Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, October 08, 2017

Getting "Chai" at Havdalah

From Leafly:

On a warm Saturday night in July, a group of people gathered together in Los Angeles for Havdalah—a Jewish ceremony marking the end of Shabbat and the beginning of the new week. As part of the Havdalah tradition, a small silver container filled with sweet herbs was presented for smelling, only this time the usual mix of aromatic spices featured a new and pungent guest: cannabis.

Chai Havdalah is the brainchild of self-described gay Jewish stoner Catherine Goldberg, who spent 10 years envisioning a celebration blending Jewish culture and cannabis. (‘Chai’ is the Hebrew word for life—it’s pronounced ‘high’ with hard “ch” sound.)

Goldberg set her sights on bringing Chai Havdalah to legal cities around the country, and as word has spread attendance has grown. Her first event in LA welcomed over 50 guests, while her most recent event in Denver pulled in more than 100 attendees. Guests range in age from 21 to 80 years old, and represent many branches of Judaism spanning from Reform to Orthodox. Goldberg credits the authenticity of the events as the reason why attendance is increasing. “It’s the most authentic thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she says.

What exactly does a “High Havdalah” look like? The cannabis at the event is donated by producers and growers, so guests only pay for snacks, atmosphere, and music. Beyond options for smoking, the event also offers plenty of cannabis-infused food, such as cannabis challah baked by a professional bread maker.

“It was the most delicious challah I’ve ever had—period,” says Goldberg. “For every event we have in different cities, we can feature different chefs and bread makers.” She keep the THC levels low at her events to avoid anyone having a bad experience: “All the desserts were CBD infused, except for one, where the THC was 2.5 mg. I do this because I like cookies, so I want to be able to eat seven cookies without worrying if I’m going to get too high or not feel good,” she explains. “I’ve had a lot of people ask to sponsor the Chai Havdalah events, and their products might be perfect for very young stoners that want to get super high, but we have 80-year-old women coming so we really have to focus on CBD products, 1:1 ratios, sativas … That’s been a mindful part of planning these parties.”

For the record, I don't understand that paragraph as all.

Goldberg had help on the Chai Havdalah project from Shifra Zipp Klein. Klein, who is Orthodox herself, is also the owner of Mitzva Herbal, a medicinal kosher cannabis company. Her journey began two years ago when researching alternative treatments for her 12-year-old son, who was non-verbal and heavily medicated due to severe autism. She heard about cannabis as a potential treatment and despite discouragement from her doctors, decided to give it a chance. The results were immediate and the progress, amazing. “To have a child at 12 years old that doesn’t speak, saying ‘Mommy,’ … it changes everything,” Klein explains.

Soon, Klein realized she had other friends who could benefit from cannabis, such as a man receiving chemo and experiencing severe nausea. More and more people began to reach out to Klein for advice and help, so she was inspired to create her first infused chocolates.

Klein tells the story of a rabbi who was at first highly skeptical of cannabis—until late one night, she received a call from him. “He said, ‘I need relief now.’ He had just had a procedure, [and] he was desperate.” Klein told the rabbi that he needed a prescription first, and the next day helped him get a recommendation. Her actions struck a cord, and the rabbi called her again later to express his deep respect for her and for medicinal cannabis. This sort of education and shifting perspective is part of Klein’s day to day work.

“A big part of our mission is education and being sensitive to people’s culture,” she says. “They just don’t understand, [and] we want to turn that around by being positive, keeping doing what we’re doing, and evolving that way.” Today, many in her community have come around to the idea as they’ve discovered the benefits of medicinal cannabis for themselves. “I think we’re taken a lot more seriously now, when people really see the need for it,” says Klein.

Goldberg, for one, contends that the Jewish community needn’t feel limited to using cannabis for only terminal or very severe medical conditions. “Life is really stressful,” she says. “If there’s a natural plant that Hashem grew, that helps with anxiety and quality of life, that is medicinal.”

I suppose the plants would make perfectly good schach (roofing material) for Sukkot.

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Some 2014 Pallywood scenes of Al Quds University sports practice

I have finished reading The Anti-Israel Agenda, Inside the Political War on the Jewish State, edited by Alex Ryvchin

A book review is forthcoming, but I wanted to look up something that Seth Frantzman, op-ed editor at the Jerusalem Post, wrote in his chapter on media bias.

An essay by James Estrin in the Times in 2014 claimed to show a Palestinian girl throwing a javelin at Al Quds University with the Israeli security barrier in the background. This writer happens to teach at Al Quds University and in four years there has never seen javelin practice conducted in the area in which the photo was taken. The photographer created a perfect political backdrop to suggest that Palestinians cannot practice javelin except under the shadow of an Israeli wall.

Here is the article and the photo:

The story doesn't end there.

The New York Times article was written in January 2014. By March, Getty Images decided that the same wall was a perfect backdrop not only for its own staged scenes of javelin throwing, but also for shot-put and running.

Does anyone actually think that they practice running on a field with rocks and weeds that could injure them?

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10/08 Links: Fatah glorifies murderer of 3 Israelis; Gal Gadot Speaks to Her Israeli Roots in ‘SNL' Monologue

From Ian:

An insane society

Violent husband Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Jamal, who murdered three people in Har Adar two weeks ago, was the latest in a long line of depressive, mentally ill, or "whacked out" Palestinian terrorists for whom the killing of Jews blotted out the label "crazy" that Palestinian society had previously stuck on them.

By killing, Jamal, like dozens of other troubled murderers, resituated himself in his society as normative, and even bought himself a ticket into the Palestinian hall of fame as a shahid [martyr] for the price of the three people he killed two weeks ago.

The more mentally ill Palestinians carry out lethal terrorist attacks, the more people get used to categorizing their bloodfests as a separate genre of attack, which presents a problem. Even more than this approach goes easy on the attackers from the "new" group, it goes easy on Palestinian society, which embraces them.

A healthy, sane society keeps the deranged at a distance and cares for the troubled. But in Palestinian society, murdering Jews gives even the mentally ill and those in the midst of various emotional crises a place of honor in its ethno-religious pantheon.

In Palestinian society, the murder of Jews allows even the most delusional and problematic marginalized characters under the perverted canopy of the institution of martyrdom.

PMW: Fatah glorifies murderer of 3 Israelis

Since a Palestinian terrorist murdered 3 Israelis last month, Fatah, which is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, has repeatedly emphasized his status as hero. Palestinian Media Watch reported that only a few hours after the murders, Fatah celebrated the morning scented with the fragrance of the Martyrs.

Subsequently, Fatah has issued and distributed a poster glorifying murderer Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Jamal who shot and murdered an Israeli border police officer and two security guards and wounded another Israeli at the entrance to Har Adar, northwest of Jerusalem, on Sept. 26, 2017.

In a PA TV News broadcast, the murderer's children and others were seen holding the Fatah issued poster which displays a large picture of terrorist murderer Nimr Al-Jamal, together with pictures Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat, with the text:

"With all honor and pride, The Fatah Movement, Jerusalem district, Beit Surik branch, mourns the death of its heroic Martyr Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Jamal." [Official PA TV News, Sept. 29, 2017]

The poster also featured the Fatah logo that includes a grenade, crossed rifles, and the PA map of "Palestine" that presents all of Israel as "Palestine" together with the PA areas.

David Collier: In Edinburgh they are still promoting SPSC antisemitism

This highlights the difficulty of the fight we are in. Whilst we are mainly passive, these ‘haters’ are aggressive. Single actors in a variety of settings become ‘enablers’. In unions, on councils, in schools. Intersectionality drives their strategy and in every setting where just one single member of the group has been tainted, the poison is spreading.

In this example someone who shared hard-core antisemitic material was a speaker at an event held by a group known for hard-core antisemitism. Yet such poison is still allowed to spread inside a school setting, just two months after the groups antisemitism had been laid bare.

This isn’t an exception. In February, my report into antisemitism inside the England & Wales PSC threw light onto the activities of Tapash Abu Shaim. A PSC activist who had helped run the PSC stall at the 2016 Labour Party Conference. Despite this receiving national coverage, despite complaints to the Labour party. Nothing changed. As I reported from the 2017 conference last week, Tapash was there, back at the PSC stall. Once again my own research is being shared, but if people are looking to groups like the PSC or SPSC, or even Political parties like Labour, to ‘self cleanse’, they misunderstand the depth of the problem.

On every council, in almost every school, in every community centre. Wider society is not dealing with toxic groups the way that it should because of individual sympathisers who have become activists. It takes just one member of the group to have ‘fallen into the trap’ of believing that antisemitism cannot exist where a humanitarian flag is waved. Where that happens, hard-core antisemitism is promoted and allowed to spread. When left unchallenged this turns each environment into a hostile environment that sees Jews as the problem. Because of this, society is not dealing with Jew hate in the same way it does other forms of racism. We have a real fight on our hands. We cannot stop, we cannot relax. Not for a second.

Fruitvale BART Station, Oakland

Reem Assil has placed a giant floor-to-ceiling mural of recently deported genocidal Jew murderer Rasmea Odeh in her bakery/cafe next to the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland, California.

For Jewish people, it might as well be a giant Nazi Swastika.

As one of those who objected to this public veneration of an ideological killer of Jews near the entrance to a major San Francisco Bay Area transportation hub, her lawyers are dragging me into court for the purpose of obtaining a restraining order... for which they have already been twice denied by the courts.

Not that I ever came anywhere near the woman, but that is not the point... this is a matter of "lawfare."

The point is to silence pro-Jewish / pro-Israel voices in favor of antisemitic anti-Zionism.

Assil is intentionally giving the small Jewish community in Oakland a little taste of 1930s Berlin wherein promoting violent hatred towards Jews was not the least bit uncommon.

Her case against me is that I stood with a few other people who objected to this transgression on the dignity and safety of the Jewish people and I wrote about it in a piece entitled Reemed in Oakland that was published in various small pro-Jewish / pro-Israel outlets such as the Elder of Ziyon, Jews Down Under, and The Jewish Press.

This is a scurrilous court case and if the law has merit Assil and her attorneys are going to lose.

Most people who follow American progressivism are familiar with the ethnic chameleon Linda Sarsour who claims to have magically transformed herself into a woman "of color" when she put on the hijab. Fewer know about her recently deported spiritual sister, the genocidal Arab-Supremacist / faux-feminist Rasmea Odeh.

Odeh and her partners in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) murdered two innocent college students in 1969.

She and her friends - including Aisha Odeh who named Rasmea as a co-conspirator - killed those kids and injured nine others at a grocery store in Jerusalem.

I was one of the people at the vigils on July 8 and July 22 - in memory of Leon Kanner and Edward Joffee - both of whom were college students in their early twenties when Odeh thought it would be a terrific idea to blow their bones all over a grocery store for the crime of being regular Israeli Jews.

But the elevation of Rasmea Odeh from Jew killer to a hero of American feminism is going to make a fascinating story for some writer/researcher.

In the meantime, what I argue is that the case of Reem Assil's racist presence in Oakland represents an example of the deliberalization of the Western progressive-left.

That's the broader point.

The Left Has Embraced Racism and Deliberalization

Bigotry against any people including those heinous "white" people is anti-liberal.

In the United States for political-historical reasons, we tend to confuse liberalism with the Left but unfortunately what we are seeing today is the American progressive-left shedding its liberalism.

The primary method through which the Western-left embraces anti-liberal values is through the encouragement of racial agitation and the violent stomping on freedom of speech as we see in Berkeley and throughout universities within the United States.

While a discussion of the history of liberalism - from Magna Carta to the Constitution of the United States to the appearance of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the American political landscape - is well beyond the scope of this article, it must be understood that anti-racism is foremost among liberal values as they emerged out of World War II.

When I was growing up in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the American-Left primarily embraced liberalism. It stood up against racism and it championed freedom of speech as we saw in Berkeley in the early 1960s with Mario Savio.

Before I was born UC Berkeley was the heart of the Free Speech Movement in the United States.

Now UC Berkeley is the heart of the anti-Free Speech Movement in the United States.

Reem Assil's bakery and coffee shop directly at the access to the Fruitvale Bart Station in Oakland - a major transportation hub in the San Francisco Bay Area - represents an excellent example of what more and more liberals are referring to as the "regressive left."

The idea, of course, is that the Left is decreasingly liberal and increasingly authoritarian and regressive.

What Dave Rubin, formerly of the Young Turks, and others call the "regressive-left" embraces three kinds of racism.

These are anti-white racism, antisemitic anti-Zionism, and what Manfred Gerstenfeld dubbed "Humanitarian Racism."

This last is the contemporary version of nineteenth-century American imperialist notions of "white man's burden."

Reem Assil, as a neighbor is - much to my disgust - selling all three along with her flatbread.

Through promoting Rasmea Odeh at the Fruitvale BART Station - the very place where Oscar Grant was shot dead by an Oakland cop on New Year's Eve 2009 - Assil is using the concept of "intersectionality" to suggest that the Jewish minority in the Middle East, along with their supporters throughout the diaspora and in the United States, are responsible for the alleged oppression of the Palestinian-Arabs.

The fundamental idea is that just as "white" people are evil toward "people of color" throughout the world, so Jews are rotten to Arabs in Israel.

It is all alleged to be part of the same insidious racist, imperialist, colonialist, apartheid, mindset.

As someone who has been publicly outspoken in the movement against Jewish freedom and self-defense for many years, Assil joins people like Linda Sarsour and Rasmea Odeh in opposing Jewish self-determination.

By supporting Linda Sarsour and Rasmea Odeh and, now, small-time local racist Reem Assil, the Left has betrayed its own values.

And that is what is most disappointing of all.

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Essam Youssef, who is the head of a "human rights" NGO in Gaza, has declared that the kids playing soccer on the most sacred Jewish site is a "human right."

Israel's Supreme Court has ruled that soccer and other games on the Temple Mount are forbidden for desecrating the site's holiness, and the Jerusalem police are enforcing that ban, selectively, when pressured.

Youssef, who styles himself as a human rights activist, called the Supreme Court decision "ridiculous," adding how ironic it was that Israel allowed Jews to "break into the sanctities of others and desecrate the Al-Aqsa Mosque continuously" while pretending to care about the holiness of the site by banning soccer.

Youssef heads a previously unheard-of NGO, the "Integrity Foundation for Humanitarian and Human Rights (Hayat Haq)". Before that he headed a similarly sketchy organization called the International Public Foundation to Aid Gaza which seems to have done nothing to actually help anyone in Gaza.

Essam Youssef is not the first Palestinian to try to grab headlines by characterizing himself as a human rights leader when in fact he is using a fake interest in human rights as a way to enrich himself. NGOs are a big business in the territories.

But his statement was published widely in Palestinian media, including Ma'an, Felesteen and others.

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Palestinians upset that Ambassador Friedman "performed Talmudic rituals" at Kotel today

Today, thousands of Jews flocked to the Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem to participate in the "priestly blessing" performed on the holiday of Sukkot.

One of them was US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

This prompted Palestinian media to recoil in horror that Friedman was performing "Talmudic rituals" with "thousands of settlers" at the "western wall of Al Aqsa Mosque."

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The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, who express loyalty to Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, confirmed that they will never put down their weapons, no matter what.

They claim that their right to kill Jewish Israelis, which they call "resistance," is guaranteed under international law.

Abu Mohammed, a military spokesman for the group, said in a statement Saturday that "resistance is a legitimate weapon that is guaranteed by all international laws, to defend the right of the Palestinian people and the occupied territory."

The only possible place that the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades can get funding from is from Fatah, under Mahmoud Abbas. Arafat was known to have paid them directly.

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10/07 Links: LV mayor ‘Israel lives with this every day’; Glick: Hamas is the great victor

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: In this round of reconciliation talks, Hamas is the great victor

In other words, the PA will now be responsible for keeping the lights on and picking up the garbage.

And Hamas will be free to concentrate on preparing for and initiating its next terror war against Israel. It can dig tunnels. It can build missiles. It can expand its operational ties with Hezbollah, Islamic State, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Fatah.

In the wake of Hamas’s leadership’s meetings in Tehran, Sinwar told reporters that Hamas is now moving full speed ahead toward doing all of these things. Sinwar said that Hamas is “developing our military strength in order to liberate Palestine.” He added, “Every day we build missiles and continue military training.”

Thousands of people, he said, are working “day and night” to prepare Hamas’s next terror war against Israel. And indeed, two weeks ago, two Hamas terrorists were killed when the tunnels they were digging collapsed on them.

Tuesday’s surrender ceremonies tell us two things.

First, the notion that Fatah is even remotely interested in defeating Hamas is complete nonsense. For 10 years since its forces were humiliated and routed in Gaza, Fatah has faithfully funded and defended Hamas. Abbas’s only concern is staying in charge of his Israeli-protected fiefdom in Ramallah. To this end, he will finance – with US and EU taxpayer monies – and defend another 10 Hamas wars with Israel.

The second lesson we learn from Hamas’s victory is that we need to curb our enthusiasm for Sisi and his regime in Egypt, and for his backers in the UAE. Sisi’s decision to facilitate and mediate Hamas’s newest victory over Fatah shows that his alliance with Israel is tactical and limited in scope. His decision to side with Israel against Hamas during Operation Protective Edge three years ago may not repeat itself in the next war.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner: Follow Israel’s example: We must wage financial warfare against terrorists

The United States and nations around the world battle ISIS and other terrorist groups with special forces and other ground combat troops, pilots of manned aircraft and drones, police, explosives experts, intelligence agents and informers. But to win the fight we also need financial experts who can deprive terrorists of money they require to wage war against us.

Israel – a favorite target of terrorists for decades – has developed a highly effective financial warfare template to hit terrorists in their wallets. The U.S. has already used this template to fight ISIS and other terrorist groups – and now European nations should follow.
Harpoon

Money is the common denominator behind everything that ISIS and other terrorist groups do and threaten to do. Without the cash to fund fighters and leaders, there would be no global jihad against the West. Islamic fundamentalism and despair might inspire terror, but money fuels it.

Israel came to terms with this reality years ago, during the last intifada from 2000 to 2005, when a seemingly endless wave of Palestinian suicide bombers attacked the country’s towns and cities. The Israeli military and security services waged relentless efforts to end the bloodshed, and elite counterterrorist units launched daring raids to kill and capture key terrorists – but the bombings continued.

Israeli leaders realized they needed a new approach – something that could provide short-term benefits and change the long-term paradigm. So Israel shifted its focus to the money that financed everything from bomb-building factories to the cash bonuses issued to the families of suicide bombers.

The Jewish state formed a multiagency task force codenamed Harpoon to wage financial warfare against its enemies. The Harpoon unit followed the terrorist money from its source – whether it was cash raised by charities in the U.S., or multimillion-dollar transfers from Iran, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia.

Harpoon expanded its operational reach in 2002. Following the money wasn’t enough. The cash and the accounts had to be taken from the terrorists or destroyed.

Caroline Glick: Trump and Obama’s third term

The problem is that substantively, there is no real difference between the two administrations – not in the Middle East and not anywhere.

Take Iran’s nuclear program for example.

In accordance with the US Nuclear Agreement Review Act (2015), on October 15, Trump is obligated to make his quarterly report to Congress certifying or decertifying Iranian compliance with the terms of the nuclear deal it concluded with Obama two years ago.

The issue of whether or not to certify Iranian compliance has been the beginning, middle and end of all US policy discussions on Iran’s nuclear program since Trump entered office.

Despite Trump’s stated opposition to the deal, his top advisers Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have pressured him into twice certifying Iranian compliance.

On the face of it, the debate about Iranian compliance ought to be about competing interpretations of Iran’s behavior. In practice, though, facts play little role in the discourse.

The Iranians announced as soon as the deal was concluded that they would not permit UN inspectors to enter any nuclear site they define as a “military installation.”

This hollowed out the entire inspections regime.

After all, if Iran can bar inspectors from its nuclear installations, there is no way for inspectors to know if Iran’s nuclear operations accord with or breach of the restrictions it agreed to in the agreement.

In other words, neither Obama nor Trump has had any way to credibly certify Iranian compliance, because the US has no idea what Iran is doing.

And everyone knows this.

Chag sameach! Plus a Sukkah photo to upset Israel's enemies

Tonight is the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and I won't be blogging from sundown (on the East Coast of the US) until Saturday night or Sunday.

Here's a photo of Benjamin Netanyahu in a sukkah, taking the traditional lulav and etrog:

Note the pictures on the walls.

One is a panorama of Jerusalem - without the Dome of the Rock or Al Aqsa mosques.

The other is a depiction of the Second Temple.

Some people's heads might explode.

Chag sameach!

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10/04 Links Pt2: Phillips: That UN reaction to 'son of Hamas'; Collier: My name is Rachel ‘X’

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: That UN reaction to 'son of Hamas'

Please join me in this clip as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the amazing, comical and oh-so-telling reaction of UN delegates to home truths being told to them by the “son of Hamas”.

.@Facebook now blocking video from being shared—but at 2,994,885 views, it is the most watched speech in UN history. https://t.co/e8zP5gbkRD pic.twitter.com/eaLpvtGWM2
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 3, 2017

David Collier: My name is Rachel ‘X’

On 2 October 1938, Arab ‘rioters’ infiltrated a Jewish neighbourhood in Tiberias. They first cut the telephone wires to frustrate calls for help. They then set about massacring innocent civilians. According to the British:

‘It was systematically organized and savagely executed. Of the nineteen Jews killed, including women and children, all save four were stabbed to death.’

There were about 70 armed Arabs involved in the attack, they set fire to Jewish homes and the local synagogue. According to Wiki ‘in one house a mother, and her five children were killed’.

Wiki doesn’t explain that the father, Shimon Mizrachi, was elsewhere, on guard duty protecting other families. Nor does the account give you the names and ages of those five murdered children. Ezra (aged twelve), Miriam (five), Yocheved (three), Samuel (two) and Hephzibah (one).

It doesn’t give you the mother’s name either. The mother’s name was Rachel.

The Rachel of Kiryat Shmona
Kiryat Shmona is about 35 miles from Tiberias. A city in the Northern District of Israel, near the Lebanese border.

On 11 April 1974, terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) attacked civilians in Kiryat Shmona. These terrorists first tried to attack a school, but there was nobody inside. Instead they attacked a nearby residential building. Rehov (St) Yehuda Halevi number 15. They went from flat to flat in a barbaric killing spree. Eighteen people were murdered, half of them were children.

Anisa Stern (47) was one of the victims, killed alongside her eight-year-old daughter. The daughter’s name was Rachel
The Rachel of Ma’alot-Tarshiha

Just a few weeks after the massacre in Kiryat Shmona, on the 12th May 1974, a group of fifteen to seventeen year old students set out on a field trip of the Galilee. It was three days before Israel’s twenty-sixth Independence Day. It was a large student group and they had made arrangements to spend a night at the Netiv Meir School in Ma’alot.

Barry Shaw: The asymmetry of the Israel-Palestinian conflict

The international community ignores the misuse of funding to the Palestinian Authority with over $300 million allocated to terrorists and their families. Not only Hamas, but also the PA is a terror-ridden organization. Palestine Media Watch, in its latest report dated Sept. 27, revealed that the Palestinian Authority now has 75 schools named after terrorists or Nazi collaborators. One of these schools is funded by the Belgian government.

Both sides of the Palestinian political divide constantly make inflammatory anti-Semitic remarks when referring to Israel. Mahmoud Abbas has a long history of hitting at Jews as he assaults Israel.

While addressing the European Parliament on June 24, 2016, he accused rabbis of demanding the Israeli government poison Palestinian water. Prior to that, in another blatantly offensive anti-Semitic remark, he said that "we will not allow Jews with their filthy feet" to defile the Temple Mount.

Deep Palestinian anti-Semitism can be found in the infamous Hamas Charter, which quotes the hadith: "The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."

This then is the asymmetry that prevents any possible solution to the impasse between Israel and the Palestinians.

It is not about borders or territory. It is about this deep schism between the two sides that has prevented progress for decades.

Until the international community faces up to this obvious obstacle of the ideological asymmetry between the two sides, do not expect a solution any day soon.

10/04 Links Pt1: Toameh: A State Within a State?; Phillips: Has Interpol gone stark, staring mad?

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: A State Within a State?

For now, however, Hamas seems prepared to swallow the bitter pill -- because the name of the game for Hamas is survival. Isolated and cash-stripped, Hamas will collude with anyone who offers it "oxygen".

Abbas, for his part, has agreed to serve as the savior of Hamas. Why? One simple reason: he does not wish to see a concord between Mohammed Dahlan and Hamas. In Abbas's view, the "reconciliation" deal is a victory not because Hamas has surrendered or relinquished security control over the Gaza Strip, but because he managed to foil Dahlan's return to Gaza and the political arena. Backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and other Arab countries, Dahlan's return and rendezvous with Hamas would have been a severe blow to Abbas and his Palestinian Authority.

A Dahlan-Hamas alliance would have undermined Abbas's claim to be the president of all Palestinians, including those in the Gaza Strip. Moreover, such an alliance would have emboldened Dahlan, who lives in exile in the United Arab Emirates, and would have enhanced his prospects of succeeding Abbas as president of the PA.

Hamas has every reason to be satisfied with the "reconciliation" deal with Abbas. Its only concession was to dismantle its "administrative committee," which served as a shadow government in the Gaza Strip. Hamas shed no tears in this move, which absolved it from managing civilian affairs and paying salaries. Offloading this responsibility frees up Hamas to fortify its military capabilities.

Notably, the Egyptian-engineered deal does not require Hamas to make any political concessions. This in itself is a huge achievement for Hamas. Hamas is not being asked to recognize Israel's right to exist or accept any peace process.

The Gaza Strip is now headed toward a new era where it will be divided between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas – one in charge of civilian issues while the second has full security control.

This situation, if it remains unresolved, will most likely lead to the renewal of tensions between the two sides. The Gaza Strip is headed towards a situation of a state within a state. As of now, it is safe to call their arrangement a three-state solution: one Palestinian state in the West Bank and two in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah and Hamas must be laughing their heads off as, under weak and impotent governments, they see their power grow.

Melanie Phillips: Has Interpol gone stark, staring mad?

Please join me in this clip as I discuss with avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the implications of the extraordinary decision by Interpol to admit a fictional country to its ranks.

Today's crazed antisemitism, from Turkey and Kashmir

Arabs who live near Israel have been trained to downplay their feelings about Jews and replace that word with "Zionists" in their English-language media, because they learned that the West is not yet accepting of blatant antisemitism - only the euphemistic kind that says "Zionists" control the banks and Hollywood and America.

But those Israel haters from beyond the immediate neighborhood of Israel are not as careful.

A long, disjointed anti-Israel rant at KashmirWatch includes:

World had expected President Obama to reign in the fascist Zionist criminal regime in West Asia so that peace is allowed to herald in the region. He did not or could not do that and let Israel as powerful as ever. Now with the arrival of Trump Israel, though opposed him during the poll, got a shot in it s terror arm. Israel had expected the supposed Mossad agent Mrs. Hillary Clinton to defeat “erratic” Trump to continue with the pro-Israeli policies. It took time, therefore, for Israel to recover from the disappointment and disillusionment over Clinton exit. But as Trump came to office Israel and its Mossad plus the powerful Jewish community USA began getting closer to the White House and Netanyahu became a special guest of Trump whose Jewish son in law is playing his worth make USA a Zionist proxy.

So, whenever Israel tells there is something wrong with US policy for Israel or West Asia, it only wants US president to remember that it was USA and UK that created Israel as a spoiled foisted child and it’s their prime duty to shield all its crimes against humanity.

European states were fed up with criminal-terrorist operations of Jews in the continent and UK got rid of them by carving out a separate Israel in 1948 within Palestine by killing and pushing the Palestinians out of their lands.

From Turkey's Yeni Safak, an equally crazy article entitled "From where are the plans of the Crusader-Zionist alliance running?":

While [William] Safire, one of the symbolic figures of the Jewish lobby, was writing these [words of support for an independent Kurdistan] then U.S. President George H. W. Bush said:

"We are determined to keep our country as the leader of the Jewish-Christian union" (Aug. 24, 1992)

...Ecevit, the Prime Minister of the DSP-MHP-ANAP coalition government established after the elections in April 1999...was the guest of B'NAI B'RITH, the "roof organization" of all Jewish organizations in the world on Feb. 1, 2002, during the last months of his office as prime minister! It was TESEV’s founder, İshak Alaton, who introduced Gülen to B'NAI B'RITH managers years before he entered the masonic lodge in 1975.

I still don't know what that guy's thesis is, I think that the US and Israel were trying to carve up Turkey (no pun intended) and are now working on Iraq and Syria.

( I found no evidence of the Bush quote about a Jewish-Christian union.]

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The best years in Palestinian history, economically, were under "occupation"

The "Report on UNCTAD Assistance to the Palestinian People: Developments in the Economy of the
Occupied Palestinian Territory" came out in September.

It tries to spin the statistics to blame Israel for all Palestinian ills, but the numbers show something very interesting.

When the West Bank and Gaza were under complete Israeli control, there was essentially no unemployment for Palestinian Arabs - 2.8%. Only after Oslo did unemployment go up, and it soared after the PLO decided to start a terror war.

UNCTAD complains about how Palestinians have been dependent on Israeli jobs for so long, but doesn't mention that they've had since 1994 - 23 years - to build an independent economy. And they didn't bother.

The other interesting statistic: "The [Palestinian] economy grew by an average 7.4 per cent in 1969–1992 and 4.4 per cent in 1994–2016."

7.4% annually from 1969-1992? Those are numbers that any country in the world would kill for!

And it was all because of Israeli "occupation."

UNCTAD spins and spins and blames all of today's Palestinian economic woes on "occupation" for page after page. But it isn't occupation that has caused the Palestinian economy to go down the toilet - it was the decisions of Palestinian leadership to create a bloated bureaucracy that employs many, the support terror attacks which chased away Israeli employers, to shoot rockets at Israel prompting wars.

(h/t Irene)

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More evidence the Jerusalem US consulate is taking on more of Tel Aviv's tasks

On Monday we noted that the US Consulate in Jerusalem had taken on responsibilities that had been done in the Embassy in Tel Aviv beforehand.

There seems to be a pattern.

The January 2017 newsletter of the US Embassy Tel Aviv, called the "Embassy Tel Aviv’s Consular Sun Times", says which US citizens go to which location for services:

Welcome to Tel Aviv!
The American Citizen Services Unit of U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv provides information and assistance to all U.S. citizens residing in Israel.

U.S. citizens visiting or residing in Jerusalem, the West Bank, or Gaza should contact U.S. Consulate General Jerusalem for assistance.

The Consular Agency in Haifa is also available to provide services to residents and visitors in the Haifa area.

This month, the newsletter is no longer called the "Embassy Tel Aviv’s Consular Sun Times." It is now the "Embassy Tel Aviv, Consulate General Jerusalem and Consular Agency Haifa Joint Newsletter."

And it now says that all Israelis can go to the Jerusalem consulate for their services, not just those in Jerusalem and the West Bank:

American Citizen Services are available at three locations:
The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv;
the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem; and
the Consular Agency in Haifa.
All three locations stand ready to provide routine consular services, including notarial services and acceptance of applications for passports and Consular Reports of Birth Abroad. You are welcome to apply anywhere.

While this may be simple streamlining (notice how Haifa's consulate also seems to have added responsibilities), any way you look at it the Jerusalem consulate is taking on more responsibilities for US citizens in all of Israel (like Social Security) compared to what it did before. Also, the Jerusalem Consulate is more obviously connected to the US Embassy in Israel than it was before, when it acted essentially independently of Tel Aviv and was more oriented towards services to Palestinians.

There is a clear change of tone going on in the Jerusalem consulate as to its role.

(h/t Irene)

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10/03 Links Pt2: Refugees, Intersectionalists, and Jews; Valerie Plame and the Echo Chamber’s Antisemitism

From Ian:

Linda Sarsour Tells Social Justice Rally Attendees to Be Ready to ‘Put Their Lives on the Line’

Women's March co-organizer Linda Sarsour encouraged those at a social justice rally in New York City Sunday to be ready to "put their lives on the line" for "the movement," according to footage of her speech seen by the Washington Free Beacon.

"I am willing to die for black people, for indigenous people. I am willing to die for Muslim people, I am willing to die for the most marginalized people in this country. I am not afraid. The question is, are you ready to do that?" chanted Sarsour at the March for Racial Justice.

Sarsour also made pointed remarks toward Zionist activists who participated in the march across the Brooklyn Bridge, which was organized to include those unable to attend a similar march in D.C. on Saturday, due to it being the Jewish high holiday fast of Yom Kippur.

With groups in attendance such as Zioness, which has a feminist-Zionist platform, Sarsour called for anti-Israel indoctrination by and for Jews.

"It is not my job as a Palestinian Muslim to educate Jewish people that Palestinians deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. That is the job of Jewish people," said Sarsour over loud cheers.

Sarsour also once again chanted her oft-repeated cry that "we will not be intimidated by right-wing Zionists, by white supremacists, by racists."

In remarks that Zionist attendees said they believed were directed toward them, Sarsour said she "didn't feel safe" by elements in the crowd.

Exclusive interview: 'Son of Hamas,' the speaker who shocked the UNHRC

“Hamas, which I know well, is an ideological political organization that views extreme violence as a means to achieve its political ends. In the 21st century an individual or group that tries to achieve its goals by violent means should not be legitimized by anybody. In my definition, Hamas is a terror organization.

“I have seen how radically different the behavior of democratic Israel is from that of Hamas and Fatah. Hamas is still living in the 7th century, something Europe cannot even understand. Over the years I have realized that due to their religious views, Hamas cannot make peace with Israel. Their interpretation of Islam requires that cease fires alone are possible with infidels, not peace. Such a cease fire can last no more than 15 years. No political solution will ever satisfy Hamas in the long term. It is not about borders but who believes in their God and who does not. Hamas’ target is not just Israel, but for Islam to gain control over all non-believers.”

Mosab Hassan Yousef was born in 1978 in Ramallah, son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founder of Hamas. After involvement in anti-Israeli activities he was arrested by the Israeli Shin Bet security service. When he was imprisoned he initially decided to become a double agent. After he saw the huge difference in behavior between Israel and Hamas he served as a key agent of the Israeli security services and continued to act in that capacity for ten years.

Yousef’s story is described in the 2010 bestseller, “Son of Hamas, A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices” which has been translated into many languages. The movie “The Green Prince” which tells his story was released in 2014. Yousef converted to Christianity and now lives in the United States where he was granted asylum in 2010.

This interview was carried out on 27 September 2017, two days after Yousef spoke -- under the auspices of UN Watch -- at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. The video of that speech received millions of hits. In our conversation he repeated several of the statements he made at the UNHRC.

Melanie Phillips: Staging incitement at the Young Vic

London’s Young Vic theatre is staging a revival of the hate-inciting, Israel-phobic agit-prop called My Name is Rachel Corrie which was first put on in 2005. With exquisitely horrible timing, its previews started last Friday evening which was Kol Nidrei, or the beginning of Yom Kippur which is the most holy day in the Jewish religious calendar. A protest is being staged outside the theatre every night; with enormous decency and commitment, a group of Christians leafleted the theatre during the Yom Kippur performances.

Last July Jonathan Hoffman, who is involved in the protests, wrote an excellent piece on Harry’s Place about this malevolent travesty in which he revealed the truth about Rachel Corrie, her poisonous organisation and what happened to her.

People who never knew or who have forgotten this 12 year-old story need to understand quite how vicious is this staged event and what enduring shame it brings to the Young Vic theatre. I therefore reproduce Jonathan’s blog post with permission below.

London’s Young Vic theatre is reviving ‘My Name is Rachel Corrie’. There will be 27 performances, starting with previews on Kol Nidre (29 September); press night is 4 October. The theatre holds 70, so 1890 people will have the chance to see this play which incites hatred against Israel and therefore against its supporters, at a theatre which is supported by the taxpayer.

The Facts
Rachel Corrie was a young American (age 23). The play is extracts from her emails and diaries, selected by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner. She was idealistic but very naïve. She volunteered for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group that opposes Israel’s existence and whose members seek to prevent the Israeli army from acting against terrorists in Gaza and Judea/Samaria. The IDF’s ability to operate effectively in these areas against terrorists has been systematically and intentionally obstructed by groups of foreign volunteers for the ISM, used by the Palestinian Authority as “human shields”. By interfering with Israeli counter-terrorism operations, the ISM directly endangers the lives of Israeli civilians.