Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Do You Really Want To Argue That Israel Stole The Hora From The Palestinians? (Daled Amos)

Last week, The New York Times entered the world of dance.

In an interview, Israeli-American choreographer Hadar Ahuvia talked about her latest work - Everything you have is yours? To Ahuvia, that is no idle question. She is the granddaughter of Eastern European Jews who came to Israel -- and then years later, her parents moved with her to Florida and then Hawaii. Ahuvia has developed an interest in what she sees as the Israeli mimicking of Palestinian Arab culture.

Ahuvia touched on this in her interview:

One issue you explore is cultural appropriation, how the pioneers of Israeli folk dance, mostly Eastern European women, drew from social dance forms like Palestinian dabke.
It’s well-documented that these women went to Palestinian villages and watched them dancing and felt they held the steps for what new Israeli dances could be. And so they borrowed steps and wrote new music and created dances that were directly synchronous to the new music, and in this way it becomes a new Israeli dance.
This was their way of participating in the nation-building and what for them was this revolutionary moment. I don’t think that cultural exchange is bad, but I think it’s about the context of whose narratives get told and seen.

In a guest post she wrote for a blog, four days after the interview, Ahuvia goes further:

Increasingly our home [in Florida and Hawaii] began to mimic the Arab essence that is claimed as fundamentally Israeli. Hummus, tahini, olive oil zaatar, pita, baklava. And beside the Palestinian shepherd salad, the syncopated dabke and Yemenite steps, Turkish and Druz inspired melodies of early Hebrew songs and their synchronous dances. These kept us marinating in a Mediterranean Israeli identity, our distinction from the American Ashkenazi diaspora encroaching on us-- ameripoop-- treacherously symbolized by applesauce on latkes.

Ira Stoll, who writes a column for Algemeiner dedicated to exposing examples of New York Times bias, addresses how New York Times Accuses Jews of Stealing Folkdances From Palestinian Arabs.
Stoll addresses the one-sided view presented by the interview and supplies context with the opposing view ignored by the New York Times:

o Former New York Times correspondent David K. Shipler, in his 1986 book Arab and Jew, also wrote about the accusation of cultural theft. He quotes a Ibrahim Kareen of East Jerusalem who claims, “The Israelis have stolen a lot of Palestinian culture...For instance, many dances. The Hora. This is Palestinian. Many dishes.” But Shipler goes a step further and writes, "The roots of folk dance are old and tangled, and while the Hora does bear resemblance to Arab dances, the origins are too deeply buried for any side to make clear proprietary claims.”

o According to the Jewish Women’s Archive article on the history of Israeli Folk Dance, "During the Second and Third Aliyah periods, between 1904 and 1923, the halutzim danced only dances that they had brought with them from the Diaspora — the Horah, Polka, Krakowiak, Czerkassiya and Rondo, with the Horah becoming the national dance."

o According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Israeli folk dance is “an amalgam of Jewish and non-Jewish folk dance forms from many parts of the world,” describing the Hora as Romanian, and then continues that “Widespread enthusiasm for dance followed, bringing with it the creation of a multifaceted folk dance genre set to popular Israeli songs, incorporating motifs such as the Arab debka, as well as dance elements ranging from North American jazz and Latin American rhythms to the cadences typical of Mediterranean countries.”

We can even go a little further.

The Encyclopedia of World Folk Dance has a list of dances and their countries of origin. It includes the dabke. Not surprisingly, the dance is not a Palestinian dance -- it is an Arab dance.

And that fact does not negate the Jewish cultural history of the Jewish dance, The Hora:

(pages 138-139)

According to this, if the Palestinian Arabs are going to accuse Jews of stealing their dance, they will just have to stand in line -- behind Rome, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Georgia and Russia. Interestingly, according to this encyclopedia, the similarities of the Hora to the dabke are attributed to external flourishes to a dance that was already adopted.

All this raises the question of whether the Palestinian Arabs have ever copied anything from the Jews.
Daniel Pipes answers yes.

In Mirror Image: How the PLO Mimics Zionism, Pipes writes that "Palestinian nationalists have time and again modeled their institutions, ideas, and practices on the Zionist movement. This ironic tribute means that the peculiar nature of the PLO can be understood only with reference to its Zionist inspiration."

The similarities go beyond copying the purpose of the organization, such as the National Association of Arab-Americans emulating the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Some Palestinian organizations mimic the original Zionist organization as well:

Palestinian Organization	Zionist Organization
Anti-Discrimination Committee	Anti-Defamation League
the Holy Land Fund	the Jewish National Fund
the United Palestinian Appeal	the United Jewish Appeal

Pipes writes that the emulation goes beyond organizations and agencies:

o Palestinian Arabs sometimes refer to themselves as the "Jews of the Middle East"
o  They claim that like Jews, they suffer prejudice, dispossession and expulsion despite being more educated than the majority population
o  Just as Jews were thrown out of multiple countries, they were forced out of Jordon, Lebanon and Kuwait in only 20 years
o  Palestinian Arabs claim their treatment by Israel is analogous to the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust
o  The Palestinian claim to a "Right of Return" mimics the Israeli "Law of Return"

And then, of course, there is Jerusalem:

Jerusalem is the only capital of a Jewish state, as well as a unique city in Jewish history, religion, and emotions. In contrast, the city is so minor in Islam, it is not even once mentioned in the Qur'an. Nor did it ever serve as a political capital or cultural center...

But based on what Israel has been able to accomplish, it is not surprising how far the Palestinian Arabs have gone in order to copy the very Zionists they condemn. The Jews wanted a state, the re-establishment of the Jewish state, so they were not content just to live off of the land.

The Jewish accomplishment during the Mandatory period was indeed impressive: by developing the Jewish Agency into a proto-state institution, Zionists created the bases for the full-fledged government that emerged in 1948. They already had a political authority, a military wing, an educational system, a mechanism to distribute welfare, and so forth. In contrast, Palestinians failed to match these institutions, and so found themselves disorganized when the British withdrew from Palestine in 1948...In effect, the Palestinians are trying half a century later to make up for their mistakes of the Mandatory period.

But we can go a step further. More than what Zionism inspired in Palestinian Arabs in the 20th century, what have Jews contributed to Arabs in general, and to Islamic culture overall, over the generations?
Could be quite a bit.

In Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, Shmuel Katz quotes Philip K. Hitti, a Lebanese American professor and authority on Arab and Middle Eastern history. Hitti writes in his History of the Arabs

But when we speak of 'Arab medicine' or 'Arab philosophy' or 'Arab mathematics', we do not mean the medical science, philosophy or mathematics that are necessarily the product of the Arabian mind or developed by people living in the Arabian peninsula, but that body of knowledge enshrined in books written in the Arabic language by men who flourished chiefly during the caliphate and were themselves Persians, Egyptians or Arabians, Christian, Jewish or Moslem.

Indeed, even what we call 'Arabic literature' was no more Arabian than the Latin literature of the Middle Age was Italian...Even such disciplines as philosophy linguistics, lexicography and grammar, which were primarily Arabian in origin and spirit and in which the Arabs made their chief original contribution, recruited some of their most distinguished scholars from the non-Arab stock (Battleground, p. 111)

Bernard Lewis writes similarly in his book, The Arabs in History:

The use of the adjective Arab to describe the various facets of this civilisation has often been challenged on the grounds that the contribution to "Arab medicine", "Arab philosophy", etc, of those who were of Arab descent was relatively small. Even the use of the word Muslim is criticised, since so many of the architects of this culture were Christians and Jews.
During the period of greatness of the Arab and Islamic Empires in the Near and Middle East a flourishing civilisation grew up that is usually known as Arabic. It was not brought ready-made by the Arab invaders from the desert, but was created after the conquests by the collaboration of many peoples, Arabs, Persians, Egyptians and others. Nor was it even purely Muslim, for many Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians were among its creators. (p.14, 131)

With all that shared history and shared culture over 1,400 years, maybe the Arabs can share a dance or a falafel for old times sake.

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Israel is once again guilty of Arab/Christian/Transgender/Ballerina-Washing

A couple of years ago I made this poster:

Now, Hanna has been selected as a finalist in the Miss Israel Pageant. With no controversy whatsoever.

It is always instructive that a country that is more liberal than nearly any of the so-called liberal democracies in Europe still gets treated by leftists as if it is far-right.

And when Israel shows, again and again, how liberal and tolerant its citizens are towards women/gays/transgendered/Arabs/minorities, the only way that Israel haters can explain it is the absurd idea that millions of Israelis only pretend to be liberal in order to divert attention from "the Occupation."

It is the biggest conspiracy in history!

(h/t Yoel)

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Suhail Kiwan, apparently an Israeli Arab, writes in Arab48 that Jews weren't the only victims of the Holocaust.

He admits that Nazis targeted Jews. He's not sure how many Jews were murdered, but he magnanimously admits that even the killing tens of thousands of Jews on ethnic grounds like the killing of millions: "the important principle that the regime decided to kill Jews for being Jews."

That's the nicest kind of Holocaust denial.

However, Kiwan asserts, "There are non-Jewish victims of Nazism that must be recognized, and they are many, but the Palestinians are the most prominent."

The reason? Obviously, because the Jews after the war came to British Mandate Palestine, and "the Zionist forces destroyed [Arab ]villages and displaced about 900,000 of them, persecuted them after they were massacred, and killed all those who tried to return and occupied the rest of their homeland to this day."

Therefore, Kiwan says, Palestinian Arabs "have the right to demand compensation from Germany as the Jews received compensation, as well as compensation from all the countries supporting Israel aggression at the expense of their presence."

It takes a lot of energy to constantly try to be the world's biggest victim entitled to free money forever.

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02/12 Links Pt2: The good news about Gaza you won’t hear on the BBC; Now 80, the youngest Schindler’s List survivor won’t stop telling her story; The New Israel Fund has crossed the red line

From Ian:

Tom Gross: The good news about Gaza you won’t hear on the BBC

I am not alone in thinking the BBC is not objective in its coverage. Even Lord Grade, the corporation’s former chairman, has accused the corporation of bias against Israel and said the BBC failed to give viewers ‘the wider context’ about the Palestinians.

This is not true of all BBC output: BBC Arabic will (like other Arabic language media) sometimes report on Gaza’s more prosperous side (see for example, this BBC Arabic report on restaurants in Gaza), in a way that most Western media (including the BBC in English) will not. Yet many Western journalists (and some diplomats) seem bent on painting a distorted picture of everyday life in Gaza, in what can only be seen as an attempt to portray Israel as some kind of monster-oppressor. (With Israel demonised in this way, no wonder anti-Semitic feelings in Britain are now running at an all-time high).

If the situation in Gaza is as bad as many Western journalists and diplomats claim, then why is Gaza’s life expectancy (74.2 years) now five years higher than the world average? I don’t recall any Western reporter mentioning that life expectancy there is higher than, for example, in neighbouring Egypt (73 years). Indeed, life expectancy in Gaza is almost on the same level as wealthy Saudi Arabia, and higher for men than in some parts of Glasgow.

In recent years, it has been difficult to escape reports of the dire situation in Gaza; former US president and Nobel peace prize laureate Jimmy Carter, for example, told us that ‘the people in Gaza … are literally starving’. Only three weeks ago, the lead front page story of the international edition of the New York Times contained further warnings about the risk of starvation. Meanwhile, Qatar’s own Al Jazeera is broadcasting analysis of the thriving consumer sector in Gaza’s economy, complete with restaurant owners discussing the expansion of their business to keep up with demand, and shots of plentiful fruit and vegetable markets.
Gaza’s thriving economy: Al Jazeera shows a side to Gaza that Western media won’t

Melanie Phillips: Damned if you do . . . and Trump and Netanyahu are certainly doing

Day in and day out, two men—two crucial world leaders—remain under a constant barrage of verbal attacks. They are subjected to an obsessional, unhinged and unprecedented stream of abuse, distortion, character assassination and malicious fantasies.

If you haven’t guessed, they are Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald J Trump. The campaign against them signifies a cultural disorder in the West that borders on the pathological.

Netanyahu certainly has his faults. One might list arrogance, moral cowardice and his tendency to be a control freak. He doesn’t take criticism well. He has failed to organize his government to deal with the psy-ops war waged so devastatingly against Israel in the court of Western public opinion. And maybe, who knows, some of the multiple corruption charges against him will stick.

Yet his achievements are formidable. Netanyahu enabled Israel to survive the sustained attempts to weaken it by President Barack Obama, arguably the most hostile American president to date regarding Israel. Netanyahu has led the Jewish state to become a dynamo in the fields of technology and R&D in large measure because of his liberalization of the Israeli economy. He has opened up new alliances through the pivot to Asia. He has held the line against the Palestinian /European axis of attrition. And he is riding the wave of a new regional order involving alliances with Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

In Israel and among the Western intelligentsia, however, it’s hard to overestimate the loathing he provokes. His achievements are ignored or blatantly dismissed. Instead, he is blamed (ludicrously) for preventing a solution to the Middle East impasse. No less risibly, he was held responsible for Obama’s hostility for eight years running. He is said to be an incipient dictator, a racist ethno-nationalist and an “alt-Zionist.” These are not criticisms; these are ravings.

Over in the United States, Trump certainly has his faults. One might list his zero concentration span, his disregard for detail, his carelessness with accuracy, his reckless and compulsive tweeting, his coarse and bombastic talk, and his failure to take criticism.

Yet his achievements after only one year in office are formidable. He presides over a booming economy with huge job growth; he is restoring the rule of law to immigration; he’s rolling back regulation; he’s made stellar appointments to the judiciary; he’s forcing Saudi Arabia to reform; and is confronting Iran, the United Nations and the Palestinians.

It’s impossible, however, to overestimate the contempt and horror with which he is viewed. He is accused of being racist and anti-Semitic, of undermining the rule of law, of behaving like Mussolini. While not a shred to evidence supports the claims against him of colluding with Russia, there is mounting evidence that elements of the FBI and justice department under the Obama administration have acted illegally against him.

PodCast: When Daniel P. Moynihan Stood for Israel, and for Truth, at the UN

In December, Nikki Haley, the current U.S. ambassador to the UN, denounced the world body for its condemnation of America’s recognizing of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Her performance put many in mind of a 1975 speech given by her late predecessor, Daniel P. Moynihan, assailing the UN’s infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution. Six years later, Moynihan returned to the same themes in a seminal Commentary essay, “Joining the Jackals,” in which he skewered the then-outgoing Carter administration for abstaining from two anti-Israel votes at the Security Council and for the generally craven attitude of its UN delegation. Greg Weiner, the author of a biography of Moynihan, revisits the statesman’s career in Turtle Bay and his commitment to Israel and to the West—and to the meaning of words. (Interview by Jonathan Silver. Audio, 31 minutes. Options for download and streaming are available at the link below.)

Excellent analysis of weekend events in Syria by J. E. Dyer

My favorite site for military analysis is the Liberty Unyielding blog by Commander (ret.) J. Dyer, and her article on the events in Israel and Syria on Saturday does not disappoint. Excerpts:

Iran’s probe with the drone is the latest in a growing series of probes and pushes in the region: probes against the postures of others, pushes against the status quo, pushes to establish new “realities on the ground.”

The region itself isn’t in balance anymore, and hasn’t been for some time. The last chance to certify balance without an extended shoving match first was right around the latter half of 2013, when the Obama administration failed to defend a publicly declared “red line” on Syria, and did nothing to thwart the rise of ISIS.

In default of a “hyperpower” (as France used to call the U.S.) enforcing stasis, the natural state of human affairs is probing and pushing. We forgot that after nearly 70 years of a Pax Americana. But since the Arab Spring – and with hints of it even before that – we’ve been reminded of it almost daily. Eventually it may sink in.

In the Middle East, Iran has been the chief prober and pusher, with ISIS, until last year, close behind. But additional probes have developed through first- and second-order effects, and they are ongoing almost literally everywhere, from Morocco to the Philippines.

Iran affects, and is affected by, the whole complex mix of these probes. The situation is especially unstable because the biggest factors for Iran are all changing at the same time. Internal stability is crumbling. The mullahs’ chief power projection project – the land bridge through Syria – has bogged down in recent weeks.

And the status quo in the larger region is in significant flux. Events that Western observers don’t even recognize as related are presenting Iran with the prospect of unmanageable changes to the strategic status quo.

Anything that thwarts the revolutionary regime in Iran can be held to have a salutary effect. But the more such effects there are, the more Iran will shift tactics and try to create problems where problems are advantageous to Iran.

...

In order to keep a cost-effective defense posture functional and realistic, Israel has to deter incursions like this one, not just keep responding to them. Hence the counter-strikes: first against the drone command vehicle, and then against the Syrian air defense force, to ensure that Syria pays a price – one that is useful to Israel and does relevant damage to Syria – for letting Syrian territory be used by Iran.
...

There is far, far more in great detail. Analysis that the media is ill-equipped to perform.

It is worthwhile to read the whole thing.

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Arabs suddenly interested in critical thinking - when it can be used against Israel's Biblical claims

UK-baed Al Araby has an article about a new book called "Incoherence of Biblical History: An Introduction to a different history of ancient Palestine" by Dr. Essam Sakhnini .

The book cherry-picks modern Biblcal scholarship and archaeological findings, and seems to fabricatge others, to come to the conclusion that the Bible has no factual basis, and especially that there were never any Jewish Temples in Jerusalem.

The author of the review stresses how scientific the book is, confusing footnotes with scholarship. But the point of the book is obviously not for knowledge but for propaganda - just as people will point to the work of Shlomo Sand or Ilan Pappe as being scholarly, when in fact they are just frameworks to put a scholarly coat of paint on a rusted-through toolshed of lies.

But I couldn't help wondering: since the Arab world is so interested in Biblical criticism, when are they going to put the Koran through the same critical analysis?

Especially since the Koran repeats a lot of the stories from Hebrew scripture to begin with!

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02/12 Links Pt1: Glick: Syria – The War Everyone Must Fight and No One Can Win; Iran’s stealth drone used against Israel #ThanksObama; Iran: Speaking Swedish, Acting North Korean

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Iranian Drone

Israel’s position today is analogous to Hitler having positioned 150,000 missile batteries in, say, Ireland, all pointing at Britain; and then advancing into France and reaching the Normandy coast, all the while steadily embedding his forces in the Channel Islands.

Britain finally went to war when Hitler invaded Poland. Even in appeasement Britain, no-one suggested it should have waited until the Nazis reached the French coast before it decided to fight them. Had it do so, Britain along with Europe would now be a Nazi dictatorship. Yet people expect Israel to sit on its hands while genocidal fanatics intent on its destruction encircle it unimpeded.

Just as with Hitler’s intentions in the 1930s, the Iranian regime’s implacable intention to exterminate Israel has been ignored, downplayed or denied. Now the significance of the Iranian drone is being downplayed, mischaracterised or denied.

No civilised country wants war, and Israel will do everything it can to avoid an all-out conflict. But Iran is already at war with Israel – a war Iran has initiated. The question today is whether the strength and accuracy of Israel’s response to the drone will deter Iran from further aggression.

There will be a far greater chance of averting all-out war if Britain and Europe finally come to their senses and start holding Iran’s feet to the fire rather than seeking to sanitise, excuse and reward it at every opportunity.

The answer to the question, however, depends on what Iran was intending when it dispatched its drone into Israel. From the information that has so far been made public, it is impossible to tell.

We must hope Israel itself knows the answer, and that it will do accordingly whatever it needs to do. Western nations may disapprove; but in the past when Jews faced extermination, these western nations chose to look the other way. And when today Israelis are murdered by Arab or Islamic fanatics these western nations still look the other away or, worse still, blame Israel for its own victimisation.

These nations may afford themselves the luxury of setting the value of Jewish lives at zero. But the State of Israel was founded on the principle “never again”; and if needs be it will also say, just as the defiant British soldier declared in the famous David Low cartoon in that darkest hour: “Very well, alone”.

Hoover Institution: The Limits Of The Indirect Approach

These developments represent a strategic setback for the United States and its allies. America had an opportunity to prevent this outcome during the previous six years. The Obama administration’s expressed policy at the time, however, was to respect Iran’s “equities” in Syria. This opportunity was squandered and the position of Syrian anti-Iranian forces is far weaker today. But the overriding US interest in Syria has not changed: disrupt this Iranian territorial link and degrade Hezbollah and the IRGC and their weapons capabilities in Syria and Lebanon. This is a priority that the United States still can, and should, pursue, even if it requires a more direct involvement today than it would have a few years ago.

The Iranian forces are vulnerable. They are overstretched and, in certain cases, they are operating in exposed terrain. The new military structures they are building are equally exposed. Israel has been exploiting these vulnerabilities to target military installations, bases, and weapons shipments, as well as senior IRGC and Hezbollah cadres. The Russian presence has not deterred the Israelis. The United States should reinforce this Israeli policy by adopting Israeli red lines as its own. And, using the considerable elements of US power in the region, it can expand this campaign against Iran’s and Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, arms shipments, logistical routes, and senior cadres. Local Syrian groups in eastern and southern Syria, and their sponsors, should also be empowered to take part in this endeavor.

Having the United States behind this policy strengthens Israel’s position vis-à-vis the Russians and provides it more room to maneuver, especially in the case of a conflagration with Hezbollah that expands to Lebanon. Throughout the Syrian war, the US position has held sacrosanct Lebanese stability, even as Lebanon was the launching pad for Hezbollah’s war effort in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and even as the group multiplied its stockpile of missiles aimed at Israel. Should the targeting of IRGC and Hezbollah assets lead to an escalation that encompasses Lebanon, the United States should offer full backing to Israel as it destroys Iran’s infrastructure in Lebanon and degrades its long arm on the Mediterranean. Lebanon’s stability, insofar as it means the stability of the Iranian order and forward missile base there, is not, in fact, a US interest.

The Trump administration’s anti-Iran posture and its recognition that Iran is an adversary, not a partner, is a much-needed corrective to the previous administration’s policy. The profound strategic challenges and geopolitical shifts which resulted from Obama’s policy of realignment with Iran severely complicate the task of pushing back against Tehran in the region and significantly narrow US options. The moment calls for strategic clarity and a set of policies that rise to the nature of the challenge. While there’s room for measures that work over the long term, the United States also needs other options to address immediate priorities.

Caroline Glick: Syria – The War Everyone Must Fight and No One Can Win

Netanyahu’s last meeting with Putin was on January 29. In media briefings before and after their meeting, Netanyahu said that he spoke to Putin about three issues. First, due to Israel’s success in blocking Iran from transferring precision-guided missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Syria, Iran is now building missile factories for Hezbollah inside of Lebanon. Netanyahu pledged to destroy those factories.

In his words, “Lebanon is becoming a factory for precision-guided missiles that threaten Israel. These missiles pose a grave threat to Israel, and we cannot accept this threat.”

Second, Netanyahu warned Putin that Israel will not accept Iranian military entrenchment in Syria through the construction of permanent bases, among other things. Netanyahu explained, “The question is: Does Iran entrench itself in Syria, or will this process be stopped. If it doesn’t stop by itself, we will stop it.”

Third, Netanyahu spoke to Putin about improving Obama’s nuclear deal with the Iranian regime.

Russia is both a resource and a threat to Israel. It is a resource because Russia is capable of constraining Iran and Hezbollah. Israel treated Russia as a resource Saturday, when in the wake of its violent confrontations with Iran, which included Israel’s Air Force’s first combat loss of an F-16 since the 1980s, Israel turned to the Russians with an urgent request for them to restrain the Iranians.

Russia is a threat to Israel because it is Iran’s coalition partner. Until Russia deployed its forces to Syria, it appeared that the regime and its Iranian overlords were losing the war, or at least unable to win it. After Russia began providing air support for their ground operations, the tide of the war reversed in their favor.

At any rate, Israel is in no position to persuade Russia to abandon Syria. Russia’s presence in the region limits Israel’s actions but also guarantees that Israel will continue to act, because its vital interests will continue to come under threat and intermittent attack.

In all, the situation in Syria is and will remain unstable and exceedingly violent for the foreseeable future. Syria is not only a local battlefield where various Syrian factions vie for control over separate areas of the country – although it remains such a local battlefield.

One of the more challenging aspects of dealing with BDS is the number of Jews (including Israelis) who seem to be highly involved on both sides of the issue. “Another Jew/Israeli for Divestment” read stickers worn by several BDSers who cram most major BDS events and votes, reflecting that many divestment groups not only include Jewish members, but also have Jewish and even Israeli leaders.

Now I have many activist buddies who are driven to distraction by the phenomena of Jewish involvement in organized attacks on Israel and its supporters. And put a few beers into them (or even some mild tea) and you’ll soon know the whole history of Jewish anti-Semitism (called “self-hatred”), court-Jews, turncoats and treachery that dates back to before Josephus threw his lot in with the Romans, and continues to this day with academic “Wandering Jews” like Norman Finkelstein.

While this history is interesting, I tend to take a more pragmatic approach to the presence of my fellow tribesmen in the ranks of both sides of the BDS debate. After all, historic precedent would be useful if it provided an opening to educate (or at least shame) Israel’s Jewish critics regarding the historic baggage they carry. But given the current company Jewish anti-Israel activists keep, I don’t anticipate historic context would have much resonance for them. And as for shaming, as everyone reading this knows, the BDSers (Jew and Gentile alike) have no shame.

In fact, Jewish and non-Jewish Israel-dislikers have far more in common with one another than they do with me (despite all of their speeches which begin “As a Jew…”). And what they share is the one element that permeates all aspects of the divestment debate: fantasy politics.

I’ve talked about fantasy vs. reality with regard to anti-Israel politics in the past, and while most divestment advocates share a common general fantasy (one where they are intrepid and virtuous heroes, fighting against an all-powerful enemy which represses them), flavors of that fantasy vary from group to group. At its most extreme, the jihadi Israel-hater is trying to re-create a fallen Islamic empire purely through acts of will and violence, just as Mussolini thought he could resurrect the Roman Empire via fearsome will coupled with pageantry and tanks.

Christian divestment activists (like those in the Presbyterian Church) do not go nearly to this extreme. But they still dwell in a fantasy world where they and only they are in possession of “the truth” in which they liken the Palestinians to Christ on the cross and thus see themselves as martyred saints who are always about to be thrown to the lions. The fact that this political myth-making has become its own form of superstitious faith (with Israel Apartheid Week taking the place of a dustier Easter they don’t really celebrate anymore) is lost on such people who lack, along with a sense of shame, any sense of irony.

For the Jewish member or leader of Students for Justice in Palestine (or whatever), the fantasy takes the form of being a truly enlightened, morally superiority being whose distance from or rejection of the burdens of Jewish life (whether religious obligations or a willingness to fight for the political rights of the Jewish people) are proof positive of this courageous identity. Like the Christian BDSer whose anti-Israel animus demonstrates his or her Christ-like nature, the Jewish divestnik’s fantasy-self is just the latest iteration of a Jewish identity built on chosen-ness. The irony that this anti-Israel Jewish identity shows more assurance in its own correctness than the self-image of an ultra-Orthodox rabbi is again lost on those who dwell in BDS fantasy-land.

And while Jews have excelled at anti-Israel organization just as they excel at so many things, let’s not lose site of the fact that there is a market for Jews of any level of intelligence and political skill within the “I Hate Israel” movement. Which is why any Jew willing to join such a movement “as a Jew” (regardless of whether or not they have had a single Jewish moment in their life up to that point) is welcome to sign up and wear a sticker or sign a petition specifically pointing out the one quality that supposedly gives their voice weight: their Jewishness.

Taking part in such activity also allows the fantasist to celebrate his or her courage while actually not taking a single risk. For taking on “The Jewish Establishment” is not like publishing a cartoon of Mohammed or (if you live in Gaza) criticizing the government – an act that carries real risk of actual harm. In fact, the most these “Jewish Critics of Israel” can expect from their activity is to be criticized by people like me. And as much as they try to present such criticism as a form of censorship or repression, they must forever inflate the alleged power and villainy of their critics, lest reality penetrate a single ray of light into the fantasy world in which they dwell.

So my attitude towards the many Jews who flaunt their Jewishness solely for the purposes of attacking other Jews is the same as my attitude towards non-Jews who have turned lack of principle into virtue, ignorance into wisdom and cowardice into courage. To them I would say: the next time you decide you would rather live in fantasyland, could you please take up Dungeon’s and Dragons, rather than embrace a persona that asks me to be a prop in your fantasy and requires others (including Jews and Palestinians) to die in order to maintain your self-image?

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From Times of Israel:

Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip, announced on Sunday that it was suspending all surgeries, with the exception of emergency cases, due to a cleaners’ strike over unpaid salaries.

“It has been decided to postpone all scheduled surgeries, including those for patients with tumors,” the hospital said, noting that the decision excluded “life-saving cases.”

The strike, which began on Sunday, threatens patients’ and workers’ lives because of the dangerous accumulation of medical garbage in the hospital, the staff warned.

It was the second time in recent weeks that the hospital cleaners in the Gaza Strip went on strike.

Last month, the cleaners agreed to return to work after the Palestinian Authority government promised to pay them their salaries. However, the government has since paid salaries for only two months, prompting the cleaners to renew their strike.

Hamas officials have accused the PA government of failing to provide funds to the health system in the Gaza Strip despite a Hamas-Fatah “reconciliation” agreement signed in Cairo in 2017. According to the officials, many hospitals are suffering from a severe shortage in medicine and generator fuel as a result of the PA’s failure to carry out its duties.

More than 830 cleaners work in 13 hospitals and 73 other medical centers in different parts of the Gaza Strip. The cleaners are employed by 13 companies at a cost of NIS 943,000 ($267,000) per month.

To put this in context, the PLO budgets over $28 million a month to pay both prisoner salaries and and families of "martyrs."

They willingly pay 100 times the amount needed for keeping hospitals open - to terrorists.

The entire world is complicit with this.

Which is more important, UNRWA schools where they teach support for terror and destroying Israel, or hospitals? Obviously, UNRWA, because that's what gets the funding.

The World Bank looks at the PA budget every year and makes recommendations to help its economy - but doesn't say a word about the high percentage of the funds that go to pay terrorists and their families.

"Pro-Palestinian" NGOs? Don't be absurd - their money goes towards political initiatives to fight Israel, not to actually help Palestinians.

The hospital situation in Gaza shows, in no uncertain terms, what the priorities of the "State of Palestine" are - and they are not to help their own people.

Yet the world continues to fund these leaders who willingly sacrifice their own people.

(I have to wonder why the many NGOs in Gaza cannot find volunteers to clean up the hospitals. Chances are they'd be threatened.)

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Ahed Tamimi's father praises murderer of rabbi, yet media still considers family to be icons of non-violence

Bassem Tamimi is Ahed Tamimi's father. He has managed to build a worldwide campaign to make his daughter - the girl who slapped an Israeli soldier on video, and who praised suicide bombers - into a icon, just as he has previously managed to make himself and his family into symbols of "non-violent resistance" - and the media goes along with it.

Yet on his Facebook page, he wrote a tribute to Ahmed Nassar Jarrar, the Hamas terrorist who murdered Rabbi Raziel Shevach:

"Glory, mercy, and peace on your soul in Heaven" is what Tamimi said about the murderer.

He has over 5700 followers, yet none challenged him on his support for terrorism. Which shows that his supposedly non-violent acolytes really aren't.

(h/t @kweansmom, Petra)

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Why doesn't the PA return stolen Israeli cars to Israel?

Palestinian police destroyed 40 "illegal" vehicles in the town of Ram.

When they say "illegal" vehicles, they mean cars that were stolen from Israel. And the photo of one of the cars about the be destroyed shows an Israeli license plate:

The Palestinian Authority could arrange to return these cars to Israel. Almost certainly it costs more to destroy them and dispose of them than to transport them to a nearby checkpoint where Israeli companies could pick them up.

Instead the PA destroys them.

They gain nothing from destroying the cars.

But it seems that the idea of returning the cars to Israel is simply not considered. And knowing how Arabs in general adhere to a zero-sum game mentality, the reason is because anything that helps Israel must be bad for Palestinians in some way. Since returning the cars would make Israeli insurance companies and car owners happy, it is better to destroy them, because Israeli happiness means Palestinian misery, in this warped universe.

Now, think about how this twisted thought process applies to making peace between the two sides.

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An Egyptian writer, Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq contrasts how Israel marks February 1 with how Egypt does.

February 1 was the 15th anniversary of the death of Israeli fighter pilot Ilan Ramon aboard the space shuttle Columbia. It is also (close to) the anniversary of the Battle of the Camel, where Egyptian President Mubarak violently put down a demonstration, killing 11 protesters in 2011. And on February 1, 2012, there was a riot at the Port Said soccer stadium killing 74.

"I am overwhelmed when I compare what happened in Israel on February 1 to what happened in Egypt the same day," writes Tawfiq. Because Ilan Ramon symbolizes not only Israeli high tech and ambition, but also its respect for history and religion (as Ramon carried into space a Torah, a small painting done by a girl during the Holocaust, and "enough objects to open a Jewish Temple in space.") Rabbis debated how he could keep the Sabbath in space.

Egypt's February anniversaries, on the other hand, evoke disgust and a backwards society that reaches down instead of up.

Tawfiq says " Yes, Israel must be envied and admired, and this does not contradict the fact that it should be hated."

The best that Israel can hope for is to be admired and respected. But anyone who thinks that Israel can do anything to be loved or befriended by the Arabs have no clue.

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02/11 Links: Netanyahu: Israeli strikes dealt ‘serious blow’ to Iran, Syria; Media: It All Started When Israel Fired Back

From Ian:

IDF Blog: Air Force strikes Iranian targets in Syria

On Saturday, February 10, 2018, Iran launched an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from Syria, which violated Israeli sovereign airspace. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) dispatched an Apache attack helicopter to intercept the UAV and destroyed it. “The UAV was detected long before crossing Israeli territory” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, Head of the International Branch.

In response, Israeli Air Force aircraft targeted the control vehicle from which the UAV was operated in the Syrian T-4 Airbase near Tadmor. During the attack, multiple surface-to-air missiles were launched at IAF aircraft and hit an F-16I fighter jet. The two pilots were forced to eject and parachuted to safety in Israeli territory.

In total, the IDF targeted 12 military objectives, including 3 aerial defense batteries and 4 Iranian targets that are part of Iran's military establishment in Syria. “We carried out a wide-scale attack on the aerial defense system - radars, rockets, batteries, posts, and we performed a substantial strike, which as can be seen - they are trying to hide” says Brig. Gen. Amnon Ein Dar, Head of the Air Group in the IAF. According to Brig. Gen. Ein Dar, it is “the biggest and most significant attack the air force has carried out against Syrian air defenses since 1982.”

"What we've known for a long time is now clear to everyone: Iran wants to establish a front in Syria that is aimed at harming Israel. We are not looking to escalate the situation, but we have abilities that we are not afraid to use,” said Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick, Head of the Northern Command.

For a long time Iran and the Quds Force have been operating, with the backing of Syrian forces and the approval of the Syrian regime, from the Syrian T-4 Airbase near Tadmor. pic.twitter.com/U9H33vDF4O
— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) February 10, 2018

Netanyahu: Israeli strikes dealt ‘serious blow’ to Iran, Syria

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said airstrikes targeting key Iranian military facilities in Syria over the weekend inflicted heavy damage on the Iranian and Syrian militaries, and vowed that Israel would act decisively to counter any further provocations.

“Yesterday we dealt a serious blow to the armies of Iran and Syria,” Netanyahu told ministers at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. “We made it unequivocally clear to everyone that our rules of engagement have not changed in any way.”

“We will continue to strike back at any attempt to harm us,” Netanyahu said, according to a statement. “This has been our policy and will remain our policy.”

The wave of Israeli airstrikes came after the IDF intercepted an Iranian drone that had infiltrated its airspace and an Israeli F-16 was downed upon its return from Syria on Saturday. It was Israel’s most serious engagement in neighboring Syria since fighting there began in 2011 — and its most devastating air assault on the country in decades.

The IDF said it destroyed the drone’s Iranian launching site along with four additional Iranian positions and eight Syrian sites, including the Syrian military’s main command and control bunker.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria through a network of activists on the ground, said Sunday that at least six Syrian troops and allied militiamen were killed in the airstrikes. The six included Syrian troops as well as non-Syrian allied troops, the Britain-based Observatory said.

Iran's Aggression Against Israel

Followup on Palestinian terror supporter given asylum in the US: She should be expelled under US law

Last week I wrote about Emtiaz Zourob, a woman from Gaza who received asylum in the US based on some apparent threats to her life from armed groups in Gaza, and who was trying to get her family to join her.

Zourob had written a book with biographies of female Palestinian suicide bombers and other terrorists, clearly praising them.

It turns out that US law has grounds to remove her from the country and she should not have received a visa to begin with.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services page says:

Removal Proceedings
You will lose your permanent resident status if an immigration judge issues a final removal order against you.
INA sections 212 and 237 describe the grounds on which you may be ordered removed from the United States.

Section 212:

INA: ACT 212 - GENERAL CLASSES OF ALIENS INELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE VISAS AND INELIGIBLE FOR ADMISSION; WAIVERS OF INADMISSIBILLITY
(VII) endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse
or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization;

Saying that " She walked proudly and with confident steps as if she were walking toward the gates of Heavens, and within minutes she blew herself up near the Bit Sira military checkpoint, killing scores of Israelis and injuring others" is espousing terrorist activity.

Zourob should not have received asylum, and should be deported, under US law.

(h/t Irene)

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Roger Waters gave a public interview for the Australia Palestine Advocate Network on Friday, where he insulted artists who play in Israel.

His insults went way beyond the political, though - he engaged in ad-hominem attacks on some major stars because he disagrees with them politically.

The form of these attacks indicate that Waters is sexist - and maybe worse.

Speaking about Elton John, he said, "Elton John went and played in Sun City about 500 times when everyone else in the world was anti-apartheid and said you can’t go and play in Sun City and he said ‘yeah I can, I’m the Queen Mum’or whatever he said."

Speaking about Steven Tyler, Waters said, " I ran into Steve Tyler in a sushi restaurant in LA and he leapt up to me. I thought, who is this, a little old lady? [laughter] He had his hair up and I thought ‘oh God there’s a little old lady who wants to talk to me’ and it was Steven Tyler."

Isn't it interesting that when Waters wants to denigrate people, he refers to them as women? (I suppose Thom Yorke should be thankful that Waters referred to him as a "a self-obsessed, narcissistic, drippy little prick."

Waters may have crossed the line into showing that he is a homophobe with his Elton John comments as well. After referring to him as "Queen Mum," which can also be interpreted as homophobic, Waters said, "You kind of go, well he is just dopey and also he obviously doesn’t give a fuck about anybody else except the lesbian gay whatever whatever community which he claims to care about. "

Waters is not only denigrating Elton John, but he is denigrating the LGBT community by referring to bisexuals, transsexuals and others as "whatever whatever."

Waters then realized that he might be gong a little too far by implying that Elton John's huge amount of work for the LGBT cause is not authentic by saying that he only "claims" to care about them, so he quickly corrected himself and said "and does seem to.... He will make videos protecting his one little area of people who might be having violence done to them but he seems blind to...We are all human, but some people are human in different ways."

Waters is casting doubts that gay bashing exists?

And those that are politically aligned with Waters who wrote the article mentioned here know this, because they changed his words from the interview to water down his seeming homophobia. The article removed the bolded words where Elton John "claims to care about" LGBT rights and that they "might be having violence done to them."

Note that the "progressive," pro-Palestinian audience laughs along at Water's sexist and worse comments.

Imagine if a member of the White House staff referred to Elton John as the "Queen Mum," if they cast doubt on his humanitarian works for LGBT people, or if they implied that there was no violence against people based on sexual preference. The firestorm from the Left would be immediate and scorching.

But Roger Waters is one of them, so they will look the other way.

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