Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 02, 2017

J Street As Echo Chamber: Advocating Obama's Interests to the Jewish Community (Daled Amos)

Last week I came across a video I had stored on my Google Drive that I haven't looked at in years. It is a short clip from 2012 featuring J Street Field Director Carinne Luck answering a question during a J Street training session:

The video has been edited from a slightly longer video here.

The main points to take away from what Luck says are:

A sizable percentage of J Street is not Jewish
J Street responds to "the Hill, the (Obama) Administration" which wants J Street to "move Jews"
The bulk of J Street resources are dedicated to this
There is an uneasiness about those in J Street leadership who are not Jewish who may present themselves as Jews
In the longer version of the video, Luck also talks about how J Street "gives cover" for politicians in terms of the Jewish community - what are the politicians doing right or wrong and what do their Jewish constituents think.
Bottom Line: The goal of J Street is advocacy to the Jewish community--not representing Jewish interests and advocating for those interests in Washington.

The issue of J Street's goal being to "move Jews" on behalf of the Obama Administration seems timely considering the ongoing discussion of the echo chamber used by the White House to market the Iran Deal and discredit those who opposed it. Lee Smith writes about the implementation of the White House marketing strategy and how the Obama Administration echo chamber has now come unplugged:

The things that seemed to make sense last year—like exchanging Iranian crooks and spies for ordinary American citizens—now look ridiculous. And it’s clear why the deliberate urgency with which the administration messaged its Iran policy had the feel of an advertising campaign—because it was an advertising campaign, crafted to convince consumers that something you think is bad for you is actually good for you.

How much of that 'bad is good' way of thinking applies to J Street?

Recall:

Despite their repeated denials to the contrary, J Street is getting funded by George Soros, who has been accused of animus against Israel.
Mort Halperin on the J Street advisory council also wrote the letter that Goldstone circulated as his own on Capitol Hill last year, defending his anti-Israel report against HR 867 condemning his Report.
J Street went so far as to facilitate visits for Goldstone to the Hill -- J Street president Ben Ami said Goldstone met only 2 or 3 Congressmen; Goldstone said it was 10 or 12.
Already in 2009, there were connections between JStreet and NIAC, a pro-Iranian advocacy group.
Just this week J Street brought Breaking the Silence in to speak during Yom HaZikaron and Yom Haatzmaut

As a more recent example of J Street doing something "bad" for Israel's own "good" J Street brought "Breaking the Silence" to speak this week during Yom HaZikaron and Yom Haatzmaut. In their description on their website, J Street makes no mention of the days they picked for this. As for Breaking the Silence, J Street describes them as

an organization comprised of former Israeli soldiers who share testimonials of their experiences serving in the occupied territories. Through a photo exhibition, the soldiers share testimonials and highlight the moral and strategic dilemmas that the occupation creates for Israel and for the Israel Defense Forces.

But according to the NGO Monitor report on Breaking the Silence:

Breaking the Silence (BtS) collects testimonies of soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories during the Second Intifada,” claiming that the “testimonies portray a…grim picture of questionable orders in many areas regarding Palestinian civilians [which] demonstrate the depth of corruption which is spreading in the Israeli military…Israeli society continues to turn a blind eye, and to deny that which happens in its name.
Active in promoting “war crimes” charges against Israel. These charges were based on anonymous and unverifiable hearsay “testimonies.” [emphasis added]
Although claiming to address Israeli society, the NGO’s lobbying and media advocacy focus on international audiences, including presentations in Europe and the United States. Yehuda Shaul, BtS co-founder, defended this practice: “Sometimes, when you want to deliver messages to the inside, you must go outside.”

On the issue of echo chambers -- in 2012, in a New York Times article Jeff Zeleny described J Street as "a Jewish lobbying group in Washington that favors Democratic candidates"

Take a look. According to the J Street website:

In 2010, J Street endorsed 61 candidates -- all Democrats
In 2012, J Street endorsed 41 candidates -- all Democrats
In 2014, J Street endorsed 69 candidates -- all Democrats
In 2016, J Street endorsed 83 candidates -- all Democrats

That's 254 candidates J Street has endorsed over those 4 years.

Since J Street claims to be pro-Israel and pro-peace, are we to assume that there just aren't any pro-Israel candidates around?
Is it possible that in each and ever political race, the Democrat has a better record on Israel than the Republican?

For that matter, do each and every one of these Democratic politicians have a pro-Israel record?

Apparently not.

J Street described Tammy Baldwin as

Rep. Tammy Baldwin (WI-2) is running to replace retiring U.S. Senator Herb Kohl in what figures to be one of the most expensive and competitive races this cycle. Baldwin is the first openly gay woman elected to Congress and has represented this Madison based district since 1998. She is a strong supporter of Israel and two-state peace and proudly took JStreetPAC’s endorsement in 2010. Prior to serving in Congress, Baldwin served in the Wisconsin State Assembly, Madison City Council, Dane County Board of Supervisors, and practiced law for several years.

The Emergency Committee for Israel countered

J Street described Lois Capps as

Rep. Lois Capps is running for her sixth term representing this Coastal California district in Congress. Trained as a nurse, Rep. Capps serves on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, sits on the Subcommittee on Health and is expected to face a competitive re-election contest in this newly re-drawn district that includes much of Santa Barbara. One of JStreetPAC’s earliest endorsees, Rep. Capps has been a public champion of pro-Israel/pro-peace issues since being elected to Congress in 1998. As she has stated: “The vision the President has set forth for two states for two peoples reflects longstanding efforts by the U.S. over several Administrations and is the only viable way to move forward and achieve these critically important goals.”

The Emergency Committee for Israel countered

Keep in mind that this is going on at a time when Pew Research shows that Democrats are now about equally split between sympathizing more with Israel (33 percent) and with the Palestinians (31 percent):

For the first time this century — if not ever — Democrats are now about equally split
between sympathizing more with Israel and with the Palestinian Arabs. Source: Pew Research

J Street may well argue that they are concentrating on electing Democrats to Congress in order to combat that trend. However, the fact remains that this trend is going on at time that J Street is insisting on endorsing only Democrats, some with questionable pro-Israel credentials, for office.

Some echo chamber.

If indeed J Street acted under the guidance of the Obama Administration, not only backing the Iran deal but in general influencing American Jews rather than representing Jews in Washington -- J Street may well have served as a small scale echo chamber. J Street has successfully advocated and supported causes that were sometimes questionable and at other times actually detrimental to the cause of Israel.

Lee Smith notes in his article that the power of the Obama Administration echo chamber has been unplugged now that Obama is out of office.

That may be true.

But that is not going to stop J Street from continuing to try to follow the Obama White House directive to "move Jews."

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.

05/02 Links Pt1: On Independence Day, UNESCO okays resolution denying Israeli claims to Jerusalem; Oslo Doubled Israel’s Terror Toll

From Ian:

On Independence Day, UNESCO okays resolution denying Israeli claims to Jerusalem

The United Nation’s cultural body on Tuesday passed the latest in a series of resolutions that denies Israeli claims to Jerusalem, in a move both forcefully condemned by Israel and touted as a diplomatic feat due to the growing number of countries that opposed it.
Submitted to UNESCO’s Executive Board by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan, the resolution on “Occupied Palestine,” which indicates that Israel has no legal or historical rights anywhere in Jerusalem, was expected to pass, given the automatic anti-Israel majority in the 58-member body.
The vote, which coincided with Israel’s Independence Day, passed with 22 countries in favor, 23 abstentions, 10 opposed, and the representatives of three countries absent.
The 10 countries that voted against the resolution were the US, UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Greece, Paraguay, Ukraine, Togo, and Germany.
Its wording was slightly less harsh on Jerusalem than previous resolutions, in that it does affirm the importance of the city to the “three monotheistic religions.”
In the moments after the vote passed, Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, draped in a large Israeli flag, addressed the meeting.
“Even now, after this miserable vote, this blue and white flag is flying high above the Temple Mount and throughout Israel’s eternal capital city, Jerusalem, waving in the wind, saying to all ‘here we are, and we are here to stay,'” Shama-Hacohen said.
“This biased and blatantly deceitful decision, and the attempts to dispute the connection between Israel and Jerusalem, will not change the simple fact that this city is the historic and eternal capital of the Jewish people,” Danon said in a statement. “Israel will not stand silently by in the face of this shameful resolution.”
Full text of May 2017 UNESCO resolution on ‘Occupied Palestine’

Ahead of UNESCO vote, Netanyahu says Jews closest to Jerusalem

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday harshly criticized a resolution by the UN’s cultural agency that seemingly rejects the Jewish state’s sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem, saying the measure ignores the strength Jewish people’s millennia-long bond to Israel’s capital city.
Speaking at the Bible Quiz held annually on Independence Day, Netanyahu said that despite the text of the resolution, Judaism has deeper roots in Jerusalem that any other religion.
“There is no other people in the world for whom Jerusalem is as holy and important as for the Jewish people, even though a meeting will take place at UNESCO today that will try to deny this historical truth,” he said.
“We denounce UNESCO and uphold our truth, which is the truth,” that “throughout Jewish history Jerusalem was the heart of the nation.”

UN Watch: UNESCO’s Anti-Israel Resolution Gets Least Votes Ever

UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights NGO, condemned the “hijacking” of UNESCO’s agenda by the Palestinians and Arab states, after the agency’s 58-member board singled out Israel today for condemnation—the only nation to be criticized—as the Jewish state celebrated it 69th Independence Day.
“Israel lost the vote today, but it did score a small moral victory: despite reported fears that Germany’s negotiations with the Palestinians would erode support, Israel in the end won more votes than ever before, including from major democracies like the U.S., Britain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
“The Palestinians at UNESCO are hemorrhaging support for their ritual anti-Israel resolution: last April they had 33 yes votes, then in October it was down to 24, and today it’s down to 22. The no votes increased substantially from 6 to 10.”
“And once again, India—an increasingly important friend and ally of Israel—has voted to abstain, showing that its recent break from decades of lockstep voting with the Arab states is now a fixed policy.”

Israel is something you have to experience in order to truly understand. This land is both less and much more than people tend to assume.

These are some of the things I learned living in Israel:

In Israel, I learned that “no” means “maybe.”

Rules are for the boring.

There always is a better way, there has to be a better way. It’s just a matter of finding it.

Stubborn isn’t a bad quality (necessarily). Neither is pushy. They are just ways to get things done.

In Israel, I learned that just because people complain doesn’t mean they aren’t happy. Loud doesn’t mean that people are angry. In Israel, loud means that people are passionate, that they care (it may not be what you care about but there is always passion about something).

Israelis love to criticize and complain about politics, the country, “the situation.” They say that there is too much division, prejudice etc. Looking around one discovers a society that is actually extraordinarily egalitarian, where anyone can succeed – if they are willing to work hard enough. Gender, age, race, cultural background, socioeconomic background, and religion are not barriers for those with the drive to succeed. Just ask Golda Meir, Karin Elharar, Rami Levi or Col. Rasan Eliyan.

In Israel, I learned not to “judge a book by its cover”. For example, an impressive looking restaurant is not a sign that it is good. The question is whether or not it is full of people. The person sitting next to you that is poorly dressed may be filthy rich or a Nobel Prize winner. You never know. Israelis always appreciate content, achievements over making sure things look nice. Or organized.

In Israel, I learned the true meaning of generosity. People will smother you with advice, give you the clothes off their back and food from their mouths. There is always room for one more at the table – “pull up a chair, take a plate” – it doesn’t matter that the plates may not match, what matters is being together.

In Israel, food means love. It means life. People whose grandparents starved feel most satisfied seeing other people eat. Lots means that you care. If bread isn’t still hot it’s not really fresh. Israeli food is really good. Especially our fresh fruit and vegetables. Coffee tastes better here too.

In Israel, strangers can become instant best friends and tell you their most private thoughts.

It’s not weird, they are just family you haven’t met before.

In Israel, children are loved. They should be seen and heard. The more, the better. Old people are also appreciated. Just seeing someone old makes Israelis happy, especially if they lucid and still active. Living is an achievement. Knowing that there are new generations, growing strong and free is a source of joy.

(I suppose that what happens when so many of your relatives have been murdered…)

In Israel, I learned that heroes don’t look like action figures. Often it is not their physique that is impressive, it is their strength of character. Interestingly, most true heroes object to being called heroic or even brave. They will tell you: “I just did what I had to do. What else could I do?”

I learned, as inexplicable as this sounds, that just because an Israeli defines him or herself as an atheist doesn’t mean they don’t believe in God or the necessity of the Jewish people to be a “light on to the nations.” They have different ways of explaining why this is so. The concepts are different but the bottom line is the same: morality, decency, personal responsibility, being judged by history.

I learned that miracles are real. They aren’t a thing of the past. Not burning bushes but miracles nonetheless, things that should have happened but didn’t. Things that defy all laws of nature and statistics – like Israel itself. There is no other explanation for this country.

Most of all I learned that other countries might be easier or more comfortable but there is no place like home.

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The Arab reaction to the Hamas document issued yesterday focuses on one specific point: Hamas' seeming break with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood has become toxic, especially in Egypt but also in other Arab states like Jordan and Gulf states.

Hamas is trying to dissociate itself from the organization that it was originally a branch of (see the similarities of their logos) because it wants to be considered a legitimate representative of the Palestinian Arabs on par with the PA. Its association with Islamists was hurting that goal.

The document itself also reveals that Hamas is trying to appeal to the Arab world at large that has been ignoring it lately:

Palestine is an Arab Islamic land. It is a blessed sacred land that has a special place in the heart of every Arab and every Muslim.
Palestine is at the heart of the Arab and Islamic Ummah and enjoys a special status.
The Zionist project does not target the Palestinian people alone; it is the enemy of the Arab and Islamic Ummah posing a grave threat to its security and interests. It is also hostile to the Ummah’s aspirations for unity, renaissance and liberation and has been the major source of its troubles.
The liberation of Palestine is the duty of the Palestinian people in particular and the duty of the Arab and Islamic Ummah in general.
Hamas believes that the Palestinian issue is the central cause for the Arab and Islamic Ummah.

A number of Arabic articles are discussing whether Hamas is serious about this break or whether it is simply a trick to gain legitimacy.

While Hamas is intending to fool the Western world, its real aim is to regain the legitimacy it had in the Arab world only a few years ago.

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"Tel Aviv Bombed"

From the New York Times, May 14, 1948:

Other smaller newspapers also noted that Tel Aviv was bombed:

So what exactly happened?

The Palestine Post gave details:

Here is a stunning photo from a Life magazine photographer with the wreckage of the Egyptian plane downed, literally, on the Tel Aviv beach.

Here are other shots of the plane:

As Israel's Air Force flies over the nation today, remember that they are the ones that ensure that no one else can fly bombers over Israeli cities as they used to.

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The Canadian Jewish Chronicle published this backgrounder on May 14, 1948. While the editors probably were just looking for generic material to fill the issue with, it is refreshing to see a history of Israel that accurately shows the entire breadth of the Jewish attachment to the land for 4000 years, and not a history that starts in the 19th century that subtly supports the Arab narrative of Jews as outsiders stealing the land.

This timeline, by contrast, shows a fairly decent history of how Jews have attempted and often succeeded in returning to Zion throughout the exile, as well as how the "anti-Zionists" of old tried to stop them and how some proto-Zionists helped them.

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.

"Moderate" Hamas platform justifies terrorism as a "right." But so does Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah!.

This is the part of the supposedly moderate Hamas "political document" that not only justifies murdering Israelis, but couches the murder of Israelis as a human right:

Resistance and Liberation:

24. The liberation of Palestine is the duty of the Palestinian people in particular and the duty of the Arab and Islamic Ummah in general. It is also a humanitarian obligation as necessitated by the dictates of truth and justice. The agencies working for Palestine, whether national, Arab, Islamic or humanitarian, complement each other and are harmonious and not in conflict with each other.

25. Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people.

26. Hamas rejects any attempt to undermine the resistance and its arms. It also affirms the right of our people to develop the means and mechanisms of resistance. Managing resistance, in terms of escalation or de-escalation, or in terms of diversifying the means and methods, is an integral part of the process of managing the conflict and should not be at the expense of the principle of resistance.

Yes, this is justification for bus bombings, rocket fire to civilian areas and stabbing random Jews.

But Hamas' main political rival, Fatah, believes the exact same thing. From its 2009 political platform that has not been changed:

The liberation of the homeland is the central axis of the Fatah Movement’s struggle, including the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, as an inalienable right. This right cannot be lost by attrition since it was recognized and confirmed by the international community.... In the short run, it focuses on confronting the settlements, the judaization of Jerusalem, the siege imposed on our territories, putting an end to the occupation of our cities and villages as a step towards achieving our strategic goals.

Fatah launched armed struggle, and other methods of legitimate resistance to liberate the homeland. Such a right is recognized by international law as long as the occupation of our land remains. ...

The Palestinian people’s right to practice armed resistance against the military occupation of their land remains a constant right confirmed by international law and international legality. However, the selection of struggle methods, in time and space depends on the capabilities of our people and our Movement.

The only differences between the Fatah and Hamas platforms is that Fatah says that sometimes it needs to use "peace" as a strategic option, while Hamas only says it may choose to "de-escalate" armed resistance. Fatah does add language claiming that it doesn't target civilians, a lie (it celebrates its attacks on civilians in the document itself as "legitimate resistance"). Hamas has claimed in the past that same lie, that it doesn't target civilians, but that lie did not make it into the political document.

Fatah makes it clear that its ultimate goal is the same as Hamas': to "liberate the homeland" which of course includes all of Israel, with a state in the territories as phase one. And Hamas says the same by saying that it would accept such a Palestinian state in the territories but by not emphasizing that its goal remains the same: from the river to the sea.

The media coverage of the Hamas document has not been as bad as I feared, although there is plenty to complain about. But there has been next to no coverage of the similar document issued by Mahmoud Abbas' movement. And the two documents are virtually identical.

And Fatah knows it:

Fatah: Hamas has endorsed the PLO platform; we demand an apology from Hamas for calling us traitors and infidels. #Hamas_Document
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) May 1, 2017

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05/01 Links Pt2: Celebrating Yom Haatzmaut in a World of Turmoil; With ‘Zionists’ like that, who needs enemies?

From Ian:

Col. Kemp, Gen. Molan: Where is world outrage over Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul?

On May 1, Israelis will observe Remembrance Day, honoring soldiers who fell in defense of the Jewish state, and victims of terrorism.
At an age when most teenagers are getting ready to go off to university or travel abroad, Israelis devote at least two to three years of their lives to defending and protecting their country, the only Jewish state, and by extension the West’s front line of defense in the global war against Islamic terrorism.
Two such soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of the State of Israel were Lt. Hadar Goldin and Sgt. Oron Shaul, who were killed in action by Hamas during Israel’s defensive 2014 war with the terrorist group, Operation Protective Edge.
On August 1, 2014, hours after a United Nations- and US-brokered humanitarian cease-fire between Israel and Hamas went into effect, Hamas terrorists emerged from a tunnel in Gaza, ambushed an IDF unit and killed Hadar, who was only 23 years old. Hamas then took his body and have been holding it hostage in Gaza since, treating it contemptuously as both a bargaining chip and an instrument to torment his family.
Shaul, who was only 20 years old at the time, was also killed by Hamas, when he left his armored personnel carrier to repair the vehicle and Hamas fired on his unit, killing him, and likewise taking his body and malignly holding it in Gaza.
Holding the bodies of soldiers killed in action and refusing their return to their next of kin for burial is a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law. As is using the soldiers’ bodies as bargaining chips, which Hamas continues to do.

David Collier: Stephen Sedley, FSOI and the PSC, getting antisemitism all mixed up

As I researched for an article about the demonstration and counter demonstration at SOAS on 27 April, I came across an essay on antisemitism by Stephen Sedley. Sedley is a former appeal court judge and the essay was just published in the London Review of Books. The essay dealt critically with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.
The building block for the IHRA definition reads:
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.”
The definition was adopted by the UK government in December 2016, as part of an ongoing war against increasing levels of antisemitism. The IHRA definition logically accommodates a defence against ‘Israel as Jew’ manifestations of antisemitic activity. In turn anti-Israel activists, accused the government of ‘weaponising antisemitism‘.
What seems to be true is that antisemitism is being viewed as a serious battle and improved definitions are being deployed to fight against a defiant and flexible disease. So what on earth are some people doing trying to undermine these efforts?
The Sedley article is just the latest of a recent tsunami of attempts to discredit a newly deployed working formula. It is time to cast an eye on this dangerous strategy.

Does Anyone Here Care about Muslim Women?

The Palestinian Hamas terror movement recently banned Palestinians living under its control in the Gaza Strip from celebrating International Women's Day. Hamas dismissed a decision by the Palestinian Authority (PA) government in the West Bank to give all civil servants a day off on this occasion, arguing that International Women's Day was a "Western and foreign" event that is incompatible with Islamic traditions and teachings.
The Islamic movement also issued a warning to all public and private institutions in the Gaza Strip, including schools and universities, to refrain from marking the occasion.
Hamas's decision drew sharp criticism from many Palestinians, especially women's groups and human rights organizations, as well as the Palestinian Authority. The critics maintained that the ban was a sign of Hamas's disrespect for women and their contribution to Palestinian society.
The General Union of Palestinian Workers issued a statement in which it condemned Hamas's refusal to acknowledge and honor the role of Palestinian women. The statement said that Palestinian women have made huge sacrifices and contributed remarkably to the Palestinian labor force and the development of society.
The Hamas ban also angered many Palestinian men, who expressed outrage over the "humiliation" of Palestinian women. Fathi Tbail, a leading Palestinian journalist, commented: "I will celebrate International Women's Day, whether you (Hamas) like it or not. All you represent is retardation!"
But not all Palestinians were protesting the latest Hamas insult against Palestinian women. Take, for instance, Linda Sarsour.
Sarsour is a US-based supporter of sharia law and the anti-Israel BDS movement who chose, instead of condemning Hamas for cancelling International Women's Day, to spew her hatred against Israel and Zionism.

I wrote the original essay around 2002 and I have been modifying it since then. Here is this year's version:

Every year, the State of Israel seems to be up against yet another unsolvable crisis. These have ranged from wars to suicide bombings to terror rockets to facing the prospect of nuclear-armed enemies. Our enemies have come close to succeeding in demonizing Israel at every international forum.

Yet, here she is, 69 years old and more beautiful than she was at birth.

Yes, I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.

I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, just like - and arguably more than - any other country.

I am proud of how the IDF conducts itself during its war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet, save the US, that would try to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened, shot at, mortared, rocketed, stabbed and murdered in cold blood. At times there are discussions whether the IDF's moral standards are too high and end up being counterproductive - and what other army could one even have that conversation about?

I am also proud that Israel investigates any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keeps trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the people that the enemy is hiding behind. This is not done because of pressure from "human rights" organizations - it is done because it is the right thing to do. Even when everyone knows that the world will accuse it of "war crimes," the IDF retains incredibly high moral standards, which can be easily proven for anyone who wants to investigate the situation impartially. (People willing to do that are, regrettably, few and far between.) It would be so easy for Israelis to say that since the world will accuse them of atrocities anyway, then why bother with holding to such standards - but young Israeli soldiers do, day in and day out. The rare exceptions prove the rule.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while in a constant war footing. One only needs to read the hateful articles in Israel's left-wing publications on Israel's Independence Day to fathom how far press freedom goes in Israel.

I am proud of how Israel responds to seemingly intractable problems. In the early days of the intifada there seemed to be no solution - but the IDF found one, managing to bring deadly suicide attacks from 60 in 2002 down to practically none today. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous. The 'knife intifada," prompted by words by the PA president himself, has largely died down because of Israeli defensive actions and innovative pro-active work on social media. Challenge after challenge is met and solved with brains and creativity.

The enemy has not stopped trying, and the history of antisemitism shows that it never will. If the Israel haters had their way, Israel would resemble Iraq or Afghanistan today with the Jews as frightened as minorities are in every other Middle Eastern country.

There is a right and a wrong in this conflict, and I am proud that Israel is in the right.

Jews know something about being singled out, about being judged with double standards. We have been attacked for being too rich and too poor, too successful and too needy, too capitalist and too socialist, too religious and too secular, too insular and too integrated. These same wildly inconsistent attacks are now targeting the Jewish state. Israel will survive and thrive, just as Jews themselves have, despite these attacks.

And the best survival technique is success.

Israel has succeeded and continues to succeed in its many accomplishments in building up a desert wasteland into a thriving and vibrant modern country, with its many scientific achievements, incredible leadership in high-tech and the environment, world class universities and culture. Practically every computer and mobile phone being built today includes technology and innovations from a single small Middle Eastern country. A tiny nation, under constant siege, with almost no natural resources besides breathtaking beauty, has used its smarts and strength to build a modern success story. In a short period of time Israel made itself into a strong yet open nation that its neighbors can only dream of becoming.

And they are indeed starting to dream. Arab nations are waking up to the reality of Israel and the desire to be more like her.. Despite the constant incitement against Israel in their media, ordinary Arabs know that Israel treats its minorities with more respect, and gives them more civil rights, than Arab nations give their own Arab citizens. One of the many ironies that is emerging is that both the most populous and the richest Arab nations are now openly on Israel's side on many matters, and the charge by their critics that they are "Zionist" - which used to be anathema - has lost its sting.

Zionists have every reason to be proud of the incredible achievements of the Jewish national movement.

The word "Zionist" is not an epithet - it is a compliment.

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.

Is there a lower limit for Israel-haters in academia?

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

The Spring 2017 edition of Fathom – a journal that offers a lot of interesting material on Israel – includes a review of a book that was published last year under the title “Israel and Palestine: Alternative Perspectives on Statehood.” As this title indicates, the book is yet another attempt to legitimize proposals to do away with the world’s only Jewish state, though it also features contributions by academics who reject the so-called “one-state solution”. According to the Fathom review, the book “originated in a 2011 conference organised by the Political Science Department of Tel Aviv University,” and in view of this information, I was sure that the Richard Silverstein mentioned as one of the contributors couldn’t possibly be the notorious blogger.

Well, I was wrong…

The fact that a contribution by Silverstein was included in the book (Chapter 3: Israel and the Closing of the American Jewish Mind) is unfortunately not criticized in the Fathom review, though it arguably provides a revealing glimpse of the odious company anti-Israel academics keep. Apparently, Silverstein didn’t quite have what it takes to finish his Ph.D. – he says he “studied for a PhD at UC Berkeley”– and while he has dedicated fans among Israel-haters, he has long been known as a zealous propagandist who will use racial slurs against opponents and who loves to come up with bizarre conspiracy theories and imaginary “scoops” that suit his agenda.

As I’m writing this, I just see a new EoZ post mentioning Silverstein among those who live in a fantasy world where “Israel and ISIS are allies” – and we also learn that Silverstein is now a popular contributor to Russia Insider, where almost 10K readers thought his story about Israel’s imaginary alliance with ISIS was worth sharing… It’s just one of many Silverstein posts that could be entitled with an updated version of the Nazi slogan “The Jews are our misfortune” – as Silverstein’s message is clearly: “The Jewish state is our misfortune.” And it turns out that his message is popular: The widely shared Russia Insider post is recycled from the Middle East Eye, where it also got several thousand social media shares under the title “Ultimate opportunism: The tacit Israeli-Islamic State alliance in Syria,” and it was first published on Silverstein’s own blog under the title: “BREAKING: Former Israeli Defense Minister Confirms Israeli Collaboration with ISIS in Syria,” with the social media counter again showing several thousand shares.

Fake news about Jews behaving badly remain unsurprisingly popular.

While I think a supposedly “academic” book that includes a chapter by a fake-news propagator like Silverstein should not be taken seriously, I am all too aware that advanced academic degrees and prestigious positions don’t necessarily provide protection from irrational views on Israel. Ian S. Lustick, Bess W. Heyman chair in political science and professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, is a good case in point. His chapter on “Sense of the Nakba: Ari Shavit, Baruch and Zionist Claims to Territory” is criticized in the Fathom review as based on a “tendentious view” that seems “odd” and that “would be regarded as absurd if applied in the Americas.”

But there’s more that could be described as “tendentious,” “odd” and “absurd” about Lustick’s views on Israel. As Martin Kramer has pointed out, Lustick insisted in the early 2000s that “that the success of the ‘peace process’ in achieving its aim of two states wasn’t only plausible and possible,” but that it was ultimately “inevitable.” Yet, a decade later, Lustick “reversed his supposedly well-considered, scientifically informed assessment […] without so much as a shrug of acknowledgement” and penned a lengthy New York Times op-ed in favor of a “one-state solution,” asserting that it wouldn’t be “the end of the world” if the world’s only Jewish state ceased to exist and was replaced by “a single state [that] might be the route to eventual Palestinian independence.”

A few weeks after writing this op-ed, Lustick hosted Max Blumenthal to promote his odious screed Goliath, which equates Israel with Nazi Germany. As I have described previously, Lustick highlighted during the event with apparent approval that Blumenthal showed in Goliath that “Israel is not just a little bit fascist, Israel is a lot fascist.” Lustick pointed out that this was the “ultimate delegitimizer” because after World War II, “nothing fascist can even be allowed to survive.” Referring to the biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha, Lustick then proceeded to ask Blumenthal to fancy himself in the position of God in order to decide whether there are enough “good people” in today’s Sodom-like Israel to save it from destruction. Blumenthal, who really didn’t need convincing that Israel as a Jewish state shouldn’t be allowed to survive, asserted that his priority was relieving “the suffering of the indigenous people of Palestine,” which could only be achieved by “external pressure” – as advocated by the BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions) movement – on Jewish Israelis in order to force them to choose between emigrating and agreeing to “become indigenized” by accepting Arab dominance in political, cultural and social terms.

After Lustick had encouraged Blumenthal to ponder the question if there were enough “good people” in Sodom-like Israel to save it from destruction, it was hardly surprising that he didn’t object when Blumenthal responded by openly calling for the demise of the Jewish state and a “Juden raus”-policy for those of Israel’s Jews who would be unwilling to “become indigenized” after the hoped-for victory of the BDS movement.

When it comes to the world’s only Jewish state, there is apparently no lower limit in academia: academics with prestigious positions will happily legitimize scribblers like Silverstein and Blumenthal whose only qualification is their intense hate of Israel.

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05/01 Links Pt1: Israel’s birthday, Abbas and Balfour; Teaching Palestinian Children to Value Terrorism

From Ian:

Why Everything You Think You Know About Foreign Policy Is Wrong

There are no winners in war, only losers. The most arduous nuclear inspection regime in history involves letting Iran inspect its own nuclear sites. Funding a state at war won’t fill its war chest. Restraining the clerical regime in Iran means relieving sanctions to make billions of dollars. Rewarding a state sponsor of terror for its activities makes that state less likely to sponsor terror. Deterrence doesn’t work.
The logic at work in some of the more popular arguments made by Obama aides and their validators in the press wasn’t dialectical or paradoxical; e.g., if you want peace, prepare for war. It was Gladwellian—what’s really true is the opposite of whatever you think is true. Of course, that’s not journalism, it’s just marketing, or, in contemporary journalism-speak, Voxsplaining, after the popular liberal website Vox, which devoted itself in its entirety to counter-intuitive self-branded “hot takes” designed to showcase the wisdom of whatever the current Obama administration policy was.
To anyone who had read their Malcolm Gladwell, this was all deeply familiar. In Gladwell’s new-age sociology of marketing, you had the “connectors,” who knew lots of people, and the “mavens,” who knew important things. Most important of all were the “persuaders,” or super-charismatic figures, at the top of the heap. All of which explains why Mad Men was one of the big cultural events of the Obama years: It’s a story about an inner circle of somewhat-hip mavens and connectors working for a visionary king of cool to shape the beliefs of millions of Americans.
Obama’s “echo chamber” was another such story, with the “mavens” (policymakers and experts) and “connectors” (journalists) busily selling the Iran deal for their own king of cool in the White House. Those who wanted to be convinced were pretty easy to convince: Obama had Israel’s back and would never grant a nuclear weapon to a regime that threatens the existence of the Jewish state. Filters make cigarettes better for you! Others were a harder sell, and so the message had to be turned against them: If you don’t support a deal that frees up billions for a regime that threatens war, then you’re a warmonger.
It was no accident so much of the language and even imagery the Obama team used to sell the deal spun off anti-Semitic tropes. It was supposed to be scary. All of advertising is a threat, where the trick is simply in how you veil it—you don’t fit in but you want to, so buy our product. Malcolm Gladwell and Vance Packard would have been proud.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Embattled, Weak Abbas Comes to White House

This week, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and US President Donald Trump will sit down together to talk. This is the first such meeting since the US presidential election, and it comes at a time when the Palestinian scene is characterized by mounting internal tensions, fighting and divisiveness. The disarray among the Palestinians, where everyone seems to be fighting everyone else, casts serious doubt on Abbas's ability to lead the Palestinians towards a better future. The chaos also raises the question whether Abbas has the authority to speak on behalf of a majority of Palestinians, let alone sign a peace agreement with Israel that would be acceptable to enough of his people.
Abbas, however, seems rather oblivious to the state of bedlam among the Palestinians, and appears determined to forge ahead despite the radical instability he is facing.
He is travelling to Washington to tell Trump that he and his PA leadership seek a "just and comprehensive" peace with Israel through the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
In the meeting, Abbas is likely to repeat his long-standing charges that Israel continues to "sabotage" any prospect for peace with the Palestinians.
Abbas is not likely to mention the mayhem that the PA leadership is facing at home. Nor is the fact that the Palestinians are as far as ever from achieving their goal of statehood likely to be a preeminent subject. Why bother discussing inconvenient truths, such as the deep divisions among the Palestinians and failure to hold presidential and parliamentary elections, when you can point the finger of blame at Israel?

Elliott Abrams: Teaching Palestinian Children to Value Terrorism

Peace between Israel and the Palestinians does not, fundamentally, depend on who is doing the negotiating, how skilled they are, and other such diplomatic matters. Fundamentally it depends on the desire for peace.
A new study of Palestinian textbooks finds that Palestinian children are being taught to glorify and value terrorism and violence. The study, called “Palestinian Elementary School Curriculum 2016–17: Radicalization and Revival of the PLO Program,” was conducted by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (in Jerusalem) and can be found here.
The study’s summary begins with this:
The new Palestinian curriculum, which includes new textbooks for grades 1–4, is significantly more radical than previous curricula. To an even greater extent than the 2014–15 textbooks, the curriculum teaches students to be martyrs, demonizes and denies the existence of Israel and focuses on a “return” to an exclusively Palestinian homeland.
Within the pages of the textbooks children are taught to be expendable. Messages such as: “the volcano of my revenge”; “the longing of my blood for my land”; and “I shall sacrifice my blood to saturate the land” suffuse the curriculum. Math books use numbers of dead martyrs to teach arithmetic. The vision of an Arab Palestine includes the entirety of what is now Israel, defined as the “1948 Occupied Territories.”
That is not the way to prepare children for peace.

Days after questioning whether we should be taking student government divestment votes seriously any longer, along came Exhibit A-Z for why we shouldn’t, direct from the University of Wisconsin at Madison (UWM).

This story has everything, folks!

First, the familiar phenomena of an endless student council meeting to debate an anti-Israel divestment motion proffered by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) who, after browbeating student leaders for hours, ended up seeing their measure tabled indefinitely. But for SJP et al, “indefinitely” translates to “until we can sneak it back on the agenda when no one is looking.”

Sure enough, a new debate on the topic of divestment was announced and information distributed about it – you guessed it – during the Passover holiday! And when Jewish students complained, rather than hold off debate until all interested parties could participate, student leaders changed the rules to make sure divestment could make it back on the agenda.

Fortunately, everyone was told, the original anti-Israel language would not be part of this new resolution. Instead, student leaders were going to discuss a list of demands to be made to school administrators addressing divesting from companies involved with a wide range of controversial issues, like fossil fuels and general human rights abuses. In other words, the vote would be about companies, not countries.

Ah, but here is where the amendment process kicks in. For no sooner had the general (i.e., non-Israel-specific) measure gained support that SJP and their allies in student government added amendments that turned the thing back into a full-fledged BDS resolution. “Not so!” screamed the conspirators. Just because we accuse Israel of everything from practicing Apartheid to training cops to beat up black people, and demanding that companies on the BDS blacklist be specifically mentioned, that doesn’t mean the measure we just got passed has anything to do with BDS.

The first people who weren’t buying it were Jewish students, which is why the few of them attending the meeting marched out in disgust (along with principled non-Jewish student leaders). And then – predictably and within hours – the school’s administration announced they would not act on any student demands generated in such an anti-democratic fashion, condemning the entire student government for good measure.

Never missing an opportunity to play victim, the BDS cru then demanded the President of the university resign for not taking them seriously with regard to the various social justice causes they were hiding behind (perhaps because they had already demonstrated their total disinterest in black lives or economic justice by insisting all such issues take a distant back seat to BDS uber alles).

Oh, and did I mention the lawsuits?

Hard to believe that in barely a month the BDSers managed to destroy campus comity by purposely driving wedges between minority groups, alienate student and school leaders at a time when both are facing the consequences of drastic state budget cuts), and turned student government into a laughingstock being condemned, mocked and targeted for dissolution when it’s not being sued.

And I haven’t even mentioned the punchline: that all of this activity was rushed to the finish line in April so that the BDSers could chalk up a “victory” before new student leadership took over on May 1^st (with that new leadership likely to undo everything the boycotters just forced down everyone’s throats). In other words, all the tears and anger and hatred and destruction the boycott brigade visited upon UWM was for nothing more than a one-day headline on Mondoweiss announcing an impotent political pose not destined to last the week.

So once again, can someone tell me why we need to treat this kind of activity as saying anything about campus opinion on Israel vs. the ludicrous and destructive behavior of those who hate the Jewish state?

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Hamas again denies new #Hamas_document replaces its antisemitic charter - in Arabic

This evening, in Doha, Hamas will officially unveil its new "political document."

Even in English, Hamas has been careful not to call it a charter, or to say that it replaces the Hamas charter that refers to antisemitic Islamic sayings, such as "The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: 'The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharqad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.'"

I've been reporting since February that Hamas is not calling this a new charter. Still, too many Western reporters and even some experts have claimed that this is a new Hamas charter that eliminates the doctrinal antisemitism and explicit call to destroy Israel that the charter has.

Today, ahead of the photo-op in Doha where Hamas will introduce the new document with much fanfare, Hamas again said in Arabic that this is not a new charter. Felesteen, a Hamas newspaper, says "Hamas denied that the document is an alternative to the Charter of the movement, which was released to coincide with its founding, at the end of the 1980s, stressing that it is a 'political vision and ideology of the movement.'

The entire purpose of the document is to present a false, moderate face to the West.

The new document will deny that Hamas has anything against Jews, and it is only against "Zionists." It will also say that Hamas would accept a Palestinian state in the "1967 borders," a position that will fool more credulous journalists and editorialists into thinking that Hamas supports a two-state solution.

Hamas has claimed that it is not antisemitic for years despite its still-extant charter. Here is a laughable attempt from 2009:

GAZA CITY, May 14 (2009) (IPS) - A founding member of Hamas says he hates all weapons and insists that his organisation is not anti-Jewish.

In an interview with IPS, Sayed Abu Musameh described frequent claims in the European and U.S. press that Hamas's charter is based on enmity towards Jews as a "big lie".

"In our culture, we respect every foreigner, especially Jews and Christians," he said. "But we are against Zionists, not as nationalists but as fascists and racists."

Musameh also contended that Hamas has long been ready to agree a truce - known in Arabic as a hudna - with Israel but that Israel had refused all offers and imposed a crippling economic blockade on Gaza. The firing of Qassam rockets on the Israeli cities of Ashkelon and Sderot was designed "not to destroy Israel or to destroy Israeli people" but to "make them notice our siege."

"I hate all kinds of weapons," said Musameh. "I dream of seeing every weapon from the atomic bomb to small guns banned everywhere."

Hamas fetishizes weapon, as this anniversary parade shows:

And that same 2014 parade is proof that Hamas is a Jew-hating organization. It placed a picture of the Jewish Temple on a coffin:

On another coffin, it proudly displayed daggers stabbing the heads of four rabbis who had been slaughtered in a synagogue earlier that year:

Hamas also created a stereotypical Jew, with a white shirt, side curls, beard and a black hat, to burn in effigy:

This all happened years after Hamas claimed to not have anything against Jews.

Yet perhaps the best evidence that Hamas is an officially Jew-hating organization is that it refuses to replace its charter, even as it has claimed over and over again to Western audiences (like this 2011 essay) that the charter is not relevant.

Any reporter that gives credence to this Hamas publicity stunt is not a reporter, but a propagandist for one of the world's most successful and bloodthirsty Islamist terror groups.

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One of the main criticisms aimed at Islamic leaders today is that they have not generally attacked ISIS from a theological perspective. Young people often see in ISIS a pure Islamic theology, consistent with the Quran and untainted by modern political correctness.

Every once in a while a major religious figure attempts to say, using religious sources, that ISIS is not interpreting the Quran accurately and that they are in fact violating Quranic precepts.

Egypt has a special responsibility to make this distinction. It is still in many ways the center of Islamic thinking, and it is the most populous Arab state.

So it is important news when the Egyptian Minister of Awqaf (religious endowments) published a book meant to"refute the misguidance of terrorists" and identify and expose terrorist ideology.

Minister Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa said on a TV news show promoting the book that that terrorist groups are trying to recruit young people through false ideas and distortion of texts and purposefully misinterpreting religious texts. He says he researched and debunked theological works that ISIS (which he derogatorily calls Daesh) secretly distributes to its members . pointing out that he was able access to ideas, books and publications that terrorist groups distributed clandestinely on its elements.

He says his work refuting ISIS theology will be translated into 12 languages.

So far, so good.

But when he promoted the book on TV he also said that "the damned movement known as Daesh fools young people into thinking that paradise is in store for them them. They do like the Jews do in their seizure of land and how they killed the Palestinians under their rule - the same thing."

Apparently, theological arguments aren't enough. In order to turn people against ISIS, one must compare them to Jews.

Antisemitism is the one constant that Arabs can rely on when convincing people how evil their enemies are.

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Israel has weaponized "sex mania" against the Arabs and Muslims

From Palestinian Media Watch:

In March this year, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas posed for pictures in his office with the Antisemitic PA TV host Imad Hamato, who Abbas appointed dean of Gaza's Al-Azhar institutes in October 2016. This month, official PA TV rebroadcast one of Hamato's many antisemitic hate lessons from 2015.

"Our conflict today between us and Israel is the conflict between spirit and body. Israel's global media has expanded, and its war against the Arabs and Muslims is through sex mania which it distributes globally. Israel had to use this sex mania, as we mentioned in a previous lesson, in order to destroy the spirit of Arabs and Muslims. Everything among the Muslims has died, except for their lust. Therefore we see filth and immodesty on many satellite channels, pictures and ads for penis enlargement and for all sorts of things. All of these are contrary to modesty. Why? Because the Jews, as it is said in the Quran, believe only in the body, not in the spirit. The Jews, according to our religion, believe only in the body.

"What has Israel given to the world in our times, aside from moral corruption and degeneration of values, aside from the use of drugs and pills? I said in a previous lesson that the CIA has a unit called the Unit for Creating the Global Mood. They look at a map: 'What is appropriate for Gaza, or Jordan, or Syria? Tramadol pills (i.e., pain killers)? Mood enhancers? Hallucinatory substances?' They are produced in India, shipped to Israel and distributed in Sinai. Afterwards they are spread in the region, in order to destroy what remains of our children's values."

[Official PA TV, June 12, 2015 and April 14, 2017]

Remember, half of Israel's R&D budget is dedicated to increasing Arab sex drive, and the other half to making them impotent.

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