The Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection is heavily involved in the conference, and it released a very impressive book-length document that describes well over 200 Israeli companies that have technologies to help the world's environment, in the categories of Climate, Solid Waste Management, Water Resources, Building and Construction, Agriculture and Extreme Events and Disasters. Any way you look at it, Israel is a leader in environmental protection, and as such must be a key player in any conference on the topic.
But...it is in Marrakech, Morocco.
So the local Arabs are very, very upset not only that Israelis are in their country, but that Israel's flag is fluttering among the flags of the other attendees.
Reports say that the flag is a "provocative step against the feelings of Moroccans and honorable people of the nation."
It's microaggression! The entire country of Morocco must be a safe space where people cannot be subjected to this horrible sight that one needs to go out of their way to even find!
Air pollution, clean water shortages, poisonous chemicals in food - all of that pales in importance to the feelings of Arabs who know that their country is hosting the Jewish state. And if there is something more important to the world than Arab feelings, I'd like to know what it is.
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This is richly ironic - because there is one group of people that HRW believes should not have the automatic right of citizenship after a much longer period of time i a country.
HRW and Amnesty have never advocated for the rights of Arabs of Palestinian descent to become citizens of the countries that they - and their parents and grandparents - have been born in.
Palestinians in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Syria, Egypt and especially Lebanon (as well as thousands in Jordan) are supposed to be stateless, according to these "human rights" groups. Instead of citing international conventions that demand that people born in a nation become citizens, HRW and Amnesty lie about international law to demand that they become automatic citizens of Israel - even for the huge number who would happily accept citizenship in the countries they live in!
For only one group of people does HRW insist on a fictional right to "return" as superseding the right to nationality - the people who identify as Palestinians. Not to mention that the rights of Palestinians to become citizens in their host countries far exceed the right of the Mexican-born woman in the NYT article he cites to be considered an American citizen.
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The Jerusalem News was the first English-language daily newspaper to be published in Jerusalem, started in 1919. It was founded by Elizabeth Lippincott McQueen who later became a pioneer in women's aviation.
It included this story of how the Zionist Jews tried to get food to the Yemenite Jews, called "Gadites," who lived in Kfar HaShiloach - known today as Silwan.
We have discussed previously the Yemenite Jews who moved to the area, now regarded as purely Arab, in the 19th century, moving into these houses on an otherwise empty hill..
I found one other edition of the newspaper online, with this otherwise forgotten story from 1920:
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A group of Christian ministry leaders in the UK, under the name Balfour100.org, are planning events to celebrate the centennial of the Balfour Declaration next year.
Here is their take on the history of the document:
Five hundred years ago the Reformation led to the Bible being translated into English and read by the common man. This led to a greater interest, particularly among Puritans, in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. They were able to read for themselves the prophetic passages speaking of the eventual return of Israel to her biblical promised land. By the 17th Century there was a growing awareness among British evangelicals generally that the Bible prophesied the return of the people of Israel to their historic Promised Land.
Later, in the 19th Century, many well-known preachers like Bishop J.C.Ryle and Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon taught on the restoration of the Jews to their land. Bible-believing Christians (such as William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury who were also enthusiastic restorationaists) had a huge influence on the governments of the time. A belief in the restoration of the Jewish people to Israel has been described as the “default position” for evangelicals in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Sadly, that is not the case today.
Ryle, Spurgeon and others were influential in presenting the case for the return of the Jews. As Bible students they longed to see the return of Jesus Christ. Before that could happen, the Jews had to be back in their own Land (Israel). They understood this from prophetic passages in the Old Testament foretelling the appearance of Messiah in Jerusalem to a restored Jewish people. This then became the central focus of their prayer and political action but seemed impossible while the ancient Land of Israel was under Muslim Turkish control and the Jewish people scattered for 1,900 years.
In 1896 Austrian Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl, incensed at the anti-semitism he saw around him (especially the notorious Dreyfus affair), wrote 'Der Judenstaat' on the need to re-establish the Jewish State as the only viable long-term solution for the survival of the Jewish people.
As Herzl began the movement that became known as “Zionism” he became friends with an evangelical Christian minister, Rev William Hechler. Hechler’s high level contacts as a diplomatic chaplain in Vienna enabled Herzl to gain valuable patronage for Zionsim and helped to envision influential leaders, including the Kaiser of Germany.
Historians have noted that if Herzl had not had Hechler’s support and encouragement to continue his work, Zionism might never have been birthed as a political movement. Hechler, a spiritual heir of the likes of Ryle and Spurgeon, was one of the first “Christian Zionists”.
As the 19th Century became the 20th, another partnership between Jew and gentile was developing that was key to the furtherance of the dream of a revived Jewish homeland.
Chaim Weizmann, born in 1874, was one of fifteen children born to a Jewish couple in Belarus. He studied biochemistry in Germany and moved to Manchester in 1904. Becoming a leading bio-chemist in the years that followed, Weizmann also became a leader in the Zionist movement in Britain.
During World War 1 he developed an important chemical ingredient for gunpowder, which brought him to the attention of the British Government and particularly Lord Balfour, with whom he had already become friends.
Born in Scotland, Arthur Balfour became MP for Manchester East (where he first met Weizmann) in 1885, and was Prime Minister from 1902-05. In 1917, when the Balfour Declaration was made, he was Foreign Secretary
This was the partnership that eventually led to the letter known to this day as the 'Balfour Declaration' (Balfour was the signatory). A friendship developed, during which Weizmann, the ardent Zionist, persuaded Balfour, an evangelical Christian in favour of Jewish restoration, of the case for a homeland for the Jewish people in what was then “Palestine.”
Britain’s strategic needs, burgeoning alliances with Arab leaders and the clear justice of the zionists’ dreams coalesced on 31st October 1917, when Britain’s war cabinet (most of whom were also evangelical Christians) agreed the final wording of a letter to Lord Rothschild and the Zionist Federation; a letter which became known as “The Balfour Declaration”.
Another event took place on 31st October 1917, which was key to the intentions expressed in the Declaration. General Allenby won a key battle against the Turks and Germans for the desert town of Beersheva. Without a plan for the future, the victory at Beersheva would have been just another battle in a long and bloody war, a footnote in history. The two events, occurring at the same time yet thousands of miles apart, was a sure sign that this was God bringing His plan for the Jewish people's restoration to their land closer to its fulfilment.
Bye itself, the Balfour Declaration carried little legal weight. It was simply an expression of intent by the British government of the day. Five years later however, in the aftermath of World War One, its intent and most of its very wording were incorporated into international law in the San Remo Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine.
Christians and biblical teaching were instrumental in the events leading to the Declaration, going right back to the Reformation. This gives Christians who love the Jewish people and the state of Israel a desire to celebrate the centenary of this short but vital document along with the Jewish community in November 2017.
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Flying in the face of the long-standing US bipartisan policy of rejecting the so-called 1967 borders, there is increasing concern that President Obama's parting shot at Israel might be to either endorse such a resolution or fail to veto it. Such actions would have incalculable consequences -- not least a flare-up in violence and the prospect of global sanctions against Israel.
Depending on his audience, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas claims to desire a two-state solution. But his actions speak louder. How can it be possible to bring about peace with a country or a people that you constantly vilify and attack? Hatred of Jews and denial of their rights permeate PA speeches, TV shows, school-books, newspapers and magazines.
Arab Jew-hatred has caused Britain up to the present day to sometimes fail to condemn Arab aggression against Israelis, and to find excuses for their violence. All in the name of appeasing the Arabs and their supporters in the Muslim world and even at home.
Britain can be intensely proud that it alone embraced Zionism in 1917. And it was the blood of many thousands of British, Australian and New Zealand soldiers that created the conditions that made the modern-day State of Israel a possibility. Even 99 years after the world-changing Balfour Declaration, we still have our work cut out for us in supporting the Zionist project, which owes so much to the unequalled historic backing in Great Britain.
Ninety-nine years after it was written, the British document supporting the formation of a 'national home for the Jewish people' is back in the news. But it caused unrest among some British Jews at the time, too.
“His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a centre of Jewish culture.” Had it been up to British-Jewish lawmaker Sir Philip Magnus, that would have been the formulation of the Balfour Declaration, which was published 99 years ago this week and paved the way for the establishment of the State of Israel.
Magnus was among the Jewish leaders canvassed by the British government regarding the suggested declaration, a few weeks before it was eventually published on November 2, 1917. But unlike some of his fellow peers in Britain’s Jewish community, Magnus was not an enthusiastic Zionist. He saw Britain – and not the Land of Israel – as his national home. The fascinating correspondence between Magnus and the British government concerning the declaration is stored at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. Until now, no one showed much interest in it. Recently, though, ahead of the declaration’s upcoming centenary, Dr. Hezi Amiur discovered the letters anew. The curator of the Israel Collection at the National Library regards his find as like unearthing a great treasure: “It’s just one of the millions of items preserved here, but I rubbed my eyes when I read it,” he said. As Amiur discovered, the letter was part of a chain of correspondence and talks conducted at the time between the British and leading Jews – some of whom were Zionists and some not – concerning the final version of the declaration.
Some may consider this to be irrelevant and outdated, while for others renewed discussion of the Balfour Declaration – mainly because of the Palestinian Authority’s threat to sue Britain over it – has stimulated new interest in the original process, even 99 years after the fact. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Hillel Neuer Testifies to US Congress
Ten Years Later: The Status of the United Nations Human Rights Council
Hearing of the U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, Tuesday, May 17, 2016 – 2:00pm
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.
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?
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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.
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.
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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,
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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.)
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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.
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.
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.
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)
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)
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.
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)
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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)
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)
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.
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 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.
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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.
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."
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Monday, November 07, 2016
Elder of Ziyon
This week is the Marrakech Climate Conference - COP 22, the followup to the Paris Climate Agreement last year.
