Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, April 02, 2017

The Jewish Left and the Conflict between Multiculturalism and Universal Human Rights (Michael Lumish)

It's very sad, really.

I am watching my former political home, the American progressive-left, rip itself into ideological pieces.

In an apparent effort to reconcile the irreconcilable - i.e., the multicultural ideal (as represented by Sharia) with universal human rights (as represented by western feminism) - it is throwing Enlightenment liberalism, and with it the tradition of rational discourse, directly into the toilet.

Things have gotten so bad that in the universities the very notion of rational discourse, as we received it from Enlightenment, is increasingly viewed as a racist, sexist, heteronormative social-political construct designed to serve the white patriarchal power structure.

Here, for example, is an uncomfortable truth that illustrates the tension between multiculturalism and universal human rights within the progressive-left, but which they refuse to even discuss:

You cannot favor Sharia and be feminist both at the same time.

Sorry, Linda, but this is one of those reasons why I call my Elder of Ziyon blog "Acknowledging the Obvious."

I have no doubt that since Linda Sarsour recently sprang into the national spotlight off the political corpse of Hillary Clinton that there have been any number of people trying to square this circle. If someone can point me to a source wherein that was accomplished - where Sharia law and feminism were intellectually reconciled - I would like to learn of it because maybe I am wrong.

What do I know? I make no claims of expertise in Sharia.

All I know with certainty is that the Jews who refused to allow themselves to be chased out of Israel by the Romans faced thirteen centuries of oppression and persecution under that juridical philosophy in the centuries between Muhammad and the Ottoman defeat in World War I.

A mere thirteen centuries.

Although the rules of "dhimmitude" varied from place to place and century to century within the Islamic world, Jews, along with other dhimmis, like Christians and Zoroastrians, could not build homes on land above those of Muslims. We could not ride horses. We could not carry weaponry and had no rights of self-defense, nor access to courts of law. While the Byzantines may have used the area around the Western Wall for a garbage heap, the Muslims simply built a mosque above what was the Hebrew Temple and declared the holiest site of the Jewish people as forever non-Jewish.

And it is not as if this is merely some abstract, irrelevant, historical detail from the past.

It is not as if I am merely holding a historical grudge.

It is ongoing.

It is at this historical moment, like every other for century upon century, that popular Islamic preachers regularly call for the murder of Jews. Yet much of the left provides them with cover by portraying the Jews in the Middle East as the oppressors of the innocent "indigenous Arab" population.

Thus, if an American Jew, such as myself, so much as suggests that keeping jihadis out of the United States is a good idea we are subject to progressive-left contempt. Who are we, after all - we grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Jewish immigrants from the Pale of Settlement - to deny succor to Arab children of war? Who are we beneficiaries of American generosity to deny that generosity to others?

These would be terrific questions were they not entirely otherwise.

Most Jews do not want to see jihadis move in next door because Sharia is a political theory that spells violent Jewish subjugation. Opposing the Jihad is no more prejudicial toward Muslims than opposing Nazism was prejudicial toward Germans. We do not have a problem with Muslim immigration into the United States. We do have a tremendous problem, however, with the importation of the Jihad into the United States as we are seeing currently in Europe.

Jihadism is a theo-political philosophy, an aspect of Islam, that calls for the spread of Sharia throughout the world. People who oppose the rise of political Islam are constantly told that all Muslims are not Jihadis.

Let me assure you that we know this, already, but that is not the point.

We also know that this rhetorical tactic is a diversion. It is a method of evading the necessary national conversation around immigration policy. But, if anyone thinks that opposing the Jihad is the same as opposing Muslims, in general, then it is they who think of all Muslims as crazed head-choppers seeking the reinstitution of the Caliphate, not their political opponents.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party and the progressive-left are basically telling their Jewish constituency that if we wish to remain in good-standing we must embrace the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people from a culture that despises us and harasses our kids on university campuses throughout the West.

These are the same universities that turn a blind eye, or - as in the case of San Francisco State University - actually support and defend student groups calling for the murder of Jews. When the anti-Zionist contingent at SFSU confronted the mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, on that campus, they cried out, "Intifada! Intifada! Long live the intifada!" This is nothing less than shouting for the racist murder of the Jewish people directly into the face of a prominent Jewish leader among Jewish students and staff at an allegedly "liberal" college.

The irony is rich.

Nonetheless, SFSU president Leslie Wong believes that the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) "is the very purpose of this great university."

The reason for all of this ideological chaos and inconsistency is because the progressive-left is increasingly anti-liberal and thus increasingly in opposition to its own professed values.

We see it at UC Berkeley when leftists beat the holy crap out of Trump supporters or pepper-spray them in the streets.

UC Berkeley (2017)

We see it when they demand ideological conformity over free speech and, thus, undermine not only the honest interrogation of ideas, but the very foundation of social justice, to begin with.

Ultimately the tension between multiculturalism and universal human rights is undermining Enlightenment liberalism. In the ongoing, but largely unspoken, tension between these twin progressive-left ideologies multiculturalism is slowly devouring universal human rights and liberalism along with it.

This decline in significance of universal human rights led, in recent decades, to the progressive-left and Democratic Party betrayal of women, Gay people, and minorities throughout the Middle East, the emergence of the new politically-correct racism at home, suppression of freedom of speech on the campuses, and the rise of left-leaning antisemitic anti-Zionism throughout the West.

The progressive-left has, in fact, betrayed us all, particularly those of us who counted on it the most.

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

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From JTA:

City workers dislodged and relocated a postcard-sized memorial plaque from the entrance to the former home in Amsterdam of a Holocaust victim following complaints by residents.

The plaque – a brass cobblestone bearing the name of Joachim Elte that was embedded into the sidewalk of Nicolaas Maesstraat 3 in 2014 – was moved to a location “as far away as possible from the door” of the two residents, who have recently sued the city to have the plaque removed altogether, Sebastiaan Capel, the director of Amsterdam’s southern district told Het Parool daily on Friday.

The two residents, who were not named, recently filed with a preliminary relief judge a motion for an injunction ordering the memorial cobblestone’s removal because Capel had ignored their demands that it be removed from anywhere in front of their residence, the daily reported.

In their motion, the two residents said they found the cobblestone too confrontational because it constantly reminded them of the deportation and murder of Elte, a 51-year-old accountant who died at a Nazi concentration camp in 1945. They also argued it “compromises the atmosphere” of their upscale neighborhood and their privacy because it attracts onlookers.

As the photo shows, the plaque does not interfere with anything.

The idea of putting plaques in front of the homes of Holocaust victims came from a German artist, Gunter Demnig, who began placing 10 cm square plaques in 1997. Demnig's motto is "A man is only forgotten if his name is forgotten."

Clearly, some Amsterdam residents want the world to forget the name of Joachim Elte.

Don't let them.

Here is Elte's passport:

According to Google, here is the building where Elte used to live, at Nicolaas Maesstraat 3.

Just in case you want to visit, and perhaps knock on the door to ask what they remember about Elte.

UPDATE: The couple that sued dropped the lawsuit, see here.

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Steenkamp in 2016

The Washington Post coverage of the so-called "Palestine Marathon" last year starts off this way:

The finish line at the biggest race in the West Bank featured fresh-squeezed orange juice and piles of Jericho dates instead of Gatorade and Gu packets. Clusters of runners danced to techno versions of Justin Bieber and Adele songs along with traditional Arabic music, and finishers ate freshly fried falafel as they stretched out in the sun on the cobblestones of Manger Square. Friday’s winner, Mervin Steenkamp, guessed his final time after finishing — there was no official clock at the end — and was paraded through the crowd as he held up a peace sign for photographers instead of the one finger usually displayed by first-place finishers.

A peace sign? Under Palestinian rule, the "V" is never meant for peace. It is meant as "victory" over Israel. Terrorists use the symbol all the time.

I can't say for sure what Steenkamp's motivation was - he won the fake race the year before and also flashed the gesture - but you can be certain that Palestinians do not interpret it as peaceful.

When you have peace, everyone is a winner. When you have "victory," then your opponents have lost. This is the opposite of peace.

Jibril Rajoub, the Palestinian sports minister who took over the marathon this year, easily morphs between the language of peace and the language of supporting terror depending on who is is speaking to. He said that the point of the marathon was to expose 50 years of Israeli "terror." But at the same time he claims that it gives a "humanitarian message to the world."

The race is pure propaganda. It is staged in front of the Church of the Nativity without reporters noting how the Christians of the region have nearly all fled because of the discrimination and terror from Muslims.

It hands out official times for the winners to the hundredths of a second as if it is a real marathon even though, as the WaPo notes, there is no official clock, at least as of last year.

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Ahmad Jazal was 17 years old. He had a job as a dental assistant in Nablus.

Instead of going to work, he went to Jerusalem. He took selfies at the Dome of the Rock.

Then he exited the Temple Mount to look for Jews to stab.

He found two religious Jews, taking a walk on the Sabbath, and stabbed them. From video taken right afterwards, you can see he stabbed at least one of them in the back where he bled quite a bit.

Jazal then fled to a house, seeking shelter. Israeli police found him and shot him to death as he stabbed one of them.

Palestinian supporters claim that there are severe restrictions on Arabs from the West Bank accessing the Al Aqsa Mosque, but apparently this is not true - Jazal easily traveled to Jerusalem.

Although he did not identify with any militant group, he is being praised as a martyr by Hamas and Fatah.

There is nothing political on his Facebook page.

Saying the "occupation" is what prompted Jazal to want to kill Jews is facile and absurd. As a resident of Nablus he would hardly see any Israeli soldiers unless he traveled to other cities and had to go though a checkpoint.

And even if he was angered over the "occupation" that would mean that he would want to target the IDF, not random religious Jews.

No, Ahmad Jazal was taught all his life to hate Jews, and Jews were his enemy, and that Jews had stolen his land. Not Zionists, not Israelis - Jews.

So he devised a plan to kill Jews. He knew all day that is how we was going to likely die - by killing Jews. A religious person, he no doubt was taught that killing Jews would get him to paradise.

This is what incitement does. It doesn't radicalize every young person who hears it, but it does plant the idea of killing Jews as an obligation on some people - and, crucially, these people do not hear any messages that contradict the ones that make murderers into heroes.

If there is a root cause for these young terrorists, it is the antisemitic incitement that the Palestinian Authority broadcasts and teaches in their schools.

And the world doesn't want to accept that the Palestinian Authority that they have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in is doing something this despicable.

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04/01 Links: Collier: Cork, Ireland. Politely wishing the Jews to a nasty death; MSM Distorts Reality on Israeli Settlements

From Ian:

David Collier: Cork, Ireland. Politely wishing the Jews to a nasty death

Today I am in Cork, Southern Ireland. This is a story that began two years ago, with a failed attempt by a twisted academic at Southampton, to place a fake academic veneer on part of the delegitimise Israel campaign. Those that suggest this is not true are simply not listening to the organisers, the speakers or even the delegates. Activism as a central theme was ever present. There is little denying that this conference is about attempting to place additional tools in the arsenal of the anti-Israel activist. Indeed, it is clearly the primary purpose.
Two failed attempts to hold a conference in Southampton, sandwiched between legal attempts to force the hand of the university, has led us all to Southern Ireland and to Cork, where finally, Oren Ben-Dor got to hold his circus of hate. This, even though the University at Cork, distanced themselves from the event.
I have just sat through the first day of the three-day conference. I will put together a more complete write up of the entire event when it has finished. I am away from home and do not have access to many of my files for referencing. So today I just want to put some initial thoughts into words.
The setting for today was the impressive Cork County Hall. We are informed that filming is not permitted, which makes life more difficult for someone to report accurately on an event such as this. The organisation, was professionally done. The conference is split into themes, each building part of a picture that sets out to destroy Israel’s standing as a legitimate state. Just as was intended two years ago, in Southampton, each subject is discussed by a panel, all of who were presenting papers on the topic.
Of about 50 academics present, only one would consider himself Zionist. Almost all the others support the boycott of Israel, and most call openly for its demise. There were a few opening remarks to a room of maybe 170 people, and we were underway.

Col. Kemp: International community ignoring Hezbollah threat to Israel

Last year, Col. Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, was touring the Wingate Institute south of Netanya. He came across an oil painting of the institute’s namesake, Orde Wingate. Wingate was a former British officer who helped lead the pre-state Special Night Squads that played a role in training Jews who went on to found the Israeli army. Kemp decided the painting deserved better and paid to have it restored. In late March, after a visit to Israel as part of the Friends of Israel Initiative, he stopped by the institute to see the finished product. Now back in England, he wants to emphasize how important it is that the world keep an eye on Hezbollah’s threats and Islamist terrorism.
“The purpose really [of my visit] is to determine what the current threat is and see how Israel can counter that threat,” he says. “We want to highlight to the international community that unless something is done to prevent Hezbollah under direction of Iran from attacking Israel; and Israel will respond, and there will be civilian casualties and Israel will be condemned by [the] International community; to give notice to the international community that this could happen and so that when it does happen the casualties are not Israel’s fault but Hezbollah’s.” His message is that other countries who have relations with Iran and Lebanon need to focus on this threat rather than wait for war to come and then point fingers.
He points to the UN resolution that has sought to end the militarization of southern Lebanon. Resolution 1701 of 2006 sought to have the Lebanese army exercise full sovereignty and that there would be no other weapons without the consent of the government on Lebanese territory.” And that the area would be “free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon.” But this is being “completely ignored,” says Kemp. Pressure should be put on Lebanon to end Hezbollah’s arms buildup. “No one seems to be even paying attention to the 100,000 missiles pointing at Israel’s civilian population.” He also argues that the international community should pressure Iran, which supports Hezbollah, and points to the Iran deal which has resulted in funds being released for Iran that empowers it and Hezbollah.
Kemp thinks the decision to leave the EU will make the UK more secure. This is especially true in light of the recent London terror attack, the first since 2013 and the most serious since the July 2005 bombings. “The current estimate is that there are 3,000 active Jihadists considered to be a threat by MI5 [British intelligence], that same threat extends across the whole of Europe in France, Belgium and elsewhere, and the thing is complicated, one of the reasons the threat is there is because the Islamic State has been allowed to continue to exist, its existence and defiance has inspired terrorists to act,” says the Colonel.

Sisi’s Important White House Visit

There is an irony to so many progressives prioritizing the Israel-Palestinian peace process yet seeking simultaneously to ostracize Egypt. There simply cannot be any lasting solution without Egypt’s input and security guarantees. Individuals need not necessarily like either Sisi or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but establishing trust between the Israeli and Egyptian leader is crucial given all the security issues at play. Sisi’s presence—and the establishment of trust between Jerusalem and Cairo—opens a number of doors on the peace process and is also crucial to preventing the further establishment of Iranian influence in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Make no mistake: the human rights concerns are real, although prominent advocacy groups like Human Rights Watch have delegitimized themselves by showing their numbers in Egypt are based more on their executive director’s pique than on any scientific surveying. Across the region as well, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have partnered with radical groups to push a political agenda that has very little to do with human rights and everything to do with its employees’ partisan worldview.
Trump may not bring up human rights with Sisi, but the Egyptian leader risks enclosing himself in a bubble of sycophancy if he continues to crack down on the Egyptian press. Transparency is also essential in business. Longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak delayed making the tough decisions and undercut opportunities for ordinary Egyptians as he privileged a military oligarchy. Should that repeat, the Egyptian people might again turn on the state. The State Department should not cease to advocate liberalization, but diplomacy isn’t about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

03/31 Links Pt2: Telling the Truth Doesn’t Make Us ‘Right Wing’; The Muslim Brotherhood: Peddling Sharia as Social Justice

From Ian:

Convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh’s status as leftist icon untarnished by plea deal

She’s a convicted terrorist preparing to be deported for entering the United States illegally, but Rasmea Yousef Odeh has seen her status as a leftist celebrity remain intact.
The Palestinian and feminist activist is scheduled to speak this weekend at the Jewish Voice for Peace conference in Chicago despite agreeing last week to a plea deal in which she will admit to failing to disclose her criminal record on her visa application. In exchange Odeh will be sent to Jordan and receive no jail time.
Still, Jewish Voice for Peace has remained steadfast in supporting Odeh, a featured speaker at the left-wing group’s annual three-day meeting, which starts Friday at the Hyatt Regency.
“Rasmea has made the difficult decision to leave the home and community she has built in the U.S. over the last 20 years,” the organization said in a statement after the plea deal was announced.
Odeh is slated to speak at a session called “All In!” along with Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour, another Israel critic who leads the Arab American Association of New York.
“We are pleased that we will be able to host Rasmea at our National Member Meeting next week, to hear her story of resilience in the face of state violence and offer our enduring support in the next steps in her work and life,” Jewish Voice for Peace said.

Police: American Media Inspired Bomb Threats On Jewish Centers; Trump Push Nabbed Suspect

Despite months of our Fake News Media insisting that only Trump voters could be responsible for a wave of bomb threats targeting Jewish institutions around the world and American Jewish Community Centers in particular, according to police, the real culprits are nothing of the kind. One suspect is a left-wing member of the same American media that spread all that defamatory Fake News. The other is a Jewish Israeli-American, a young cyber-criminal inspired by our media's malicious slander of Trump and his supporters to increase his reign of terror.
The 19 year-old recently arrested in Israel is considered to be responsible for most of the threats. According to Haaretz, this crime wave of cyber-attacks lasted for more than two years but only became a real focus for the American FBI because of President Trump. Unlike President Obama, it was Trump who made these crimes a top priority and the result was an important arrest:
The Jewish Israeli-American arrested this week on suspicion of making a host of bomb threats on Jewish institutions worldwide has been making such cyberattacks for two years, but only recently was his capture given high priority, according to police sources.
The sources attributed the turnabout to pressure from United States President Donald Trump. A few weeks ago, after Trump announced that the FBI would do everything in its power to catch the perpetrator, the agency sent 12 investigators from its cybercrime unit to Israel to assist the Israeli investigation.
Police sources also told Haaretz that the teen's muse, his inspiration, his North Star, his guiding light and actual modus operandi was … The American Anti-Trump Media!
Altogether, the teen has made hundreds of threats that the public never heard about, police said. When they got no media attention, he stopped making threats in those places. In contrast, the bomb threats to Jewish institutions in the U.S. in recent months received especially prominent coverage, not just in America but worldwide, so he began focusing his threats on those institutions.
In other words, the very same media that for years during the Obama administration, did not care even a little about these bomb threats (got to protect our Precious Barry!), is the very same media that inspired an increase in these threats as they politicized the attacks as a means to smear Trump and his supporters.

Ben-Dror Yemini: An open letter to Richard Gere

Hello, Richard Gere. You recently visited Hebron, guided by Breaking the Silence activists. They likely told you what they tell many other diplomats, journalists, parliament members and occasional guests, about Israel’s crimes, about the poor Hebron residents, and more. Your only response was that “it’s exactly what the Old South was in America. Blacks knew where they could go… It was well understood. You didn’t cross over if you didn’t want to get your head beat in, or you get lynched.”
Let me tell you that I am not a supporter of the Jewish settlement in Hebron, or of the settlement enterprise in general. Far from it. I am in favor of a decent solution which will give the Palestinians welfare, prosperity, sovereignty and independence. If only they wanted that too. if only they would fight for themselves, rather than against Israel’s existence. But in order to contribute something to a reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians, there are a few facts you should know.
Hebron is the Jews’ holiest and most important city after Jerusalem. Jews lived there even after the Arab occupation in the seventh century. They held the status of inferior citizens, the “dhimmis,” as was customary under the Muslim rule. In the 16th century, Jews were already banned entry to the Cave of the Patriarchs. There were riots against Jews in 1517 and 1834. There was no occupation, no Zionism and no Israel then. The major pogrom took place in 1929. Fifty-nine Jews were murdered by a rampaging Muslim mob, while a few Muslims, Righteous Among the Nations, hid Jews. Following the pogrom, the Jews were forced to leave and the Muslims took over the Jewish neighborhood and the Jews’ homes.

Infected Mushroom April 6
Jean-Michel Jarre April 6
Lost Frequencies April 11
Justin Bieber May 3
Aerosmith May 17
Rod Stewart June 14
Jim Gaffigan (comedian) June 30
Britney Spears July 3
Tears for Fears July 5
Guns N' Roses July 15
Radiohead July 19
Pixies July 25
Amon Amarth July 27

Also, Foreigner is performing December 2. And rumors of Duran Duran in June.

While Roger Waters will not play, there is a Pink Floyd tribute band in Israel named Echoes. I wonder if they pay royalties - and if Waters accepts them.

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03/31 Links Pt1: Glick: Israel’s silenced majority; The black hole of Gaza aid

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Israel’s silenced majority

The Israeli public today recognizes that there is no deal to be had. The Palestinians will never make peace with Israel, because they remain committed to its destruction.
It doesn’t matter how effective the Americans are at negotiations. It doesn’t matter how many concessions they are able to extract from Israel in their endless attempts to coddle the Palestinians and convince them to negotiate. Indeed, the Americans’ collective refusal to come to terms with the reality that guides the Israeli public indicates that regardless of what their actual feelings toward Israel may be, in demanding Israeli concessions to the PLO, the Americans are implementing a policy that is stridently anti-Israel.
Under the circumstances, Netanyahu’s task, and that of his ministers, is not to convince the new administration to respect the legal rights to property of Jews in Judea and Samaria. Their duty is to represent and advance the interests and positions of the public that elected them.
Netanyahu and his ministers must make clear to Trump and his advisers that there is no point in trying to reach a deal with the PLO. Trump’s predecessors’ failure to reach an accord had nothing to do with their failure to master the art of the deal. They failed because there is no one on the Palestinian side who is interested in making a deal.
Moreover, Netanyahu and his ministers must explain to Trump that all previous attempts to reach a deal by extracting concessions from Israel did nothing but weaken Israel. And the Israeli public will no longer accept any such concessions from their government.

NGO Monitor: The black hole of Gaza aid

Last week, Israeli authorities revealed that, once again, Hamas has been stealing international aid money intended for the general Gazan population, and using it for its own purposes. In this case, Muhammad Murtaja, the local coordinator of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA), has been charged with siphoning millions from Turkish aid donations….The modus operandi of infiltrating the ranks of foreign aid groups is not new to Hamas.
In the end, the noble desires of international humanitarian groups to provide aid come at the expense and danger that terrorists will appropriate all or part of it. For too many NGOs and their government funders, the risks have not been properly weighed. Simply stated, regardless of whether not a terrorist group controls the region, and illegally and immorally paying it off is the price of doing business, NGOs will continue single-mindedly on their “humanitarian” mission.
The need for more safeguards and oversight on the work of aid groups in Gaza (and in other conflict areas as well) is clear and imperative. The mere thought that funds and goods intended for aid purposes end up in the hands of terrorists should cause governments to hit the brakes and rethink what would be the best way to ensure that aid distributed actually reaches the people of Gaza. A pattern such as the one emerging in Gaza should bring about a complete overhaul of how international aid operations are conducted in the terrorist-controlled enclave.

Israel and the Secret History of the Iran Deal

In The Iran Wars, Jay Solomon tells the story of the warfare and diplomacy—sometimes overt, more often covert—between the United States and the Islamic Republic since the fall of 2001, when Washington became aware that Tehran was meddling in Afghanistan and harboring al-Qaeda fugitives. The book also documents a largely successful campaign of financial warfare begun by the Bush administration in 2006, slowed by President Obama almost immediately after he took office, and then used—or, perhaps, wasted—as leverage to obtain the nuclear deal. Jordan Chandler Hirsch writes in his review:
Solomon has excavated many of the deeper patterns that underlay the nuclear diplomacy. . . . John Kerry, whose role in The Iran Wars is as a kind of diplomatic Don Quixote, dashed around the region, proposing to visit Tehran in 2009 and floating massive U.S. concessions without full White House approval. . . . [The] Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, responded by tweeting “Happy Rosh Hashanah,” an act of ecumenism that reportedly astonished Obama staffers. A sweet greeting here, a moderate move there: the Islamic Republic’s rhetorical morsels fed an insatiable American appetite for fantasies of a Tehran transformed.
Yet those fantasies weren’t simply about Iran. They were also about redefining America’s role in the world. For a few key figures in the administration, the nuclear talks represented something much more than preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. . . . President Obama seemed to believe that history was trending in America’s direction and that the best approach was to avoid needless confrontations that could interrupt that process. If the goal was for the United States to get out of history’s way, the greatest threat to the project was the Iranian nuclear crisis. The possibility of war, after all, meant the possibility of American imposing itself once again in the Middle East and on the globe.

Secret negotiations in London?

From the Hamas-linked Palestine Information Center site:

Secret talks are being held in London between prominent Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders and Israelis, London Evening Standard military correspondent Robert Fox reported Thursday.

The background and contents of this first round of talks were revealed to the Standard on Thursday by British Israeli think tank BICOM.

The delegates, senior and recently retired academics and politicians from Israel and the PA, do not wish to be named as the talks are ongoing. They have established secret back channels which are still active.

Here's what really happened:

BICOM and Chatham House hosted private talks between Israelis and Palestinians in London last year to explore new ideas to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The meeting involved former and current officials, academics and security figures from Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The delegates expressed overwhelming support for a two-state solution but reached a strong consensus that a single model for peace will not succeed. Instead they agreed to adopt a mixed model based on the best of different ideas that have been proposed, blending them together for maximum flexibility.

During the talks the teams critiqued four different proposed solutions to the conflict: bilateral negotiations,a regional framework, unilateralism and an Israeli-Palestinian confederation.

BICOM has published a new report, based on the talks, that proposes a new ‘hybrid’ model for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The report includes a number of insights and common positions that arose from the discussions.

I haven't had a chance to look at the report yet, but you can.

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If you look at the video of the swearing-in ceremony of US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, you will notice that he slightly changed the words he was repeating from Vice President Mike Pence.

As Pence asked him, “Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. 'I, David Friedman, do solemnly swear..” Friedman said, "I, David Friedman, do solemnly affirm..."

This is because traditional Jews try not to swear, due to the seriousness of the prohibition of taking God's name in vain.

Traditionally, the swearing in ceremony used by Western governments was meant specifically to exclude non-Christians from being part of the government. The BBC notes:

Jews were excluded by the oath less deliberately, as it included the words ''on the true faith of a Christian", as well as being sworn on the Christian Bible. The Jewish Liberal David Salomons was elected to Parliament in 1851 and took the oath, taking it upon himself to omit the problematic phrase. He was ejected from his seat a few days later, with a £500 fine for voting illegally in Parliament. Jewish MPs were allowed to swear without the phrase by Jews Relief Act 1858.
Affirming, as an alternative to swearing, was introduced by the Parliamentary Oaths Act of 1866, but did not at first apply to atheists or agnostics. The law applied to "the people called Quakers" and anyone else who was already allowed to affirm in a court of law, but atheists were not supposed to affirm in court because the affirmation was made "in the Presence of Almighty God".
The right to affirm in Parliament was finally extended to atheists in 1888, after Charles Bradlaugh, founder of the National Secular Society, was thrown out of the Commons four times for atheism, and re-elected each time.
He had first of all tried to make the affirmation which was intended for Quakers, and then later tried to take the standard oath (perhaps, like the republican Tony Banks in 1997, with his fingers crossed) but MPs who knew about his beliefs refused to let him.
Bradlaugh administered the oath to himself and was expelled anyway. Only on his fifth election to Parliament in 1886 was he allowed to swear and take his seat, and it was his Oaths Act which in 1888 extended the right to affirm to atheists and anyone else who objects to swearing.

The Jewish objection to swearing for office today is not based on the problems of swearing to a Christian deity but rather to an extreme reluctance towards taking any kinds of oaths.

So even in the Israeli army, religious Jews have the option of saying that they "declare" instead of "swear" to perform their duties.

Of course, the refusal to say "I swear" is not a dispensation for lying under Jewish law. Antisemites like to pretend that the Kol Nidrei prayer on Yom Kippur which is meant to annul oaths is somehow a loophole to allow Jews to lie to non-Jews. It isn't.

Friedman placed a kippah on his head for the ceremony, and he placed his hand on a Hebrew Bible - Tanach, as can be seen in this detail from a photo tweeted by Shmuley Boteach. Clearly he took this ceremony seriously.

His presumed grandkids running around didn't seem to take it quite as seriously, though!

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Antisemitic cartoonist named "cultural ambassador" for Belgian town

Luc Descheemaeker (aka O-Sekoer) has been named the "cultural ambassador par excellence" for the city of Torhout, Belgium.

Belgian news site Nieuwsblad says he deserves the award because his cartoons have been shown worldwide.

This is true. He was a winner of Iran's Holocaust Cartoon contest with this entry.

The town of Torhout is quite aware of this because there was worldwide publicity for the school he taught at honoring him despite this clearly antisemitic cartoon.

And he has drawn other antisemitic cartoons as well, like this one that blames Jews for being blown up by terrorists:

This one with a similar motif doesn't bother with the seeming even handedness of the previous cartoon, squarely blaming Jews for terrorism:

There is no way for any honest person to interpret these cartoons as anything but antisemitism.

A JTA reporter in Belgium who covered the previous honor for Descheemaeker was shaken by the tacit support for antisemitic expression in Belgium:

I wanted to see whether the school can get away with defending the maker of blatant anti-Semitic imagery by claiming to be neutral on its celebrated teacher’s extracurricular activities. So I repeatedly queried the board of education, the royal house, the Queen Paola Foundation, the municipality where the school is located and Belgium’s federal center against discrimination. I received one written response, from the foundation, saying it had no comment for me.

This see-no-evil approach from government offices in a country whose leaders often declare a zero-tolerance attitude to anti-Semitism surprised me. But the real shock was the response from the Belgian media to JTA’s coverage of the affair.

De Morgen, one of Belgium’s largest and best-respected dailies, ran an article that omitted reference to Descheemaeker’s caricatures of Jews. It described the Iranian competition as a “controversial” affair “themed on the Holocaust,” which the paper said was instituted as a statement about freedom of expression following the publication of insulting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark.

(UNESCO, the cultural arm of the United Nations, had called the contest “a mockery of the genocide of the Jewish people.”)

Descheemaeker, who is described in the paper as an internationally acclaimed caricaturist, is quoted as saying in reaction to the uproar created by his work: “There is still such a thing as freedom of expression.”

Knack, a popular news site, took the same editorial line.

Confused, I reached out to Joel Rubinfeld, founder of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism and former president of the CCOJB umbrella group of French-speaking Belgian Jewish communities. I wanted to know whether Belgian education officials were more tolerant of expressions of anti-Semitism than their counterparts from other Western European countries.

“It’s a problem,” he said. “We’ve encountered a number of cases where schools did not take the necessary measures when Jewish pupils were targeted in anti-Semitic bullying, for example.”

A teacher who last year told a Jewish high school student, “We should put you all on freight wagons,” was allowed to keep his job following an internal inquiry. It ended with him apologizing while denying any anti-Semitic intent in the first place.

Cases involving anti-Semitic abuse among students are regularly ignored at Belgian schools, “which don’t apply the measures necessary to make these cases stop,” Rubinfeld said.

One student was forced to leave his public school and was enrolled in a private Jewish one last year following harassment, which included a threat to “break his skull” if he showed support for Israel. Also last year, the Belgian media reported on the online shaming by classmates of a pro-Israel high school student. He also left the public education system for a Jewish school.

This honor happened in January. No one in Belgium thought it was controversial enough to even raise an eyebrow based on media reports.

When naked Jew-hate is excused under "freedom of expression" that means that antisemitism is officially condoned in Belgium.

(h/t Rudi)

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NYT again shows that "truth" is a slogan, not a reality, in its reporting on Nikki Haley

The New York Times has an article on Ambassador Nikki Haley's speech to the Council on Foreign Affairs that is a textbook example of media bias.

Every quote that the article by Somini Sengupta uses is followed by a claim by the reporter that Haley is lying. It is written like a fact check more than a news article.

As a result it fails at both.

The American envoy to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, described the United States on Wednesday as the “moral conscience” of the world, and she dismissed the United Nations Human Rights Council as “so corrupt” without offering evidence.

Evidence is needed in court, not a public conversation. Haley may not have offered evidence but she did explain exactly why she calls the Human rights Council "corrupt." From her speech:

[T]he Human Rights Council is so corrupt. I mean, if you look what countries do is they get on it to protect themselves, to make sure that the fingers never pointed at them instead of actually looking at what we need to be doing for human rights for people around the world, and that’s part of it. When you’ve got bad actors that actually sit on the Human Rights Council, it makes you call into question what it is we’re trying to do.

"Corrupt" is not an inaccurate summation of what Haley's points are. But the NYT ignores that.

Later in the article, Sengupta comes back to this topic, and throws in another dubious fact check:

She used her address to deliver a pointed attack on the United Nations Human Rights Council, the main international body meant to promote and defend human rights.

“I mean, the Human Rights Council is so corrupt,” she said, adding that it includes “bad actors” who use it to protect themselves.

Several countries with poor human rights records, including China and Saudi Arabia, have indeed won seats on the council. But the United States has itself used its seat to forcefully defend its allies, including Saudi Arabia, which has been accused of abuses in the war in Yemen.

I am not aware when the US "forcefully" defended the Saudi campaign in Yemen at the UNHRC. There was hesitant support for a Saudi role at the UNHRC in 2015, with the caveat that the US hoped that Saudi Arabia would practice what it preaches in the group. by If it happened, it is surprising that Sengupta didn't note it in her article last year about criticism of the Saudi role in the Council.

At any rate, the moral equivalence that Sengupta is trying to draw between the US and the Saudis is obscene, and her assertion - to use her words, "without evidence" - does not belong in this article unless she can back it up.

She cited what she called a “ridiculously biased report attacking Israel,” and criticized the Security Council for holding monthly meetings about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (The council also discusses Yemen every month and Syria three times a month.)

Let's set aside how disgusting it is for Sengupta to compare a permanent item on the Security Council agenda on Israel - because of the extreme crime of Jews building houses - with ones on two countries where hundreds and thousands are being brutally killed every month.

Let's just see if Syria is indeed discussed three times a month at the Security Council.

According to its website, in 2016 there were 13 meetings about Israel, 25 about Syria and 11 on Yemen. (There were two others involving Israel - to extend the UNDOF and UNIFIL mandates - but I'm not counting them.)

In 2017 there were 3 meetings about Israel, 3 about Syria and 3 about Yemen.

However, most of the meetings on Syria and Yemen last less than 30 minutes. For Israel, however, there were full-day sessions in April, October and January, and other half-day sessions. I didn't see any full day meetings on Syria or Yemen.

By any measure, Sengupta is not accurate in her description of how often the UN discusses Syria. Most of the 2016 Syria discussions were in the context of discussions (and vetoes by Russia and China) of Security Council resolutions.

For someone who styles herself as a fact checker, Sengupta is not very good with facts.

Haley did discuss Israel, which Sengupta barely mentioned. Here is what Haley said:

Really, all I’ve done with Israel is tell the truth. So when I saw something wrong, I called it out. It was amazing to me that we had a briefing on the Middle East and literally all it was an Israel-bashing session. And so I was confused because there were so many other issues that needed to be talked about that were in the Middle East and that was just all they talked about. And they do it every single month. And so it was really just saying, with all the issues in the world this is what we’re going to talk about? So that was the logic with that.
I will tell you, there is such a huge want of so many people to see Israel and the Palestinian Authority come together. And I think that’s why you have seen President Trump, who’s just adamant that this is going to happen, do that. I met with the representative from the Palestinian Authority, and we talked about the situation here at the United Nations. And what I said to him was: Look, we just want balance. We just want it to be fair. And in doing that, what I, you know, had asked of him was, don’t put any more resolutions on the table bashing Israel. But at the same time, we’re not going to be able to really support you going forward in moving up if you don’t come to the table and negotiate.
So we’ve actually been pretty tough on both in terms of Israel having to come to the table and the Palestinian Authority coming to the table. I think that they will. The two need to decide what that solution looks like, and the two need to come together. They both claim they are. We’ll see what happens.

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03/30 Links Pt2: Col Kemp: 'The Palestinians want to destroy Israel'; Disgraceful Richard Falk Event

From Ian:

Col Kemp: 'The Palestinians want to destroy Israel'

Retired British Army Colonel Richard Kemp: 'PA leadership talks about peace at the UN, but it educates its children to hate Israel.'
Colonel Richard Camp, who commanded the British forces in Afghanistan from 2003 until 2006, spoke with Channel 20 about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
"Israel, for many years now, has been subject to the greatest slur campaign in the history of the human race," Col. Kemp said.
"Many countries are saying, that if Israel, for example, ceased to 'occupy,' so-called, the 'West Bank', or ceased to have 'settlements' there then that will bring peace, it won't bring peace. All that the Palestinians want is the annihilation of Israel. The Palestinian leadership does not want a two state solution."

IsraellyCool: EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE: Disgraceful Richard Falk Event

I was at the LSE for a book launch in honour of Richard Falk’s new book. The event, was the only university event on the tour not to cancel. It swiftly descended into a festival of Jew hatred. Gilad Atzmon, a notorious Jew baiter, turned up with his equally as disturbed mother, and Pam Arnold (aka Pam Hardyment), another person often caught spitting venom on camera. With the event hosted by ‘as a Jew’ Mary Kaldor, the Jewish members of the audience were caught between Falk and Atzmon. The Jews were blamed for the result. Jews were told to read Holocaust denier David Irving, they were told the Jews were expelled from Nazi Germany for misbehaving, and through all the provocation were ridiculed and shamed for the way they responded. Disturbing and exclusive footage.

UN Secretary General praises Quran's treatment of refugees, ignoring the preceding verse to kill non-believers

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres' speech at the Arab Summit was not nearly as bad as the one by Federica Mogherini that was the subject of the previous post.

Unlike Mogherini, Guterres put the Palestinian issue in context of the much larger problems in the region. To be sure he did spend a bit of time on it and toed the official UN line that settlements are the major obstacle to peace and that Palestinian Arab "humiliation" is a major crime. But he also mentioned Arab incitement and terrorism against Israel to an Arab audience, something that Ban Ki Moon wouldn't have done.

It is far from perfect but it is much better than we've seen from the UN in a long time.

One section of his speech was a little jarring.

My experience as High Commissioner for Refugees showed me the true nature of Islam, as Arab countries extended remarkable hospitality to wave upon wave of people fleeing violence and persecution.

Refugee protection is deeply rooted in the traditions of the Arabian peninsula -- refugee protection defined not only for Muslims but for all.

As the Holy Koran tells us in the Surah Al-Tawbah: “And if anyone of the disbelievers seeks your protection then grant him protection so that he may hear the word of God, and then escort him to where he will be secure”.

What a remarkable example of tolerance, compassion and modernity.

There is nothing in present-day international refugee law that was not reflected in the Holy Koran or the Hadith of the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him.

The verse he cites comes right after this one:

When the Sacred Months have passed, kill the polytheists wherever you find them. And capture them, and besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every ambush. But if they repent, and perform the prayers, and pay the alms, then let them go their way. God is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Is this the "tolerance, compassion and modernity" that Guterres is referring to? Does international law now allow for the beheadings of unbelievers?

Although some disagree, I read this chapter as saying that the Muslims must treat those seeking asylum with respect only as long as they either become Muslim or bow to Muslim supremacy as dhimmis. I do not believe that they would be escorted peacefully to security if they reject Islam.

This doesn't sound very tolerant. But I'm not a human rights expert like so many who fall over themselves to say how wonderful Islam is.

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