Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, October 28, 2017

10/28 Links: What Raqqa Says about Gaza’s Death Toll; Fifth medal for flagless Israel at Abu Dhabi judo Grand Slam

From Ian:

Evelyn Gordon: What Raqqa Says about Gaza’s Death Toll

ISIS and Hamas employ virtually identical tactics, which is why comparing Gaza to Raqqa or Mosul makes sense. Both dig extensive tunnel networks under civilian buildings, wire civilian buildings with explosives, stockpile arms in civilian buildings and fight from the midst of a civilian population. These tactics greatly increase both property damage and civilian casualties, whether in Gaza, Syria, or Iraq.

Yet despite the enemy’s similar tactics, Israel produced vastly lower casualties as a proportion of Gaza’s population and much less property damage as a proportion of Gaza’s property than the Western coalition against ISIS did in Syria and Iraq. In other words, the very Western countries that accused Israel of “disproportionate” and “excessive” harm in Gaza were guilty of far greater harm in Syria and Iraq.

So if they really believe the accusations they hurled at Israel, Western leaders—starting with former U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry—ought to turn themselves in as war criminals. And if they don’t like that option, it’s past time for them to finally admit that what they acknowledge in Syria and Iraq is equally true in Gaza. It’s simply not possible to fight terrorist organizations that employ the tactics used by ISIS and Hamas without harming civilians.

And it’s also time for them to admit what a group of high-ranking Western military experts concluded in a comprehensive report on the Gaza war: faced with these difficulties, Israel’s success in minimizing civilian harm equaled or exceeded that of any other Western country. If more proof were needed, that 100-to-one difference in casualty ratios between Raqqa and Gaza certainly provides it.

Fifth medal for flagless Israel at Abu Dhabi judo Grand Slam

Israeli judoka Or (Ori) Sasson defeated Belgium's Benjamin Harmegnies on Saturday to add a judo Grand Slam bronze medal to his growing trophy collection.

Sasson, who won a bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics, becomes the fifth Israeli to win a medal at the Grand Slam event which has been overshadowed by a ban on Israeli judokas sporting their national flag.

With organizers claiming that the ban is justified due to security concerns, Israelis have competed under the flag of the International Judo Federation.

Earlier on Saturday, another Israeli athlete, Peter Paltchik, claimed bronze in the under 100kg category.

On Thursday, Israel’s Tal Flicker put all the distractions aside and claimed the under 66 kg gold medal at the Grand Slam. The 25-year-old defeated Nijat Shikhalizada of Azerbaijan in the final, registering an Ippon, judo’s version of a knockout, with 25 seconds remaining.

Israel also took part in the event in Abu Dhabi under similar conditions two years ago. This year’s delegation has surpassed the achievements of the team from 2015.

ICYMI. @BeirutCityGuide doesn't want to be included with @TelAviv in a tourism article. Let them know #TelAvivLovesBeirut! pic.twitter.com/V0NxKOXHwd
— The Mossad (@TheMossadIL) October 28, 2017

10/27 Links Pt2: Reflections on Balfour 100 from Rabbi Sacks; Protester Caught on Video Calling Israeli-Arab Activists ‘Rats’

From Ian:

David Horovitz: World judo must honor its own ethics code, stop UAE’s anti-Israel discrimination

Some might argue that Israel should not have participated in a tournament whose UAE hosts messed the team around regarding visas and informed the sport’s international administration in advance that Israelis would only be tolerated if they exhibited no sign whatsoever of being Israeli. But the Israeli thinking was that its excellent judokas emphatically should participate, and that they would hopefully strike a contrast, through sporting excellence and good grace, to the rudeness of the UAE organizers. And so it has proved.

But that emphatically should not be the end of the matter. When the UAE Judo Federation made plain ahead of the tournament that the Israeli team would not be allowed to compete under the Israeli flag, the IJF wrote to the hosts to demand that “all delegations, including the Israeli delegation, shall be treated absolutely equally in all aspects, without any exception.”

The UAE Judo Federation paid it absolutely no heed. Why would it? It had imposed the same discrimination against Israel’s judokas two years ago; Israel won two bronze medals in the 2015 tournament — which meant far fewer headlines than the unignorable gold-medal success of Tal Flicker.

Rather than Israelis facing the dilemma of whether to compete as unwanted intruders in events such as this, it now falls to the IJF to ensure that there is no discrimination at future tournaments, and that hosts who cannot abide by its requirement that all delegations be treated “absolutely equally” not be permitted to hold events. (Incidentally, “Palestine,” as an International Olympic Committee member, is one of the IJF’s 198 “member countries.” We can all argue long and hard over the differences or similarities, but if Israel wanted to host an IJF event, it would be required to treat Palestinian participants equally.)

A martial art with a 135-year history, judo is governed by etiquette designed to underline the importance of respect. The very word “judo” means “gentle way.” There should be no place in the sport for those who do not embrace its spirit.

As the IJF’s own Code of Ethics (clause 2) states unequivocally, “There shall be no discrimination between the participants on the basis of race, gender, ethnic origin, religion, philosophical or political opinion, marital status or other grounds.”

The UAE trampled all over those principles this week. It should not permitted to do so again.

Alan Dershowitz: Antisemitic Caricature of Me Generates No Criticism From Berkeley Hard-Left

To be sure, the students had the right to publish this cartoon, but they also had the right not to publish it. I am confident that if the shoe were on the other foot — if a cartoon of comparable hate directed against women, gays, blacks or Muslims were proposed — they would not have published it. There is one word for this double standard. It’s called bigotry.

The best response to bigotry is the opposite of censorship: it is exposure and shaming in the court of public opinion. The offensive cartoon should not be removed, as some have suggested. It should be widely circulated along with the names prominently displayed of the antisemite who drew it and the bigoted editors who decided to publish it. Every potential employer or admissions officer should ask them to justify their bigotry.

Joel Mayorga is the antisemitic cartoonist. Karim Doumar (editor-in-chief and president), Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks (managing editor) and Suhauna Hussain (opinion editor) head the editorial board that oversaw the decision to publish it. They must be held accountable for their reprehensible actions. I challenge them to justify their bigotry. It will not be enough to hide behind the shield of freedom of speech, because that freedom also entails the right not to publish antisemitic expression, if they would refuse to publish other bigoted expression.

After I submitted my op-ed, the Daily Cal tried to censor my piece in a self-serving way by omitting my characterization of the cartoonist as an antisemite. As far as I know they did not edit the offending cartoon. Also, the editor claimed that the intent of the cartoon was to expose the “hypocrisy” of my talk. Yet, the newspaper never even reported on the content of my talk and I don’t know whether the cartoonist was even at my talk. The cartoon was clearly based on a stereotype not on the content of my talk.

Melanie Phillips: Real threat to the West: Why can’t Britain see it?

In any event, the deal does not prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons, because its “sunset clause” allows it to do so in 10 or 15 years’ time – and reports suggest it has the capacity to develop them extremely quickly.

Worse still, the deal allows Iran to develop ballistic missiles. Sanctions relief has enabled it to pour money into its proxy army Hezbollah, promote Hamas terrorism and spread its influence and terrorism into Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Yet the British government not only helped create but still implacably supports this terrible capitulation to Iranian power. Parting company with Trump, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the nuclear deal is “a crucial agreement that neutralized Iran’s nuclear threat” which has “undoubtedly made the world a safer place.”

What planet is he living on? Iran is marching toward regional hegemony. In Iraq, there are reports that its Quds Force has been coordinating with Iraqi government officials to recruit the most effective ISIS fighters and release them from Iraqi prisons. These fighters are being organized, trained, and equipped to attack US and other regional forces.

Despite all this, however, the threat that worries Britain most is not Iran, but the prospect of war against Iran. The fact that Iran has been waging war against the West since 1979, in the course of which it has repeatedly attacked Western targets, murdered countless civilians and been responsible for the deaths of many British and American soldiers in Iraq, is brushed aside.

Unless it really does reform itself, Saudi Arabia will continue to pose a threat from its religious extremism. Nevertheless, it is an ally against the greater enemy at this time: Iran.

The Iranian regime must be defeated. It is shocking that, unlike President Trump, Britain is intent on appeasing it.

Moroccan judoka runs away from shaking hands with Israeli like a scared rabbit (update: Men's too)

Israeli judoka Shira Rishoni defeated Moroccan Aziz Shakir in Abu Dhabi in the 48 kg category.

When it came time to shake hands, the Arab ran away - backwards - as fast as she could.

The funny thing is that the Arab media will try to spin this as heroic.

Rishoni ended up tied for fifth place.

UPDATE: This happened on the men's side as well, as Tohar Butbul defeated his opponent from the UAE:

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From the Trader Joe website:

Science has proven that elephants have better memories than most of their wild animal counterparts, hence the saying, “An elephant never forgets...” With science as our guide, we can say with certainty that after sampling a trunk-ful, an elephant would truly never forget Trader Joe’s Bamba Peanut Snacks.

Small and unassuming (much like peanuts themselves), Bamba Peanut Snacks are light, crunchy, and positively bursting with rich, peanut flavor. It’s a snack unlike any other, and once you give them a try, even non-elephant types like yourself are sure to have Bamba on the brain.

Made for us in Israel, where Bamba is far and away the best-selling snack in the country, Trader Joe’s Bamba Peanut Snacks contain just four, simple ingredients: corn grits, peanut paste, palm oil, and salt. First, the corn grits are “popped” under high pressure, turning them into long rope-like lines of white, puffed, unflavored “Bamba.” Next, the Bamba is cut into peanut-sized nuggets and air-baked for 20 seconds in a drying chamber, which gives it an even crispier texture.

Finally, the Bamba is moved into large, rotating drums, where they are coated with hot, liquid peanut butter (made from peanut paste, palm oil, and salt). The resulting snack is crunchy, airy, peanutty and highly craveable—kind of like a cheese puff without the cheese.

Not only is Bamba is tricky to find in general (most U.S. grocers don’t carry the stuff), it’s darn near impossible to find it at a price better than ours—because we’re selling each 3.5-ounce bag of Trader Joe’s Bamba Peanut Snacks for just 99 cents. That’s practically peanuts! Pass the Bamba, please...

Bamba is manufactured by Osem.

Osem is targeted for boycotting by BDS.

So shouldn't they be boycotting Trader Joes?

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10/27 Links Pt1: When it comes to Israel, the Arab world isn’t a good sport; Toameh: Militias vs. Palestinian "Reconciliation"

From Ian:

When it comes to Israel, the Arab world isn’t a good sport

Last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s relations with the Arab world were better than ever.

“There is cooperation in various ways, on various levels, but is not yet out in the open. But what is not yet out in the open is much greater than in any other period in Israeli history. This is a major change,” he gushed.

Indeed, there has been much security cooperation and intelligence sharing since Israel and the pragmatic Arab regimes found common enemies in Iran and radical Sunni Islamists. But even as Netanyahu seems to talk about it all the time, his Arab partners insist everything remain hush-hush.

For the time being, Arab countries are refusing to recognize the State of Israel and reject any overt manifestation of collaboration with the Zionist entity — no exceptions, no common courtesies, no fair play.

That’s why on Thursday, when an Israeli athlete won a gold medal at a judo tournament in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Israel’s national anthem wasn’t played and its flag wasn’t hoisted. Indeed, due to the Emirates’ boycott of Israel, the Israeli judokas in the tournament competed under the “flag” of the International Judo Federation (IJF).

After Herzliyah native Tal Flicker beat Nijat Shikhalizada of Azerbaijan to take the gold, the “national anthem of the International Judo Federation” was played in the hall. Meanwhile, Flicker mouthed his own “Hatikvah,” giving his Israeli compatriots a modicum of pride.

Boycott-defying judo champ says he sang Israeli anthem ‘from the heart’

Israeli judoka Tal Flicker, who won a gold medal on Thursday at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam judo tournament, said he defied the host Arab state’s boycott on displaying Israeli symbols and playing Israel’s national anthem at the victory ceremony by shutting out the “background noise” and singing “Hatikvah” himself.

As tournament organizers played the anthem of the International Judo Federation’s (IJF) when Flicker stood on the podium with his medal, he sang the Israeli national anthem.

“The world federation anthem that they played was just background noise,” he told Channel 2 news. “I was singing ‘Hatikvah’ from the heart.”

“I’m proud of my country,” he said. “The whole world knows that we’re from Israel, knows who we represent.”

Flicker’s win in Abu Dhabi added to two previous championship victories he has already achieved this year.

He was born in 1992 in the central city of Herzliya, where he was also raised.

UAE judoka refuses to shake hands as Israeli beats him in Abu Dhabi tournament

A judoka from the United Arab Emirates refused to shake the hand of the Israeli rival who defeated him at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam judo tournament Friday, a day after the UAE refused to play the Israeli national anthem or fly the Israeli flag for medal-winning Israeli athletes at the competition.

Israel’s Tohar Butbul, competing in the men’s lightweight (66-73 kg) category, came up against the UAE’s Rashad Almashjari in the first round. After being defeated by Butbul, Almashjari refused the customary handshake with the Israeli.

Butbul went on to win a bronze medal in his category — by defeating Italy’s 2016 Olympic gold medalist; it was Israel’s third medal in the competition.

The no-handshake episode was reminiscent of one that occurred during the 2016 Summer Olympics, when Egyptian judoka Islam El Shahaby refused to shake hands with Ori Sasson after being defeated by the Israeli, and only begrudgingly made the obligatory end-of-match bow after being being called back to the mat by the referee.

BBC News and BBC Sport ignore Judo tournament anti-Israel bigotry

A major Judo tournament organised by the International Judo Federation is taking place in Abu Dhabi between October 26th and 28th.

However – and not for the first time – members of the Israeli team taking part in that tournament have been barred from displaying the Israeli flag.

“The blue-and-white delegation to the final Grand Slam competition of the year is set to include 12 athletes, but Israel Judo Association chairman Moshe Ponte was informed by the organizers that they won’t be able to have the Israel flag on their judo uniform, as they do in every other event across the world. Instead of having ISR (Israel) by their names on the scoreboard and on their backs, they will have to take part in the contest as representatives of the IJF (International Judo Federation). The national anthem will also not be played, should an Israeli win a gold medal.”

The BBC Sport website (which usually displays an interest in reporting bigotry and discrimination in sport) has no coverage of that story either on its home page or on its Judo page. The BBC News website’s Middle East page similarly did not find this story of blatant discrimination in sport newsworthy.

Michael Cohen's critique of a twisted New Republic article

Michael Cohen is a columnist for the Boston Globe. He is not right wing by any stretch, and I don't agree with him saying unfounded blanket statements below like "Trump supports antisemitism." But he wrote this in a Twitter thread that I'm converting to a post, because it is an important liberal expose of the New Republic which has gone really downhill:

There is a disquieting tendency on the left to point fingers at Jewish orgs in the face of rising of anti-Semitism. Case in point, this nasty, gross piece in The New Republic ... that doesn't even get basic facts right.

Take for example this yet another attack against the ADL, which accuses the organization of an unwillingness to confront Trump:

Among high-profile Jewish institutions there has been a tendency to condemn anti-Semitism without naming the people who have fueled its resurgence. This has been an effective fundraising strategy. The ADL, for example, received a 1,000 percent spike in online donations following Charlottesville. In a fundraising email on August 14, the ADL claimed that “at times like this, ADL mobilizes for action. We were on the ground in Charlottesville, working with officials and reporting on events.”
Its role in precluding a more forceful mobilization of the local community was not mentioned, nor that the police didn’t show up after all. The email went on to exhort the president to “fire all White House staff that do not clearly reject white nationalism.” The next day, the president himself called white supremacists in Charlottesville “very fine people.” While no one would classify that speech—or any of Trump’s actions—as “clearly rejecting” white nationalism, the ADL has not since called for the president’s resignation. The group did decide, however, to issue a call for law enforcement to infiltrate and surveil anti-fascist activists—which it later retracted.

Did they just miss this fairly direct criticism of Trump in the days after Charlottesville?

But in general, this focus at the New Republic on consistently attacking Jewish groups in the face of rising anti-Semitism needs to end. We get it: you don't like Israel's policies. But using rising anti-Semitism as a vehicle to attack conservative pro-Israel Jews is gross.

Here's TNR claiming that Israel advocacy groups are making common cause w/bigots. Not mentioned: the two largest Israel advocacy groups.

One of the groups mentioned is criticized not for association w/bigots but for organizing against BDS! Which is compelling evidence that TNR's problem is with groups who are supportive of Israel, not complicity with anti-Semitism.

A left-wing magazine accusing groups like ADL of complicity or silence about anti-Semitism is not only untrue it's incredibly dangerous. No observer of Jewish groups in America, like the ADL, can honestly argue they've stood back in the face of rising anti-Semitism.

This particular attack is intended to divide US Jews, by arguing that one side is standing up to anti-semitism and another (pro-Israel groups) aren't.

It's worth keeping in mind that the ADL is getting forcefully attacked from the right and groups claiming they are partisan Democrats.Why is the right doing that? Because they want to shut up the ADL and potentially put at risk its non-profit status. Why would the left join in such attacks when the ADL has been a prominent Jewish group criticizing Trump's support for anti-Semitism?

Like I said this is not the first time TNR has gone after the ADL. It needs to stop. And I failed to mention this incredibly loaded criticism that traffics in classic anti-Semitic tropes:

How does a suggestion that a Jewish organization is putting fundraising ahead of tougher opposition to anti-Semitism show up in a left wing magazine?

There is a blind spot on the left when it comes to anti-Semitism. Period. It’s a big problem.

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International Judo Federation even avoided identifying Israelis as Israeli on its own website

Much has already been written about how Abu Dhabi would not permit Israeli competitors to be identified as such in the Grand Slam judo tournament:

An Israeli judoka won a gold medal on Thursday at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam judo tournament, but had to sing his own private “Hatikvah” because the organizers refused to play the Israeli national anthem.
He also had to celebrate his victory under the International Judo Federation’s flag, because the emirate banned the display of Israeli symbols.

But what is even more outrageous is that the video feed and the website for the event, controlled by the International Judo Federation, also scrubbed the national identity of the Israeli competitors, something that goes above and beyond what the bigoted Arab nation demanded on its territory.

So the video feed identified the Israelis as being from the "IJF"

The website called the Israelis "IJF" in the results:

And elsewhere on the website as well:

Even news articles about the tournament on the IJF site avoid mentioning Israel!

At times, the IJF does identify Israel. It has a page for the Israeli judokas and its standings shows Israel in second place as of this writing.

This is all on the IJF website and video feed today, only two days after the federation pretended to chastise the host country:for discrimination:

The International Judo Federation is demanding that the United Arab Emirates treat Israeli athletes equally after reports it is banning the Israeli flag at an upcoming contest.
A letter from the IJF to the president of the UAE Judo Federation says “all delegations, including the Israeli delegation, shall be treated absolutely equally in all aspects, without any exception.”

Now we see that this was only meant to shut up Israeli and Jewish critics, and that the IJF doesn't even live up to the basic standards of sportsmanship.

This is beyond a disgrace. We know from the past that ethical sports federations have successfully threatened to withdraw from events held in Arab countries where blatant discrimination was enforced, and the Arabs always cave.

This is yet another example of how the Arab honor/shame mentality could have been used successfully in the fight for equal rights. Abu Shabi would be hugely embarrassed by a concrete threat by the IJF to cancel the competition rather than allow it to go on in a discriminatory way, and they would have given in. Instead, it was the IJF that bends over backwards to accommodate Arab racism while paying lip service to "absolute equality."

(It is interesting that a UAE judoka did compete [and lose] against an Israeli, but would he have done so if Israel's name was used?)

(h/t Gilead Ini, AviMayer)

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Autotranslated headline of article in Al Ahram

The Palestinian Authority, has issued what is perhaps the most over-the-top statement yet about the Balfour Declaration.

The State of Palestine has decided to sue Britain for its intention to support the Balfour Declaration, which paved the way for the establishment of the State of Israel in Palestine.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki announced in remarks to official Palestinian radio on Sunday that he condemned the British government's insistence on celebrating Balfour's centennial instead of responding to Palestinian demands to apologize for it.

He said the British position "represents a great challenge to the British people, the international community and Palestine on the subject and reflects a real indifference to the historical responsibility and crime committed by Britain a hundred years ago."

He added that this position "must be met by counter-Palestinian measures through the legal side to bring legal proceedings against the British government, whether in the British or European courts for the crimes committed against the Palestinian people."

Al-Malki pointed out that the Palestinian side "tried to give Britain a way to change its position and retreat in a dignified manner by presenting several proposals to try to correct the historical mistake they committed against the Palestinian people."

For its part, the Palestinian Ministry of Information stressed that the determination of British Prime Minister Theresa May to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration and boast to the Parliament of her country's role in establishing and consecrating the occupying state Israel is a repeat of the biggest political crime in human history and continues to break out of all diplomatic traditions.

It stressed in a statement yesterday that May's refusal to apologize for and insist on the black promise reflects not only extreme political trends, but also demonstrates a major moral crisis emanating from a British eye bent on blindness and brazenly defending the denial of Palestinian rights.

May and all those who support the British government's promise in the defense of political sin can not contribute to any formula for a just and comprehensive peace not only in Palestine but also in the entire world.

The defense of the Balfour Declaration means practically neutralizing the idea of occupation, supporting racial discrimination, pride in the British colonial legacy, and glorifying the two world wars: the first and second, and the bloody consequences, and the blind bias and polarization.that preceded them

The ironic thing is that the British government has been downplaying the Balfour centenary, with only a single low-key official event that no one of note attended on Wednesday night. The major effort to mark the occasion is a private dinner that Netanyahu and May will attend next week hosted by the current Lords Balfour and Rothschild.

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10/26 Links Pt2: Israeli wins judo gold in UAE, which refuses to play anthem; Conan and the barbarians

From Ian:

Israeli wins judo gold in UAE, which refuses to play anthem, raise flag

An Israeli judoka won a gold medal on Thursday at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam judo tournament, but had to sing his own private “Hatikvah” because the organizers refused to play the Israeli national anthem.

He also had to celebrate his victory under the International Judo Federation’s flag, because the emirate banned the display of Israeli symbols.

Tournament organizers did not play Israel’s national anthem as Tal Flicker stood on the podium after receiving his medal in the men’s under-66 kilograms (145 pounds) category.

With the medal around his neck, Flicker sang his own “Hatikvah” while the International Judo Federation’s (IFJ) anthem played in the background.

On the women’s side, Gili Cohen won bronze in the under-52 kilograms (114 pounds) class. The Israeli flag was not flown on her behalf either.

The entire Israeli team was required to compete without any Israeli identifying symbols, and had been told before the tournament that there would be no acknowledgement of their home country — a discriminatory policy imposed solely on the Israeli competitors.

Flicker said later that he made up his mind to sing his own “Hatikvah” on the podium from “the moment that I won the gold.”

WATCH-DISGRACEFUL.
ISRAELI Tal Flicker presented with his gold medal at #JudoAbuDhabi2017 without Israeli anthem or flag. Nice to see Tal singing something and I'm guessing it's the #Hatikvah @Ostrov_A pic.twitter.com/RzwGdn0Bh8
— SussexFriendsIsrael (@SussexFriends) October 26, 2017

Judo Federation chastises Abu Dhabi over Israeli treatment

The International Judo Federation is demanding that the United Arab Emirates treat Israeli athletes equally after reports it is banning the Israeli flag at an upcoming contest.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Slam is reportedly banning Israeli athletes from wearing their country's symbols on uniforms and is singling Israel out with a ban on displaying its flag or playing its anthem.

A letter from the IJF to the president of the UAE Judo Federation obtained by The Associated Press says "all delegations, including the Israeli delegation, shall be treated absolutely equally in all aspects, without any exception."

It highlighted the body's core ideals that "every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind."

The letter was sent to the World Jewish Congress, which represents over 100 Jewish communities, and had asked the IJF to intervene and "protect the rights of the Israeli national judo team and keep the spirit of sport free of political discrimination."

There was no comment Wednesday from the UAE, which has no diplomatic relations with Israel.

Conan and the barbarians

The anti-Israel activists who confronted Conan O’Brien as he walked along the West Bank’s security barrier were not pleased. The leader of the group, marching toward Conan and unable to contain herself, lobbed her first challenge while still 20 feet away. “Didn’t you say shakshuka was Israeli a couple of days ago?”

He replied as most of us might: “Shakshuker?”

Now close enough for Conan to hear, she repeated her cross-examination on behalf of the tomato and egg dish. “Didn’t you say it was Israeli?”

CONAN: “Oh, I don’t know what it is. I know that –”
ACTIVIST (shaking her head): “So why would you say that?”
CONAN: “Say what?”
ACTIVIST: “That shakshuka is Israeli.”
CONAN: “Well, they served it to me on El Al, so… I… but…”

The ringleader switched to a gentler tone, that of an elementary school teacher eager to show she was disappointed, not angry. “I mean,” she said softly, “it’s a Palestinian dish.”

“Okay, well I apologize. Alright.” What else could he say? He’s a television show host, not a culinary geographer.

But Conan had just been bamboozled on shakshuka. Although the dish as we know it originates in North Africa —Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, or Algeria, depending on whether you ask a Tunisian, Libyan, Moroccan or Algerian — its strong connection to Israel has been acknowledged by Saveur, The New York Times, Serious Eats and many others. For this we can thank the large population of North African Jews who brought the recipe with them when they emigrated to Israel, popularizing it there and, ultimately, across the world. These same North African Jewish communities are said to have been instrumental in creating the version of shakshuka recognizable to us today.

Arab writer freaks out in discussing "Jordan is Palestine" conference

We discussed briefly the recent "Jordan is Palestine" conference held in Jerusalem. My opinion has been that while I think the idea is quixotic in the extreme, I like the idea of these sorts of ideas getting publicity, if for no other reason that it puts pressure on Arabs.

An op-ed about the conference in Egypt's El Beshayer doesn't disappoint, as the writer Bassam Badarin tries to ridicule the conference but ends up revealing his own hate.

Badarin correctly points out that the two Arabs who spoke at the conference don't really represent anybody. He claims (several times) that the conference was created by the Likud.

Some nice lines:

[The conference] reaffirms the certainty that Israel is not only occupying the West Bank, but is hindering the future of Jordanians and trying to create a deep crisis internally with superficial maneuvers that overturn the Wadi Araba agreement.

We have already said that the settlements in Hebron are not intended to control only the West Bank, which is already under control, but to subjugate Amman and Cairo and threaten Mecca.

And its expansionist ideology is a permanent indicator of hostile intentions not only against the two peoples, but also against humanity and the Arab nation...

But my favorite was at the end:

What is remarkable is that the Jordanian paries and trade unions are not able to exploit the issue and respond from the depth of Amman with similar conferences that scream against the enemy entity because only hatred of the entity today brings together the feelings of Jordanians and Palestinians together.

Indeed, hating Israel has been the only glue that unified Arabs for 70 years. And their real fear is that this glue is falling apart.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

A woman named Jenny Listman wrote a blog post accusing recently deceased Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel of touching her inappropriately at a public event 28 years ago, when she was 19. Today when the subject of sexual harassment of women is “trending,” it created a furor, raising multiple issues: was her accusation true, and if so was it appropriate for her to make it public after Wiesel’s death when he could not respond? Was it ethical for her to air an accusation for which there could be no evidence except her own word? If true, did the allegation diminish Wiesel’s moral authority?

The Jewish Daily Forward published a story about Listman’s accusation. Almost immediately it was met with a firestorm of criticism and withdrawn, with an apology that it did not meet their “journalistic standards.” (My immediate reaction: the folks that published the cartoons of Eli Valley for years have standards?) But they made the legitimate point that they could not verify her story.

My own feeling is that her account rings true. And after consideration, I think she was not wrong in making it public.

28 years after the incident, the only evidence that exists is Listman’s testimony. There is no way to corroborate or falsify her account today. But there is also no moral requirement that Listman must have other evidence besides her memories before she tells her story. Her experience, if she is telling the truth, is something that she knows firsthand. Her position is different from that of a journalist, who is obliged to verify the accounts of external sources. So the Forward’s withdrawal of the article does not imply that she should not have published it herself – and certainly does not imply, as some social media commentators have said, that she lied or was otherwise culpable.

Many have also said that she had no right to make the accusation after Wiesel was dead and not able to defend himself. But suppose he were alive and denied it. How would his denial change anything? It would still be “she said, he said.” It is considered dishonorable to bring a charge after its target is dead, but in this case it has no practical significance. Who knows, maybe he would have admitted it and apologized.

The reason the case has created so much controversy, of course, is that it was Elie Wiesel and not a random construction worker that allegedly placed his hand on her right buttock and squeezed. It was Nobel laureate Wiesel, the LA Times’ “most important Jew in America,” a man who had survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald and, by his books and other activities arguably did more to bring the Holocaust into public consciousness than any other individual. He made it personal: six million is a number, but Elie Wiesel was a boy whose family was murdered almost in front of his eyes.

Some say that by accusing Wiesel of behavior that is morally reprehensible, Listman has cast doubt on everything that he has said and done. His legacy will forever be that of a sexual harasser rather than a moral exemplar.

I doubt this. Wiesel was a human being, like Washington, Jefferson, JFK and others who have been criticized on moral grounds. He was also a celebrity, with all the distortion of one’s own importance that comes with that. Wiesel was a man of a different time (even if by 1989 he should have known better). None of this excuses his alleged behavior, but that behavior is irrelevant to power of his testimony and his accomplishments.

Listman’s supporters argue that abuse of women is so common as to be invisible, they have had enough, and the way to stop it is to expose it, even if – especially if – the perpetrator is powerful or a celebrity. This strikes me as not unreasonable, as long as key distinctions – like the ones between verbal and physical harassment, and between butt pats and rape or murder are not blurred. Not everything is “violence,” and some harassment is worse than others. I think she would agree with me on this.

Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of Wiesel. What he suffered and what he witnessed were real, and especially in his memoir, Night, he raised awareness of the true monstrousness of the Holocaust, the degree of evil inherent in its perpetrators. Later, he opposed the trend in some eastern European countries of whitewashing their own cooperation with the Nazis. He supported oppressed peoples, but he had no illusions about which side was right in the conflicts surrounding Israel, and spoke out in her favor. He did humanity a great service, and he justly received the Nobel Prize and countless other honors.

But being a celebrity can have deleterious effects on a person, as has been demonstrated countless times by famous musicians, actors, writers and politicians. All the adulation, the admirers surrounding him and telling him over and over how great he is, make the celebrity think that possibly he really is above the rest, and that what is forbidden to ordinary people is permitted to him.

Elie Wiesel was a celebrity, and he loved it. He loved being invited to the White House, being knighted by the Queen, and visiting Buchenwald with Barack Obama and Angela Merkel. He loved it too much, and in his excessive self-regard, he allowed himself to be used. Honoring Wiesel was a way of washing the blood off of the hands of the international community that had either killed Jews or closed its eyes during the Holocaust. And it was a way for those like Barack Obama and European leaders to distract attention from their present-day anti-Jewish policies.

Wiesel kept the Holocaust in everyone’s consciousness, which was a good thing and a bad thing. It was good because, at least for a time, it made Jew-hatred unpopular. It was bad because it provided a safe way for those who opposed the Jewish people’s right of self-determination to nevertheless feel good about themselves; and in a phrase that has recently caught on, to virtue-signal. Left-wing Americans who support organizations like J Street that are in practice anti-Israel, or even those that favor BDS, a program that explicitly calls for the end of the Jewish state, can get teary-eyed contemplating the dead Jews of 70 years ago, while favoring Palestinians over the living ones of today.

I found the social media response particularly interesting. The emotional content of posts by Listman’s supporters, most of them women who had experienced some form of harassment themselves, was strong. But the negative ones (by both men and women) were even more vehement. On Facebook, she was called a liar, a fraud, a “crackpot” and a “mental case,” accused of cynically seeking publicity for herself by attacking a great man, and worse.

Some of the strongest reactions against Ms Listman come from Jews whose primary connection with the Jewish people seems to be the Holocaust. They are neither observant Jews nor politically active Zionists (discussing this phenomenon, Arthur Hertzberg once said that their knowledge of Judaism is in inverse proportion to their degree of Holocaust-obsession). Their Jewishness seems to be expressed primarily by studying about and commemorating the Holocaust, through literature, movies and various memorials and events. Their prophet was Elie Wiesel, and criticism of him cuts to the heart of their belief systems.

At the end of the day, I think that this controversy is unimportant. Elie Wiesel the celebrity may have acted badly, as celebrities do when their celebrity goes to their head, which I think is what happened. His accomplishments aren’t diminished by his mistakes, which were less significant. I also believe that Jenny Listman did the right thing by making her story, which I believe, public. The continual barrage of harassment which women face day in and day out is real, and the announcement that they are “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore” is legitimate and should be honored – even by the famous or powerful.

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10/26 Links Pt1: PMW YouTube account reinstated; How to Prevent a Third Lebanon War

From Ian:

PMW: Why did YouTube just close down PMW... again?

Today YouTube closed down Palestinian Media Watch's main account, making hundreds of important videos inaccessible to governments, think tanks and media who find this material of critical importance.

Over the past two weeks, someone has been trying to damage PMW by submitting complaints to YouTube about PMW videos in four different PMW accounts in three different languages. The accusation is that PMW is violating YouTube's "policy on harmful or dangerous content." Because of the range of accounts being targeted, it appears that someone is systematically submitting complaints about PMW videos to prevent us from reporting on Palestinian incitement, and YouTube has gone along with this.

This is outrageous. PMW reports on and exposes the "harmful or dangerous" messaging coming from the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, and Hamas, and plays a critical role by internationally exposing the Palestinian Authority's hate and terror promotion.

By shutting down PMW videos, YouTube is "shooting the messenger," and enabling Palestinian hate and terror promotion to flourish.

PMW asks our readers to turn to YouTube and demand that they reinstate PMW's account and all of its videos that expose hate and terror, and return our accounts to "good standing."

PMW YouTube account reinstated, thanks to your efforts!

Dear Friends of PMW,

PMW's main YouTube account, https://www.youtube.com/user/palwatch, is back!

Thanks to all of our friends whose contacts and pressure on YouTube quickly convinced the company to reinstate our account and return it to good standing.

Unfortunately, some videos on other PMW accounts are still blocked. We hope that this will be resolved shortly.

I want to personally thank everyone who reached out to PMW and to YouTube, which shows that the cumulative effect of individual actions can make a difference.
Itamar Marcus, Director

[MEMRI's Account is still down]

Australian MP: PMW presentations explain Palestinian youth violence

Michael Danby, Labor Member of Parliament: “Unfortunately, Palestinian leadership have encouraged young people to carry out acts of terrorism—including throwing rocks through the windows of cars and trucks, causing death and injury—through their media, involved in violent incitement. Anyone in this parliament who has been to the many sessions of Palestinian Media Watch that have taken place here over the last 15 years has seen some of the appalling material on television in that area. Honestly, if one is to support a two-state solution and a peace process, one of the things we have to address in the future is this incitement of young people by the Palestinian Authority.

Australian MP: PMW presentation exposes PA’s deceit

Tim Wilson, Federal Liberal Member for Goldstein: "Having visited Jerusalem myself, I have seen... some of the efforts of the Palestinian Authority and those who support them to deceive the public into getting misrepresentations or misunderstandings about what actually occurs particularly under the State of Israel. In fact, one of my visits to Israel many years ago, we were given a briefing about the activities of Palestinian [Media] Watch, which was particularly scrutinizing Palestinian media, and how they sought to misrepresent information to build a perception of victimhood that was not always in accordance with reality."

At film screening, "expert" says that all Israeli students in Belgium are Mossad agents

The Belgian town of Nivelles, near Brussels, hosted a "Solidarity Film Festival" earlier this month.

One of the films screened is a 2014 documentary called "This Is My Land" by French-Israeli Tamara Erde where Jewish and Arab schools are shown to emphasize each own's narratives in the classroom and to ignore the other. Erde's incentive to create the film:

During my army service, which took place during the second Intifada in 2002, I began to see up close the Israeli army’s operational methods in the operations held against the Palestinians. This was, for me, the first blinking of a red light, an alarm of sorts. But more time needed to pass before I discovered just how ‘blind and ignorant’ I was in terms of my knowledge about the “other side,” and the history of my country and area. Several years later, I found myself wondering, “How could I have never doubted before what I was taught?”

The "expert" chosen to discuss this film at Nivelles was Marianne Blume, an anti-Israel professor who lived in Gaza for ten years and worked at Al Azhar University there.

She said at the screening that it is an "open secret" that almost all Israeli students in Belgian universities are Mossad agents. "Everything that comes from Israel should be boycotted", she said.

She called Israel a "foreign body" in the Middle-East.

Blume also complained about Belgium cooperation with Israel in the fight against terrorism, saying that such cooperation is a "threat to Belgian democracy”.

No one challenged her, of course. Her words fit right in with many of the types of people who go to "solidarity film festivals" to begin with.

The drinks and snacks at the screening were sponsored by...Oxfam.

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Passport Index ranks all national passports by a "Power Rank" of the number of countries a passport holder can enter without a visa.

This is a pretty good metric to determine which countries are isolated from the world and which ones are full members.

This year Singapore ranks first, with 159 countries that a Singapore passport holder can visit freely ,followed closely by Germany with 158.

Israel is ranked 50th out of 199 countries with a score of 137, which isn't a stellar score but considering that most Muslim majority countries would not allow people with Israeli passports to enter altogether, it is a respectable score.

How does Israel compare with other countries in the Middle East and North Africa?

With the exception of the UAE, it isn't even close:

Israel is not isolated at all. It is more a part of the community of nations than every single one of its Muslim critics.

So for all the people who have dedicated their lives to telling the world that Israel is a pariah nation - you are once again proven to be liars.

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NJ attorney general accuses town of trying to keep Orthodox Jews away

From NJ.com:

MAHWAH -- Fearing an influx of Orthodox Jews from New York State, the Township of Mahwah introduced two hateful and discriminatory ordinances that illegally targeted that community, the state Attorney General's office alleged in a stunning complaint filed against the town on Tuesday.

The harsh public rebuke of both the actions of Mahwah's elected officials and the anti-Semitic sentiment of some residents likened the conduct of the town to the actions of "1950s-era white flight suburbanites who sought to keep African-Americans from moving into their neighborhoods."

The nine-count complaint, filed in Bergen County Superior Court, seeks a return of more than $3.4 million in state Green Acres grants received by Mahwah and an injunction blocking the two ordinances.

"This is an extensive complaint ... but the bottom line is very simple -- the township council in Mahwah heard the angry, fear-driven voices of bigotry and acted to appease those voices," Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino said in a statement.

The first ordinance, which went into effect at the end of July, limited the use of Mahwah's recreational facilities to New Jersey residents.

The second, which was introduced but not passed, was the expansion of an existing ordinance that banned signs on utility poles, amended to include any "device or other matter." It effectively would have banned the formation of an Orthodox Jewish religious boundary known as an eruv, which is designated by white piping called "lechis" on utility poles, the state alleged.

"I repeatedly warned the council of these consequences for months," Mahwah Mayor Bill Laforet said Tuesday.

The religious boundary, which in this case extended from Rockland County, allows Orthodox Jews to do everyday things such as carry house keys or push baby strollers outside of the home on the Jewish Sabbath.

Despite approval from the utility company, the township ordered that the lechis be removed. A group called the Bergen Rockland Eruv Association and residents from Rockland County filed a federal lawsuit in August to allow the lechis to stay.

A ban on an eruv, or threats to have it removed, is "tantamount" to housing discrimination because it could prevent Orthodox Jewish families from living in Mahwah, according to the complaint (which can be read at the end of this story).

Many residents have come out in support of the township's decision, creating Facebook groups and online petitions.

But the complaint takes Mahwah's residents to task for their alleged behavior.

The council, the state says, was "influenced largely" by the "vocal anti-Orthodox Jewish sentiment" from some residents on social media and in public meetings.

"I was wondering if there are any thoughts and procedures in place to keep the Hasidic Jewish people from moving into Mahwah?" one resident asked at a June 29 council meeting. "They have chased us out of two towns we lived in and now they are buying up houses in Suffern."

"I don't know if you noticed, but the Hasidics have been making themselves very comfortable in our town parks," said another.

A third suggested people bring their dogs to town parks in an effort to "scare them away."

Residents also called Mahwah police to report that people who appeared to be Orthodox Jews were using parks, though the callers did not allege that the people were doing anything wrong, the complaint says.

Here are some of the antisemitic comments that residents wrote in an anti-eruv petition:

"This group of people is known for entering a community and taking it over for their own advantage. They are known for taking a lovely community and turning it into a run down, dirty, unwanted place to live."

"Our town is such a great place and if these things move in they will ruin it."

"I do not want these things coming into my town and ruining it."

"They are trying to move into Mahwah once they do our schools will suffer, our taxes will go up. And Mahwah will reach new levels of welfare recipients."

"They are clearly trying to annex land like they've been doing in Occupied Palestine."

"I don't want these rude, nasty, dirty people who think they can do what they want in our nice town."

"I don't want my town to be gross and infested with these nasty people."

"They destroy what they have and run things to the ground. Give them one piece of property and before you know it there are thousands of non-tax payers in our great town."

"This is a soft invasion. Next, we will see homes called 'places of worship or schools' for this religious[sic] organization as a way for the members of this religious organization to avoid paying property taxes. I do not want to pick up the tab!"

The law to attempt to ban the eruv is not even the most antisemitic act done here by the township. The ordinance to bar the parks from being used by people who are non-residents of New Jersey was an especially odious way to attempt to keep Jews out of Mahwah even before the eruv would have been built. Mahwah residents complained about Orthodox Jews using their playgrounds:

Ironically, these complaints became public during a discussion during a town meeting about swastikas that were found in the town.

But the township enacted the law anyway, changing the text from saying that the township's parks could be used by "residents and non-residents alike" to saying that that may be used by "New Jersey residents only," obviously meant to exclude Jews from neighboring Rockland County in New York.

The chief of police of Mahwah said that this law was unenforceable. What he was being asked to do was itself against the law - because residents wanted police to stop and ask for ID only those people in the parks who do not look like they belong - meaning, only Orthodox Jews.

The Town Council then moved to remove the chief of police for refusing to enforce this discriminatory law!

He wrote to the Bergen County Prosecutor's office asking for advice, and the prosecutor specifically told the chief of police not to enforce this ordinance because it is patently illegal to ask for IDs from people based on their appearance.

Residents are telling reporters that, of course they aren't antisemitic. But the sequence of events shows that this is pure, modern manifestation of treating Jews (in this case, religious Jews) as vermin.

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