Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, November 10, 2016

11/10 Links Pt2: Apologise for the Balfour Declaration? You are having a laugh; Dutch anti-Israel group holding Kristallnacht event in synagogue

From Ian:

David Collier: Apologise for the Balfour Declaration? You are having a laugh

One of the ‘apologise for Balfour’ campaigns was launched by the Palestine Return Centre in the House of Lords. It was to give a platform to vile comments and would lead to the suspension and resignation of Baroness Jenny Tonge.
Another of these campaigns, ‘the Balfour Project’ held an event at Southwark Cathedral last weekend. This itself part of a worrying trend of anti-Israel events recently held in Christian places of worship in the UK. Reports from that event suggest the campaign is “yet another vehicle for the vilification of Israel.”
Israel exists. The Jewish home was eventually created (albeit in a circular route), and is without much argument, the most liberal nation in the entire region. So just what should the UK Government apologise for?
There has been endless commentary on anti-Zionist outlets. I have analysed several of the pieces on the Balfour apology. They all centre around several key points.

To use Balfour to establish Israel as a settler colonial enterprise.

To use the Balfour Declaration to suggest contradiction between Zionism and democracy.

To demonise Israel by suggesting Israel exists because of the support of global ‘unsavoury’ elements.

To suggest it was the antisemites of the UK, rather than the Jews, who sought to support Zionism.

A recent article by Ben White is a perfect example of this. White pushes all these elements in his argument. Ben White is a prolific writer and one of the leading lights of the Boycott Israel campaign (BDS) in the UK. Another example is a recent article penned by Robert Cohen, one of the speakers at the Balfour Project conference.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement Didn’t Create the Borders of the Modern Middle East—and Redrawn Borders Won’t Fix Its Problems

A common refrain of Western commentators writing about the Middle East is that its problems stem in part from the supposedly artificial borders drawn up by Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot in the 1916 agreement that bears their names. However, David Siddhartha Patel explains, not only was the agreement never implemented, but the order that existed prior to 1914 was neither wholly imposed from without nor wholly artificial:
Europeans did not draw borders willy-nilly, without regard to local factors. Local actors and historical precedents played important roles in determining not only what borders were drawn but even which proposed states survived and which did not. The Sykes-Picot agreement, for example, awarded much of south-central Turkey . . . to the French zone of direct influence; these and later efforts to carve up Anatolia were stymied by [the Turkish ruler] Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Local actors and politics [also] heavily influenced the specific location of the Iraq-Syria border. . . .
Local precedents for seemingly “artificial” states also mattered more than analysts often recognize. For example, scholars have demonstrated the extent to which the modern state of Iraq had Ottoman administrative roots.

Balfour Declaration resources at your fingertips

As has already been demonstrated the centenary year of the Balfour Declaration, which commenced last week, is set to be the focus of anti-Israel activity by various parties and that – together with events marking the centenary itself – will no doubt be accompanied by media coverage.PA Balfour Decl art
We have already reviewed the BBC’s portrayal of the Balfour Declaration and noted the corporation’s promotion of the notion that the Balfour Declaration conflicted with earlier pledges given by the British government in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence.
In order to help readers locate material relating to those topics easily, we have added a section to the menu bar above titled ‘Library‘ (top right) where relevant links and documents can be found and we will be adding additional resources such as those below to the page.
In his book titled ‘The Balfour Declaration’ published in 1961, Leonard Stein wrote the following in relation to the Hussein-McMahon correspondence.

EoZTV: Manfred Gerstenfeld interview part 2: European antisemitism

From my interview in July.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

It’s Wednesday morning, and the American presidential election has just been decided. Honestly, I didn’t expect this result. I didn’t underestimate Trump’s appeal, but I failed to realize just how much the voters disliked Clinton. Of course working-class people overwhelmingly chose Trump, but I think many others – Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans – who would have voted for Hillary couldn’t stomach the tawdry revelations of influence-peddling by the Clintons. “If it’s between a shithead and a Secretary of State who sold out her country, I’ll take the shithead,” said a friend.

So much for my very unprofessional analysis – the professionals will be dissecting this election into the future, as they did with the Brexit vote, and Menachem Begin’s 1977 upset victory in Israel (not to compare Trump with Begin)!

This election will be of great importance to Americans in countless ways. But what does it mean for Israel?

The only real answer is “who knows?” Trump is not famous for consistency, and he will be learning the rules and the players as he goes. But a position paper on US-Israel relations released last week by his “Israel Advisory Committee” was remarkably positive. Among other things, it makes clear that Trump would not support any efforts to impose a solution on Israel and the Palestinians via the UN; it calls for “defensible borders” and rejects pressuring Israel to “withdraw to borders that make attacks and conflict more likely;” and it states that

The U.S. will recognize Jerusalem as the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish state and Mr. Trump’s Administration will move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

Yes, they all say that. But maybe he is the first to mean it. The document is not signed by Trump and it isn’t clear if its authors will have positions in his administration. But it is certain that his intentions will be tested quickly.

One litmus test will be whether he will stand up against the State Department’s irrational and anti-Jewish position that no part of Jerusalem belongs to Israel, move the embassy, and issue an order that State shall recognize (at the very least) western Jerusalem as an integral part of Israel. If the embassy move does not begin within the first 100 days of his administration, it will signal that we should not expect much from Trump on other matters.

Now would be the time to take this step, when the conservative Sunni Arab states are minimally hostile to Israel and when plentiful oil has made their economic influence in the US ebb. Trump would be missing an opportunity to improve relations with Israel and congressional conservatives if he does not take advantage of this.

Regarding Iran, the document calls for the US to “counteract Iran’s ongoing violations” of the nuclear deal with new sanctions, but does not – as Trump has said he would – repudiate it. The Obama Administration appeases Iran time after time because the unsigned ‘deal’ is its baby, and would be embarrassed if the Iranians publically denounced it. But it isn’t part of Trump’s legacy. He owes the Iranian regime nothing.

The Obama Administration, since its inception, has fed friendly media with suggestions that Israel and in particular the Netanyahu government, is responsible for the continuation of the conflict with the Palestinians. It adopted the phony “pro-Israel” J Street organization as a favored voice among Jewish organizations, inviting it to the White House while spurning groups like the Zionist Organization of America. If the document is even partially representative of Trump’s thinking, the anti-Israel psychological warfare campaign will lose its impetus. Had Clinton been elected, it is unlikely that any of the above would have changed.

Either Barack Obama personally hates Bibi Netanyahu, or he found it useful to pretend antipathy in order to achieve his goals. Either way, his disrespect and even contempt for Israel’s Prime Minister – which he expressed on numerous occasions – damaged relations between our nations and reflected badly on the American presidency itself. Trump has no reason to behave this way.

Americans concerned about the lack of recognition of the jihad, both military and psychological-political, being waged against the West and its values by radical Islam have been boiled like the proverbial frog in the pot for eight years. Regardless of his precise positions on the relationship between America and the Islamic world, Trump’s rejection of political correctness and limitations on speech will be a breath of fresh air for discourse about the Middle East. After two terms of Obama-speak, one has to look forward to Trump’s more direct language.

It is generally thought that Barack Obama will take some kind of action in the lame duck period which begins today to bring about an Israeli withdrawal from the territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Trump’s victory doesn’t make this impossible, but it may be that Obama will be less likely to do something that clearly goes against the spirit of the wishes of the American people. Trump may be able to embarrass him by publicly asking him to refrain. If Obama does go ahead, it will be proof positive of his bias and hostility – just like another former president, Jimmy Carter.

As with any president – in fact, even more so because of his relative inexperience and (one must admit) ignorance of foreign affairs, a great deal will depend on Trump’s choice of confidants and advisors. And I expect that he will become more serious and careful as the mantle of responsibility settles on his shoulders.

This election campaign was viciously fought, certainly more so than any other in my lifetime. I don’t recall an election in which candidates were accused of murder and rape! Trump’s success as President or lack thereof will be felt throughout the world, and especially here in Israel. And that will depend on both sides understanding that the campaign is over, and that from here on it’s necessary and appropriate for them to work together for everyone’s good. Trump made a good start in his victory speech. Now it’s up to his opponents.

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11/10 Links Pt1: Trump, Israel and the Middle East; Hundreds protest, burn Israeli flag at UN climate talks

From Ian:

Mordechai Kedar: Trump, Israel and the Middle East

Trump's attitude towards US Jewry is complex. On the one hand, he is surrounded by Jews - his daughter Ivanka underwent an Orthodox conversion, his son-in-law is Jewish, and he is also surrounded by Jewish advisers, some of whom wear kippahs without giving it a second thought. On the other hand, the Republican party has some voters who speak about Jews as worthy candidates for genocide.
In all fairness, it must be noted that the Democratic party has no shortage of anti-Semites. The last DNC included PLO flags waving outside the convention hall, and former president Jimmy Carter, one of the party's respected figures, published a book whose title calls Israel an apartheid state - implying that it is worthy of disappearing just as South Africa's apartheid regime did.
I am concerned about America's reaction to the fact that Trump is surrounded by Jews, because even if they play no part in the formation of his policies, there will be those who will accuse them of pro-Israel bias and of influencing Trump's policies in that direction. We have already seen people accusing the Jewish Lobby, during the days of George W. Bush, of running US foreign policy and of instigating the Iraq War (2003). There are even two academics who published a book about it. Trump's time in the White House may unleash the same anti-Jewish genies from the bottle.
And one last point: There are approximately two months until Trump enters the White House, on the afternoon of January 20, 2017. President Obama has full presidential authority up to that date and can make decisions that create a problematic reality for Israel and Trump, such as a UN Security Council decision recognizing a Palestinian State whose capital is Jerusalem. I suspect that there are those, such as J Street, who will respond to Trumps' victory by trying their utmost to get Obama to recognize a Palestinian State whose capital is Jerusalem while he still can. Israel will need all its diplomatic skills and all its real friends in the USA and the world to prevent this from happening.
My blessings and best wishes to Donald J. Trump from here for a successful presidency. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Pro-Israel Groups to Erect Gigantic Pinocchio Near UN to Protest Jerusalem Resolutions

Pro-Israel groups will erect a giant Pinocchio effigy across from the United Nations headquarters in New York City in protest of the recent resolutions passed by its cultural body, UNESCO, which deny Jewish and Christian connections to Jerusalem.
The Pinocchio display will be put up in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza across from the UN following a “We Stand Together” rally at New York City’s Israeli Consulate Thursday afternoon. The rally is organized by AMCHA-Coalition for Jewish Concerns and co-sponsored by StandWithUs New York and other groups.
Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs, said UNESCO through its resolutions not only negates 3,000 years of Jewish roots in Jerusalem, but also “deprecates and belittles” Judaism.
“These are lies that betray UNESCO’s own mandate to ‘contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture.’ Instead of contributing to peace by building bridges between Israel and its Arab neighbors, UNESCO has become a vehicle for fomenting conflict and strife,” Rothstein said.

Dore Gold: Middle East Looks to America for Leadership

The countries of the Middle East are looking for America to be an ally. They are looking for America to lead the peoples of the Middle East. Unfortunately, there has been a tendency in certain parts of Washington in recent years to try and see how to fix America’s relations with its adversaries – with Syria’s Assad in the Levant, with the Iranians and with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and with other radical groups across the Middle East. This leaves America’s allies, like the famous situation with President Mubarak of Egypt, in the lurch.
There is a hope that is common to Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Egypt under President Sisi, with Saudi Arabia under King Salman, and with the United Arab Emirates under Mohammed bin Zayed. All of these leaders are hoping for a United States that will lead them against the twin radical threats of ISIS and Iranian imperialism.

Douglas Murray: Donald Trump won’t be as bad as you think

For 18 months, Donald Trump was amazingly useful to British politicians. Whatever their party, he provided them with the most magnificent means with which to polish their liberal credentials. In January, when the British Parliament spent three hours debating a public petition to ban Trump from entering the country, we learned from Labour’s Rupa Huq that he was ‘racist, homophobic, misogynist’, from the Conservative Marcus Fysh that he was ‘the orange prince of American self-publicity’ and from the SNP’s Gavin Newlands that he was not only ‘racist, sexist and bigoted’, but ‘an idiot’.
So perhaps now that the giggling has subsided, we can get down to a more realistic assessment of the man and his views. Some unsavoury personal moments aside, the accusation that Trump was a misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic racist simply constituted the liberal press’s best effort at holing his campaign below the waterline. In reality, Trump is a man who holds liberal New York opinions and would be unable to set about ‘rolling back’ liberal rights even if he wanted to.
The other accusations against him have been equally cynical. For months there has been a hysterical insistence, by everyone from Democrat peaceniks to Cold War nostalgists, that a Trump presidency would fundamentally undermine and even end Nato — the centrepiece of the UK’s defence capability. The basis for this claim lies solely in Trump’s complaint during his campaign that America should not be bailing out its Nato allies if they are not willing to pay a fair share for their own defence. Though it was expressed more forcefully than is usually the case, there was nothing so surprising about this. For decades, US presidents have implored their European partners to fulfil the minimal 2 per cent spending requirements that membership of Nato should require. There is nothing immoral or unstrategic about asking European powers to demonstrate a commitment to their own security. Rather than ‘weakening’ Nato, such a stance is likely to underpin and strengthen it.
Then there are the fears about American trade protectionism. But these would have pertained whoever won the White House. Pulled to the left by the Bernie Sanders insurgency within her own party, President Hillary Clinton would have been at least as protectionist as Trump will prove to be.

An April article in El Saba has started popping up on other Arab sites about Jews who continue to live secretly in Egypt, pretending to be Christians.

The article was prompted by the story of Dina Ovadia, the IDF soldier who grew up in Alexandria without knowing that she was Jewish. After some fundamentalist Muslims attacked them, her family escaped.

El Saba looked for other secret Jews in Alexandria, and it found some.

Dr. Majid, a professor at a university in the city, says of his family growing up, "I remember when we were practicing religious rituals in silence, fearing that others will know that we are Jews, in the late forties, and in the beginning of Nasser's rule, worried that we would be considered traitors to the homeland... the media and politicians took part in it."

Majid's grandfather went to a Catholic church and asked to change his religion for fear of attack on his house and store, and since then they worship in secret for fear of ostracism and persecution.

His mother created a miniature model synagogue in the family home as a place for her husband to worship.

He told his children that they are Jewish but that they are free to believe what they want.

His 80-year old mother says that most of their relatives fled in 1948, but her father who was a gold dealer in Upper Luxor went to Alexandria, where they were not known as Jews, and set up his business there. She says that many fellow gold dealers in Alexandria were secret Jews as well.

George Sweilem works as an accountant for a political party, also said that he is officially a Christian but his family is really Jewish. He claims that there are hundreds of Jews pretending to be Muslims and Christians to avoid repercussions, although he claims that most of them are anti-Israel and love their homeland of Egypt.

Nawal Darwish, a human rights researcher, is a Muslim of Jewish descent. She said she is not surprised there are some Jews who were hiding as Muslims or Christians, saying that it started in the 1940s and during the Nasser era out of fear for their families, and some of those families still take the same approach to protect themselves today.

The newspaper then interviewed Egyptian and Islamic officials who claim that there is no discrimination against Jews and that no Jews were persecuted or expelled because of their religion.

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Latest Jew-crime: "Talmudic gestures"

Palestine Today writes that Jews visiting the Temple Mount on Monday engaged in "Talmudic gestures," thereby desecrating the holy spot that is routinely used for volleyball, soccer and gymnastics.

Witnesses said that a group of settlers tried to perform a silent ritual, and were then seen doing the aforementioned "Talmudic gestures" while listening to the tour guide describe "the myth of the alleged temple that was in place of the holy mosque."

So the Jews "tried to perform a silent ritual." And if that wasn't horrible enough, they made "Talmudic gestures."

Talmudic gestures?

I figured I'd find a video somewhere on the Internet showing Talmudic gestures, and sure enough, I did:

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I tweeted on Wednesday morning:

.@jstreetdotorg probably feels like Hamas did when the Muslim Brotherhood was booted out of Egypt's presidency. Loss of its major patron.
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) November 9, 2016

Actually, it is even worse. J-Street's Jeremy Ben Ami lost his mind.

In the essay he wrote the Morning After, Ben-Ami says:

Today is, for many of us, an incredibly sad and difficult day.

We woke up yesterday with high hopes, only to go to bed feeling grief, anger and despair.

These emotions are real, and they are raw.

We remain convinced that Donald Trump is beyond a doubt the wrong choice for president.

Nonetheless, we respect American democracy and the choice the people have made.

This is rich coming from someone who has no respect for Israeli democracy and the choices the Israelis have made. He spends his entire existence trying to subvert the will of the Israeli people. Not exactly respectful of democracy, is he?

But then Ben-Ami says:

Day one of the Trump administration will bring serious challenges to core elements of J Street’s agenda. Many Republicans have urged, for instance, that the Iran nuclear agreement, which has made the US and Israel safer and helped avoid a potential war, be voided on day one.

Our nation’s 50-year commitment to the two-state solution will likely be called into question early on, with advocates of Israeli annexation of the West Bank given a seat at the national security table.

The US has supported a Palestinian state since 1966? That's news!

Because the first official support for a Palestinian state came on June 24, 2002, by someone who is hardly a J-Street hero, George W. Bush, when he said " My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security."

Bill Clinton said something similar same in a speech in 2001, but not in the context of official policy, saying "There can be no genuine resolution to the conflict without a sovereign, viable Palestinian state that accommodates Israelis' security requirements and the demographic realities." Meaning - Israel could annex the large settlement blocs, which J-Street opposes.

Ronald Reagan said explicitly, "The United States will not support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza."

Ben-Ami has always been a liar by pretending that J-Street is pro-Israel and that its version of a two-state solution is what American Jews want.

But now he is lying about basic American policy, too.

(h/t Lenny)

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New Arafat museum filled with lies

From the New York Times, describing the new Yasir Arafat museum opening officially in Ramallah tomorrow:

By the museum’s telling, Mr. Arafat was born in his grandfather’s house in the Old City of Jerusalem on Aug. 4, 1929. He was soon taken to Cairo, where his father worked, then returned to the Old City home after his mother died when he was 4. (Pointing to a photograph of a bulldozer at work further along in the exhibit, a museum guide said Mr. Arafat’s childhood home was demolished after Israel conquered the area in the 1967 war and cleared it to create the plaza by the Western Wall, known to Muslims as Al-Buraq.)

Arafat was born in Cairo, not Jerusalem. Although apparently his mother's family indeed owned a home on the southern section of what is now the Western Wall Plaza, and he might have lived there.

He died, according to the exhibit, after Israel apparently managed to poison him — this “based on evidence from laboratories and other medical reports as well as official statements by Israeli officials,” the text reads, though Israel denied involvement.

No, Arafat was not poisoned.

The Jerusalem Post article about the museum ends off appropriately:

Yasser Khasib, a 51-year-old doorman, said he had no reason to visit the museum.
“No one knows who’s a symbol and who isn’t anymore,” Khasib said. “There is no hope for the future. No one cares about it.”

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11/09 Links Pt2: Over 200 US-approved UNRWA textbooks teach Palestinians to kill Jews

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Celebrating aliya

For the first time since its establishment, Israel marked Aliya Day, a national holiday devoted to celebrating the contributions of immigrants and raising awareness about the importance of future immigration.
The day of the year chosen – the seventh of the Hebrew month of Heshvan – coincides with the reading of the Torah portion in which the patriarch Abraham is told to leave his home for the promised land.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted in conjunction with Aliya Day, that immigration is “the basic purpose of the Jewish state and the realization of Biblical prophecies about the ingathering of exiles and the return of the Jewish people to its homeland... This is a great holiday for all Israeli citizens, new and old.”
But if aliya is so central to Zionism, why did it take nearly seven decades to set aside a day to celebrate it? Part of the reason has to do with the fact that in the first decades after the establishment of the State of Israel it hardly made sense to distinguish between new immigrants and those who weren’t. The vast majority of Israeli citizens were Jews who were newcomers to the Jewish state. There was nothing special about being a new immigrant. Those who had been born in Israel – “the Sabras” – were an elite minority.
Today, after Israel has successfully absorbed millions of immigrants in a miraculous return of a people to its historic homeland after being exiled for nearly two millennia, the time has come to set aside a day to celebrate the past and contemplate the future of aliya.

New Jew?

‘Who is a Jew?” has always been a prominent issue on our people’s agenda.
The immigration wave from the former Soviet Union only highlighted the centrality of this question. After all, most of these immigrants self-identify as Jewish, even if Jewish religious law (Halacha) does not recognize them as such and, as a result, neither does the state.
In Israel, The answer to “Who is a Jew?” has broad ramifications because the state immediately grants an array of rights, including permanent residency and citizenship, to those it officially recognizes as Jewish. Yet despite the unique contours of the “Who is a Jew” debate unfolding in Israel, what we are witnessing today is but another manifestation of the great Jewish dispute that began during the modern era, when Jewish identity was severed from religious observance.
That sundering gave rise to several fundamental questions: is a secular or atheistic Jew even Jewish? Can a person be considered Jewish if only his father is a Jew? And if a secular Jew is recognized as Jewish, as Halacha allows, then why not allow people to join the tribe as members of a secular Jewish nation, rather than by way of religious conversion? While such weighty concerns are endlessly interesting to ponder, I would like to propose that all questions related to Jewish identity must first take into account the dramatic change, including from the vantage point of religious law, which the Jewish people have undergone.
Judaism is no longer intimately and inexorably linked to religious observance. In addition, Jewish identity in Israel is based on and derived from fundamentally different conditions than in Diaspora.

Isi Leibler: Sharing a deeply personal experience

I am an octogenarian and one of the few who has both witnessed the tragedies and become engaged directly in the triumphs of the Jewish people in our time. Yet this is the first occasion that I felt the need to share a truly emotional personal experience with my readers and the public.
I was born in Antwerp, Belgium, and fortunate enough at the age of four, on the eve of World War II, to have been taken by my parents to Australia, where I spent most of my life prior to making aliya 17 years ago.
Antwerp had a uniquely thriving Jewish community.
It was regarded as an incubator for fusing the passionate Yiddishkeit of Eastern Europe with a worldly, Western European outlook. It had flourishing Jewish day schools that also provided first-rate secular studies. My mother attended a religious Zionist stream where she learned to speak Hebrew. The indigenous Flemish inhabitants, then as today, were – with notable exceptions – mostly hostile to Jews. There was a powerful antisemitic nationalist party, the Flemish National Union, and many of its members collaborated with the Nazis.
Ultimately, most of my family who remained in Antwerp during the Nazi occupation were deported and died in Auschwitz. I recollect as a youngster the depressing discussions and growing feeling of doom as my parents grew ever more fearful concerning the fate of their relatives, especially my grandparents, from whom we received phony postcards created by the Nazis after their deportation, informing us that they were well – followed by a deafening silence.
After the war, we learned that my grandparents had been transported to Auschwitz in October 1943 and murdered on Simhat Torah, which is when we commemorate their yahrzeit.

Skeleton is a sport I'd never heard of and at first, it was difficult to see the connection between this winter sport and Israel. But soon enough, it all came clear. Brad Chalupski isn't asking for much as far as crowd funding campaigns go—just $5,000. So there's some good old-fashioned Israeli modesty for you. And Skeleton is certainly gutsy being that it impels the athlete to lie face down on a board while shooting down an ice-covered track. So you've got Israeli chutzpah covered, especially if you figure in Brad's quest to become Israel's first ever Olympic Skeleton athlete at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang.

Here's the thing: there are just five days left on Brad's crowd funding campaign: https://www.rallyme.com/rallies/4507/bradleychalupskiisraelskeleton, and after chatting with him I'm convinced the cause is a worthy one. That means that if you want the honor of helping a wannabe Israeli Gold medalist, you better get cracking. (Why not? It's a cause that can help Israel shine.)

Read all about Brad, Skeleton, and his bare bones (ouch) quest for Olympic gold here:

VE: When did you first discover Skeleton? What made you fixate on this particular sport?

Brad Chalupski: I first decided to try Skeleton when I saw it on the television during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino. Like most people, I think that I was attracted by the paradox that the sport presents to people watching it. On the one hand, it looks incredibly fast, dangerous, and thrilling—you think these people are crazy. And yet on the other hand, it looks like someone lying down on a board and heading effortlessly down the track—you think you can definitely do this yourself. I want to try that.

This initial thought process is what got me interested in trying the sport. But what made me fixate on it was also a little bit of luck being added into the mix. Skeleton had only become an Olympic event in 2002, making 2006 only its 2^nd Olympiad. In essence, it was a new sport—and so one that was not entirely developed in terms of the numbers of athletes participating. That fact made getting involved much easier that it would be today.

I googled how to get involved with the sport, and discovered that all I had to do was send away a spreadsheet detailing how high/far I could run and jump. I sent that information away, and was invited to a beginners Skeleton camp the following winter. Once I actually tried the sport in December of 2007, I was intoxicated by the speed, and also the promise of being able to compete as a high level athlete. After that, I became fixated on improving as much as I could.

VE: What does it feel like when you're speeding down an ice chute headfirst?

Brad Chalupski: There are actually two different answers to this question.

When you first begin in the sport, I'd imagine it's exactly what people expect. You feel a lot of fear the first time you go down, even though they are only starting you from the middle of the track. I remember saying to the coach “You are either going to send me home on the team, or send me home in a body bag.” I think that is a good window into my mindset at the time. From there, the rush is immense.

One thing about Skeleton is that it's not like driving a car, your face is only inches from the ice, and your helmet will often actually be pushed down on the ice due to the gravity in the curves. So, in that sense you don't get a panoramic view of what is coming at you like driving a car. You're very close to the ground and kind of watching things go by from the floor.

Also, the sensation of getting pulled up and down by the gravity is very intense, because it's like nothing you've felt before in your life—think of an Egged bus stopping short and multiply that by 100 and that's the type of gravitational force that is acting on you. I'm convinced that it is impossible to be indifferent about your first Skeleton ride. When the sled stops, you either say “take me back up to the top right now” or “you're all insane and I'm never doing that again.”

I was the former.

As you get better, however, this changes drastically. When you begin to really take the sport seriously as a competitive activity, the speed becomes normal. The rush of going fast and feeling the gravity gives way to an obsession with how to use those to your competitive advantage. Today, I don't ever notice how fast I am going in the sense of “having fun.” Pressures that were once exhilarating are now places where I can get more speed for racing.

Today, I will come out of a run where I just went 138km/hr cursing at myself because I was one foot too far to the right going into the 6^th curve. Just like any other sport, I have a plan for what I need to be doing on a track and that's all I'm thinking about. It's a clinical, precise sport that requires huge amounts of mental focus. When you really start to compete, the joy rides are over and it's all about improving and going faster that the other person.

VE: What types of injuries are common with Skeleton? Does your wife worry about you?

Brad Chalupski: Believe it or not, Skeleton is actually a very safe sport. I am constantly battered and bruised—sometimes bleeding—but never actually “injured.” The most painful thing that happens is hitting the walls as you are going through the track, and my arms can end up very swollen if I have a bad run during a race (when I will not wear any padding at all to protect myself).

I've also come off my sled several times, and always walked away without a scratch. I know that may sound totally impossible, but because you are so low to the ground and the sled is going so fast, you can simply let it go. The sled will continue along much faster than you will; you just need to roll, making sure to never keep one piece of skin on the ice too long (or you'll get burned) and eventually you come to a stop. The idea that you can just shrug at coming off of something going 60mph probably sounds psychotic to many, but it's true. It's not fun—but you can walk away from it just fine. In fact, both times I came off of my sled, I demanded they take me back up to the top so I wouldn't get shy about it. And they did.

VE: How do you train for a winter sport like Skeleton when your home base is Israel?

Brad Chalupski: This is a very common misconception. I always answer this question by reminding people that there is no ice in Canada in August, either. All tracks are in the northern hemisphere, so the season runs from October – March, and then all the tracks are closed. During the summers, I will work on my explosive sprinting in the gym (we sprint, pushing the sled forward with us to start a run) and also on my mental concentration and focus through meditation. It's the same routine that all Skeleton athletes do.

While it is true that some countries have facilities that allow you to practice the initial sprint throughout the summer (most have sleds on tracks and wheels, one or two places will have an iced ramp throughout the summer), it's not essential. To prepare for the Olympic qualifying races next year, I will most likely leave Israel only in September to use a facility like that, if at all.

VE: You mention Bobsled Skeleton Israel (BSI) on your crowd-funding page. How many people belong to this club/organization? Are they all immigrants from cooler climes, like yourself?

Brad Chalupski: Currently, there are 4 competitive male athletes active with the federation. BSI has been in existence for nearly 15 years now, so throughout that time we have had competitors from across the entire range of Israeli and Diaspora Jewry. I should also mention here that we are recruiting!

VE: How cool is it (literally) that you made aliyah because of a sport that involves ice! There's irony for you. You say that, "An amazing journey into Judaism and my Jewish identity had begun." Did you study in a yeshiva?

Brad Chalupski: Although I have never studied in a yeshiva, my journey into Judaism has been such a blessing in my life. Growing up, I always considered myself Jewish, but I wouldn't have told you that it meant anything to me. It was a part of my identity that was there, but in a very neutral kind of way. Since I began to represent Israel, all that has changed.

For me personally, going on my birthright trip (which I only did after I had started competing) was when my life really changed. I remember taking a silent hike in the Negev, and just feeling so at home. It was a very strange feeling—and truth be told not one that I expected to find. But that was my first connection with the energy of the land and the sense of belonging. That was the moment I discovered that I was a part of this people, this history, even if I hadn't fully realized it until then.

And of course, I'm still learning more about it every day. Today, I have made Jerusalem my home for the last 4 years. I look forward to lighting the Shabbat candles, and find meaning in representing Israel and the Jewish people. I consider being Jewish a core part of my identity.

VE: What do your parents think of this whole thing? The at least somewhat dangerous sport, moving to Israel on what must have seemed like a whim to them?

Brad Chalupski: I had just graduated from law school in 2010 when I decided I was going to move to the mountains of Lake Placid, NY and compete for Israel. My mother cried, presumably both for my safety and for my lost legal career. My father didn't understand why I would want to do something like Skeleton, but he took it (much) better. The first job I ever had out of law school was actually at the Lake Placid McDonalds.

Surprisingly, I don't think either of them had seen it as a “whim.” I've always been full of wanderlust and a competitive spirit, and by that point my exploits traveling around the globe were well known to the family. This might have been the mother of all exploits, but yet at the same time not entirely out of character for me.

VE: You have had multiple surgeries as a result of injuries. How do your doctors feel about the fact that you're still "in the game?" Is it safe for you to compete?

Brad Chalupski: Actually, all of my injuries have come from training for Skeleton. None of my injuries come from Skeleton itself. I had hip surgery performed in Israel by Dr. David Morgenstern at Asuta Hospital in Tel Aviv to repair a pretty sizeable tear in my labrum. He was a wonderful, amazing surgeon and man and he told me that I would be able to return to Skeleton.

Really, for me it's about being more careful in the gym when lifting weights. I'm pretty sure the safest place I find myself in life is actually within the Skeleton track.

VE: The amount of money you're trying to raise is so modest! How will your family manage when you quit your job to train full time? Does your wife work?

Brad Chalupski: I definitely do Skeleton on a shoestring budget. Fortunately, I landed in B2B marketing for high-tech start-ups in Israel. There is actually a lot of great work that I can do over the internet as a freelancer from anywhere, so I am still working. My wife Chana also works at a Jerusalem-based start-up. We know that this is setting our family back several years financially, but it is something that we mutually agreed was important enough to pursue.

I am a very, very lucky man to have such an amazing and wonderful wife supporting me in this. I could not do it without her.

VE: Tell me your dream: do you think you can win the gold? What will it feel like to compete as a representative of Israel?

Brad Chalupski: My dream is to represent Israel in the Olympic games. Watching the way Israel was treated during the recent summer Olympics really upset me. I would love to be able to walk in and represent this amazing country and nation.

But more and more on a personal note, I'm also finding that my dream also includes using the time that I've spent in Skeleton to better myself as a person, husband, and someday, father. Being a high level athlete is something I had always dreamed about, and I get to live that dream every single day right now. It's a great challenge that comes with great excitement but also great responsibility.

When I ultimately retire from the sport, I'd like to think that I represented Israel and myself with dignity, proving that both of us have a place amongst the elite Skeleton athletes of the world.

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Mossad Pronounces New Election-Fixing Technology A Success (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Tel Aviv, November 9 - Developers and project leaders at Israel's secret intelligence service gathered today to celebrate the first successful field test of the outfit's latest device for manipulating and controlling the results of elections.

The team of programmers, black operations experts, and planners held an informal ceremony at Mossad headquarters this morning following the announcement of the presidential race in the US to congratulate one another on a job so well done that the instruments they had used produced the precise voting percentages in every state that they were programmed to produce.

Mossad officials gave special citations to the developers of the technology, who labored for six years to produce an automated alternative to the teams of agents scattered across the globe, tasked with altering poll data to suit Israeli interests. The section chief praised her staff for completing the project ahead of schedule and under budget.

"Not only did you free up precious funding for other important projects," she noted, "your work will enable our colleagues in the Operations Department to expend less energy, money, and effort on direct manipulations of elections worldwide, and instead use the personnel for the equally vital missions of training wildlife to conduct espionage and kidnapping Palestinian children for organ harvesting and the use of their powdered remains to melt snow." The latter project is especially urgent, she explained, given the new capabilities of the weather-control and natural-disaster devices that have come on line in the last year.

A member of the development team said the device has three components. The first uses a proprietary technology to seize covert control of vote-processing machines and generate the desired results. Because not all districts use computerized voting, a second component employs existing mind-control technology to suppress voter turnout in the necessary areas. The third component is not strictly connected to manipulating elections, but was included for convenience's sake: it remotely adjusts the level of static electricity in the environments of various anti-Israel figures in the target country and sends painful electrical shocks through them at awkward moments.

A fourth feature that was tested during the 2016 campaign included a device that reduced the size of Donald Trump's hands, but that project was discontinued in favor of two cheaper alternatives. One hacked into the GOP nominee's Twitter account and sent outrageous tweets at regular intervals, and the other placed Anthony Weiner back into the news cycle briefly, just to break the monotony.

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11/09 Links Pt1: Dershowitz: The Day After the Election; Netanyahu hails Trump as a ‘true friend’ of Israel

From Ian:

Alan M. Dershowitz: The Day After the Election

With the world's attention focused on the U.S. presidential election, some attention must be devoted to the problems we will continue to face the day after the election, regardless of who is elected. Here are some of these problems.
1. The world will continue to move away from the center and toward the extremes on both the right and the left. In many parts of Europe -- from Poland to Hungary to Greece -- neo-fascist parties are strengthening their influence in their governments. In the United States the "alt-right" has been considerably strengthened during this election.
The hard left is also increasing its influence in some part of Europe and on many university campuses. The British Labour Party has now been hijacked by radical extremists on the left. In many universities, the absurd concept of "intersectionality," which has become a code word for anti-Semitism, is dominating discussions and actions by the hard left.
The center is weakening. The empowerment of extremes poses great dangers to the world. The hard right and the hard left have more in common than either has to centrist liberals and conservatives. They both hate America, distrust government, demonize Israel and promote anti-Semitic tropes.
2. Following the election President Obama may try to tie the hands of his successor, regardless of who it may be. During the lame-duck period, when Presidents can act without political accountability, he may foolishly send the Israel-Palestine conflict to the United Nations. This would mean the end of the peace process, because the Palestinian would be dis-incentivized from entering into the kinds of direct negotiations without preconditions that the Israeli government continues to offer, and that is the only realistic road to peace. The only hope of stopping this counterproductive move would be for the President-elect to insist that her or his hands not be tied by the lame-duck president.

Ben-Dror Yemini: US elections as a symptom of Western fracture

What is happening in the United States is a symptom of what is happening in the West. It was an election campaign that points to a deep fracture in Western democracies. We are about to see a similar show in France soon. Neither candidate excites the public.
In Britain, it was the Brexit referendum, which reached its climax with a political murder. In other European countries, the polls predict a real drop in power for old parties and the rise of radical right-wing parties. The battle is between an old, corrupt and rotten establishment and populist and demagogic politics. In other words: Clinton vs. Trump.
The ugly expressions of the election campaigns, like the one taking place in the US as we speak, should not conceal the real fracture. Western democracies are struggling with questions of national identity, solidarity, a shared ethos, or what is left of it, the place of religion, etc. There are not simple questions, even if the answers so far are simplistic. Most European countries have tried to imitate the American melting pot over the past few decades. More foreigners, more immigrants, more refugees. No more nation states, but an open, pluralistic and multicultural society.
In the US, admittedly, it worked. Especially when the immigrants were from Italy and Poland, from England and Germany. And we are forbidden, strictly forbidden, to say a single word of criticism which exceeds the political correctness choir. US President Barack Obama reached the top when he willingly chose blindness and refused to say the words “Islamic terror.” There is no such thing as far as he is concerned, because someone might be offended. Donald Trump took the frustration from this blindness, leveraged it and became the Republican Party’s nominee.
On the other hand, there is something symbolic about the fact that one of Hillary Clinton’s chief donors, George Soros, an anti-Israel billionaire, is both an ardent supporter of philosopher Karl Popper’s “open society” concept and a person whose name has been linked to corruption affairs and who made a fortune from speculations in the capital market.

David M. Weinberg: The ultimate slapdown for Obama

We now know there will not be a Hillary Clinton presidency, and not just because of her own flaws. It's because more than 50% of Americans rejected the notion that Obama has "done a good job," and they are not interested in "sustaining" his policies.
They didn't want another four or eight years of Obama. They didn't buy the Democratic message that everything was swell in America, and that all that was needed was a competent Democrat to advance Obama's superior approach.
They were uncomfortable with Obama's smug assurances on everything and his apparent omnipotence: that he possessed exceptional insight on every issue, that he had executed the most outstanding economic, social and foreign policy, and that Clinton was the repository of this unique wellspring of near-prophetic and superhuman wisdom.
It was time to take Obama down, resoundingly. And so they did, those middle-of-the-road Americans. They weren't swayed by the crooning of Jay Z, Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen, or the endorsements of Hollywood or academics.
It's clear to me that the real headline today is: "Trump thrashes Obama."

Jordanian columnist threatens Jews with another Holocaust

Jordan's Ammon News reports that Israeli pundit Ehud Yaari scolded the Jordanians who oppose the gas deal with Israel, noting that if they are so anti-Israel they should boycott the water that Israel provides to Jordan under existing agreements.

This upset Adnan al-Roussan so much that he wrote a hugely antisemitic op-ed about it, named "O Jordanians, do not drink Jewish waters."

Portions:

This dung beetle (Yaari) graciously lets the Jordanians drink from the water of the Jordan River which belongs to Jordan and the Jordanians and not Israel, even though the policies of Balfour and the government of Her Royal Highness the Queen of England wanted the Jordan River to be Israeli and that the Jews graciously let the Arab Muslim Jordanian drink from its water, which they often give us mixed with the sewage of the riffraff that are the settlers…

The Jordanians have been here for a million years or more, while you, oh terrorist nobodies Jews have been here for only a few decades. Your state will disappear very soon Allah willing and your nukes, the UK and the US will not protect you. The water that you diverted and stole from the Jordan River is our water, and the Tiberias Sea (i.e. the Sea of Galilee) is our sea by virtue of the UN resolutions. The one who graciously gives the other is us, oh filthy worthless Jews.

...Your falsified terrorist religion, the religion of Sherlock, the Merchant of Venice, is not the same as the religion of Moses, peace be upon him.

You are not worth enough to scold the Jordanian people, you would be too low for us to answer you, if you wouldn’t constantly act like mad dogs and often bite the hands that act kindly towards you. But that is the nature of the Jew, which has been well-known throughout history. The Jordanians will regain their rights with their hands, and you will pay the price sometime, as you did in Khaibar and in Germany. Jewish terror will not last long, the Jordanians are coming and they will be the vanguard of those who will teach the [Jew] 'Yahud' Yaari and his kind a lesson ….

This is the illustration al-Roussan used in his Facebook post of the article:

Text: "Terror - Israel, producer of terror."

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Seven leading Moroccan journalists - five women and two men - are currently in Israel, at the invitation of Israel's foreign ministry, to show them the Israeli viewpoint on issues.

YNet reports:

One of the delegation members from a prominent Moroccan newspaper explained the climate of fear and propaganda which has hitherto precluded the possibility of such a visit from coming to fruition.

In 2009, she said, she received an invitation to visit Israel as part of Euro-Mediterranean Youth Forum but felt pressured to decline the offer.

“I was extremely afraid of coming. We are under pressure from the Arab media, religious people and propaganda about the Palestinian issue,” the journalist confessed.

“People are scared to become outcasts. If you say you support Israel, or even that you don’t have a negative opinion about the country in regard to the Palestinian issue, they will single you out.”

...This time accepting the offer, she also described just how hazardous participating in such a trip can actually be.

“I didn’t tell most of my friends that I am coming here so that they wouldn’t ostracize me. As a country, Morocco has no problem with me coming to Israel. As a delegation we flew as usual from Casablanca. No one prevented us from doing so.” However, she noted that “my friends recommended that I don’t share anything on social media. ‘You will regret it for the rest of your life. They will incite against you and you will possibly even get death threats,’” they warned her.

The Forum for Palestinian Journalists reacted furiously to this story, saying "this ill-fated visit represents a stab in the back of our steadfast people and it is a new example of notorious "normalization", a big shock and disappointment."

Here is the current state of the Middle East in a nutshell:

- Arab leaders and intelligentsia are more and more interested in getting closer to Israel.
- Palestinian Arab opinions are being roundly ignored.
- Clueless Palestinians stubbornly hold on to their intransigence and hate.
- Palestinians refuse to see which way the wind is blowing so they continue to hold on to their intransigence even as moderate Arab states are telling them that they need to get their act together if they want to continue getting political and financial support.

People who really want peace, as opposed to cynically using the word "peace" as a cudgel against Israel, should really be pressuring the Palestinian leadership to stop their self-destructive policies.

But the number of true "pro-peace, pro-Palestinian" groups is vanishingly small.

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It has to be the most shocking presidential election result in history.

So now what?

It is easy to insult Donald Trump and he did a lot during his campaign that deserves insulting. But the race is over and both the US and the world has to deal with the results.

What is undeniable is that Trump's campaign was genius, and the genius was his, not his advisers or handlers. He managed to tap into, and stoke, a strong undercurrent of a desire for change by the average American. And that desire is shared not only by white males who never attended college that his critics claim is his base. Trump equaled Clinton in both white men and women voters with college degrees as well; and clearly he did much better than expected among non-whites and women who were considered a lock for Clinton. His appeal was far wider than one would have expected from the polls.

Like George W. Bush, Trump was underestimated by his critics (and by me as well.) He beat what was probably the most professional presidential campaign ever. His seeming recklessness in language and his cringeworthy spontaneity appealed more to the average American than the tightly scripted, expert-run Clinton camp where every word was measured before being released and where her own personality was never seen. Indeed, it is possible that his outrageousness was calculated specifically to counter Clinton's stiffness. Don't forget how he managed to take apart each Republican opponent as well.

Trump was in this to win, and none of the so-called experts really believed that.

The question is, what will he actually do as President?

The Republicans who opposed him will be licking their wounds but don't have any chance to build an alternative conservative base. The Democrats will be bitter about this for the next four years - if you thought Bush derangement syndrome was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.

But Trump already proved that he is a political genius that outsmarted his critics from both sides of the aisle. He clearly has the instincts and the strategic ability that is in a different league than the pundits and consultants. It is the same smarts that gave him hit TV shows and his ability to market his name.

Will that talent translate to his ability to lead? Will he be able to both work with and transform the US government? The jury is out, but people who underestimated him since he announced his candidacy are likely to do the same for his presidency - just as they did with Reagan and GWB.

I don't think we have any idea what Trump's true policies will be for the Middle East. Everything we have heard so far was said in the context of winning an election, and has little to do with what Trump really believes. My impression is that he will almost certainly be more hands-off than most presidents have been towards the region.

In reality, though, no one knows the real Donald Trump outside his family. All we do know is that he is much, much smarter than he has been given credit for, and we now have no choice but to hope that his campaign brilliance will translate into his ability to change America into a better direction than it has been going.

Hope...and change.

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