Ellis Island, unable to enter the US.

Here is their correspondence.

_________________

January 7, 1947

Dear Mr. President:

I have enclosed an appeal I recently received from a group of interned illegal Jewish homeless immigrants on Ellis Island and wonder if anything can be done to prevent their deportation?

With every good wish, I am,

Yours very sincerely,

_________________

January 16, 1947

My dear Mrs. Roosevelt:

This is in reply to your letter of January seventh in which you enclosed a letter of appeal sent to you by a group of Jewish stowaways who are now detained on Ellis Island.

I have taken this matter up with the Attorney General and he has carefully gone into the problem with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. These boys are a part of a large group of stowaways who

arrived in this country during 1946. Under the immigration law, of course, they are required to be returned, at the expense of the steamship company, to the ports of their embarkation.

The Attorney General advised me that because of the increase in the number of stowaways since the end of the war he initiated a survey to ascertain if there was any basis for relief. I am also advised that a Special Committee of the 79th Congress appointed from the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization conducted an investigation of this situation at the Port of New York where the problem is most acute, and thereafter submitted a bill to the Committee for strengthening the existing immigration law pertaining to the exclusion of stowaways. In view of this it is the Attorney General's opinion that since lawful immigration is so urgently needed by so many displaced persons, the greatest good for the greatest number can only be accommodated by lending all the facilities of our Government to lawful immigration and following a policy of strict exclusion of the illegal or stowaway immigrants.

As you know, in my recent message to the Congress I emphasized the duty of the United States to accept its portion of the world’s burden as to displaced persons and urged the Congress to consider appropriate legislation to enable a greater number of displaced persons to lawfully immigrate to the United States. I believe such a measure is of paramount importance and, as much as I am sympathetic with the plight of these particular stowaways, I am, nevertheless, of the opinion that their individual cases must give way to the larger problem of the many thousands of homeless people in Europe who seek to come to the United States as legal immigrants.

I am always grateful to you for your vigilant interest in matters of this kind. I am returning herewith the enclosure with your letter.

Very sincerely yours,

_______________________

January 20, 1947

Dear Mr. President:

I appreciate your answering my letter about the Jewish stowaways and I can fully understand the situation.

With many thanks and best wishes,

Very sincerely,

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Arab world "Protocols" report

Here is every mention of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Arabic news sites for the past month, according to Google, that indicate whether the authors think that they are real or that they are not.

Hamrin News - a book review that discusses how individuals and groups act in history, and the Protocols are referred to as a must-read to understand the point.

Watanserb has an article about Israel-Egypt relations that quotes the Wiesenthal Center about how there are Egyptian books and TV shows that rely on the Protocols.

Baladna El Youm has a completely insane antisemitic article that has lots of classic themes of which the Protocols are merely one.

Shabiba has an op-ed that says that the Protocols is merely one indication of how the US does not dare to oppose Israeli policies.

7adramout.net has an op-ed opposing sports and fans' obsessions with their teams, saying that the 12th protocol for how the Jews control the world is by getting people involved in sports. The author says that he does not accept that all woes can be blamed on the Jews, but he does believe that "it is true that the Jews are the origin of evil in the world."

Al Basrah says that the US is fomenting divisions in the arab world, which is similar to what is called for in the Protocols.

That's six articles that assume the legitimacy of the book, and zero that do not. (Two others quoted Western sources about the Protocols but did not give an indication of whether they believed in them or not.)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

11/05 Links: Chloe Valdary: ‘Israel gives expression to human condition’; Lame-duck Obama's last hurrah

From Ian:

African-American Christian Zionist: ‘Israel gives expression to human condition’

Chloe Valdary is a committed Zionist. She launched pro-Israel groups at her alma mater, the University of New Orleans; has written articles for national publications defending Israel; and toured the U.S., advocating for the Jewish state.
Considering her resume, it’s somewhat surprising to learn that Valdary, in fact, isn’t Jewish.
An African-American and a Christian, Valdary said she believes her placement in what she terms “Jewish/pro-Israel space” was inevitable growing up as she did. She is a Seventh Day Adventist, the Protestant denomination that celebrates the Sabbath on Saturdays and advocates adhering to kosher dietary laws.
“I grew up with Jewish values and what would be referred to as ‘Jewish time’ informing and shaping my own identity,” wrote Valdary in an-email interview from Israel. “Though not Jewish, I grew up observing Shabbat, kosher style, and the holy days. So the frame of reference through which I view the world was shaped by Judaism. So to engage with Israel, the Israeli people, etc., is to engage with myself and my own sense of belonging and culture.”
Valdary will bring her message to New Brunswick on Tuesday, Nov. 15, in an event sponsored by JerusalemU, an organization dedicated to strengthening the emotional and intellectual connection of young Jews to Judaism and Israel.

SJP brings extremism to campus

Palestinian poet, writer, and activist Remi Kanazi, Students for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) latest guest, compares Jews to the KKK. He poses in support of terrorists and advocates violence. His presence is part of a focus-grouped and incubated hatred, which is intellectualized, digitized and repeated ad nauseum. SJP targets you as the consumer for that hatred. They’ve weaponized discrimination in the form of victimhood. This is my fourth year of witnessing and addressing it. I’m tired.
SJP is part of a well-financed campaign to bring this hatred to our campus. Every year it comes and goes, and students are bombarded with distorted images, oversimplifications and lies.
Just consider the bias in the narrative SJP force-feeds us. Fanatic after fanatic, zealot after zealot, SJP poisons our well by bringing radicals to Kenyon. Two years ago the group brought a professor who justified the killing of teenage Israeli Jews (he called them ‘settlers’) who live in the West Bank while also claiming that, in some demented way, antisemitism could be seen as “honorable.” SJP brought an artist, Amer Shomali, who glorified convicted terrorist and plane-hijacker Leila Khaled. One student member of the group compares Zionism (the belief in the right to self-determination of the Jewish People) to Nazism, a comparison the U.S. State Department deems anti-semitic. One can be a just activist for the Palestinian cause without supporting radicals and without condoning codified Jew-hatred.
Bringing Remi Kanazi to campus is SJP’s latest move in their twisted game of delegitimizing and demonizing Israel. Kanazi, however, doesn’t just reserve his contempt for Israel; he saves some for the U.S. too. Kanazi writes that “Hillary Clinton is a racist, violent, corporate shill,” and “Obama is a butcher.” Clearly, Kanazi is a radical who preaches hate. In reference to Israeli Jews, he says, “they were hooded in the South,” comparing Israeli Jews to the KKK. He lauds and poses for photos with convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh, whose family even admitted to her role in the killing of two innocent Jews in a supermarket bombing in Israel.

Leading Jewish Group: UNESCO Chief Must Condemn Antisemitism on Display at UAE Book Fair at Which Her Organization is Guest of Honor

The head of UNESCO must condemn the antisemitism on display at a major international book fair currently taking place in the United Arab Emirates, a leading US-based Jewish human rights organization said on Friday.
The ten-day Sharjah Interantional Book Fair — at which the global cultural body is the official guest of honor — features an “unprecedented number of antisemitic titles,” Dr. Shimon Samuels — the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations — said in a letter to UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.
“This massive ‘low-tech’ injection of Jew-hatred at Arab government-sponsored fairs creates a vicious circle of incitement to violence, targeting Jews and Jewish institutions,” Samuels wrote. “The circle continues with Arab governments — now captive to the hate they have instigated — relentlessly pressing UNESCO resolutions to delete Jewish heritage in the Holy Land… the circle ends with the cajoling and even the intimidating of member-states to support these outrageous resolutions.”
Samuels praised Bokova — who criticized the recent UNESCO resolutions that ignored Jewish and Christian history in Jerusalem — for her “firm stand against hate, especially antisemitism.”
“We thus urge you to condemn these dangerous displays at Arab book fairs and remove UNESCO from the current Sharjah fair,” Samuels concluded.

11/04 Links Pt2: The BDS Movement's Close Contact with Terrorists; J Street’s and Ari Shavit

From Ian:

Even Islam admits it

Israel could counter Muslim lies about the Jewish history of Jerusalem by pointing out 10 centuries of Islamic sources that confirm Jewish ties to the Temple Mount, or the Ottoman decrees that guaranteed the Jews the right to worship at the Western Wall.
The earliest Muslim tradition that identified the "place al-Buraq was tethered" with the Jewish prayer site at the Western Wall is from the mid-19th century, when Jewish began bringing ritual object to the Wall and even trying to purchase the Western Wall and the courtyards that surround it from the Waqf.
In Berkowitz's opinion, it's almost certain that the Muslims moved the place where Muhammad supposedly entered the Temple Mount compound and the place he tied al-Buraq to the Western Wall as a response to the activity of the Jews. They even started calling it "al-Buraq." They also built Al-Buraq mosque on the eastern side of the Western Wall, on top of the Berkley Gate, where they display an underground room as the spot where the prophet tied up his horse.
And here is one more important historical tidbit: In the Ottoman Period, the Muslims themselves are the ones who granted Jews fermans that recognized their right to the Western Wall and their right to pray there. The first ruler to do so was Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the second half of the 16th century, and after him the Turkish Sultan Abdulmecid [Abdul Majid] I in 1841. Itamar Ben-Avi, son of the reviver of the Hebrew language, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, tells of a ferman that was granted to the Jews in 1868 and transferred to the Council of Jewish Bequests in London, only to disappear mysteriously. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

J Street’s Questionable Actions Surrounding Ari Shavit

It’s important to understand Shavit’s status on the Jewish Left. He is the scion of a founding Israeli family, served with distinction as a paratrooper commander in the Israeli army and has been an ardent and erudite Zionist. Unlike with regard to some other leftist figures, very few on the Israeli Right questioned Shavit’s patriotism. But he is also a self-described “anti-occupation peacenik,” and is well-known for his leftist writings and criticisms of Israel’s right-wing politicians. When his book, My Promised Land, came out in late 2013, it was a huge, immediate hit among the international political/press/NGO crowd, whose approval the American-Jewish Left craves. Shavit became a rock star.
He was, apparently, also a predator. J Street knew it back in 2014. Here was a great opportunity to “tell hard truths.” Here was a chance to “speak truth to power.” J Street could have refused “to remain silent” and declare that unwanted sexual advances would not be tolerated on the Jewish Left, which would only mean sacrificing Shavit. Instead, it remained silent. In doing so, the group gave Shavit nearly three more years of access to potential victims.
When presented with the option to sacrificially speak truth to power, J Street passed. It could have stopped him. But that would have deprived its cause of a particularly effective mouthpiece. And to those deeply convinced of the moral necessity of J Street’s work, the cause is always more important than the pawns occupying the world it aims to heal. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

The BDS Movement Maintains Close Contact with Terrorists

Not itself a formal organization, the movement to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel (BDS) consists of a loose network of groups that support its cause. A number of these, write Jonathan Schanzer and Kate Havard, have close ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), officially considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department since 1997:
Rasmea Odeh, a now-infamous PFLP terrorist who was involved in the bombing of an Israeli supermarket in 1969 . . . is now a cause célèbre for BDS activists in the United States. Boycott advocates have rallied to her defense, raising funds for her while she faces prosecution in the U.S. for immigration fraud (for lying about her time in prison). Odeh’s boosters include BDS-supporting groups like Palestine Legal, Jewish Voice for Peace, and American Muslims for Palestine. . . .
The BDS campaign in the United States broadly identifies itself as a nonviolent social-justice movement. But, its connections to the PFLP, a decidedly violent group, are troubling. Founded in 1967 as a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary organization by George Habash, the PFLP was known for a series of plane hijackings in the late 1960s and 70s. [Its members also] gunned down civilians and hired assassins to massacre passengers at Israel’s Lod airport in 1970. . . .
In 2011, two PFLP members carried out the murder of a family in the West Bank settlement of Itamar (including a three-month-old infant). They were responsible for a 2014 shooting in west Jerusalem that killed five and wounded eight. . . .
Recently, the PFLP sent its most famous member, the first woman hijacker in history, Leila Khaled, on speaking tours worldwide. In April 2016, she visited the German organization Falestin Beytona, the offices of the Communist party of Sweden in Gothenburg, and the Austrian-Arab Cultural Center in Vienna—all organizations that support BDS. Khaled was also the guest of the BDS movement of South Africa in 2015.

Haters like to charge that Israel purposefully ignores non-Jewish archaeological work and inflates the importance of Jewish findings in order to politicize archaeology in the region.

But they are silent for stories like this one:

Students in an Upper Galilee military preparatory academy found a gold coin dating to the early Islamic period from the years 776-777 CE which bears an Arabic inscription declaring belief in one god and the name of the prophet Mohammad.

In recent weeks, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), together with students of military preparatory academies, have begun digging at a site that is going to be turned into a parking area for heavy vehicles near Kfar Kama.

Further excavations that were conducted in and around Kfar Kama in the last 50 years indicate the existence of ancient settlements already in place during the Middle Bronze Age (2,000 BC) and during the Roman and Byzantine periods (2nd-6th century CE), including the remains of a church.

The Israel Antiquities Authority routinely discovers and publicizes non-Jewish findings.

The last time I visited the Israel Museum I was struck with how hard it tries to give exactly equal space to Muslim, Christian and Jewish archaeological findings.

It's just another anti-Israel libel that is easy enough to disprove to those who aren't hopelessly biased to begin with.

(h/t Yoel)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

11/04 Links Pt1: Palestinians in the service of Mother Russia; Israel is the sane, stable democracy

From Ian:

The KGB's Middle East Files: Palestinians in the service of Mother Russia

The genesis of the KGB’s developing ties with Palestinian terror organizations can be traced back to the end of the 1960s. The Soviet spy agency had code names for the different factions making up the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): Fatah, the main movement led by Yasser Arafat, was dubbed "Kabinet" (cabinet); the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) received the name "Khutor" (which means a small village or a farm in Russian); the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) was named "Shkola" (a school in Russian); and Ahmad Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) was dubbed "Blindage" (a fortified wooden military structure).
Arafat himself received the codename "Aref," but the Russians weren't particularly impressed with him at first. The Mitrokhin archive includes a memo that notes: "Aref only keeps promises that benefit him. The information he provides is very laconic and only serves to promote his own interests." The KGB also questioned many of the biographical details Arafat provided them with—his past as a combat soldier, his birth place, and more. Despite this, the KGB appointed a senior liaison officer named Vasili Samoylenko to "cultivate" the Fatah leader.
At the same time, the KGB planted an agent in the office of Hani al-Hassan, one of Arafat's close advisors, who later went on to become a senior official in the Palestinian Authority. This agent, who according to the Mitrokhin documents was codenamed "Gidar," was Rafat Abu Auon, who was recruited in 1968 and served in the KGB for many years henceforth.
But the interest in Fatah and Arafat was limited at that point. The Russians were a lot more interested in the PLO's other factions, particularly George Habash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
"One of the reasons for that is the Marxist–Leninist ideology of Habash's men," explains Prof. Christopher Andrew, one of the world's foremost historians researching intelligence services, whose second book about the Mitrokhin documents includes an extensive chapter on the KGB's activity in the Middle East.
Habash may have been the head of the PFLP, but it was his deputy, Dr. Wadi Haddad—a Christian Arab from Safed and a pediatrician like his boss—who had the brilliant operational mind. Haddad greatly improved upon a form of terrorism that was still in its infancy at the time—hijacking planes—and understood the power of international media coverage that such an attack garners.
He was the mastermind behind the hijacking of an El Al plane to Algeria in July 1968, which ended with the release of the passengers in return for 16 Palestinian prisoners and was considered by the Palestinians as a great success. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Pro-Israel European alliance prepares to fight massive anti-Israel campaign in 2017

A European organization dedicated to rallying support for Israel announced Thursday it would confront a massive anti-Israel campaign anticipated in 2017 with an initiative of its own.
Speaking at an event at the Carlton Hotel in Tel Aviv, Swiss MP Corina Eichenberger-Walther said she had “reliable information that a network has been building itself since the middle of the past year already, a network planning a campaign throughout Europe and having started the necessary funding for that.”
The goal, she said, was to malign Israel during the year of the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War, in which the IDF captured east Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights.
Israel, she said, will be accused of “having oppressed Palestine for 50 years and occupying it contrary to international law” and be painted as an “apartheid state and unjust nation.”
Eichenberger-Walther chairs the European Alliance for Israel (EAI), of which the Israeli-Swiss Association, which hosted Thursday’s event alongside the Israel-Switzerland and Liechtenstein Chamber of Commerce, is a member. The new Swiss ambassador to Israel, Jean-Daniel Ruch, also participated.
Predicting that international organizations and governments would join the ranks of the anti-Israel network, the EAI decided to develop what Eichenberger-Walther called a “friendship campaign.”
According to the EAI, it already has some 30,000 members in 23 countries and plans to make the campaign prominent in those countries.
In a closed-door session with a small group of journalists, Eichenberger-Walther admitted that the EAI had a way to go in order to counter the force of the expected anti-Israel campaign, noting that the hostile movement comprised not just BDS supporters, but also church and humanitarian groups. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Seth J. Frantzman: In Mosul, With Our Real Allies

The Kurdish region is also divided in its own politics. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) has been in charge in Erbil throughout the war with ISIS, and it has been the face of Kurdistan abroad. But the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), historically the other major Kurdish party in Iraq, has played a key role in the war and its soldiers have served side by side with the KDP. The PUK has better relations with Iran than the KDP, as does the Gorran party, another large party in the KDP parliament. The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has bases in the region as well, a fact that has led Turkey to claim that it might intervene in Sinjar.
But with the possible exception of the small Islamist parties in Kurdistan, the trend among all the major parties is support for a more tolerant and open-minded society than is generally found in neighboring areas. Whereas much of the Middle East is trending towards increased sectarianism and religiosity, the Kurdish region is a reflection of more democratic and diverse values.
The war on ISIS has brought those values to the forefront in some ways, as Kurds stress their defense of minorities and women’s rights against the fanatics. But it has also postponed plans for independence and deeply harmed the economy. The international community’s support for Kurdistan has generally been part of an anti-ISIS coalition. But an emboldened Iraqi central government, fresh from successes in battle and with support from Iran, might try to roll back Kurdish gains. Just one lumbering U.S.-made battle tank is a military threat in the hands of a militia that seeks to use them against Kurds. The Obama administration made reduction of U.S. influence a centerpiece of its policy in the world, and its policymakers eschewed basing U.S. policies on shared values, preferring pragmatic diplomacy such as the Iran nuclear deal. The Kurds have been fighting and dying against extremism; the question is whether the next U.S. administration will forget their role or stand by them. That may include supporting independence when the Kurds choose to move towards it.

The Far-Left is Tearing Itself Apart Over Syria

Today, as Syrian cities blaze, anti-imperialist writers continue to demand apologies from those who supported the liberation of Iraq, and react with jubilation to each new setback for intervention. The British former parliamentarian George Galloway, who once bent his knee before a genocidal Ba’athist tyrant in Baghdad, now appears on Iran’s Press TV to do the same before the genocidal Ba’athist tyrant in Damascus. Syrian exiles are ignored or denounced as collaborators with American imperialism just as Iraqi exiles were before them. Max Blumenthal and Electronic Intifada circulate lies about Syria in the service of a conspiratorial anti-Western narrative just as they have peddled lies about Israel in the service of that same narrative. Iran and Hezbollah and Assad are defended as an anti-imperialist “axis of resistance” to the Zionist entity. Russia’s actions are defended as a check on American power. And in the midst of all this mayhem, Iraqi and Syrian lives are no more than a talking point, and “democracy” nothing more than a cudgel with which to beat the West.
Anti-imperialism’s first and most serious error lies in the refusal to make a clear moral distinction between democracy and dictatorship, and therefore between liberty and tyranny. And in the blasted landscapes of Syria’s smashed population centers, the anti-imperialist Left’s professed concern for Arab life, which enjoyed such undeserved currency in the wake of Iraq, has finally been exposed as a squalid lie.
What divides the Left over Syria is what previously divided the Left over Iraq and the Balkans, and it is the anti-totalitarians, not the anti-imperialists, who have been the Syrian people’s most consistent advocates. The same coalition of liberal hawks and neoconservatives that supported the liberation of Iraq now support intervention in Syria for the same reasons. For activists hitherto nourished on an anti-imperialist worldview that holds the West responsible for all the world’s ills, this will take some getting used to. But by now it ought to be obvious that it is pointless to expect support for a democratic struggle from those who do not understand the value of democratic freedoms.

Sabeel is an organization that supports BDS, denies any Jewish national rights, and engages regularly in traditional Christian antisemitic themes:

- Sabeel claims that Palestinians represent a modern-day version of Jesus’ suffering, using “liberation theology,” supercessionist rhetoric and the concept of deicide to demonize Israel. Sabeel spokespeople, particularly founder Ateek, disparage Judaism as “tribal,” “primitive,” and “exclusionary,” while contrasting this to Christianity’s “universalism” and “inclusiveness.” Ateek has also used deicide imagery against Israel and referred to Jesus as a “Palestinian.”
- Ateek has declared that, “The establishment of Israel was a relapse to the most primitive concepts of an exclusive, tribal God.” (emphasis added.)
- In another example, Ateek took advantage to manipulate Lent by saying that, “As we approach Holy Week and Easter, the suffering of Jesus Christ at the hands of evil political and religious powers two thousand years ago, is lived out again in Palestine…In this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him. It only takes people of insight to see the hundreds of thousands of crosses throughout the land, Palestinian men, women, and children being crucified. Palestine has become one huge Golgotha. The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily. Palestine has become the place of the skull…” (emphasis added.)
- Sabeel’s 2014 annual Christmas message compares the historical period in which Jesus lived to present time, claiming that, “There are certain similarities between the political conditions in Palestine during the times of Jesus’ birth and the political situation in Palestine today. There is a flagrant occupation that dominates and oppresses people; and there are words that describe what people go through: fear, insecurity, instability, suffering, grief, despair, and other negative feelings that a repressive empire and an Israeli rightwing government can produce.”

Sabeel Colorado is arranging its annual trip to Israel and the territories. And in these trips, they meet with Israeli "human rights" organizations who clearly have no qualms about meeting with people who engage in explicitly antisemitic rhetoric:

Trip Highlights:

Tour the illegal Jewish settlements of East Jerusalem with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).
Meet with B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
Stand with the Women in Black on Friday at noon, and visit with Machsom Watch Women and ex-soldiers from Breaking the Silence.
Meet with the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron, and visit the Mosque of Ibrihim, honored by Jews and Muslims as the burial place of Abraham.

They also say that they will meet with a single unnamed Jewish settler, who might be the person who wrote this post for me a few years back explaining how "peace" groups demonize Israel in these trips.

Sabeel is worse than the normal anti-Israel tour hosts, because it is steeped in Christian antisemitic memes that are far worse than run of the mill anti-Zionism. It is not a human rights organization - it is a hate group, and for B'Tselem and ICAHD and other NGOs to cooperate with them is no different from a moral perspective than their hosting a Ku Klux Klan tour of Israel.

It shows that these "human rights" groups simply don't think that Jews have human rights.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

The State Department unaware that the US ratified the words of the Balfour Declaration as law in 1924

In the daily State Department press briefing on Wednesday, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, spokesman John Kirby was asked the official US position towards that document. And his answer was that he has no idea.

QUESTION: And finally, I want to ask you, today marked the 99th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. I am sure you’re aware of the Balfour Declaration.
MR KIRBY: I am. I studied history in college.
QUESTION: Which basically launched this thing into – began this whole process and so on.
MR KIRBY: Yeah.
QUESTION: And I wonder, the Palestinians are going to sort of demand that Britain apologizes for the Balfour Declaration. Will you support them in that effort? Will you support the Palestinians if they go to the UN to say that Britain must apologize for that and must do everything that it can to rectify the wrongs that have been inflicted on the Palestinians as a result?
MR KIRBY: This is the first I’ve heard that there’s an interest in doing that at the UN, Said, so I’m not going to get ahead of proclamations or announcements or proposals that haven’t been made yet at the UN. Look, I’ll tell you, not that I’m saying history is not important. Believe me, as a history major and still a lover of history, I get the importance of history. But I’ll tell you where we’re focused is on the future here. And this gets back to your first question about settlement activity. We want to see a path forward to a two-state solution, and the Secretary still believes that that path can be found. But it requires leadership and it requires a forward vision in the leadership there.
So we are very much wanting to look forward here to a meaningful two-state solution, and I think we’re a little less interested in proclamations about the past. Not that I’m saying the past isn’t important or that we’re not a product of history. I am not at all suggesting that. I’m just saying that we are more focused on moving forward.
QUESTION: So okay, recognizing that --
MR KIRBY: I knew something was coming.
QUESTION: -- does the Administration have a position on the Balfour Declaration – good, bad, indifferent?
MR KIRBY: I don’t know.
QUESTION: They sent a declaration --
QUESTION: You don’t know?
MR KIRBY: I don’t know if we’ve taken a position on the Balfour Declaration or the Treaty of Westphalia or --
QUESTION: I think you think that was good because that established the concept of sovereign immunity.
MR KIRBY: Sovereign states, yeah. I – yes, actually.
QUESTION: How about the Treaty of Worms? That one?
MR KIRBY: I don’t know. I don’t know.
QUESTION: I --
MR KIRBY: Now, see, if I had actually said that we did have a position on Balfour, then I would expect you to list every other treaty and ask me. But I’m saying we don’t have a position on this right now.
QUESTION: How about Versailles? Do you think that was a good thing?
MR KIRBY: Which one? Which one? 1783? We actually like that one a lot.

Brian of London at Israellycool noted that there is an actual convention between the US and Great Britain, the 1924 Anglo-American Convention, that quotes and ratifies the Balfour Declaration:

Convention between the United States and Great Britain in respect to rights in Palestine. Signed at London, December 3, 1924: Ratification advised by the Senate, February 20, 1925; ratified by the President, March 2, 1925; ratified by Great Britain, March 18, 1925; ratifications exchanged at London, December 3, 1925; proclaimed, December 5, 1925

It includes the exact language of Balfour quoted by the League of Nations, and more- including the right of Jews to settle in all parts of Palestine:

WHEREAS by the Treaty of Peace concluded with the Allied Powers, Turkey renounces all her rights and titles over Palestine; and
Whereas article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations in the Treaty of Versailles provides that in the case of certain territories which, as a consequence of the late war, ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them, mandates should be issued, and that the terms of the mandate should be explicitly defined in each case by the Council of the League; and
Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have agreed to entrust the Mandate for Palestine to His Britannic Majesty; and
Whereas the terms of the said mandate have been defined by the Council of the League of Nations, as follows:

"The Council of the League of Nations:

"Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have agreed, for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, to entrust to a Mandatory selected by the said Powers the administration of the territory of Palestine, which formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire, within such boundaries as may be fixed by them; and
"Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country; and
"Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country;

Article 2

The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble...

Article 4

An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognised as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and, subject always to the control of the Administration, to assist and take part in the development of the country.
The Zionist organization, so long as its organization and constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall be recognised as such agency. It shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic Majesty's Government to secure the co-operation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home.

Article 6

The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.

Article 22

English, Arabic and Hebrew shall be the official languages of Palestine. Any statement or inscription in Arabic on stamps or money in Palestine shall be repeated in Hebrew and any statement or inscription in Hebrew shall be repeated in Arabic.

Or, in the words of the State Department, "I dunno."

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

The Islam Wars: It’s The Shiite Turn (Dr. Mordechai Kedar)

EoZ fan Miki saw this article at Mida in Hebrew and translated it.
_______________________________________

The Islam Wars: It’s The Shiite Turn

Dr. Mordechai Kedar

In the fight which rages on for over a thousand years, the Sunnis were always the dominant segment of Islam. The collapse of the national Arab countries, the retreat of the US and the strengthening of Iran are changing the balance of power, with much more blood to be spilled along the way.

Are we watching the wheels of history turn? We may be. In the terrible war between Sunnis and Shiites, the former always had the upper hand. Now however the situation seems to be changing.

When Muhammad the prophet of Islam closed his eyes forever in 632 AD, his relatives began the fight for his succession. His cousin, Ali Ibn Abi Talib, who was also Muhammad’s son-in-law after marrying his daughter Fatimah, claimed that the rule should be his by right, and that Muhammad himself promised him the succession. The other candidates marginalized his claims, forcing him to struggle for 24 years before finally ascending and becoming the 4th caliph in 656 AD.

But even then his respite was short. The governor of Damascus - Mu’awiyah Ibn Abi Sufian - betrayed him six years later. In 661 Ali was murdered and Mu’awiyah became the 5th caliph. The sons of Ali continued to fight, and the new caliph fought back, hard. In 680 Hussain, the son of Ali, was murdered and had his head displayed in Damascus. The Muslims who support Ali and his successors are the Shiites, and those who support the people who pushed them aside and eliminated his succession, are Sunnis.

This 1,384 year old fight is threaded throughout the history, philosophy and politics of Islam. The fight takes place in many arenas, from the scriptures to the prayers, from religious laws to people’s names. But most of all, it takes place in the actual battlefield. These battles have cost many millions of Muslim lives, with mutual massacres taking place during various periods.

The decline of the Sunnis

The war between Iraq under the Sunni Saddam Hussein, and Iran under the Shiite Khomeini between 1980-1988 cost the lives of some million people and injured many more millions. The fight continues today at full force in multiple arenas: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Sunni world today, and Iran leads the Shiites.

About 85% of the Muslims in the world are Sunnis, making the Shiites a 15% minority. This state of affairs resulted in the Sunnis typically being the winners and in control, while the Shiites are defeated, praying and hoping for their lot to change someday. The Shiites’ miserable state of affairs brought them to call themselves “Al Mustadafin” - a term from the Koran meaning “The depressed upon the earth”. They prayed and hoped that one day the tide will turn and they will have the upper hand.

In recent years it seems that the Shiites prayers are being answered. The 1979 revolution in Iran gave the Shiite religious leaders a large, strong and rich country from which they can export their revolution to the rest of the world. They did so by sending propaganda, education, money and books to every country in which Shiites live, aiming to strengthen their anti-Sunni emotions. Once the hearts were ready, the arms, ammunition and military training weren’t far behind. Wherever possible, Shiites built the potential for taking over the government.

The world has seen this. Other countries understood the Ayatollahs’ plans for control, but chose to ignore what they saw. They did it because oil and gas were a higher motivator than any other consideration, including the safety of entire countries and the state of peace in the world. Under the world’s watchful eye, Iran developed rockets, tanks, guns and fighter planes, chemical and biological weapons, and even atomic weapons. There were attempts to stop Iran’s military expansion, but Iran’s friends in the security council - Russia and China - ensured that it can continue its takeover of the islamic world without interruptions.

In 2003, The US toppled the Shiites biggest and most dangerous enemy, Saddam Hussein.

The Ayatollahs viewed this as confirmation that Allah is on their side, giving them the aid of both global powers - Russia in the security council, and the US in Iraq. The Ayatollahs continued their nuclear program despite sanctions that were imposed on them, and their perseverance, combined with the flimsy US foreign policy has brought about the 2015 nuclear agreement. The billions of dollars that the Ayatollahs received since, and that have been well invested in the various killing fields across the middle east, have shown the Ayatollahs that the road to the top of the world is at their feet.

95,000 Iranian children were hurt or killed during the Iran-Iraq war. Source: Wikimedia Commons

With the aid of the western world and its war on Saddam Hussein, the Shiites managed to wrestle Iraq from the Sunnis. Today, with the aid of the Christian Russians they will wrestle Syria from its Sunni majority. The Shiites are massacring the Sunni population mercilessly, as we’ve seen in recent months in Fallujah, Ramadi, Haleb and Yemen, and are now advancing on Mosul, Iraq’s financial capital.

In the last two years, the Sunni “Islamic State” controlled Mosul, butchering Shiites left and right. Now that the city is under siege, the Shiites are sharpening their knives, ready to take their revenge on the Islamic State and all Sunni citizens for generations of abuse.

A cultural climate of violence

It is very sad to see how a 1,400 years old conflict still sheds rivers of blood in that part of the world. The fight is horrific because it has no boundaries - neither geographical nor moral - and because everything is known in advance: It is clear that there will be a massacre in Mosul. The question is only how big: dozens? hundreds? thousands? tens of thousands? Unknown as of yet, but I have no doubt that there will be a massacre.

You’d expect that people who got exposed to alternate lifestyles will adjust their behavior. Even if Iraqis don’t live in Europe, they still were watching TV, listening to the radio, reading books and newspapers and had plenty of opportunity to see how people live in places like the US and Europe. They were exposed to the material advantages and the happiness that can be pursued and achieved in western countries. Moreover, when most middle-easterners travel to other locales, whether to visit or to migrate, they adopt, by and large, their host country’s customs. There are always exemptions as we saw in Germany during the new year celebrations, however most Arab migrants have no problem adapting new behaviors, suggesting that there is no genetic or racial problem.

The problem raises its head when they are in their homeland, with their culture of violence and extermination of enemies. Here only the fittest survive, and the weak is in dire straits indeed. Here conflicts don’t get resolved - they get enshrined and will continue for as long as both sides exist. Here, a conflict gets resolved when one side gives up, gives in or is obliterated.

Here is also where Israel is trying to survive, and it’s not an easy task. On the one hand, Israel is an island of Western culture and a full democracy, meaning that it can not treat its enemies the way they treat each other; On the other hand, if Israel will behave by the moral codes that are prevalent in post-WWII Europe, the Jews in Israel will be booted back to Europe post haste.

This is complex dilemma, and the debate rages on in the Israeli public. It will continue for as long as Israel fights to exist in the Middle East, due to the chasm between the culture we would love to be, and what we need to do.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

11/03 Links Pt2: Hen Mazzig: Campus Farhud; Prof. Kontorovich Challenges Israel Boycott State By State

From Ian:

Retired British Colonel: Iran-Backed Hezbollah Cells Preparing to Launch Future Attacks in Europe, US

Iran-backed Hezbollah cells are readying themselves to conduct future terrorist attacks in Europe and the US, a retired British Army officer told The Algemeiner on Thursday.
Colonel Richard Kemp — a former commander of UK forces in Afghanistan — was responding to a report in the Washington Free Beacon, citing an Iranian regime-aligned media outlet, that an Iranian military official claimed the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was dispatching operatives to infiltrate the West.
Despite last year’s nuclear deal reached between the Islamic Republic and six world powers, Iran’s “hatred for America remains a pillar of the ayatollahs’ foreign policy,” Kemp said. “They use their proxy — the terrorist group Hezbollah — to project power overseas. There are today Hezbollah cells both in Europe and the US. These elements are trained, supported and controlled by the IRGC.”
Furthermore, Kemp explained, while “it is not clear exactly where the division lies between direct IRGC action overseas and action by Hezbollah and other terrorist proxies,” what is certain is that “either directly or indirectly, the IRGC has been preparing and will continue to prepare for terrorist attacks in the US and elsewhere in the West.”
In the past, Iran is believed to have used Hezbollah to strike Israeli and Jewish targets around the globe — including in Burgas, Bulgaria in 2012 and in Argentina in 1992 and 1994.
Also, American officials said the IRGC was behind a thwarted 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US at a Washington, DC restaurant. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Hen Mazzig: Campus Farhud

I struggle to speak above the noise of the protesters – but more than ever, of the thousands of talks I’ve given across the world, I pour out my soul.
I finish my talk – and reassure the crowd that I would be glad to return. I will not be silenced – and they should not be silenced.
“We won tonight,” I tell them. I ask everyone to be proud of themselves and to stand tall. There isn’t a more admirable, more noble cause to support than Zionism, a movement that brought safety to the Jewish people who for centuries experienced oppression and humiliation as a minority across the world.
We all stand up – and we start singing Hatikva, ‘The Hope,’ Israel’s national anthem. We sing higher than the voices of the mob outside. At that moment, even in the face of violence, the music somehow gives us a sense of transcendent safety – and feel proud.
I am soon rushed out of the campus, in a police coat by the police. They keep telling me: “Don’t look back, keep running.” It is if I am escaping a warzone.
That night strengthened my resolve more than ever. The hateful mob reaffirmed my conviction that antisemitism remains alive – in Europe, North American and beyond.
In twenty-first century Britain, Jews leaving a room to screams of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” is utterly horrifying.
I couldn’t sleep all night – I kept on thinking, how do we fight such hate speech? The answer: with good speech.
You fight bigotry and fanaticism by standing tall, even when you’re afraid. We will continue spreading a message of hope – just as Israel does within the darkness of the Middle East.

London police warn pro-Israel groups not to disclose location

The Metropolitan Police in London have asked pro-Israeli organizations Reservists on Duty and Campaign for Truth not to disclose the locations of any of their conferences, citing security concerns.
Wednesday's warning followed the violent anti-Israel rally at University College London last week, when Jewish students attending a campus event hosted by UCL Friends of Israel were trapped in the hall by protesters.
Police officers called representatives from the Israeli organizations to tell them it would be best not to disclose the location of a conference scheduled for next week. At the same time, since the location has not been disclosed, the police will not provide security at the event. The organizations were told that if necessary they could summon police to the scene.
The conference, on the theme "Ethics of war in the age of social media and the rise of terror," is being hosted by Reservists on Duty and sponsored by Campaign for Truth, organizations that work to undermine the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.