Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

The dangers of not repudiating the alt-right

In the EoZTV episode Sunday night, I noted that while there was no evidence that Steve Bannon (or Donald Trump) are racist or antisemitic, they need to do far more to distance themselves from their followers who undoubtedly are haters - even according to Bannon himself.

Bannon's philosophy is that as his alternative conservative movement grows - the racists and antisemites will become marginalized. This is dangerously shortsighted. Antisemitism and racism do not disappear in situations like this - on the contrary, they feel empowered as long as the larger movement winks at them with a lukewarm denunciation instead of loudly, clearly and specifically repudiating them.

Here is the climax of alt-right leader Richard Spencer's speech on Saturday night in Washington, a chilling moment where after extolling the greatness of whites and the regressiveness of everyone else, and calling for a race war, he ends with "Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!" to cheers and Nazi salutes.

Contrary to how the New York Times reported it, there was little overt antisemitism in the speech, but there were certainly at least two sly asides about Jews. At one point Spencer sarcastically mentioned "a wealthy Jewish celebrity bragging about the end of white men is the one speaking truth to power." He also quoted Herzl, saying "if we will it, it is no dream," adding "a quote I'm sure our friends at the Anti-Defamation League know quite well."

The events of the past few months leaves little doubt as to the antisemitism of the alt-right movement, even if it was slightly muted in Spencer's speech.

This movement is not being marginalized by Trump's victory - it is being empowered. And this is not something that can be tolerated any longer. If we are to demand that the Left explicitly condemn antisemitism from its members and distance themselves from the terror-supporters, racists and Jew-haters that espouse the Palestinian cause, we can demand no less from the Right.

It must be said that the media does no one any favors by misquoting his words which are bad enough already. On CNN, for two minutes, a banner was displayed that claimed that Spencer said that he doubts whether Jews are people altogether.

This infuriated Jake Tapper, who normally hosts that show. But while it is indeed outrageous that CNN would show that banner for so long, it is not accurate - Spencer was referring to leftists and pundits in the media, not to Jews. The idiots at CNN misread the New York Times report about the speech:

He mused about the political commentators who gave Mr. Trump little chance of winning.
“One wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem,” he said, referring to a Jewish fable about the golem, a clay giant that a rabbi brings to life to protect the Jews.

The rest of the quote was "...animated by some dark power to repeat whatever talking point John Oliver stated the night before."

It doesn't help anyone when the media confirms the rantings of a racist against the media itself by misquoting him. Spencer is bad enough already. While the racists at the conference may feel emboldened by Trump and Bannon, they are also animated by CNN and the New York Times doing exactly what they did in reporting about the speech.

The best antidote to hate is truth. Unfortunately, there is too little of that going around.

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

Aleppo is horrendous. But don't call it a Holocaust.

I don't have screenshots, but CNN today had banner headlines on most of its morning shows quoting an Aleppo resident as saying “Inside the city of Aleppo is a Holocaust.”

Even before that, a hashtag has been going out #HolocaustAleppo.

What is happening in Aleppo is unspeakable. Hundreds of people are being slaughtered mercilessly. The photos and details and horrendous. I don't want to minimize the horror.

But for anyone to equate it with the Holocaust is a sickening trivialization of the Holocaust.

To put it in numbers:

About 300 people have been killed in Aleppo since last Tuesday.

Between 1941 and 1945, on any given day, on the average, over 4000 Jews were slaughtered.

Meaning that you can pick any 5-day period during the times of the systematic slaughter of the Jews of Europe and count some 21,000 Jews that would have been systematically murdered on those days.

Which is 70 times worse than what is happening in Aleppo on its worst days.

No cease fires. No humanitarian pauses. No outside parties bringing in food or water. No White Helmets. And ...no media coverage.

That was the Holocaust. It was orders of magnitude worse than anything that has happened in Syria.

What is happening in Syria is a gross violation of all morals. But it doesn't come anywhere close to the Holocaust. And any such comparison, while trying to highlight the suffering, is really an unwitting form of Holocaust denial.

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

11/21 Links Pt2: ‘Everyone I hate is Hitler’- Dangerous politicization of antisemitism; Hamas: Trump might be a Jew

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman:" ‘Everyone I hate is Hitler’- Dangerous politicization of antisemitism

The Left’s voices against antisemitism also have an Israel- centric narrative to them, that seeks to tar pro-Israel groups as not only whitewashing antisemitism but being tied to Trump to discredit them. “Trump lends hope to Israel’s right,” The New York Times claimed. “Trump emboldens Israel’s far right,” wrote Saeb Erakat. America’s “most powerful Jewish organizations” have “kept quiet during the most bigoted presidential campaign in history,” wrote Peter Beinart.
They even perform the trick of pulling an antisemitic rabbit out of a Zionist hat. “Strange but true that many ardent Zionists view Western antisemitism as good,” wrote journalist Dan Murphy on Twitter. “How Bannon and Brietbart can be pro-Israel and antisemitic at the same time,” headlined The Forward. In the article Todd Gitlin at Columbia University claimed that “the coexistence of antisemitism and right-wing Zionism ‘in Trump’s world make sense.’” A new narrative is forming to claim that Zionism is actually a form of antisemitism. This fulfills a kind of fantasy on parts the Left whereby being pro-Israel will now be seen as a component of being antisemitic, which will mean that the reality of radical-left antisemitism will forever be inured from claims it is antisemitic.
“Israeli Right works with antisemites” is that goal many anti-Zionists have always had in mind since the 1920s when they suggested that Zionism was a form of antisemitism because it called into question the place of Diaspora Jewry. The strange intersection of this election has allowed this fringe view to take center stage.
Rarely in history has antisemitism been so politicized, so untethered from real acts of antisemitism. Can we escape the train wreck that is about to happen, where some elements of the Left tar Zionism as antisemitism and the Right stays mired in its over-use of claims of antisemitism? In the recent documentary The Last Laugh, co-writers Ferne Pearlstein and Robert Edwards looked at comedians making fun of the Holocaust. In the film many comedians, such as Sarah Silverman, make fun of the genocide, calling it “alleged Holocaust” in one scene. She’s mocking antisemites, but what happens when antisemites think it’s funny? There is also “Holocaust fatigue,” says Edwards. “When it gets to the point where people roll their eyes and it has no effect anymore, then you have a real problem.” Have we watered it down too much? In the 2013 Pew Survey, “remembering the Holocaust” was the most important aspect of Jewish identity for 73 percent of American Jews. Antisemitism is a major portion of identity. But we’ve also educated generations to see more antisemitism than there is, to mock the Holocaust while at the same time seeing a new Holocaust as just around the corner as media claims we live in the 1930s.
Claiming “antisemitism” is easy, but that’s precisely why it should be done sparingly.
Too much crying wolf over antisemitism has harmed its meaning. It is also leading to shocking levels of people believing they are just years away from being sent to concentration camps. An honest discussion should be had on the Left and Right of American Jewry to stop exaggerating and work to confront real incidents of antisemitism and not waste time inventing bogeymen and fearmongering. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

How Israel Surprised the World During Its President's Visit to India

President Barack Obama skipped his scheduled visit to the Taj Mahal in Agra last year because American sharpshooters were not allowed on the premises of the monument. The U.S. security agencies assessed that the American President was unsafe in a Muslim-dominated area.
If Muslim dislike was the reason that kept Obama away from the Taj Mahal, it should have surely stopped Israel's President Reuven Rivlin from even considering a visit to Agra. But Rivlin did visit Agra and was photographed, along with his wife, in front of the Taj Mahal.
Another notable surprise was Rivlin's visit to Teen Murti to pay homage to Indian soldiers who fought for and fell at Haifa. Most Indians would not know the history of the Teen Murti monument; the Israelis do. During World War I, Haifa was captured by the British 15th Imperial Cavalry Brigade comprising regiments of the Hyderabad, Mysore and Jodhpur Lancers.
Over 25 years of diplomatic relations, Israel has given to India unquestioningly. We desperately needed ammunition during the Kargil conflict, Israel shipped the shells to us overnight. We needed air-surveillance platforms, Israel provided them to us. With Russia faltering as India's primary supplier of weaponry, Israel stepped into the gap. A lot more can be added to the list - from agricultural and water technology to high-end satellite technology and sensors on borders to monitor movements.
A gaggle of extremists and Marxists issued a statement condemning Rivlin's visit to India. The statement hilariously demanded that India should join the "Boycott, Divest, Sanction" movement against Israel - a movement which has little to do with Palestinian aspirations and is really about anti-Semitism.

India-Israel Relationship Is on the Upswing

The current visit of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin to India highlights how both the nations are emerging from the closet to become natural allies. Long- held balancing acts in India-Israel relations have gone now. With the coming of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the era of India's staid diplomatic establishment was replaced by active engagement of nations, cutting across ideological barriers of the Cold War days. It is now crystal clear that Modi has placed national interest first, while making friends and, cornering enemies. At such a crucial juncture, the arrival of President Rivlin on a six-day visit to India, reflects how pragmatism is guiding bilateral ties, banishing the lull that overshadowed it, for nearly a decade during the UPA rule.
But, thanks to former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, who first established full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992, today, the country is reaping the benefits of an ally, which is so vital for our key advancements in defence and technology, to name a few. India-Israel partnership had witnessed rejuvenation during former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's tenure. Indeed, Israel's immediate supply of high-powered equipment was one of the major supports our Armed Forces received to make significant gains in the Kargil conflict with Pakistan. Thus, the India-Israel bond is not just a seasonal one; it has deep roots as well. There was a time when the coming closer for both the nations was stalled by India's growing proximity to Israel's enemies in the region. It seems, under Modi, India is ready to reap the rewards of its friendship with the Jewish state in crucial areas like weapons and military equipment, technology, agriculture and also in diamonds and many more.

The earliest dated version I can find of this famous joke is from 2002, it was also in a book in 2003:

Have you heard the one about Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Chairman Yasir Arafat finally sitting down to negotiate? Sharon opened with a "biblical" tale.

"Before the Israelites came to the Promised Land and settled here, Moses led them for 40 years through the desert. One day, miraculously, a stream appeared. They drank and then decided to bathe. When Moses came out of the water, he found all his clothes missing.

" 'Who took my clothes?' Moses asked. 'It was the Palestinians,' replied the Israelites."

"Wait a minute," interrupted Arafat. "There were no Palestinians during the time of Moses!"

"All right," smirked Sharon, "now that we've got that settled, let's start talking."

There are variants, most of which take place at the UN.

Now, this exact joke is on the Fatah Facebook page - but instead of saying "a Palestinian stole them" they tell Moses that "an Israeli stole them" and the Israeli UN representative screams that there were no Israelis then.

The fact that the joke makes no sense from that perspective is of little importance to a regime that is a kleptocracy.

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

The NYT “echo chamber” and Nick Kristof’s endorsement of CAIR (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

As far as the New York Times (NYT) publisher and executive editor are concerned, Donald Trump’s victory was the result of “an erratic and unpredictable election.” In an unusual letter “To Our Readers,” the two NYT executives suggested that it was perhaps “Donald Trump’s sheer unconventionality” that led their paper “and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters.” But not long afterwards, the NYT public editor admitted that there is a “searing level of dissatisfaction out there with many aspects of the coverage,” noting that readers were fed up with the “swirl of like-mindedness” offered by the NYT, and that even “many of the more liberal voters wanted more balanced coverage. Not an echo chamber of liberal intellectualism, but an honest reflection of reality.”

Well, count me in: like many Israelis and supporters of Israel, I’ve often felt that it would be great if the NYT coverage of Israel and the Middle East was more of “an honest reflection of reality.” But as amply documented by the media watchdog CAMERA, the paper has shown a “long-standing pattern of prejudiced reporting and editorializing when it comes to Israel.”

In the “echo chamber of liberal intellectualism,” the world’s only Jewish state exists primarily to be criticized for countless failings. Indeed, if a Trump-like figure had run in Israel, all the echo chamber pundits would have rushed to predict his victory, gleefully reminding everyone of the longstanding echo chamber wisdom that the Jewish state was inexorably sliding rightward into a quasi-fascist quagmire.

So this is perhaps a good time for those of us who usually focus on media bias against Israel to recall that this bias is often due to the same echo chamber that left much of the US mainstream media oblivious to what was going on in the US. As I put it in my Twitter profile when I joined five years ago: “Make no mistake: The punditocracy that gets Israel wrong also gets a lot of other things wrong...”

When it comes to getting Israel wrong, NYT star columnist Nick Kristof has a bit of a record; he has also gotten Israel and the US (and various other issues) wrong at the same time; and as I have argued in a previous post, he also got it wrong when he tried to exploit the plight of last century’s Jewish refugees for the benefit of today’s mostly Muslim refugees. On the other hand, Kristof penned a notable “Confession of Liberal Intolerance” a few months ago, and in his recent column – where he offers “A 12-Step Program for Responding to President-Elect Trump” for readers “[t]raumatized by the election results” – he urges everyone to “resist dwelling in an echo chamber.” But long before Kristof gets around to warning about “dwelling in an echo chamber” in step 8, he shows that his own echo chamber remains largely intact: in step 2, Kristof calls on his readers to “sign up on the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] website” in order to volunteer “to fight Islamophobia;” and in step 5 he urges “support [for] groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC] that fight hate groups.”

To begin with the latter, it is hard to believe that Kristof is unaware that SPLC completely discredited itself when it recently denounced Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali – who are both advocating for reforms to counter Islamism and Muslim extremism – as “anti-Muslim extremists.” By smearing Nawaz and Hirsi Ali, SPLC isn’t fighting hate groups, but joining them.

It is perhaps no coincidence that CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper has reportedly denounced Hirsi Ali as “one of the worst of the worst of Islam haters in America, not only in America but worldwide.” CAIR also claimed credit for pressuring Brandeis University to cancel an honorary degree for Hirsi Ali. In this affair, CAIR clearly showed that it has no lower limit by falsely insinuating that Hirsi Ali had shown “sympathy for [Norwegian] mass murderer Anders Breivik.”

Kristof can hardly be unaware of how controversial CAIR has been since its establishment in 1994. A Salon article from late September 2001 notes that “Ibrahim Hooper, communications director of CAIR, refuses to outright condemn Osama bin Laden;” the article also points out that a former chief of the FBI’s counterterrorism section had stated “that CAIR’s activities ‘effectively give aid to international terrorist groups.’” Moreover, according to Salon,

“CAIR’s founder, Nihad Awad, wrote in the Muslim World Monitor that the World Trade Center trial [for the 1993 WTC terror attack], which ended in the conviction in 1994 of four Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, was ‘a travesty of justice.’ According to Awad — and despite the confessions of the terrorists from the 1993 attack — ‘there is ample evidence indicating that both the Mossad and the Egyptian Intelligence played a role in the explosion.’”

Hooper is still CAIR’s National Communications Director, and Awad is still Executive Director.

The Anti-Defamation League states in a summary of a comprehensive report on CAIR:

“CAIR’s stated commitment to ‘justice and mutual understanding’… is undermined by its anti-Israel agenda. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad has accused Israel supporters in the U.S. of promoting ‘a culture of hostility towards Islam’ and CAIR chapters continue to partner with various anti-Israel groups that seek to isolate and demonize the Jewish State.

CAIR’s anti-Israel agenda dates back to its founding by leaders of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a Hamas affiliated anti-Semitic propaganda organization. While CAIR has denounced specific acts of terrorism in the U.S. and abroad, for many years it refused to unequivocally condemn Palestinian terror organizations and Hezbollah by name […]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has distanced itself from CAIR over the years. In an April 2009 letter to the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security, the FBI explained that it suspended contact with CAIR because of evidence introduced during the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, demonstrating that CAIR and its founders were part of a group set up by the Muslim Brotherhood to support Hamas.”

While CAIR may by now have come to denounce some “specific acts of terrorism in the U.S. and abroad,” a good recent example of the kind of problematic activism pursued by CAIR is the energetic campaigning of CAIR-Chicago for convicted terrorist murderer Rasmea Odeh. (Detailed reporting on the Odeh case available at Legal Insurrection, see particularly “Rasmea Odeh rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud.”)

So despite CAIR’s problematic record – starting from its establishment in 1994 up to today – Nick Kristof is prepared to give the group a prominent endorsement that is probably worth tens of thousands of advertisement dollars. Indeed, CAIR announces on its website that there has been “a tremendous increase in support in terms of volunteers, donations and expressions of solidarity.”

If Nick Kristof ever emerges from his echo chamber, he will perhaps realize that influential NYT columnists telling their readers to sign on to a problematic group like CAIR is actually one of those things that might have helped convince many in “Middle America” that the liberal elites should just be swept away. And no, one doesn’t have to be a racist to oppose CAIR’s vision for America: CAIR wants an America were the courageous activist and writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali is denounced as a loathsome “anti-Muslim bigot” with “hate-filled and extremist views,” while Rasmea Odeh, the convicted terrorist murderer of two Israelis, is celebrated as an admirable “Palestinian American community organizer and women’s leader.”

The question is: did Kristof provide CAIR with a valuable endorsement because he shares their vision for America, or was he just too comfortably ensconced in his echo chamber to know about it?

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

11/21 Links Pt1: Netanyahu: Abbas Is Not Preparing Palestinians for Reconciliation with Israel; France postpones Mideast peace summit

From Ian:

Netanyahu: Abbas Is Not Preparing Palestinians for Reconciliation with Israel

Yesterday was the 39th anniversary of President Anwar Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem. A peace agreement was achieved between Israel and Egypt through direct negotiations; this agreement has stood for almost 40 years, currently under the courageous leadership of Egyptian President al-Sisi. I note this because here one can see the contrast with what is occurring vis-à-vis the Palestinians.
Abu Mazen refuses to come to direct negotiations without preconditions, is also continuing to incite his people regarding the idea of a right of return and erasing the State of Israel, and, to my regret, is not taking the right steps to start calming things and preparing public opinion for reconciliation with the State of Israel, which we see among certain Arab countries, the buds of a start here, and I hope this will change.

Required Changes in PA text books, used in US funded UNRWA schools.

As President-elect Donald Trump launches his transition team, he will undoubtedly take a good look at US Middle East Policy. The new President will have to cope with the fact that the US government pays for one third of the 1.2 billion dollar budget for UNRWA, an agency which administers the refugee status of five million Palestinian Arabs…refugees for perpetuity.
Even worse, the US Funded UNRWA school system has adopted the Palestinian Authority war education curriculum, which indoctrinates their students to take up arms for the "right of return" to villages which their grandparents left in 1948.
Since the motto of UNRWA is: "PEACE STARTS HERE", the new Trump administration may now wish to finally introduce a peace curriculum into UNRWA schools. Here is how President Trump can accomplish that goal.
Stop De-legitimization of the State of Israel and of the Jewish Presence in the Country

Every map that shows today's political boundaries in the region should mark Israel's pre-1967 territory by the name "Israel". Such a territory must not be left un-named and certainly should not be named "Palestine", as that constitutes a distortion of the present situation on the ground.

Israel should be presented as an ordinary sovereign state in every text mentioning the region's states currently.

Every reference to a region, settlement or site within Israel's pre-1967 armistice lines must not describe such a region, settlement or site as exclusively Palestinian.

Every discussion within the books of the holy places in the country should refer to the Jewish holy places alongside the Muslim and Christian ones. Any reference to a place which happens to be sacred to Jews (such as the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem) should state that fact.

Infighting Clouds Palestinian Authority's Future

With the long-ruling Palestinian Fatah faction torn by rivalries, fierce shootouts between Palestinian security forces and Fatah-aligned gunmen have erupted in recent months, plunging the Balata camp into unrest and lawlessness.
The violence, much of it directed at a Fatah leadership seen as corrupt and out of touch, comes as the movement prepares to hold an overdue leadership conference at the end of the month and reflects a combustible power struggle between the faction's aging leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, and exiled rival Mohammed Dahlan, a former top aide who has the backing of some gunmen and disaffected Fatah activists.
"I no longer want to fight Israel. I'm not willing to die for these officials who are only taking care of their families and letting us suffer," said Abu Riziq, 30, who spent nearly seven years in an Israeli prison for assisting in a suicide bombing.
The violence has left about a dozen people dead this year. Observers warn it could spiral out of control the longer that Fatah remains divided.
Abbas, 82, is pushing for leadership elections in his Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organization, an umbrella movement dominated by Fatah, before the end of the year, as part of what officials say is largely an elaborate attempt to cement his power and block Dahlan's return.
Abbas has no plans to step down or designate a successor, despite a recent health scare in which doctors ordered an unscheduled heart exam prompted by complaints of fatigue. Those elected to top Fatah and PLO posts could form a pool of potential successors, though none would likely challenge Abbas as long as he is in office.

Ma'an reports:

Hundreds of employees of UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for providing services for some five million Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, went on strike on Monday in the organization's main offices in Gaza City, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, protesting the UNRWA adminstration's failure to meet their demands regarding wages and unfilled job vacancies.

Head of the employee's union Suheil al-Hindi told Ma’an that about 1,000 employees who work in the main headquarters in Gaza City went on strike Monday, adding that the "biggest protest" would take place on Tuesday as local employees in all UNRWA's office in the northern Gaza Strip would go on strike and would take to the streets.

Talks between the union and the UNRWA's administration have been frozen, he noted, and more protests would come if the demands of the union were not met.

Hundreds of UNRWA employees launched a one-day strike and protested last week in front of the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City over the same unmet demands.

Al-Hindi has previously accused the UNRWA administration in the past of not filling in hundreds of vacant positions, claiming the UN agency "deliberately puts off hiring employees in order to win some time and save money at the expense of refugees."

The union, according to al-Hindi, has also demanded that UNRWA increase salaries to reflect the high cost of living and to stop reducing services the organization offers to Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA's director of operations in the Gaza Strip, Bo Schack denied on Oct. 17 that UNRWA had reduced any services to Palestinian refugees despite the severe funding shortage.

"UNRWA is exerting huge efforts in Gaza and there have been no reductions in services at all," Schack said during a news conference at UNRWA's headquarters in Gaza City, when he claimed that the total number of UNRWA employees had in fact increased.

If you follow the Twitter accounts of spokesperson Chris Gunness, the aforementioned Bo Schack, UNRWA head Pierre Krahenbuhl, UNRWA-USA and even UNRWA itself, you would have no idea that UNRWA employees have been striking on and off for two weeks.

This is the "transparency" that UNRWA shows the world that has given it billions of dollars.

The bigger issue, of course, is that UNRWA cannot possibly continue to get funding indefinitely as long as its definition of refugees ensures that the number of people it supports will forever grow with no possibility for those refugees to become non-refugees, even when they become citizens of other countries. UNRWA was intended to be a temporary agency that would exist only until refugees found a permanent home, but Arab refusal to make them citizens coupled with UNRWA's acquiescence to Arab demands to use the refugees as anti-Israel pawns has turned the agency into a huge waste of money with generations of Arabs who feel entitled to free services for their own descendants, forever.

In fact, that is the reason UNRWA doesn't want to talk about the strikes or other protests that erupt regularly from the people that get free aid and jobs from the agency. If anyone looks too closely, they see that the agency cannot survive without their annual begging for "emergency "funds. Something is going to break, but rather than address the problem, UNRWA wants to keep sweeping it under the rug for as long as it can keep raking in the cash.

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

How Nasser answered Deborah Rabinowitz' letter asking him not to attack Israel

In the spring of 1956, a Jewish girl named Deborah Rabinowitz from Queens saw a TV show about how poor Arabs are. Touched by their plight, she sent $2 to to Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser that she saved to buy her sister a Passover present, along with this letter:

Dear Mr. Nasser,

I saw on T.V. how poor the Arab children were and so I am sending you two dollars of my Passover money that I had saved to buy my little sister a Passover present. Please buy some clothes for the Arab children.

Please don't have a war with Israel because the children might get hurt. I promise I will send more money.

Your American friend,

Deborah Rabinowitz

age 8 1/2

Nasser responded:

Cairo 23.6.1956

Dear Deborah Rabinowitz,

This is to acknowledge with the utmost gratitude the receipt of your 2 dollars donation to refugee children dissipated by Israel, and to commend your really noble feeling.

I should like you to believe that Egypt has no aggressive intentions whatsoever; our mission is one of Peace and participation in any effort directed to the good of Humanity and the Peace of the Entire World.

Yours sincerely,
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Prime Minister of Egypt

That letter was dated June 23, 1956.

Three days later, on June 26, Nasser seized control of the Suez Canal and blocked all Israeli ships from using it, lighting the spark that led to the 1956 war.

Perhaps this Arab leader wasn't entirely trustworthy.

Note that Deborah's letter didn't specify the poor Arabs she was referring to, it is not so clear that the TV report was about refugees from the 1948 war, as Nasser responded. So even Nasser's letter to an eight year old Jewish girl included anti-Israel propaganda.

Egypt had banned all refugees from living in its borders and shunted them all to Gaza, making it a true open-air prison. It used Gaza as a staging area for fedayeen attacks against Israel throughout the 1950s. That $2 did not help anyone but Nasser.

Notice also that Nasser didn't refer to those refugees as "Palestinians."

Hopefully Deborah Rabinowitz grew out of the mentality that antisemitic and anti-Israel leaders would turn peaceful if only we send them more money and tell them how sympathetic we are. Today, too many Westerners, including too many American Jews still think with the exact same logic and naivete of an 8 1/2-year old girl.

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

Usually we have to use MEMRI to find out what antisemitic Muslim clerics are saying. Here, we can hear it in plain English:

From Shalom.Kiwi:

A shocking video has surfaced containing excerpts of a number of Auckland sermons and lectures given by Shaykh Dr Mohammad Anwar Sahib between April 2014 and November 2016 in which he repeatedly uses appalling anti-Semitic slanders and libels and denigrates women. In one sermon, he calmly calls Jews “the enemy of Muslims” and claims that:

Jews are using everybody because their protocol is to rule the entire world”Shaykh Dr Mohammad Anwar Sahib

Of more concern is that Dr Sahib is the President of the At Taqwa Mosque in Manukau, Auckland (where the comments were made, and from where they were broadcast on YouTube) and is also (according to FIANZ and his CV) secretary of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ) Ulama Council and FIANZ Advisory Board. The FIANZ Ulama Council is responsible for religious affairs in the New Zealand Muslim community, including family counselling and dispute resolution. Dr Sahib also claims to be an adviser to the New Zealand government on Halal issues.

Like his views on Jews, Dr Sahib also shares views on women’s rights that are out of step with New Zealand values. In one sermon, he proclaims that:

No woman can dare step out of her house without the permission of her husband” Shaykh Dr Mohammad Anwar Sahib

The New Zealand Human Rights Commission issued a statement after being contacted by Shalom.Kiwi site about this:

The Human Rights Commission says an Auckland man’s speeches condemning Jewish people are appalling and have no place in New Zealand.

“We live in one of the most ethnically diverse nations on earth as well as one of the most peaceful: this is because we are a tolerant nation,” said Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy.

“This kind of intolerance is not welcome here in any form: Prejudice against Jewish people has no place in New Zealand.” Videos of speeches delivered by Shaykh Dr Mohammad Anwar Sahib at the Manukau mosque have been widely viewed online.

“We urge Kiwis to recognise that these are the views of a single person and are not held by every single Muslim New Zealander, however questions need to be answered,” said Dame Susan.

“We’ve been in touch with the leaders of the NZ Jewish Council as well as the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ), both of whom are deeply concerned about the speeches. We have asked for an urgent response from FIANZ.”

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

EoZTV: Trump's Picks

Are Trump's picks as racist as the media makes them out to be? This special videocast of EoZTV looks at what we know so far, as objectively as we could be.

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

Erekat compares Israel to ISIS

At the Doha World Policy Forum, today, Saeb Erekat was up to his usual lies, pretending that the Palestinians don't treat this like a religious conflict and that Jews are just like ISIS.

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

11/20 Links: PA Ambassador Admits UNESCO Resolution Was To Claim Temple Mount Is Muslim Only; Ruthie Blum: Alt-left delete

From Ian:

IsraellyCool: Palestinian Ambassador Admits UNESCO Resolution Was To Affirm Temple Mount Is Muslim Only

First, Ambassador Ajran explicitly laid out the reasons for the Palestinian and Arab-led vote at UNESCO last month. Most Western countries ended up supporting or abstaining from the vote by highlighting the late addition of a line reaffirming the ‘importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls for the three monotheistic faiths, Islam, Christianity and Judaism.’ There were many who said Israel overreacted to the resolution saying that just because it didn’t mention the Hebrew names for the Temple Mount and Western Wall, it doesn’t mean it is sought to deny the Jewish connection to them.
But that is exactly what the Ambassador says was the motivation behind the resolution!
“Kuwait… sponsored and recognized fully that the Palestinian issue is a Kuwaiti issue carried by Kuwaiti officials to all international forums, most recently Palestine’s victory at UNESCO and the issuance of the historic decision that the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Buraq wall, and underneath it and around it is a right for Muslims only and not others.”
But the Ambassador’s speech was also remarkable for another reason. Not for what he said, but for what he didn’t say. Most people have forgotten that in 1991, towards the end of the First Gulf War and after, Kuwait expelled over 400,000 Palestinians. If you have never heard of this, you aren’t alone. You won’t heard about this massive ethnic cleansing at any pro-Palestinian event. No organizers Israel Apartheid Week will mention this mass expulsion. And of course, there were no protests in the Western or Arab worlds nor any UN resolutions condemning the Kuwaiti government for its carefully planned and well documented actions. In fact, Kuwaiti diplomat Sheikh Saud Nasser al-Sabah told the Washington Post that
“thousands [of Palestinians] who do not have jobs will be deported or their permits will not be renewed. … And I think we have a perfect right to demand” it, he said. “It’s not just us in the government demanding it, it’s the people in the street who are demanding it.” … Having a large number of Palestinians in Kuwait would not be “helpful to our security,”

Portuguese restaurant vandalized over chef’s visit to Israel

Anti-Israel activists vandalized a restaurant in Portugal because its head chef participated in a food festival in Israel.
The perpetrators, who are believed to be activists for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, on Friday night spilled red paint on the facade of the Cantinho do Avillez restaurant in the northern city of Porto and posted signs on it reading: “Free Palestine,” “Avillez collaborates with Zionist occupation” and “Entrée: A dose of white phosphorus.”
The attack, which is rare in Portugal, followed picketing opposite the restaurant by BDS activists over the participation of chef Jose Avillez along with at least 11 other chefs from renowned dining establishments around the world in the Round Tables festival in Tel Aviv this month, which is sponsored by American Express.
Robert Singer, CEO of the World Jewish Congress, condemned the BDS movement for the attack, which he said was anti-Semitic.

Take action! Demand that UNRWA remove inciting material from their classrooms.

The poster on the left represents a bit of anti-Zionist propaganda that has been around for decades and is among the negative images of Jewish self-determination that today's college kids grew up with.

Although the western progressive-left generally supports anti-Zionism, American Jews still cling to the Democratic Party despite the fact that the party and the movement believes it has every right to tell Jewish people where we may, or may not, be allowed to live within our own homeland.

About 80 percent of American Jews, including me, voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and about 70 percent, not including me, did so in 2012. In the current cycle, American Jews voted for Hillary Clinton in similar numbers.

Given the fact that the western progressive-left has made a home of itself for malicious anti-Semitic anti-Zionists it becomes rather difficult to understand why American Jews continue to support a political movement, and its adjacent political party, that hold them in contempt.

The Washington Post has a piece from last September entitled, In the safe spaces on campus, no Jews allowed by Anthony Berteaux. Berteaux relates the story of Arielle Mokhtarzadeh, an Iranian-Jew who was made to feel unwelcome by the UCLA progressive community due to her caring for the Jewish people through caring for the Jewish State of Israel. As a student of Jewish-Persian background she therefore attended the annual Students of Color Conference in search of answers.

Mokhtarzadeh tells us:

Over the course of what was probably no longer than an hour, my history was denied, the murder of my people was justified, and a movement whose sole purpose is the destruction of the Jewish homeland was glorified. Statements were made justifying the ruthless murder of innocent Israeli civilians, blatantly denying Jewish indigeneity in the land, and denying the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered,” she said. “Why anyone in their right mind would accept these slanders as truths baffles me. But they did. These statements, and others, were met with endless snaps and cheers. I was taken aback.

The truth is that many Democrats despise the lone, sole Jewish state as a human rights monstrosity even though it has a far better record on human rights than any other country throughout the Middle East. This little fact, in itself, reveals the anti-Jewish racism within BDS and, therefore, embedded within the Democratic Party.

It is for this reason that progressives often support Hamas and the Palestinian Authority when they call for the murder of Jews in the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. Every time Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) or the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) meet on some campus to call for yet another intifada they are, in fact, calling for the murder of innocent Jews in Israel.

Such calls for anti-Jewish violence tend to be supported not only by other progressive-left students, but also by sympathetic university administrators who could hardly care less that students are calling for violence against Jews on their very own campuses. They even provide thumb-sucking "safe-spaces" where those very same students can rest their heads on university provided pillows without having to deal with the richly deserved ramifications of their own behavior. Since no one is allowed to even question their judgment in these "safe spaces" they need not even consider the possibility that calling for violence against Jewish people - as a matter of social justice, no less - might actually be something other than liberal.

In fact, San Francisco State University president, Leslie Wong, is so enamored of anti-Semitic anti-Zionism that he even praised GUPS as representing "the very purpose of this great university." He did so despite the fact that, in their cries for intifada, they literally call for the murder of Jews in Israel. Sometimes they even call for bringing the intifada home, by which they mean support for the political murder of Jews in the United States. None of this fazes the progressive-left because offing Jews - particularly of the Israeli variety - is considered a rational and perfectly normal human response to alleged Jewish aggression against the bunny-like "indigenous" population in the Land of Israel.

And this is why Arielle Mokhtarzadeh was treated like filth at UCLA.

Berteaux writes:

The ramifications of ignoring the normalization of anti-Semitism cannot be understated: The most recent FBI hate crime report found that 58.2 percent of hate crimes motivated by religious bias were targeted at Jews. Jews make up 2.2 percent of the American population, so the FBI’s statistics make it clear that Jews are the most disproportionately attacked religious group in America. It should be troubling to everyone that an SJP member at Temple University physically assaulted a pro-Israel Jewish student two years ago, calling him a “Zionist baby killer.” But it should be far more troubling that the SJP chapter at Temple (like all SJP chapters) promotes itself as a progressive organization, claiming solidarity with movements such as Black Lives Matter.

The Democratic Party just got its ass kicked by a crude businessman-entertainer who they accuse of being everything short of the Devil and now they are not only screaming from the rafters about racism and white supremacy, but they even have the chutzpah to suddenly start whining about the alleged anti-Semitism of conservatives and Republicans.

The truth is that the Left and the Democratic Party are enemies of the Jewish people to the extent that they make a homes of themselves for anti-Semitic anti-Zionism. American Jews are, essentially, being told that they may contribute to the progressive movement but the price of admission is sitting across the Democratic Party table from anti-Zionists who have no respect for our history, no respect for the Holocaust, and who think that we are undeserving of self-determination and self-defense within our own homeland.

Requiring that Jews accept anti-Semitic anti-Zionism as part of the larger Democratic Party coalition is no different from asking black people to kindly accept Klansmen as part of that coalition. No self-respecting black person would ever do so and neither should any self-respecting Jew.

The progressive-left and the Democratic Party fling around charges of racism like they're confetti. Throughout the recent American presidential campaign they lambasted Trump and his supporters as Neanderthal fascists representing the very worst of all humanity, which is why some of their devotees are beating the hell out of white people in the streets. But if the Democratic Party has suddenly rediscovered anti-Semitism it is strictly out of political convenience, nothing more.

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

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

Last Sunday, I reported that Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the banned northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel and who has incited violence against Jews for years, announced a hunger strike to protest the conditions of his imprisonment.

The hunger strike was over by Thursday, with no indication that it accomplished anything.

Mohammed Barakeh, head of the Arab Monitoring Committee, announced the end of the hunger strike "because his message got across."

It sounds like Salah just got hungry.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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

Islamic authority, criticizing "Muezzin law," claims Muslim tolerance for Jewish prayer. Really.

The General Authority for Supreme Islamic Authority in Jerusalem complained about the proposed law to ban loudspeaker-fueled calls to prayer, saying that if anyone doesn't like the ear-splitting pre-dawn noise, "they should go home."

In a press release, the Islamic Authority claimed that the innovation of using huge loudspeakers instead of the traditional role of the muezzin to call for prayer from a minaret is part of Islamic law and an "act of worship, " and no one can interfere with it because that would violate freedom of worship.

The statement went on to say that "the great Islamic religion does not interfere with worship and ritual of other heavenly religions (Judaism and Christianity,) but it preserves and respects them, quoting the Quran, "There is no compulsion in religion."

This last part is particularly ironic since Muslim leaders are livid at the thought of Jews worshipping on the Temple Mount. The Muslim media complains every time Jews visit the Tomb of Joseph to pray there. Jews who visit the Cave of the Patriarchs are regularly denounced and have been shot at, as have Jews who visit Rachel's Tomb for prayer and to recite Psalms. The ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives is under constant attack from Arab vandals. 50 synagogues in Jerusalem were methodically destroyed in 1948, and Jews were disallowed from visiting the Western Wall and every other holy site while it was under Jordanian rule.

But besides that and many other examples of Muslim intolerance of Jewish prayer and rituals within the borders of what they call "historic Palestine," yeah, sure they are really tolerant.

Gaza synagogue after it was destroyed in an act of religious tolerance

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