Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

08/29 Links Pt2: Al Jazeera Exposed: Blood Libels, Defamation and Lies; Bibi meets Conan

From Ian:

Honest Reporting: Al Jazeera Exposed: Blood Libels, Defamation and Lies

Jews and other Israel supporters around the world work for the IDF in the same manner as fighters in the Syrian civil war: committing war crimes, both as volunteers and paid mercenaries on behalf of the Jewish state.
Really?
That’s the underlying message of an Al Jazeera “documentary” (it’s actually closer to a work of fiction) that skews context, overtly mistranslates statements, and even repeats outright lies in order to create this illusion.
The documentary begins with Elena Zakusilo, a Ukrainian Jewish woman who claimed on a local television game show that she served in a combat role in the IDF, including being forced by the IDF to murder innocent children: a form of blood libel that has served as an excuse for violence against Jews throughout history.
The IDF and Ukranian security services investigated: It turns out the woman had blatantly lied. In fact, the show’s producers had scripted her entire speech in a ploy to increase ratings, even though they apparently knew that Zakusilo’s role in the IDF had been low ranking, administrative and non-combat.
Al Jazeera then misleads audiences with a segment on an unrelated group called “Caliber 3,” a private firm that mostly trains civilian security contractors who work with the Israeli police. Caliber 3 also offers basic self-defense classes for private individuals, a minority of their work.
Yet Al Jazeera portrayed Caliber-3 as a military unit, and its civilian self-defense classes as a military activity. It’s like saying a person who takes a CPR class at the hospital is a surgeon. It’s just simply untrue.

IsraellyCool: Another Reason to Boot Out Al Jazeera: They Love Their Blood Libels

Hardly a day goes by without reading about Al Jizz making a mockery of the notion of journalistic integrity and going out of their way to demonize Israel.
You know, one of the countries in which they have an office so they can provide “objective” journalism.
Last week, they came out with a report entitled Israel’s Volunteer Soldiers.
Naturally, it is a hit job on Israel and the IDF.
Naturally, it contains outright lies, none more severe than the inclusion of a proven blood libel.
In November 2013, Elena Zakusilo, a Ukrainian Jewish woman, appeared on the Ukrainian TV show “Lie Detector”, revealing that she worked for the Israeli army and continued to do so.
“The first time I killed was difficult for me. I threw the weapon and said I wasn’t going anywhere. But I went,” she said and admitted to having killed civilians, including children.

Seriously, it is way beyond time Al Jizz was sent packing.

Al Jazeera English Corrects: Haifa Not in 'Northern Occupied Palestine'

CAMERA's Israel office today prompted correction of an Al Jazeera English article which falsely stated that the Israeli coastal city of Haifa is located in "northern occupied Palestine" ("UK: Palestine activists face prison over Elbit protest").
As noted earlier today in CAMERA's Snapshots blog, Al Jazeera's Shafit Mandhai had redrawn the map, writing:
Based in the city of Haifa in northern occupied Palestine, Elbit produces military and civilian-use equipment, including drones, aircraft, weapon control systems, and artillery.
This is a completely false characterization of Haifa, which the United Nations designated as part of the land intended for a Jewish state under the 1947 Partition Plan. According to the United Nations' present day map (as well as an "Oslo status quo" map published by Al Jazeera) the Israeli northern coastal city of Haifa is not in the "Occupied Palestinian Territories," which include the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and by some definitions eastern Jerusalem.
In response to communication today from CAMERA, Al Jazeera commendably corrected the article, removing the erroneous reference to "northern occupied Palestine." The corrected article now accurately states that Elbit is "[b]ased in the city of Haifa."

PreOccupiedTerritory: Arab Media Vow Better Balance Of Vermin In Descriptions Of Jews (satire)

Responding to concerns of viewers and activists over discrimination, Al Jazeera and other media operations in the Arab and Muslim world have promised to achieve a more equitable distribution of entomological and zoological terms for use in referring to Jews, spokesmen for several such outlets announced today.
Audiences and critics have criticized the networks and publication in recent months for what they have called blatant bias in favor of certain classes of unpleasant creatures over others as derogatory metaphors for Jews, leading the organizations to examine their editing practices and style policies in an effort to achieve better representation of all types of vermin in their rhetoric.
Representatives of major Arabic networks and organizations issued statements today in which they declared their intention to undertake a revamping of procedures aimed at comparing Jews to a more balanced variety of blood-sucking, unsanitary, scavenging, or disease-spreading creatures, and to correct the situation that has pertained heretofore, in which apes, pigs, rats, cockroaches, snakes, dogs, and mosquitoes have been comparatively over-represented, while gnats, maggots, flies, bats, jackals, and other animals rarely feature.
“We apologize to our viewers and readers for the insensitivity displayed to date in our reporting and analysis vis-à-vis the depiction of Jews as scum-sucking vermin,” read Al Jazeera’s statement. “Al Jazeera hereby commits to ensuring a variety of pests, predators, and parasites to which to compare Jews and their schemes, and henceforth not to shortchange the termite, the locust, the mouse, the vulture, and the fox, for example. That is a random list; please do not yell at us for not including your favorite disgusting creature in this apology.”

Last year, Haaretz what is actually a very informative article about archaeology in Saudi Arabia and the history of the ostensibly Jewish kingdom of Himyar in parts of today's Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

But a closer look finds the type of bias we all come to expect from the newspaper.

One of the key, but often forgotten, players in Arabia at the time was the kingdom of Himyar.

Established around the 2nd century CE, by the 4th century it had become a regional power. Headquartered in what is today Yemen, Himyar had conquered neighboring states, including the ancient kingdom of Sheba (whose legendary queen features in a biblical meeting with Solomon).

In a recent article titled “What kind of Judaism in Arabia?” Christian Robin, a French epigraphist and historian who also leads the expedition at Bir Hima, says most scholars now agree that, around 380 CE, the elites of the kingdom of Himyar converted to some form of Judaism.

The Himyarite rulers may have seen in Judaism a potential unifying force for their new, culturally diverse empire, and an identity to rally resistance against creeping encroachment by the Byzantine and Ethiopian Christians, as well as the Zoroastrian empire of Persia.It is unclear how much of the population converted, but what is sure is that in the Himyarite capital of Zafar (south of Sana’a), references to pagan gods largely disappear from royal inscriptions and texts on public buildings, and are replaced by writings that refer to a single deity.

Using mostly the local Sabean language (and in some rare cases Hebrew), this god is alternatively described as Rahmanan – the Merciful – the “Lord of the Heavens and Earth,” the “God of Israel” and “Lord of the Jews.” Prayers invoke his blessings on the “people of Israel” and those invocations often end with shalom and amen.

...One big question that remains about the Jews of Himyar is what kind of Judaism they practiced. Did they observe the Sabbath? Or the rules of kashrut?

Some scholars, like the 19th century Jewish-French orientalist Joseph Halevy, refused to believe that a Jewish king could persecute and massacre his Christian subjects, and dismissed the Himyarites as belonging to one of the many sects in which Christianity was divided in its early days.
Robin, the French epigraphist, writes in his article that the official religion of Himyar may be described as “Judeo-monotheism” – “a minimalist variety of Judaism” that followed some of the religion’s basic principles.

The fact is that the few inscriptions found so far, along with the writings of later chroniclers, who may have been biased against the Himyarites, do not allow scholars to form a clear picture of the kingdom’s spirituality.

But there is another way to look at the question.

Through Christian and Muslim rule, Jews continued to be a strong presence in the Arabian Peninsula. This is clear not only from Mohammed’s (often conflictual) dealings with them, but also from the influence that Judaism had on the new religion’s rituals and prohibitions (daily prayers, circumcision, ritual purity, pilgrimage, charity, ban on images and eating pork).

In Yemen, the heartland of the Himyarites, the Jewish community endured through centuries of persecution, until 1949-1950, when almost all its remaining members – around 50,000 – were airlifted to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet. And while they maintain some unique rituals and traditions, which set them apart from Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, no one would doubt that they are indeed, the last, very much Jewish descendants of the lost kingdom of Himyar.

This is the author of the Haaretz piece, Ariel David, making up the idea that Yemenite Jews are descended from converts to a watered down Judaism in Himyar, not quoting any scholar or archaeologist.

Because they would laugh at the idea that today's Yemenite Jews were descended from Himyar converts.

For one thing, there is a record of Jews and synagogues in Yemen centuries before the Himyar kingdom conversion to Judaism. Clearly Jews were an important part of the kingdom which is one reason why the Himyarites chose Judaism as a possible unifying factor for their kingdom and conquests. But their actual interest in Judaism was political, not theological.

Secondly, DNA records show that Yemenite Jews are closely related to other Jews.

Haaretz is pushing a new type of "Khazar" theory that Yemenite Jews aren't really Jews. It's antisemitic when applied to Ashkenazic Jews and it is antisemitic when applied to Yemenite Jews.

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There is an Arabic "Intefada" website that keeps track of and celebrates the continuous attacks on Israelis that the media studiously ignores.

It lists these attacks for last week:

The fourth week of August .. 5 commando operations and wounding 3 Zionists

In the context of the follow-up and continuous statistics of the Jerusalem intifada, in the fourth week of August 2017, the Intifada site monitored 5 attacks wounding 3 Zionists in various parts of the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

In the town of Teqoa in the Bethlehem governorate, a Zionist soldier was injured by the stones of the youth of the uprising, after the clashes that took place in the town.

In Shu'fat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, a settler was injured by stones thrown at him during clashes in the camp.

In the town of Housan, Bethlehem district, a settler was injured by stones thrown by the village's residents.

The Zionist occupation forces claimed to have thwarted two stabbings in the city of Ramallah and the occupied city of Jerusalem.

During the fourth week of August, a group of young men in the occupied West Bank attacked Israeli occupation forces in the occupied West Bank with two explosive devices at Rachel's Camp and Aida camp.

Any one of these attacks, motivated by racism, would be front page news in the US or Europe.

But Palestinians are expected to act this way against "Zionists" or "settlers" (meaning Jews.)

Which is perhaps the most important reason why they do.

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08/29 Links Pt1: UN money is paving the way for the next murder; Kurds Wave Israeli Flag at Independence Rally in Germany

From Ian:

Why Palestinian Payments to Convicted Militants Are Likely to Continue, No Matter What Congress Does

When Congress returns to work in early September, pro-Israel activists will seek to put the Taylor Force Act high on the Senate and House agenda.
The legislation, passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in August, would cut off all direct economic aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA)—which last year was about $300 million—with the exception of its funding for East Jerusalem hospitals. The reason? To compel the Palestinian Authority to stop handing out stipends to convicted militants who carried out attacks on Israelis and foreigners, like the March 2016 Palestinian stabbing attack that killed Taylor Force, a U.S. Army veteran.
On its face, there is a compelling reason for the bill. Why should American taxpayers give aid to an authority that subsidizes payments to killers and their families? The Senators and pro-Israel activists asking this question say these payments incentivize violence, especially for young Palestinians with personal problems who know that, if they attack Israelis, their families will be taken care of by the Palestinian Authority.
It’s tough to peer deep into every individual attacker’s psyche, and in some cases the payments may help Palestinian militants rationalize their actions. However, lost in that argument is that the main reason Palestinians cite to justify violence is Israel’s punitive occupation. And more importantly, the public debate about the legislation, and the prisoner payment program, has been devoid of crucial context. No lawmaker has shown an iota of interest in exploring why it is that the payments to Palestinian prisoners and their families exist—and why the bill will likely fail in its goal of getting the PA to stop the payments.

'UN money is paving the way for the next murder'

Dozens of bereaved Israeli families whose relatives were murdered by Arab terrorists, have penned an open letter to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, demanding the UN stop funding organizations which provide terrorists with legal aid.
More than 40 families have signed onto the letter, Channel 2 reported on Tuesday, warning that groups benefiting from UN funding were “paving the way for the next murder”.
The authors of the letter cited two organizations in particular which have been engaged in “legal warfare [lawfare]” against the State of Israel. Both groups – Hamoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, and Adalah – receive significant funding from the UN, despite the legal aid they regularly provide to terrorists and the families of terrorists, challenging counter-terror activities by the government in the Supreme Court.
Between the two of them, Adalah and Hamoked received more than 2 million shekels ($559,143) from the United Nations in 2016, the letter noted.
The UN’s support for groups engaged in lawfare activities against counter-terror efforts is unique to Israel, despite increased anti-terror measures in countries around the world.
“In recent years we have witnessed a significant increase in terrorism around the world,” the letter reads, “countries around the world have been harmed as a result of extremist Islamic terrorism, but we see that only in Israel does the UN take sides and fund the legal defenses of terrorists who murdered innocent people.”

Upcoming UN ‘blacklist’ of companies tied to Israel invokes anti-Semitism, experts say

An upcoming “blacklist” of major international companies with business ties to Israeli communities in Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem represents yet another attempt by anti-Israel actors in the United Nations to single out and demonize the world’s only Jewish state, experts say.
The U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) had voted to approve the database of businesses last year, defying objections from the U.S. and Israel. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein submitted a draft of the blacklist to the countries where the businesses are based. He is expected to receive a response from those nations by Sept. 1, and the UNHRC will publish the database by the end of this year.
American firms on the list include Caterpillar, TripAdvisor, Priceline and Airbnb, The Washington Post reported.
“[The blacklist] is the latest incarnation of the decades-long Arab boycott and yet another singling out of Israel by the U.N. Because Israel, the Jewish state, alone is singled out, the intent and impact is anti-Semitic,” Anne Herzberg, a U.N. expert and the legal advisor for the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor watchdog group, told JNS.org.
Similarly, Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon described the list as “an expression of modern anti-Semitism reminiscent of dark periods in history.”
While the list will have no legal consequences for Israel or the companies involved, its opponents say it could put pressure on the U.N. Security Council to take action.

Back to school: Jewish kids' worksheets (and doodles) from the Middle Ages

Israel's National Library has a fascinating article showing children's practice sheets to learning Hebrew from the Cairo Genizah, a thousand years of how Jewish children learned to write.

These sheets shows the child having written the Hebrew letters over and over again, just as they do today.

Younger children were given hand-crafted worksheets by their teachers with the Hebrew letters written in outline to be colored in. Coloring books are not that new!

But my favorite is this sheet of practicing writing the Hebrew alphabet that ends up with a series of doodles.

That's pretty much what my schoolwork looked like as well.

Another article shows that women were very involved in Jewish education for both boys and girls, with many female teachers mentioned in the Cairo Genizah - sometimes together with their husbands, but also widows who needed a profession.

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Every year, the Saudi king hosts hundreds of Palestinians whose family members are "martyrs" - i.e., terrorists - for the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

This year a thousand Palestinians were honored by the king for their family members trying to murder Jews.

Fatah's Facebook page describes the reception as "A full reception with red carpets, roses and sweets for Palestinian martyr families as soon as they arrive in Mecca for the hajj as guests of the custodian of the two holy mosques, a reception befitting the sacrifices of their martyrs."

Saudi Arabia might not like Hamas very much, but it doesn't mean that it is against terrorism against Jews.

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.@HRW's Ken Roth spouts the new "Israel=White Supremacist" lie

This tweet from Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch shows, yet again, that his bias against Israel is pathological.

Yes, Ken Roth has embraced the latest and wholly fallacious anti-Israel trend: to conflate Israel with white supremacists because the bigots claim to be Zionist.

Not because Israel embraces the bigots, but because the bigots pretend to embrace Israel.

I've shown how absurd these arguments are before and have shown that the exact same logic damns the "progressives" far more than Zionists because neo-Nazis love to quote the anti-Israel articles written by the supposedly liberal progressives.

The neo-Nazis know Jew-hatred when they read it, and the neo-Nazi Stormfront site has quoted both Mondoweiss and Electronic Intifada over 100 times each, Ali Abunimah himself over 35 times, and Max Blumenthal over 80 times. Today's Nazis aren't approvingly quoting Naftali Bennett or Binyamin Netanyahu - they are quoting the people that Ken Roth links to on his Twitter feed.

In fact, Stormfront also quotes Human Rights Watch for fuel for its anti-Israel articles. Stormfront was just taken down, but Google cache shows several of the articles:

This article at Stormfront that quotes Ken Roth and HRW has a headline that would be right at home at "progressive" websites that HRW employees write for.

Which means, according to this logic, that HRW is a Nazi-sympathizing organization.

But Ken Roth isn't going to tweet "Many neo-Nazis embrace @HRW research against Israel." Because he is interested in his anti-Israel narrative, not the truth.

Even worse is that Roth has ignored that Arabs have embraced actual Nazi ideology. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Nazi propaganda in Arabic is still sold at Arab book fairs, the blood libel is still mentioned in mainstream Arab newspapers, and the amount of blatant antisemitism in Palestinian media fills up the Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI websites.

But Ken Roth isn't going to equate Arabs with the Nazis that they openly have admired at the highest levels. He only wants to equate Israelis with racism and bigotry, not Arabs who practice those very attributes every day, publicly, in their own media and public statements.

Once again, Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch shows that he is beneath contempt.

The article he links to, by Nada Elia, states the equivalence of Zionism and fascism as a flat truth. But she accidentally reveals her real agenda item in this one sentence:

If we are to gain anything from this critical moment, we absolutely must seize the opportunity offered us by white supremacists to foreground the similarities between fascism and Zionism.

White supremacists want to use their newfound affinity for Zionism for their own political purposes - and anti-Zionists want to use white supremacists' pretense to love Zionism to further their own political interests.

Nada Elia is acting just like the white supremacists are. And Ken Roth approves.

(By the way, Elia's Twitter handle is @NadaBDS. How twisted must one be to choose to dedicate one's entire online presence towards hating Israel? That's who Ken Roth chooses to feature.)

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Mahmoud Abbas presents a peace plan. But with whom?

Mahmoud Abbas has finally come up with his own detailed peace plan. Instead of waiting for others to present him with plans that he invariably rejects, he has shown the initiative and created a seven point plan to finally bring peace to an intractable conflict.

Oh, not with Israel. Abbas' peace plan is with the internationally designated terror group Hamas!

The PLO leader met with Turkish leader Erdogan and
presented him with his framework to unify with Hamas (yet again.) The points aren't important, but they include Hamas dissolving its administrative committee that controls Gaza, the forming of a national unity government including all terror groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, coming up with a solution to paying Gaza employees of the PA, allowing electricity and medicines to return to Gaza, and calling for new elections.

Abbas' strategy for peace with Israel is the same as it has been for years: keep rejecting all offers until one comes along that makes him happy.

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08/28 Links Pt2: Sarsour Compares Zionists To Neo-Nazis; PA: Attack a Jew and Get a Passing Grade at School!

From Ian:

WATCH: Linda Sarsour Compares Zionists To White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis

Last week, Israel hater and faux feminist Linda Sarsour spoke at a rally in support of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
Listen to who she grouped us with…before promising to “put our lives on the lines for justice.”
This is a woman who claims to fight Jew hatred. The problem is she has so many people fooled.
(Skip to 9:30 h/t Yerushalimey)

PMW: PA to kids: Jaffa, Haifa, Safed, Tiberias, Acre all in "my country Palestine"

Music and song play an important role in Palestinian Authority political messaging to its children. The PA’s most fundamental message to its people and its children, that all of Israel is actually “Palestine,” is prominent in many songs broadcast regularly on the official PA and Fatah TV stations.
One of these songs depicts a bird that flies over all of “my country Palestine.” The bird “flies over” the Israeli cities Safed, Tiberias, Acre, Haifa, Nazareth, Beit Shean, Jaffa, and Ramle, all of which are depicted as part of “my country Palestine.” [Official PA TV, The Best Home, Aug. 25, 2017]
Palestinian Media Watch has noted this song at least 30 times already during 2017, on official PA and Fatah's Awdah TV. The most recent time was this week on PA TV in the new version sung by a young girl on the most important Palestinian children’s program, The Best Home.
The following are the full words to the song, that depict all of Israel as “Palestine”:
“Oh traveling [bird], I burn with envy.
My country Palestine is beautiful.
Turn to Safed, and then to Tiberias,
and send regards to the sea of Acre and Haifa.
Don't forget Nazareth - the Arab fortress,
and tell Beit Shean about its people's return.
Oh flying bird, circling around...
by Allah, oh traveling [brid], I burn with envy.
My country Palestine is beautiful. [...]
Go to Jenin and bring me from its valley
greeting to Nablus, Tulkarem and their soil.
Drink the water of Jaffa's port,
don't forget Ramle and Ramallah.
Oh flying bird, circling around...
by Allah, oh traveling [bird], I burn with envy.
My country Palestine is beautiful."

Palestinian Incitement: Attack a Jew and Get a Passing Grade at School!

The Palestinian Education Ministry has granted any student who was arrested for throwing stones and/or Molotov cocktails at Israeli vehicles a passing grade.
Awarding passing grades to students who commit violent attacks against Israeli motorists is one of many methods of incitement to terror practiced by the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Jewish Press reported.
According to the news site, an Israeli security source told Channel 20:
“One time we stopped a terrorist who threw a Molotov cocktail and took him for interrogation, where we found out that he had decided to carry out the attack because that morning he had a matriculation exam, and it turns out that for them it is customary that someone who is arrested for carrying out an attack on the day of an exam to receive a passing grade automatically.”
“They are frightened of their fathers,” said another security source, “So if they know in advance that they are likely to fail the exam, they choose terrorism in order to get a passing grade.”
The more popular forms of PA incitement include, for example, cultural events glorifying terrorists; naming schools and city streets after terrorists; and TV shows for preschoolers, school-aged children and teens promoting anti-Semitism and lies about the “Zionist entity.”
Desperation to pass the school year is a less common reason for violence; nonetheless, several young terrorists admitted they carried out such attacks for that very reason, the Israeli security source said.

A survey of 21st century predictions of the end of Israel

Iranian army chief Brigadier-General Abdul Rahim Mousavi, has said that Israel will disappear within the next 25 years. Which means by 2042.

We need to add this to the list of predictions that others have made:

In the early 2000s, Hamas leader Bassam Jirrar - based on Koranic analysis, said Israel would end by 2022. A Lebanese cleric agreed with those calculations in 2015.

An Egyptian astrologer predicted in 2007 that Israel would be gone by 2024.

Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin said that it would be 2026 or 2027.

In 2016 Iranian Basij Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi said that Israel would no longer exist by 2025.

In 2009, Iranian TV and some other conspiracy theory sources claimed (falsely) that there was a CIA report predicting that Israel would not last 20 more years, or 2029.

Essam al-Erian, the deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt, said in 2013 that Israel would disappear within ten years, or 2023.

In 2012, the Ayatollah Khamenei predicted that Israel would disappear, but he didn't name a date. He fixed that in 2015, saying that Israel wouldn't survive another 25 years, or 2040 - well after his death.

Of course, Arabs have been predicting the end of Israel for a lot longer than this.

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Today's academic fraud: Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University

Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. He wrote an op-ed in Al Jazeera that starts off admirably being against racism and then devolves into a large aside filled with absurd hate against Israel.

The full rant is not worth the electrons it would use to post it here, but here is his conclusion for that section:

Today, Israelis have absoletely no moral authority, not an iota, to denounce the Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, for the neo-Nazis intend to do in the United States what the Zionists have already done in Israel: the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is a model for the white supremacists in the United States. Mass expulsion of Palestinians, the massacre of Palestinians in Deir Yasin and elsewhere: those are the Zionist trademarks the Neo-Nazis hope and wish and strive to replicate in the United States.

It's funny, because anyone who has ever spent thirty seconds walking around in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv can see far more Muslims walking around than can be seen in the US or most of Europe. After all, Arabs are some 20% of Israel's population.

They don't walk around with the fear that American Muslims do. They aren't worried about attacks on their homes or mosques. Their muezzin can be heard louder and more frequently than in any city in Europe. They have government funded schools. They have absolutely no worries about being ethnically cleansed. They have less fear of terror attacks than Jews do - in the Jewish state. The few anti-Arab incidents are statistically minuscule compared to the racist incidents in the US - and even compared to antisemitic incidents in the West. Arabs are safer in Israel than they are in the rest of the Western world. Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the territories are considerably more secure that they will remain in their own houses in ten years than Palestinians in Lebanon or Egypt.

In other words, Dabashi - a professor at Columbia - is a fraud and a liar. But he knows that his readers won't call him on it because they live in the hate-Israel bubble where no anti-Zionist statement is too outrageous to be confidently said, and truth is a joke.

There is a lot of outrage over lies by the far-Right. The Atlantic has a cover story about how the truth is no longer of interest to the right in the US. But it ignores the lies of the Left. And the number of academics who are willing to openly lie to advance their own political agenda is arguably more dangerous that the liars and fantasists of the Right - because the Leftist liars claim the mantle of truth and the right to judge the others.

There is no difference between those who believe in conspiracy theories from the Right and those who believe these sorts of lies from the Left. (What is describing Israel as being interested in a long term plan of ethnic cleansing for 70 years - something it could have done in months if it wanted to - if not a conspiracy theory?)

Dabashi is just another academic fraud.

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08/28 Links Pt1: PM to UN Chief: You've allowed Palestinian hatred to thrive; Hamas: Iran ties restored

From Ian:

BESA: Victory, Not Deterrence, Will Be Israel’s Goal if War Breaks Out Again in Gaza

Creating deterrence was Israel’s goal in the last three conflicts it fought against Hamas, but that objective has been cast aside. Any future armed clash with Gaza’s Islamist rulers will be guided by a new Israeli objective: that of achieving a crystal clear victory over the enemy.
In past models of conflict, Israel responded to Hamas aggression through the use of force in a way that was designed to punish Hamas and convince it to return to a state of calm. Systematically destroying Hamas’s military capabilities was not an Israeli objective.
Today, while Israel hopes to avoid war, it is preparing for the possibility of a new conflict. War could erupt again in Gaza for a wide range of reasons.
Should hostilities resume, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) plans to make sure the end stage of that clash will be an unmistakable Israeli victory, and that no one will be able to mistake it for a tie or stalemate.
This change in approach has been brewing over the past three years, ever since the end of Operation Protective Edge in 2014. That operation was launched by Israel to defend itself against large-scale projectile attacks and cross-border tunnel threats from Gaza. At two months’ duration, it was one of Israel’s most protracted conflicts.
It was also the third large-scale clash fought with Hamas since 2009. At the end of each round of fighting, the military wing of Hamas remained intact, and was able to quickly begin rearming and preparing new capabilities for the next outbreak of hostilities.

Liberman: Lebanon should know we’ll use ‘great force’ in future war

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman threatened that Israel would respond “with very great force” in a future conflict with the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist group, during a meeting with the visiting United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday.
The defense minister told the UN leader that Hezbollah is “stashing various weapons, including missiles and rockets, that are aimed at Israeli citizens in the homes of residents of the villages and cities along the border.”
Liberman added that Iran was “working to set up factories to manufacture accurate weapons within Lebanon itself.”
According to the defense minister, that situation is “insufferable for the State of Israel, and we are determined to prevent every threat to the security of Israeli citizens.”
The presence of at least two Iranian missile manufacturing facilities was revealed by Israel earlier this summer. On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Guterres that Iran was also involved in the construction of another missile base in Syria.

JPost Editorial: IRAN IN SYRIA

Now Iran has an opportunity to establish a new center of influence, not through proxies, as is the case in Gaza, Lebanon or Yemen, but directly by having Iranian forces on the ground. From there, it could establish air force bases, deploy tanks and divisions and amplify, in an unprecedented way, the threat it already poses to the State of Israel.
Under these circumstances, Netanyahu is smartly maneuvering between Washington and Moscow. It is still not clear if he can succeed in getting a commitment, from either party, that Iran will not be allowed to stay, but there are other goals that might be attainable.
Aware that a direct conflict between Israel and Iranian forces in Syria could endanger the Assad regime, Putin might be able to distance Iran from Syria’s southern border with Israel and Jordan. There can also be a Russian-Iranian understanding limiting Iran’s deployment of missiles in Syria. The Russians can justify this by claiming to be interested in maintaining stability and preventing Iran from endangering the Assad regime by opening a front with Israel.
The problem with any deal of this kind is that the Iranians are not a party that can be trusted. They see themselves on the cusp of a historic conquest and will fight to ensure it succeeds.
In the end and like in the past, this may be a case of Israel not being able to rely on anyone but itself. Israel has proven its readiness to act in Syria over the last five years. It may need to continue doing so.

Iran says S-300 air defense system now ‘fully integrated’

Iran’s advanced S-300 air defense system, delivered by Russia after years of delay, is now “fully integrated” into the air defense network, a senior Iranian air force commander told the country’s state media Sunday.
In an interview with the Tasnim news network, Gen. Abolfazl Sepehri Rad, deputy commander of the Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Base, said the missile defense system has been stationed across Iran and is ready for “practical operations.”
The general also said that the Iran has launched research programs to manufacture other air defense systems, and that “good results” have been achieved.
Iran had been trying to acquire the S-300 system for years to ward off repeated threats by Israel to bomb its nuclear facilities, but Russia had held off delivery until after a July 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, in line with UN sanctions imposed over the country’s nuclear program.

From YNet:

A Palestinian refugee receives a budget four times larger than a Syrian, Iraqi or African refugee, this according to a study conducted by the Abba Eban Institute of International Diplomacy at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya.

At the end of last week, UNRWA released its annual financial report, which stated that in 2016 the organization spent an average of $246 for each of the 5.3 million Palestinians it defines as refugees, while UNHCR spent only a quarter of that, $58 per refugee.

In addition, the data show that UNRWA employs some 30,000 people, while the World Refugee Agency, which handles tens of millions worldwide, employs only 10,000 people.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor heads the Abba Eban Institute, which formulated a plan of action for structural changes that will improve the treatment of refugees around the world by merging UNRWA into the UNHCR.

"Consolidating the budgets and manpower of both agencies will lead to better treatment of refugees," Prosor said. "In Jordan, for example, there are 44 clinics that treat refugees from the civil wars in Syria and Iraq, out of 233 clinics that are required for this mission. Alongside them are 25 UNRWA clinics that ignore Syrian refugees and care only for Palestinian refugees.

"Uniting the resources of the two agencies will enable more quality and efficient assistance, and contribute to a solution for what that the UN itself has defined as the most serious refugee crisis in history."

Prosor will present these results to the UN, which explains why he is calling the people getting aid from UNRWA "refugees."

In fact, they aren't, a fact that is obvious when you consider that no Palestinian Arab has ever successfully applied for and received official asylum from other countries as a refugee from Israel (or "Palestine.") The few who have received asylum get that status because they are fleeing persecution by Syria or Hamas, not Israel.

So in reality it isn't that Palestinian refugees are getting quadruple the aid per capita, and about 30 times the manpower per capita, as other refugees.

The real story is that fake refugees are taking aid money away from real refugees.

Because only the fake refugees can claim that Jews are their persecutors. If it wasn't the Jewish state that was being blamed for the fake refugee problem, there wouldn't be an issue, and these people would have integrated into their surrounding Arab nations quietly and effectively decades ago.

Prosor is trying to do something noble but as long as the truth is being hidden, nothing can really be done. UNRWA should be dismantled but it must be done with honesty. Everyone knows the truth about Palestinian "refugees" but no one is willing to say it out loud.

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

The virulently anti-Israel "Jewish Voice for Peace" has released a book that is ostensibly about antisemitism. But it doesn' ttake much to realize that the book is really about justifying the merciless criticism of the Jewish state, and only Israel, beyond any context and beyond criticism of any other country, as legitimate.

The foreword is by Judith Butler, the fundamentally dishonest academic who twists Judaism itself to find a philosophical framework for her hatred of Israel. She is also the person who absurdly called Hamas and Hezbollah "progressive."

Her foreword shows more of her duplicity in trying to reframe the question of what antisemitism is into the charge of how Zionists supposedly use the charge of antisemitism to silence criticism:

Given the contemporary framework in which the matter of antisemitism is discussed, the conflict about how to identify its forms (given that some forms are fugitive) is clearly heightened. The claim that criticisms of the State of Israel are antisemitic is the most highly contested of contemporary views. It is complex and dubious for many reasons. First: what is meant by it? Is it that the person who utters criticisms of Israel nurses antisemitic feelings and, if Jewish, then self-hating ones? That interpretation depends on a psychological insight into the inner workings of the person who expresses such criticisms.But who has access to that psychological interiority? It is an attributed motive, but there is no way to demonstrate whether that speculation is a grounded one. If the antisemitism is understood to be a consequence of the expressed criticism of the State of Israel, then we would have to be able to show in
concrete terms that the criticism of the State of Israel results in discrimination against Jews.

Already Butler is purposefully distancing herself from any definition of antisemitism that includes being against Israel. And one part of that definition is quite easy: opposition to the Jewish people's right to self determination. The more expansive definition is Natan Sharansky's 3D test: if the criticism is based on demonization, delegitimization and double standards it is antisemitic.

Naturally, Butler wants to obfuscate the issue rather than deal with it, because, well, she agrees with all three and she doesn't want to be called an antisemite.

Instead, she floats the straw man that some nefarious people are claiming that any criticism of Israel is antisemitism.

If modern democratic states have to bear criticism, even criticisms about the process by which a state gained legitimation, then it would be odd to claim that those who exercise those democratic rights of critical expression are governed only or predominantly by hatred and prejudice. We could just as easily imagine that someone who criticizes the Israeli state, even the conditions of its founding-coincident with the Nakba, the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians
from their homes-has a passion for justice or wishes to see a polity that embraces equality and freedom for all the people living there. In the case of Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews and their allies come together to demonstrate that Jews must reclaim a politics of social justice, a tradition that is considered to be imperiled by the Israeli state.

Here she uses the myth, and then she actually promulgates another myth. 800,000 Arabs were not expelled from their homes in 1948. Not even close. But Butler isn't interested in facts; she is interested in using big words to pretend that she is not avoiding the real issue of left-wing antisemitism such as is practiced by JVP.

Her zeal to divide antisemitism from anti-Zionism would be comical if only she was being honest. She admits that saying that Jews control the media and the banks is antisemitic; what about those who claim the "Zionists" do the same thing? What about those who claim the Zionists control the US and other governments? I bet most of the authors in this collection believe that fervently.

Finally Butler gets to the crux of her misdirection:

So to answer the question, why is antisemitism attributed to those who express criticisms of the Israeli state?, we have to change the terms of the question itself. We have been asking, under what conditions can we decide whether or not the charge of antisemitism is warranted? What if we ask: What does the charge of antisemitism do? ...

When the charge of antisemitism is used to censor or quell open debate and the public exchange of critical views on the State of Israel, then it is not exactly communicating a truth, but seeking to rule out certain perspectives from being heard.

Butler's straw man is complete. No one is saying that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, but her thesis that this is what is happening allows her to create an entirely new spurious charge: that critics of Israel are being silenced by false accusations of antisemitism.

Therefore, this preface to this volume supposedly about antisemitism is really showing that the book is about justifying modern antisemitism.

Indeed, the first essay by Antony Lerman starts off with his rejection of any definition of antisemitism that includes demonization, delegitimization and double standards concerning Israel:

For activists battling daily against the abuse of antisemitism to stifle free speech on Israel/Palestine, on university campuses and in Jewish religious and communal bodies of all kinds, it may seem something of a luxury to dwell on the reasons why contemporary understanding of antisemitism has become so politicized, bitterly contested, and controversial.

A look at the authors of essays in the volume show that every one is not just a critic of Israel but they question Israel's right to exist as a Jewish homeland:

Preface by Judith Butler

Introduction by Rebecca Vilkomerson

Part I: Histories and Theories of Antisemitism
Antisemitism Redefined: Israel’s Imagined National Narrative of Endless External Threat by Antony Lerman
Palestinian Activism and Christian Antisemitism in the Church by Walt Davis
Black and Palestinian Lives Matter: Black and Jewish America in the Twenty-First Century by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Intersections of Antisemitism, Racism, and Nationalism: A Sephardi/Mizrahi Perspective by Ilise Benshushan Cohen
On Antisemitism and Its Uses by Shaul Magid
Antisemitism, Palestine, and the Mizrahi Question by Tallie Ben Daniel

Part II: Confronting Antisemitism and Islamophobia
Trump, the Alt-right, Antisemitism, and Zionism by Arthur Goldwag
“Our Liberation Is Intertwined”: An Interview with Linda Sarsour
Centering Our Work on Challenging Islamophobia by Donna Nevel
Who Am I to Speak? by Aurora Levins Morales
Captured Narratives by Rev. Graylan Hagler
“We’re Here Because You Were There”: Refugee Rights Advocacy and Antisemitism by Rachel Ida Buff
European Antisemitism: Is It “Happening Again”? by Rabbi Brant Rosen

Part III: Fighting False Charges of Antisemitism
Two Degrees of Separation: Israel, Its Palestinian Victims, and the Fraudulent Use of Antisemitism by Omar Barghouti
A Double-Edged Sword: Palestine Activism and Antisemitism on College Campuses by Kelsey Waxman
This Campus Will Divest! The Specter of Antisemitism and the Stifling of Dissent on College Campuses by Ben Lorber
Antisemitism on the American College Campus in the Age of Corporate Education, Identity Politics, and Power-Blindness by Orian Zakai
Chilling and Censoring of Palestine Advocacy in the United States by Dima Khalidi

Conclusion
Let the Semites End the World! On Decolonial Resistance, Solidarity, and Pluriversal Struggle by Alexander Abbasi
Building toward the Next World by Rabbi Alissa Wise

Omar Barghouti? Linda Sarsour? Dima Khalidi? These are the experts on antisemitism that contribute to this volume?

As far as I can tell, only one writer here does not support boycotting Israel, and that is Shaul Magid. Everyone else seems to support it, meaning that they are guilty of double standards towards Israel (no one boycotts other countries nowadays.) So the entire book is an apologia on how singling out the Jewish state for punishment for crimes that, at worst, are committed by every other nation in active conflicts is not really antisemitic.

Moreover, the nature of the arguments visible from the preview available of the book indicates that the authors not only deny that any leftist criticism of Israel can possibly be antisemitic, but also that any Arab criticism of Israel can be antisemitic. A glance through this blog, Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI shows hundreds of examples of explicit Arab antisemitism, so when Arabs cloak their criticism of Israel in human rights or international law terms, they are obviously masking their true motives. How many "progressive" critics of Israel share those same antisemitic motives? I can't say, but to ignore the issue altogether is not scholarship.

It is propaganda.

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ALESCO, the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization, is essentially the Arab version of UNESCO. It partners with other NGOs and organizations worldwide to promote and coordinate cultural and educational activities in the Arab world.

On Saturday, its Executive Committee met and issued a statement about Jews opening up a synagogue in "occupied" Jerusalem.

Ma'an Arabic reports:

The Executive Council of the Arab League for Education, Culture and Science (ALECSO) condemned the Israeli occupation forces, accompanied by a large number of settlers and members of the Knesset, for opening a synagogue in Baten Al Hawa neighborhood in Silwan, south of Al Aqsa Mosque, along with the misdeeds of the occupation, its settlers, their falsehoods and false claims.The Council said in a statement that the occupation, through its incongruous stories, its settlement tools, its fairy tales and its biblical stories, wants to change the status quo in Jerusalem. The recent targeting of Al-Aqsa Mosque is proof of the occupation's attempt to impose new facts on the ground and undermine the deep culture of Jerusalem. Where the occupation seeks through its repeated attacks and daily violation of all international laws and charters to steal the consciousness of the city through siege, killing and lies.
The Arab Organization called on the international community, human rights organizations, the United Nations and UNESCO to stop the occupation violations and to commit the occupation to the resolutions and confessions of the Arabs of Jerusalem and its components and to stop the series of domination, distortion and fabrication practiced by the occupation to change the city.

ALECSO is saying that is official position is that Jews have no history in Jerusalem and that anyone who claims there is Jewish history in Jerusalem is a liar.

This supposedly educational and cultural organization is saying that thousands of articles of archaeological artifacts as well as contemporaneous non-Jewish accounts of Jerusalem - and basic, settled history - are all fiction.

The only reason that ALECSO officially adopts a decidedly anti-science, anti-historical and antisemitic position is politics and hate.

Yet ALECSO is respected by other organizations. For example, it just reached an agreement with the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Of course UNESCO is a partner, as is the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and many others.

Antisemitic statements by the Right are instantly and correctly condemned by the world. Yet antisemitic statements by official Arab organizations are simply ignored and those NGOs continue to be free to spout their hate as a matter of course, with the oh-so-moral Europeans not uttering a peep of protest - and eager to work together with organizations that issue press releases showing how much they hate Jews.

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