Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, November 09, 2017

Zionism and ‘Lennonism’ (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Who among us wouldn’t – doesn’t – prioritize the well-being of members of one’s own immediate family above others? Other things being equal, if one has a chance to help a family member or a non-member (but not both), then one will choose the family member. Or, in other words, being a family member is a factor that has significant weight in decisions about whom to favor when one is forced to make a choice.

This behavior has probably developed in response to evolutionary pressures over millennia. Discussions of precisely how and why and its relationship to altruistic behavior (helping another person even if it is not to one’s advantage) are complicated, but there is no doubt that it is almost universal among humans. It can be called nepotism, to broaden the common meaning of the term.

In many cases nepotism extends beyond family to include members of extended families, tribes and even nations. The phenomenon is called ethnic nepotism. It’s argued that this preference is also caused by evolutionary pressures, both on individuals and groups.

But how far does it extend? Apparently that varies a great deal among groups and individuals. Clan loyalties, for example, are important to Arabs. Broader national loyalty – patriotism – characterizes certain groups of Americans or Europeans, but by no means all.

In addition to the intuitive feeling of affinity for members of the relevant groups, there is also the influence of ideology. This takes place at a higher level of consciousness than intuition. So a person can believe that he should prefer members of a particular group. Alternatively, he can believe that it is morally wrong to do so, and suppress any intuitive feelings to the contrary.

I call the ideological position opposed to ethnic nepotism Lennonism (not a misspelling!) Lennonists believe in part that ethnic or religious preferences are the root cause of human misery, and that if we could overcome them, everyone could be “living life in peace.” Lennonism is opposed to borders and even private property.

Lennonism appeals almost entirely to people in developed societies who are unlikely to have had the pleasure of being attacked through inadequately fortified borders by members of other ethnic groups in order to kill or enslave them and steal their private property. Lennonism is thus most popular in Western Europe and North America than in places with a more recent memory of instability.

The Jewish people meet all the criteria for a distinct nation – self-identification, a common origin, a unique language and religion, cultural similarities, and more. Many Jews feel their Jewish identity – their connection to the Jewish people – very strongly. However, in the US, where a majority of those of Jewish descent have either become completely secular, or adopted an attenuated form of Jewish observance without maintaining a knowledge of their language, their ethnic connection has weakened also.

Many US Jews, even if they haven’t adopted a Lenonnist point of view and see themselves as “world citizens,” consider themselves primarily American and only secondarily Jewish. If they do have intuitive feelings of ethnic nepotism, they choose to suppress them, consciously or subconsciously.

This suppression of ethnic feeling is necessary for survival in a culture which is ready to accuse Jews of disloyalty if they place their Jewish identity above their American one. This perhaps explains the distaste for Zionism among many American Jews. They understand, on some level, that they are living in a nation which does not belong to them, and at any moment they can become personae non gratae. Zionists who suggest that Jews should care strongly about Israel – a foreign country – endanger all American Jews, who can be tarred by the brush of disloyalty.

This points precisely to the difficulty faced by the Diaspora Jew. Even if he does feel a pull to identify strongly with his people, he is unable to express it without endangering his status in the overwhelmingly non-Jewish society.

Some Jews deal with it by insisting that their Jewishness is entirely religious in nature: Americans of the Jewish persuasion. But anybody who pays attention to the weekly Torah readings understands the true importance of Eretz Israel in Judaism.

Others redefine Judaism. They understand Biblical injunctions to treat your Jewish neighbors and the ger that lives alongside you as you would treat yourself to refer to all humankind. In effect, they claim that Judaism is Lennonism. But there is no textual support for this, and anyone who tries to take it seriously soon finds out. Judaism cannot be Lennonism.

Some simply define themselves as Americans of Jewish extraction and leave it at that.

And sometimes, the tension brings about a violent rejection of the Jewish people and their state, and drives American Jews into the arms of anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now.

The fact is that Jewish nationalism or Zionism is a perfectly natural ideology for a Jew to adopt, regardless of where he lives.

If it becomes uncomfortable where you are, well, that’s why there is a Jewish state.

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

11/09 Links Pt1: Let’s stop lying to ourselves about a Palestinian state; Palestinian children commit terror attacks to enhance their status in society

From Ian:

Saudi Arabia has united with Israel against Iran – and a desert storm is brewing

For the Crown Prince’s supporters — vast swathes of the country’s young, eager for progressive social change — his way may be dictatorial but his motives are honourable. The purge represents the opening salvo in a fight against corruption that comes with an embrace of moderate Islam, a determination to relax the strict segregation of the sexes and introduce entertainment venues. Why should ordinary Saudis have sympathy for the arrested if they have, as alleged, been engaged in massive criminal schemes involving bribery and money laundering? When did any of those speak up on behalf of the oppressed masses?

Bin Salman’s power grab is in itself spectacular. But the wider significance of this can only be fully understood in conjunction with events in Israel. The Jewish state is hardly a natural ally for Saudi Arabia, but they have long shared a common enemy: Iran. Both fear the latter is exploiting the opening created by the fall of Isis, and the triumph of the Assad regime in Syria, to dominate the region. Iran and its proxies — whether the Houthi rebels in Yemen or Hezbollah in Lebanon — are in the ascendant, and neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia are going to sit on the sidelines.

So the two have been working together: close diplomatic cooperation, intelligence sharing and perhaps more. Israeli media recently reported that a senior Saudi prince, possibly Bin Salman himself, paid a secret visit to the Jewish state. The idea of a Saudi-Israeli alliance is still deeply controversial in both countries, but details are starting to leak out.

Amid the recent madness, for example, we saw the resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Saudi puppet. He was summoned to Riyadh, where he was forced to read a letter announcing his immediate departure, the official reason being that he feared an assassination attempt by Hezbollah. But why would a prime minister visit a foreign capital to resign? The odds are that he had no idea he was resigning until he landed in Riyadh to meet Saudis furious at him for holding talks with both Iranian and Hezbollah officials. His departure has shocked the region.

But it didn’t shock the Israelis. A leaked memo shows Israeli diplomats being instructed to back the Saudi version of events, and start to join Riyadh in denouncing the Houthi rebels. Such diplomatic coordination is dangerous, given that an alliance has the potential to create a massive backlash among ordinary Saudis. For generations, they have been taught that Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs and Israel is the eternal enemy.

This brings us back to the night of the long knives. An outpouring of anti-Israeli sentiment might, only a few months ago, have provided a rallying cry for those determined to oust the Crown Prince. They would have likely turned to Al-Waleed bin Talal, a fierce critic of Trump and the most vocal Saudi supporter of the Palestinians. But he is in prison, presumably as a warning to anyone who shows opposition to the young new broom.

PMW: Palestinian children commit terror attacks to enhance their status in society

For almost a decade, the Palestinian NGO Defence for Children International - Palestine (DCI-P) has unjustifiably been accusing Israel of breaching the rights of Palestinian minors who are arrested on suspicion of committing terror attacks. Most recently, DCI-P launched a campaign in the US and in Canada under the title "No Way to Treat a Child", whose goal is "to challenge and end Israel's prolonged military occupation of Palestinians by exposing widespread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system."

Among other baseless claims, DCI-P argues that the Palestinian minors are arrested, interrogated in breach of all of their rights, prosecuted and sentenced to prison terms.

A recent interview with DCI-P's Accountability Program Director Ayed Abu Qteish on official PA TV, shows that the claims made by his own organization are false. Abu Qteish explained that Palestinian minors do in fact commit terror attacks, and they do it, not necessarily because they want to attack Israelis, but in order to enhance or maintain their status in Palestinian society.
Ayed Abu Qteish: "There are children who, when they were in prison, told the lawyer: 'I want to be imprisoned.' The first time [the child] was imprisoned, he didn't confess, and they released him because there was no evidence to convict him in the Israeli military court. The second time, there was no evidence either. The third time, he wanted to be imprisoned so that his image won't be hurt in the eyes of his friends, even though he is actually innocent... In several cases [Palestinian children] carried out stabbing operations because of the way the public looks at them. They realized 'the best way to clear myself of this image [of helping Israel] is to participate in resistance operations.'"
[Official PA TV, Personal Encounter, Oct. 11, 2017]

Phyllis Chesler is a true liberal - and as such, she is a thorn in the side of the politically correct crowd who style themselves as liberals but are simply inconsistent socialists who think that loving the underdog is what liberalism means.

Chesler's latest book, Islamic Gender Apartheid: Exposing a Veiled War Against Women, is a collection of over 100 of articles she wrote over a 14 year period from 2003 to 2016, all on the topic of how Muslims and Islam treat women.

Chesler knows what she is talking about. In 1961, she fell in love and married a sophisticated Afghan man who took her to Afghanistan to "meet his family." Thus began a months-long virtual imprisonment and first-hand experience with how Muslims treat women - even in a time before most Afghan women were veiled.

When she managed to escape after months of being debased and mistreated, Chesler started her career as a feminist, authoring dozens of books on the topic over the years.

As she says:

When I returned to the United States, there were few feminist stirrings. However, within five years, I became a leader of America's new feminist movement. In 1967, I became active in the National Organization for Women, as well as in various feminist consciousness-raising groups and campaigns. In 1969, I pioneered women's studies classes for credit, cofounded the Association for Women in Psychology, and began delivering feminist lectures. I also began work on my first book, Women and Madness,[3] which became an oft-cited feminist text.

Firsthand experience of life under Islam as a woman held captive in Kabul has shaped the kind of feminist I became and have remained—one who is not multiculturally "correct." By seeing how women interacted with men and then with each other, I learned how incredibly servile oppressed peoples could be and how deadly the oppressed could be toward each other. Beebee Jan was cruel to her female servants. She beat her elderly personal servant and verbally humiliated our young and pregnant housemaid. It was an observation that stayed with me.

While multiculturalism has become increasingly popular, I never could accept cultural relativism. Instead, what I experienced in Afghanistan as a woman taught me the necessity of applying a single standard of human rights, not one tailored to each culture. In 1971—less than a decade after my Kabul captivity—I spoke about rescuing women of Bangladesh raped en masse during that country's war for independence from Pakistan. The suffering of women in the developing world should be considered no less important than the issues feminists address in the West. Accordingly, I called for an invasion of Bosnia long before Washington did anything, and I called for similar military action in Rwanda, Afghanistan, and Sudan.

In recent years, I fear that the "peace and love" crowd in the West has refused to understand how Islamism endangers Western values and lives, beginning with our commitment to women's rights and human rights. The Islamists who are beheading civilians, stoning Muslim women to death, jailing Muslim dissidents, and bombing civilians on every continent are now moving among us both in the East and in the West. While some feminist leaders and groups have come to publicize the atrocities against women in the Islamic world, they have not tied it to any feminist foreign policy. Women's studies programs should have been the first to sound the alarm. They do not. More than four decades after I was a virtual prisoner in Afghanistan, I realize how far the Western feminist movement has to go.

This book is an exploration of Chesler's fight against Islamic gender apartheid - the burqa and chador, honor killings, lashings and stonings of women in Islamic countries who stand up for themselves, routine rapes, female genital mutilation and other horrible crimes against women in Muslim countries.

These are the stories that the Western media usually refuses to cover. Chesler has an encyclopedic knowledge of Muslim crimes against women in the Muslim world as well as in the West.

And, Phyllis Chesler knows the history of the women's movement - since she has been there from the beginning of the Second Wave. She can recall a time, back in 2001, when Oprah Winfrey could help remove a burqa from a young woman in front of 18,000 cheering women at Madison Square Garden - a scene that is literally impossible to imagine today as these same "feminists' are defending the burqa as just another fashion choice and not a moving sensory-deprivation prison.

She also talks about the brave Muslim (and ex-Muslim) feminists who are fighting the good fight against this systematic discrimination and abuse. These are her friends. She defends them against the hypocrites of today's Left who insult these incredibly brave women. And, in her characteristic fearlessness, Chesler excoriates the modern Left who are willing to give Muslim crimes against women a pass.

One of my favorite passages is where Chesler responds to a faux-feminist who accuses her of racism for her criticism of the sexual assault of CBS News reporter Lara Logan in Cairo:

Where were you when I began marching for civil rights of African-americans in the early 160s and tutoring black children in Harlem? .... Read all or any of my articles about what life is like for women in the Middle East and in central Asia, read my studies about honor killings and about the work I’ve been doing on behalf of girls and women who have applied for asylum in the United States and who are in flight from being honor murdered.

These girls and women are not white women. They are all women of color. Do you believe that men of color have the right to treat “their” women barbarically? And that we are obliged to collaborate in sexism in order to be on the right side of racism?

Marcotte: Your accusation of “racism” constitutes a new and terribly fashionable McCarthyism, one that plagues our world. (Yes, I know: McCarthy was also before your time.)

Today, when real racists (think of the ethnic Arab Muslims in Sudan who have committed genocide and gender cleansing against the African Muslims and Christians in Darfur), real fascists, real totalitarians, real barbarians, want to brand, shame, delegitimize, and silence anyone who dares to expose their racism and misogyny, they simply call her a “racist.” The accusation functions as a leper’s bell around one’s neck. It is meant to keep others away, meant to warn people that if, they, too, say similar things or associate with a known “racist,” that they will also be branded as “racists.”

The accusation of “racism” is the new, politically correct version of the old accusation of “communism.” Today, those who level this accusation tend to be leftists, socialists, “progressives,” faux feminists, and real communists.

Most of the articles chosen for the book are relatively short pieces that Chesler published at sites like FrontPage, Pajamas Media, Israel National News or even the Huffington Post. She sparkles, though, when she is given the space to show her scholarship in the longer pieces she wrote for Middle East Forum and other journals, with footnotes.

I recently stumbled across a ridiculous book put out by a university press that claims that anyone who says that they support women's rights in Muslim countries is really an Islamophobe. Chesler proves this thesis wrong, decisively, by fearlessly standing up for Muslim women and defending Muslim reformers.

Islamic Gender Apartheid is a fearless defense of Western liberal values in the face of political correctness and modern witch hunting.

(Cross-posted at Scholars for Peace in the Middle East)

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

In the Forward, a "Jewish Voice for Peace" member is upset at Congressional hearings on antisemitism on campus.

The writer, Sophie Edelhart, says that neo-Nazis are the real threat to Jews, not the Left that has been creating a toxic atmosphere for anyone who believes that Jews have the right to self-determination.

Predictably, she goes down the path of implying that people who are pro-Israel are the real antisemites:

At a time when groups like the Zionist Organization of America are inviting white nationalists like Steve Bannon to speak at their events and neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer are showing their admiration for Israel, it is becoming increasingly implausible to align what is pro-Israel with what is pro-Jewish.

This is happening a lot lately. People whose primary interest is destroying Israel are pretending to suddenly be philo-semitic - and accuse the other side of antisemitism.

Most of her links to prove that people on the right are antisemitic are bogus, but she makes one valid point in linking to a Breitbart article on the alt-right, where authors Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulos defend the popular antisemitic meme "Shlomo Shekelberg":

Just as the kids of the 60s shocked their parents with promiscuity, long hair and rock’n’roll, so too do the alt-right’s young meme brigades shock older generations with outrageous caricatures, from the Jewish “Shlomo Shekelburg” to “Remove Kebab,” an internet in-joke about the Bosnian genocide. These caricatures are often spliced together with Millennial pop culture references, from old 4chan memes like pepe the frog, to anime and My Little Pony references.
Are they actually bigots? No more than death metal devotees in the 80s were actually Satanists. For them, it’s simply a means to fluster their grandparents.

This is "Shlomo Shekelberg," the scheming, greedy archetypical Jew that antisemites love and that Bokhari and Yiannopoulos defend:

I recently noted that this same caricature was used by members of the British Labour Party in their own social media usage:

The antisemitic Left is saying that this is perfectly OK because he motivation is anti-Zionism.

The antisemitic Right is saying that this is perfectly OK because the motivation is "lulz".

Both sides are accusing the other side of antisemitism - and defending the use of antisemitic memes when used by their own side.

What this proves is that neither of them give a damn about actual antisemitism. Both sides want to use antisemitism as a club to attack their political opponents. Actual Jews aren't important - except to get them on your side by claiming the other side is antisemitic.

So here is the real test for whether you condone antisemitism in today's political climate: If you cannot admit that there is real antisemitism on both the right and the left, and if you are not willing to fight the antisemitism on your own side, then you aren't really against antisemitism.

And if you cannot fight your side's antisemitism, anything you say against antisemitism on the other side is simple hypocrisy. You don't care about Jews - you care about politics, and Jews are just pawns to you.

Which indeed is antisemitic itself.

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

This month is the 40th anniversary of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's historic visit to Israel.

Arabic media are quoting Israeli news as saying that there will be an official ceremony marking the occasion.....but the Egyptian ambassador to Israel won't be there.

The ceremony is scheduled for November 22 at the home of President Reuven Rivlin. According to the report, no Egyptian officials accepted the invitation to the event.

And this is when there is pretty close cooperation between Israel and Egypt on security matters.

People who talk about peace in the Middle East who think that peace means actual acceptance of a Jewish state are fooling themselves. A formal cold peace is a hell of a lot better than war, but it isn't true peace until the Arabs are taught that Jews have the right to self-determination. Until there is actual, real normalization.

That's not going to happen. Ever.

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

11/08 Links P2: Col Kemp: Israel as a Strategic Asset of the West; Morrissey: Israel haters are just ‘jealous’ of the country

From Ian:

Col Kemp: Israel as a Strategic Asset of the West

This visit came just weeks after the publication of the infamous Goldstone Report – which alleged that Israel had committed war crimes by deliberately targeting civilians in Gaza.

The contrast was striking: within weeks of the European Parliament endorsing the report, the European Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee was visiting Israel, for the third time in four years, to study ethical methods for dealing with terrorist insurgencies without causing undue harm to civilians.

Why do European countries exploit Israel’s capabilities with one hand and stab her in the back with the other?
One word sums it up: appeasement.

Every European country has a large and growing Muslim population and an increasing fear of Islamic terrorism.
Political leaders believe that a harsh approach toward Israel will give electoral advantage in respect of their Muslim populations and also discourage Islamic terrorists from attacking at home.

A much longer-standing target of their appeasement is the Arab world itself and concern about the negative impact that their dealings with Israel will have on their relations with other countries in the Middle East.
But the balance has been shifting and European diplomacy has struggled to keep up.

For many years Israel has had close strategic relations with two of its main Arab neighbours.

And today in the face of a growing fear of Iran and the rise of radical jihadism, other Arab countries are increasingly, if cautiously and quietly, looking toward Israel for protection and assistance.

The Arab world will not suddenly fall in love with the Jewish State, but the sands are shifting and in their own security interests, Western states also now need to re-evaluate their relationships with Israel and appreciate what is the balance of cost and benefit to them.

Perhaps the time has come for a new Balfour Declaration.
President Trump has called for an overhaul of NATO which he rightly considers obsolete.

The key to making NATO relevant in the modern world is re-focusing its efforts primarily against the central strategic issue of our time, global jihad.

There has been increasing cooperation in recent years between NATO and Israel, and even today there is a NATO parliamentary delegation here in Jerusalem.
The Balfour Declaration symbolised the British government’s recognition of the strategic value of the Jews of Palestine in the global struggle that was then in progress.

A modern day Balfour Declaration could be recognition of the strategic value of the Jewish state in today’s global struggle in the form of full membership of a reformed NATO, which would benefit all of our strategic interests and serve also to undermine international efforts to isolate Israel.

Alan Dershowitz: Berkeley's student newspaper refuses to publish my response to an anti-Semitic op-ed, so here it is

On Nov. 3, the Daily Californian published an op-ed by Matthew Taylor, explicitly accusing me of having “blood on his [my] hands” and being “culpable for the perpetuation of … [Israeli] atrocities.” The article was worse than the cartoon itself. But when I tried to write a factual response to his false accusations, the Daily Californian categorically refused to publish it, thus demonstrating their obvious bias. I have attached my response here so it can be widely read.

Taylor crosses his own line into bigotry By Alan M. Dershowitz

A recent op-ed by Matthew Taylor in the Daily Californian condemns the cartoonist for caricaturing me as a predatory spider. He argues, however, that it was “fair criticism” to portray me with “blood on [my] hands” and “crushing a Palestinian with one foot and holding up an IDF soldier who assassinates a Palestinian civilian.” In support of this conclusion he proclaims, without citing any evidence, that Israel is “in fact an egregious human rights abuser,” murders unarmed and innocent civilians, including “underage Palestinians,” commits “intentional … atrocities” and engages in “pinkwashing.” He calls me a “privileged professor who is culpable for the perpetuation of Israel’s atrocities,” despite my long record of advocating a peaceful two-state outcome.

I would not usually reply to such ignorance and oversimplified ad hominems. But because these false accusations have become a staple of hard-left attacks singling out only the nation-state of the Jewish people for such defamation, I will disprove each of them in turn.

Op. Harpoon: How the Mossad and an Israeli NGO destroyed terrorist money networks

Former government sources have told The Jerusalem Post that Israel’s Operation Harpoon, carried out by a range of Mossad, Shin Bet and other operatives, was revolutionary in that it was “not just about following the money, but about destroying terrorists’ money networks.”

Sources who had close personal contact with Meir Dagan (1945-2016) indicate that the idea of elevating the thwarting of terrorism financing to a primary mission of intelligence agencies was an uphill battle for the legendary Mossad chief and Harpoon founder.

“When Dagan started Harpoon as part of his role at the National Security Council, no one was interested. Not the Mossad, Shin Bet, IDF intelligence..., and there was almost nothing in place to combat terrorism financing,” the sources told the Post.

With his close relationship with then-prime minister Ariel Sharon, his ingenuity and singular will power, Dagan, who later became Mossad chief, turned Harpoon into an operation that dealt Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah’s Yasser Arafat and other terrorist groups major blows.

The development and achievements of Harpoon against terrorism financing, including by groups of lawyers such as the Shurat Hadin NGO, is capturing the headlines now as a new book about the operations and the lawsuits has been released.

Though Harpoon has been previously revealed in its general outlines, Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism’s Money Masters, by Shurat Hadin director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and Samuel Katz, breaks new ground on several fronts.

Taken from Mudar Zahran's Facebook page, photo of Michael Ross, Ted Belman, and Arieh Eldad at Jordan is Palestine Conference

Michael Ross has been somewhat of an enigma to those of us with an interest in the Jordanian Option. Referred to as "Chief of Staff/Secretary of State for Peace" in the Jordanian Opposition Cabinet's shadow government, and a prominent speaker at the recent Jerusalem Jordan is Palestine conference, we actually know very little about him. Two key players in the Jordanian Option, Mudar Zahran and Rachel Avraham, have vaguely referred to Ross as a "Republican lobbyist."

In a recent article relating to the Jordanian Option, I asked a question about Ross: "What is his area of interest as a lobbyist? Corn?"

It seems I was close. Not corn, but rather, something that rhymes with corn.

As it turns out, there's something called the Lobbying Disclosure Act, which calls for lobbyists to register significant lobbying activities with the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives. This is by way of bringing accountability to federal lobbying practices. The Lobbying Disclosure Act means that the public can access details of significant lobbying by way of a government database.

When the name Michael Ross is entered into the Lobbying Disclosure Act Database, two entries come up, both from 1999, for a lobbyist named Michael C. Ross. The first entry is Ross' client, the "Adult Entertainment Education Fund." The second entry is for the Michael Ross client called the "National Cabaret Association."

Is this Michael Ross the same Michael Ross who addressed hundreds of people at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center last month? The same Ross who shared a stage with Temple Mount activist and Member of Knesset Yehudah Glick? Is he the Michael Ross who is executive director (and sole board member) of the International Jewish Muslim Dialogue Center?

Let's take a look.

Here is the Michael C. Ross who spoke at the Jordan is Palestine conference (guy on the left).

Here is his Facebook profile.

Here is a photo of Michael C. Ross from the California Lobbying Directory of 2011-2012 (when he last appears, it seems.)

The address listed in the above California lobbying directory mirrors the one listed in the "Jordanian Constitution," drafted by Ross in February 2016.

This same document has Ross down with the middle initial "C." Michael C. Ross.

Here's his LinkedIn profile. Can't really tell if it's the same dude, because no beard. But he's Michael Ross from San Mateo, a lobbyist.

The LinkedIn profile URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ssorleahcim/ uses the same backwards name as per his email address as listed in his draft of the Jordanian "constitution" (third screenshot above)

What do we know so far? We know that the Michael Ross who spoke at the Jordan is Palestine conference is a California lobbyist. We can't say with 100% certainty that there are two men in San Mateo named Michael C. Ross who were lobbyists from the 1990's through 2000 and on.

But we do know that a Michael C Ross from Sacramento (different home address) attempted to form a national PAC for topless clubs, the National Cabaret Association, in 1999.

A simple online background check confirms Michael C Ross from San Mateo once lived at the Sacramento address in the above screenshot (blacked out), which Ross used in his capacity as a lobbyist for the National Cabaret Association.

We know that the very same Michael Ross invested in Tail Feathers, a Sacramento strip club believed to have been owned, in part, by a convicted rapist. Here's part of an article from April, 1997:

Michael Ross, a Tail Feathers investor and a lobbyist for the adult entertainment industry, last week filed protests with Sacramento County for approving the name change. He wants the Board of Supervisors to rescind the change in Dove's business license.

He's making that request, he said, to protect both his ownership rights and the community.

Unfortunately for that particular Michael Ross, "lobbyist for the adult entertainment industry," Tail Feathers filed for bankruptcy 18 months later:

Michael Ross, a disgruntled Tail Feathers investor and a lobbyist for the adult entertainment industry, plans to watch the bankruptcy process very carefully. "I think this is all a smokescreen," he said of Dove's bankruptcy filing. He and other parties who had disputes with Dove had been trying to resolve matters through arbitration, he said. Ross contends Dove owes him $125,000, although he said Dove believes that amount to be about $30,000.

Is this Michael Ross, "lobbyist for the adult entertainment industry," the same Michael Ross as the Republican lobbyist from California who would serve to negotiate peace between Israel and Jordan, if the Jordanian Option were to be implemented? Is this the same guy who would serve as Mudar Zahran's chief of staff? The same man who wrote an article smearing award-winning Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh under the pen names Michael Ben Avraham and Michael Ben Abraham?

If so, what is the connection between the adult entertainment industry and the Jordanian Option? And what is the connection between Michael C. Ross and Mudar Zahran? How did they stumble upon each other?

Because, if they're the same guy, you have to wonder why a lobbyist for the adult entertainment industry would take so keen an interest in an Israeli Arab journalist that he would up and write an article smearing the guy, just out of the blue. And then subsequently send it to Mudar Zahran. Who would subsequently send it to Rachel Avraham, to be printed under a pseudonym.

Screenshot from Rachel Avraham's Facebook page, since deleted.

How do we know Michael Ben Abraham is Michael Ross? Well, Rachel Avraham told us so. HERE, for instance. An excerpt from the linked article:

How did these unlikely characters, Ross, Zahran, and Avraham, happen to meet, to know one another?

And why would Ross print an article about Abu Toameh under a pen name? Why not send the article directly to Avraham, rather than through a third party?

Ross' only other writing experience, up to that time, was a single op-ed, penned under his real byline and posted by Jerusalem Online, by then editor Rachel Avraham. Why would Ross not send the second piece as a direct submission then, since Avraham had already printed his earlier work?

Troubling questions, to say the least.

One has to wonder if any of the speakers or their guests at the Jordan is Palestine conference bothered to check the identity of Ross, a man who suddenly shows up to take part in a controversial conference, someone whom no one has ever heard of before?

And what is behind Ross' involvement in the Jordanian Option? How did someone in the adult entertainment industry come to ally with Mudar Zahran, a man apparently running away from prosecution for avoiding repaying a sizable loan from a Jordanian bank, while pretending to be a political refugee?

How did hundreds of people pay money to hear either of these men speak?

Why did men of such high caliber, members of Knesset and important writers, share a stage with Ross, and debate him?

Why did Jews on the right so easily fall into step with plotting to overthrow the king of another country, without seeing how this would look to the world? How did we just accept people like Ross and Zahran, without knowing what kind of people they are, without knowing their history, their deeds?

To be fair, the Jordan is Palestine idea is a valid one, one to be explored and pursued, but perhaps through different means, by persuasion.

Because it is not our place to direct a coup or overthrow a king. This is not a good place for Jews to be.

The fact that Mudar Zahran and Ross managed to grab this much fealty among the Jews is rather pathetic actually. You want to know why they did this, you want to know more.

If you're a thinking person.

It leaves you feeling dirty. Used. Zahran is using the Jews to position himself as a political refugee, apparently to avoid prosecution for refusal to repay a loan.. But we are so desperate we bought into him completely. Him and his henchman, Ross.

How did these two men meet? What is their plot? Is Mudar Zahran duping the Jews to save himself? What is Ross' role in all this?

I don't know.

But we have a right to learn the truth.

Which is why I sent some questions to Michael Ross and also to Ted Belman, organizer of the Jordan is Palestine Conference.

Belman refused to answer my questions.

But I will be certain to let you know, should Michael C. Ross respond.

UPDATE: And here is Michael Ross' response. As published on his friend's page. (It's a good thing Ross knows how to Start Your Own Country. He's going to need one.)

UPDATE (from EoZ): Mudar Zahran objects to the characterization of why he left Jordan. In an email exchange where he (again) threatened legal action against me, he wrote:

I did NOT flee any loans in Jordan. I left because there was a substantial threat to my life by the Jordanian government and the UK government has granted me asylum after fully-verifying my claim for asylum and seeing it to be valid and beyond reasonable doubts.

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

Bakery Waits Week After Sukkot To Make Sufganiyot, Loses Kosher Status (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jerusalem, November 7 - A confectionery and baked goods establishment in the nation's capital has been forced to forfeit certification that its products conform to Jewish dietary practice, after inspectors from the Rabbinate discovered the business had failed to start producing Hanukkah pastries right after Sukkot finished.

Uggat Hen, a bakery in the Mahane Yehuda market in central Jerusalem, was stripped of its kashrut certificate Tuesday morning after Jerusalem Rabbinate representatives ascertained that sufganiyot - the deep-fried, filled donuts associated with Hanukkah - only went up for sale there a full seven days after the October 11 conclusion of Sukkot this year, while such establishments are expected to begin selling the pastries as soon as Sukkot ends. Hanukkah begins this year the night of Tuesday, December 12.

"This delay is unacceptable," stated Rabbi Amok Tiegen. "Protocol calls for consumers to encounter Hanukkah pastries in the bakeries as soon as Sukkot ends, so that not a single day is lost for commercializing and monetizing the Jewish calendar. In principle, the full two months between the end of Sukkot and the onset of Hanukkah must not be left fallow of such exploitation, though we acknowledge the difficulty of initiating sufganiyah production immediately at the close of Sukkot. We therefore allow a few days' leeway. In this case, however, the proprietors made no apparent effort to sell sufganiyot right away."

A bakery representative who requested not to be identified lamented the harsh ruling. "People are going to get sick of it by the time Hanukkah actually comes," he complained. "It's become a pathology. When I was a kid we never had to worry about this nonsense - as we got closer to Hanukkah more and more places would start selling sufganiyot, but it was organic, not mandated. The soul of it is gone."

Consumers voiced ambivalence. "I mean, rules are rules," responded passerby Zach Veyashar. "The bakery agreed to follow the rules. On the other hand, it's a little beyond the mandate of kashrut, isn't it? It's not as if the bakery people are withholding their monthly bribe payments to a supervisor not to make a thorough inspection. Unless, of course, that's really what happened here, and the sufganiyah thing is just a pretext."

"Let 'em close," declared Tiv Oni. "Their stuff isn't even organic, and sufganiyot are full of gluten. They probably use commercial oil too, not from free-range olives. Are they trying to kill people? Meat is murder! No more animal testing! What was the question again?"

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

11/08 Links P1: Why Israel Threatened Military Action to Save an Enemy; Osama bin Laden's secret diary

From Ian:

In recording, John Kerry says Israeli government doesn’t want peace

Former US secretary of state John Kerry blamed the Israeli government’s resistance to the establishment of a Palestinian state for harming the prospects of a peace deal, while warning Israel could face a future violent Palestinian uprising if there was no progress in peace talks.

In recordings published Tuesday by Channel 10, America’s former top diplomat can be heard praising the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to nonviolence following a wave of terror attacks beginning in the fall of 2015, which he said has been ignored by Israelis due to right-wing configuration of the current government.

“The Palestinians have done an extraordinary job of remaining committed to nonviolence. And in fact when the [knife] intifada took place they delivered non-violence in the West Bank,” Kerry is heard saying in the recording.

“This is overlooked by the general [Israeli] population because it is not a topic of discussion. Why? Because the majority of the cabinet currently in the current Israeli government has publicly declared they are not ever for a Palestinian state,” he adds.

Channel 10 said the recording was made at a conference in Dubai in the past year attended by Middle East leaders and Israel’s Joint (Arab) List chief Ayman Odeh. The television channel also said opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) addressed the conference by video.

It was not clear if Kerry was aware he was being recorded or if the segments released were his full remarks.

IsraellyCool: Recordings Demonstrate the Dangerous Ignorance of John Kerry

Recordings just released by Israel’s Channel 10 reveal that Former US Secretary of State John Kerry really had no John “F*cking” Kerry of a clue about anything.
It is actually scary just out of touch with reality he was, and presumably still is.
For instance:

He praised the PA for their supposed commitment to nonviolence, despite the fact they continue to incite violence and pay the families of terrorists to this day

Compared palestinian ‘resistance’ to civil rights movements

Kerry warned in the recording that frustrations among Palestinians could boil over into violence and that the current status quo cannot last.

“If you see 40,000 kids marching up to the wall everyday with signs saying ‘give us are rights,’ I mean, I don’t think Palestine is going to be immune forever to the civil rights movements that have swept other nations in the world,” he says.

Criticized Israel’s leadership (not the palestinian leadership) as being ones not wanting peace

Despite this, Kerry said Israel is ignoring the threat posed by the diplomatic stalemate. “That is not leadership,” says Kerry.

“If you don’t have leaders who don’t want to make peace, if the equation doesn’t change, I’ll be amazed if within the next 10 years if we don’t see some young [Palestinian] leader come along who says we have tried non-violence for the last 30 years and look, it hasn’t gotten us anything,” he says.

Evelyn Gordon: Why Israel Threatened Military Action to Save an Enemy

For many, it is assumed that Israel is a racist state that considers its Arab minority second-class citizens. I wonder, then, how they explain what happened last Friday?

For the third time in the last two years, Israel threatened military action to stop an attack by extremist Syrian rebels on the Syrian Druze village of Khader. It did so despite the fact that Syrian Druze have sided with the Assad regime in that war, meaning they’re aligned with Israel’s arch-enemies, Iran and Hezbollah; despite the fact that Khader itself has been the source of several anti-Israel terror attacks; and despite the fact that such intervention risks entangling Israel in Syria’s civil war, something it has hitherto tried hard to avoid–and all just because it was asked to do so by its own Druze minority, which was worried about its coreligionists across the border.

To most Israelis, it seems both obvious and unremarkable that Israel should accede to this request. But in fact, though Israel has always considered itself obligated as a Jewish state to try to protect Jews anywhere, it’s not at all obvious that it would consider itself equally obligated to try to protect Druze beyond its borders. Threatening cross-border military action on behalf of foreign nationals aligned with your worst enemies, simply because they’re the coreligionists of one of your own ethnic minorities, isn’t an obvious step for any country. And it’s especially not obvious for a country accused of considering said minorities to be second-class citizens.

Thus, the fact that Israel has repeatedly taken action to protect the Syrian Druze says a lot about the true state of anti-Arab “racism” in the country. But to understand exactly what it says, it’s first necessary to understand the difference between Israeli Druze and other Arab Israelis.

"All of Israel is an illegal settlement"

The Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir issued a statement from Jerusalem today saying that "the entity of all Jews on the blessed land has no legitimacy on any centimeter, and therefore the entire Jewish entity is a large settlement based on usurped Islamic land, whether on the borders of the occupier in 1948 or the occupier in 67, there is no difference between Jewish settlements in Haifa and Galilee or the Golan or Hebron or Nablus or the Negev or any other part of Palestine."

Spokesperson Dr. Musab Abu Arkoub called on the Islamic Umma to "assume its responsibilities and move their armies immediately to uproot the Jewish entity and liberate the blessed land."

The statement itself isn't surprising (although it is interesting that Hizb ut-Tahrir accepts that Israel is the "Jewish" entity, not the "Zionist" entity, so it doesn't hide its Jew-hatred.)

But the fact is that practically every single Arab agrees with every word. The only reason they don't attack Israel is because they would lose. It isn't moderation or a desire for peace that causes stability in the Middle East - it is Israel's strength.

That is one of the basic facts that most of the world chooses to ignore.

But if you don't believe me....then please send me a single Facebook post or a single tweet in Arabic that denounces Hizb ut-Tahrir's statement.

Just one out of the hundreds of millions of Arabs online.

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

"If UNRWA goes, the refugee issue is over"

Sometimes you can unearth gems even in the cesspool of Electronic Intifada.

In an article about how some Palestinian Arabs are biased against their "refugee" brethren, it says:

Ghassan Weshah, head of the history and archaeology department at the Islamic University of Gaza, says the role of institutions supporting refugees should not be reduced to simply providing relief. UNRWA, he notes as an example, plays an important relief role, especially as the general economic situation has deteriorated in Palestine. But its function is more than economic.

“The responsibility of UNRWA is to help refugees, but it must also continue this work to remind the world of the refugee issue and the right of return. If UNRWA goes, the refugee issue is over.”

In two sentences, Weshah accurately describes UNRWA's real purpose - not to help refugees but to perpetuate them.

If it would disappear or merge with UNHCR, the UN organization for all the other refugees in the world, then the refugee issue would go "poof."

The article mentions how the Palestinians resent their UNRWA-supported fellows:

Such social stratification is not unusual in Palestinian society. It is mirrored across the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip where refugees wound up with their UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) ration cards, poverty and homelessness.
As a sense of shared Palestinian kinship competed with, and often came out second to, traditional ties to village and town, refugees came to be seen as outsiders to be treated with “a mixture of pity and contempt,” according to George Bisharat, a lawyer and commentator on Palestinian affairs.
Every city in occupied territory has refugee camps attached to it, and these often organize themselves in parallel to the city.
Refugees have their own schools – run by UNRWA, which was originally set up as a stopgap measure until refugees could return – often their own soccer teams and it is common for people to speak of themselves as being from either the camp or the city.

UNRWA's very existence has caused a decades-old rift in Palestinian society. Instead of helping their brethren, they resent them for getting free food and medical care and schooling. SO they look down on them.

UNRWA didn't do anything to integrate Palestinians with their fellow Arabs, within or without the Mandate area. As a result, UNRWA has helped ensure that they are perpetual outsiders - who therefore need more UNRWA help.

The exact opposite of what a refugee agency is supposed to do.

Normal people want to solve refugee problems. Getting rid of UNRWA is the simple formula to do so.

I've been giving specific ideas on how to dismantle UNRWA for years. most recently last summer. Now we know that even the Palestinians themselves know that UNRWA's only real purpose is antithetical to human rights and refugee rights.

(h/t Andrea)

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

Three months after riots, Israel quietly reinstalls cameras at entrances to Temple Mount

After the riots that accompanied Israels' placing metal detectors at the entrances to the Temple Mount in response to a terror attack that originated there killing two policemen, Israel has quietly added what appear to be sophisticated surveillance cameras at nearly all the entrances of the Mount.

Channel 10 reports that Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan was behind this plan.

According to reports over the summer, the cameras and their software can recognize known terrorists and security threats. I do not think they can fully replace metal detectors, but they may deter known troublemakers from using the Temple Mount as a weapons depot, as the terrorists did in July.

Rioters over the summer, the Waqf and the Palestinian Authority insisted that even cameras were not acceptable to them, and they celebrated when Israel backed down and removed them.

Lion's Gate, where most of the protests were centered in the summer, is the only remaining Muslim entrance to the Mount without the cameras at this time.

The Waqf says that they were not told about these new cameras. Which is hardly surprising.

Now the question is whether the Waqf can whip up the frenzy of antisemitic hate that they managed to incite over the summer, even though it is obvious that the cameras will not impeded anyone from going to the Al Aqsa mosque - unless they have weapons.

Here are all the photos I could find of these new cameras.

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

11/07 Links Pt2: The Balfour Declaration and British Leftist anti-Semitism; The shameless hypocrisy of JVP

From Ian:

Michael Curtis: The Balfour Declaration and British Leftist anti-Semitism

What is significant is that at the dinner honoring Balfour, attended among others by Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn did was absent.

Corbyn himself is not regarded as anti-Semitic but he is the head of the Labour party that contains a significant section that can be described in this way. Allegations of these members are rife: the modern state of Israel was created by the Rothschilds not by God; Jews control Wall Street; Hollywood; the media; TV networks; law courts; international spying; sex trafficking; and the statement that every Jew who died in the Holocaust was a blessing.

It is disappointing that training sessions over the last 14 months about anti-Semitism for 1,200 Labour Party members have had little effect. Jewish Labour members have been held responsible for a Jewish conspiracy, and control of media.

This also brings up the matter of social media itself. The latest example is a Tweet that said, with uncomplimentary remarks, that Stamford Hill in northeast London was riddled with Jews. It is indeed the case that 20,000 Haredi jews, the largest orthodox community in the UK, live there. Twitter refused to remove the post.

The twin problems seem out of control. Twitter must be held accountable for what appears on its site. And the British Labour Party must root out anti-Semitism once and for all.

Labour is a party which claims the mantle of progress. It is a sad, but telling, state of affairs that a British Lord had a more enlightened attitude to the Jewish people a century ago than many in the Labour Party do today.

BBC report on UK Balfour dinner follows standard formula

Once again, the fact that the armed forces of five Arab countries invaded Israel the day after independence was declared was airbrushed from the BBC’s account, as was the fact that a considerable number of the Palestinian Arabs who left their homes around that time did so at the advice of Arab leaders.

“The British Mandate terminated on 14 May 1948 and the Jewish leadership in Palestine declared an independent Israeli state. In the Arab-Israeli war that followed, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs fled or were forced from their homes.”

The above-mentioned insert of analysis from Jonathan Marcus encouraged readers to believe that there are two “competing narratives” concerning the Balfour Declaration (while of course ‘impartially’ refraining from discussing their validity) but avoided the topic of the Palestinian Authority’s long-standing politicisation of that document.

“Much of the current focus on the Balfour Declaration is due to the fact that it supports the competing narratives of the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership.

For the Israelis it highlights the legitimacy of the Jewish national enterprise, while for Palestinians, it underscores the role of the major powers in helping to create Israel, while – in their view – the legitimate Palestinian aspirations to statehood were ignored or side-lined.

Thus both sides have a very different interpretation of the declaration’s significance – one that serves today’s arguments about one of the region’s longest unresolved struggles.”

As we see from this report and others, BBC coverage of the Balfour Declaration centenary has conformed to a standard formula focusing on unquestioning amplification of PA/PLO messaging while completely erasing the part of the document relating to “the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country” and the topic of Jewish refugees from Arab lands.

Zionism during World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special

Zionism, the movement for the establishment of a Jewish homeland, got new momentum during World War 1. Zionists, like Chaim Weizmann rallied for support in their respective home countries, others wanted to actively advance the zionist idea by taking part in the war and fought with the Jewish Legions. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was another step towards fulfilling the idea of a home for the Jewish people. (h/t MtTB)

Battle of Beersheba - Canadian Frustration - Balfour Declaration I THE GREAT WAR Week 171

On the Western Front this week, the Canadians under Sir Arthur Currie attempt to advance once more, whilst Haig remains optimistic about an imminent breakthrough. Following Caporetto, the Italian retreat continues, whilst the British Army enjoys success on the Palestine Front, with a little help from mounted ANZAC troops. With Lenin’s return, the revolution looms over the Russian capital, whilst the Balfour Declaration is issued in Britain. (h/t MtTB)

From The Art Newspaper:

In an historic agreement signed today (7 November) between Russia and Israel, one of the most important private collections of Hebrew manuscripts and books in the world is being digitised and shared with the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem.
The Gunzburg Collection, consisting of more than 14,000 books and 2,000 manuscripts, has been housed at the Russian State Library in Moscow since around 1920, but Israel has long contested Russia’s ownership.
“Even before the State of Israel, there were many attempts to persuade the Soviets to bring [the collection] to Ottoman Palestine. Albert Einstein spent a lot of time trying to persuade them,” says Aviad Stollman, the head of collections at the National Library of Israel.
The current deal, which will allow the public to access online biblical texts, prayer books, mystical works of Kabbalah and books of Jewish and Aristotelian philosophy, is the result of negotiations between the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Russian president Vladimir Putin. The project is supported by the Moscow-based Peri Foundation and the British investment banker Jacob Rothschild.
“Putin and Netanyahu have been speaking about this issue in the general bilateral talks over the past few years,” Stollman says. “Around five years ago, when Netanyahu went to Russia, he wrote to us saying that he had raised the issue and asked the Russians to digitise the collection as the first step.”
The collection was amassed by three generations of the Gunzburg family in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. Begun by Joseph Gunzburg (1812-1878), the family acquired manuscripts from various sources, including the estates of deceased scholars such as Seligmann Baer, Eliakim Carmoly and Nathan Coronel.
“Baron David Gunzburg [the grandson of Joseph Gunzburg] died in 1910 and at the time the Zionist movement expressed an interest in buying the collection,” Stollman says. “The library only had around 30,000 books then, but that was still significant. The Zionist movement was able to buy it between the two revolutions of 1917, but they were unable to transfer it to Ottoman Palestine because of the First World War. By the time they got their acts together the Soviets got hold of the collection, moving it from St Petersburg to Moscow.”
The addition of the digitised Gunzburg Collection marks a significant milestone in the renewal process of the National Library of Israel, which is moving in 2021 to a new Herzog & de Meuron-designed building located steps from the Knesset in the heart of Jerusalem.
Stollman says the question over ownership of the Gunzburg Collection still lingers, but that today’s deal is an important first step. “I hope eventually [the collection] will come to the National Library of Israel, but in the meanwhile the most important thing is to digitise it and make it accessible.”

So the Soviets stole it and Russia keeps it. Good to know.

At least it will be available online.

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