Monday, May 28, 2018

  • Monday, May 28, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon

There were two stories over the past week that showed how liberal Jews love prominent Jewish authors who truly hate Jews and Judaism.

Philip Roth, the venerable American Jewish author, died last week. There was a torrent of coverage over his death and his importance, as well as how central Jewishness was to his writings. But there was comparatively little coverage to how his writings about Jews - and more importantly, about Judaism - would have been considered undeniably antisemitic if a non-Jew had written them.

Roth was indeed controversial in his early writings and people did protest him, but over the years liberal Jews decided that he was more a prophet than a scoundrel. His descriptions of middle class Jews as repressed hypersexual beings seem to describe him more than anyone else, but that portrayal became mainstream because of his writings.

Most disgusting was his short story "Conversion of the Jews" where Roth creates a teen character, Izzy, who gets Jews to kneel and accept Jesus as their savior using threats and a logic that any real 13 year old Jewish student could answer easily but that Izzy's rabbi teacher is stymied at. It was not only an attack on Jews, but a puerile attack on Judaism that the liberal Jews of the '60s considered brilliant because of their own complete ignorance of their own faith and theology.

I haven't read any of Roth's books since the 1970s but based on book reviews, it doesn't seem like his thinking evolved beyond the hate he had when he was young. He just became more willing to admit that he was always speaking about himself, as his books apparently became more and more self-referential. As far as I can tell, his hate for his coreligionists and his religion had not abated, and indeed he refused to be buried in a Jewish ceremony.

In liberal Jewish circles, Roth is not reviled for his antisemitic writings, but he is celebrated for them. He was "brave" in the sense that anything that brings notoriety and fame and fortune can be considered brave - in the way that ignorant Jews who rail against Israel consider themselves brave.

The newest story, and even more disturbing, was Reform Judaism's Hebrew Union College inviting author Michael Chabon to speak at their graduation.

It was to be expected that he would give an anti-Israel speech. That is what the HUC was looking for. But beyond that, Chabon took aim at Judasim itself, attacking Jews who have the audacity to want to marry other Jews rather than allow themselves to joyfully assimilate and disappear in the larger secular world, leaving only some bagels and Yiddish phrases as tokens of Jewish culture's contributions to the world. He celebrated his atheism and described how he hated Jewish rituals.

And he is celebrated at a liberal rabbinical college!

Only one student walked out, and that was over his anti-Israel stance, not his anti-Judaism stance.

Their has been little backlash against both the celebrations of Roth and of Chabon's offensive and ignorant speech from the target audience. The only reason I can imagine is that the liberal Jewish audience is simply too Jewishly ignorant to even understand what is being said. They think that their afternoon bar/bat mitzvah classes taken decades ago and annual Passover seders with additional symbols for the victims of the month somehow make them experts on a religion and a nation that they know nothing about.

There is nothing to be celebrated about hate. Yet it is directly because of their hate that Roth and Chabon are celebrated. Liberal American Jews don't even know enough to know that they should be offended. That is perhaps the biggest tragedy of all.




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  • Monday, May 28, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
Natasha Mann, a reporter for Belgian broadcaster RTBF, was preparing a report on antisemitism in Belgium and wanted to have a visual of a Jew being seen in Brussels in a Jewish skullcap.

So she asked around the Jewish community to find someone who would be willing to be part of the story, just to walk around the capital for the cameras.

For ten years, most observant Jews in Brussels have been wearing caps or hats to avoid being seen publicly as Jews and to avoid being attacked.

After three weeks of looking for a single Jew to be part of the story, she had to give up. The Jewish community is so frightened of Jew-haters that literally none of them would agree to publicly wear the most basic and unobtrusive of  Jewish symbols.

First, Mann contacted a couple of rabbis. After finding out which neighborhood Mann wanted them to appear in, they declined. The Chief Rabbi, who was attacked a number of years ago, originally accepted the idea but the community leaders convinced him it was not a good idea.

Mann went to other Jewish community leaders. She thought she hit paydirt when one man said he wanted to do the story, saying that he is sick of being harassed for being a Jew. Mann asked him, "Do you complain to police when you hear antisemitic insults?" He answered back, "Do you complain to police when men whistle at you in the street?" Ultimately, he declined to do the story as well.

Joel Rubinfeld, the president of the Belgian league against anti-Semitism, who normally does not wear a yarmulke, agreed to do the story - but only if he is escorted by a security officer who is in contact with the  police. It is too complicated.

The story ran without the visual Mann wanted. Which says a lot about how fearful the Jewish community in Belgium is, today.

Here is the story that was broadcast, without a single Jew willing to wear a yarmulke - and with a teen victim of antisemitism and his mother too afraid to show their faces.


(h/t Yoel)




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Sunday, May 27, 2018

  • Sunday, May 27, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Middle East Monitor:

The Gaza Strip will set off a flotilla of ships on Tuesday in a bid to break the 12-year-long Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory.

“This trip will carry the hopes and dreams of the Palestinian people for freedom,” Salah Abdul-Ati, a member of a Palestinian committee tasked with breaking the siege, told a press conference in the Gaza City on Sunday.

He said the first ship will set sail on Tuesday morning, with a number of injured Gazans and patients aboard.

He, however, did not specify the first stop of the ship.
This is the naval equivalent of the "Return march" riots. In this case, instead of women and children at the front lines that they hope Israel will kill, the organizers (who are probably Hamas since no one can do anything without Hamas permission) hope Israel will kill some "injured" people.

If the "injured" people are not really seeking treatment anywhere, then this is a sham. If they are really in need of hospitalization, then the organizers are knowingly putting their lives at risk, hoping that they die, so Israel can be blamed.

And judging from how the media covered Gaza, we can expect this gimmick to work as well.






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From Ian:

PMW: Fatah: Israel worse than Nazis, wants to "crush" the Arab world, "steal its resources"
According to Fatah Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi, Israel's goal is to "break the dignity" of the Arab world, "crush" it, and "steal its resources." Israel will turn to this task after it is "done with" the Palestinians. To reach these objectives, Israel is using the US as a tool. Al-Qawasmi claimed Israel "rules over the American decision-making and the American Congress" and controls everything the US is doing in the region:

Fatah Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi: "Israel is thinking about how to completely be done with the Palestinian people and the issue of Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Sepulchre, in order to completely break the Arab dignity. Afterward, its aspiration will be to turn to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, and all of the Arab countries. Israel stands behind the American invasion of Iraq; Israel stands behind the American bombings in Syria. It wants the Arab countries to be crushed, and wants to steal their resources. It wants the Arab countries to be broken apart, poor, and involved in conflict with each other... It wants to completely unravel the Arab identity in order to guarantee its aspirations and realize its economic, military, and political superiority in the region... Whoever views Israel as a friend is completely mistaken. Israel wants to divide the Arab states and it does not exempt anyone. It rules over the American decision-making and over the American Congress. It is the one that is pushing and planning the need to invade all of the Arab and Islamic states for the American administration." [Official PA TV, April 15, 2018]

In another interview, Al-Qawasmi stated that Israel is worse than "Hitler, the Nazis, and fascism," but hides this "under the cloak of 'democracy'," claiming it is 'an oasis of democracy in the heart of the Arab dictatorships'":
Fatah Spokesman and Fatah Revolutionary Council member Osama Al-Qawasmi: "There is no regime in history - believe me, not Hitler, not the Nazis, not fascism - that has implemented what Israel is implementing against the Palestinians. It conceals these crimes - this Nazism and fascism, and this racist apartheid regime against the Palestinians - in the media under the cloak of ‘democracy,’ that it is ‘an oasis of democracy in the heart of the Arab dictatorships.’ It attempts to present itself in this way with the aid of the US." [Official PA TV Live, May 14, 2018]
Fatah spokesman: Israel is worse than Hitler, the Nazis, and fascism


Fatah spokesman repeats libel: Israel wants to “crush” the Arab world, “steal its resources”


Brendan O’Neill: The ugly trade in Palestinian pain
The Israel-Palestine conflict is unique among modern wars. No, not because Israel is an unnaturally wicked state, as its many critics across the West, and in the Middle East of course, would have us believe. And not because this conflict has been a long one. Or because it is a sometimes asymmetrical one, pitting a well-armed state against protesters armed with catapults and attitude. Many wars have been long and imbalanced.

No, this war is different because of who shapes it. Who impacts on it. Who contributes to it, usually unwittingly. This war is unique because very often its distant observers, those who watch and comment and hand-wring from afar, play a role in intensifying it and making it bloodier than it already is – without even realising they are doing so.

This should be the central lesson of the terrible events at the Gaza-Israel border last week: that much of what happens in the Israel-Palestine conflict is now largely a performance, a piece of bloody theatre, staged for the benefit of outsiders, especially for myopically anti-Israel Western activists and observers.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Hamas pushes Gaza’s people into harm’s way because it knows their suffering will strike a chord across the West. Because it knows images of their hardship will be shared widely, wept over, and held up as proof of the allegedly uniquely barbarous nature of the Jewish State. Hamas knows there is a hunger among the West’s so-called progressives for evidence of Palestinian pain, and by extension of Israeli evil, and it is more than willing to feed this hunger.

Richard Epstein: The Libertarian Podcast: Peace in the Middle East?
Previously Posted Article: The Israel-Palestine Standoff


Dani Ishai Behan is the founding administrator of the "Progressive Zionism" Facebook page.

Behan describes himself as a "Half-Irish/half-Jewish American activist, musician, and writer."

I think of him as an administrative pain-in-the-ass and a dedicated fighter for justice for the Jewish people. Mainly, however, he is known for drilling down into the heart of western-left antisemitic anti-Zionism and discussing his ideas on social media for years, now, before a significant audience.

Behan's most recent piece is a response to an article by Marc Lamont Hill published in the Huffington Post on May 17, 2018, entitled, "7 Myths About The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict." 

Behan's response in the Times of Israel is entitled, Marc Lamont Hill’s ‘7 Myths’ Are Not Myths at All.

Hill, to my horror and disgust, is the "Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions at Temple University."

Behan addresses seven ideas around the Long Arab War against the Jews of the Middle East that Professor Hill claims are false. 

These are:

1. These people have been fighting forever.

Hill writes:
The truth is that Arabs and Jews have not been fighting forever. Rather, it can be dated to the end of the 19th century or, more acutely, the beginning of the post-World War I British Mandatory period. 
Behan refutes:
Land theft, colonization, dhimmitude, heritage theft, massacres (beginning with the slaughter of Jews at Khaybar, in case anyone is wondering where the Palestinian “Khaybar” chant comes from), expulsions, confiscation/destruction of Jewish cultural sites – the list of injustices committed by Arabs against Jews is very long, and that’s only accounting for the pre-20th century stuff.

2. This is a religious conflict.  

Hill disagrees:
Simply put, this is not about religion. It’s about land theft, expulsion and ethnic cleansing by foreign settlers to indigenous land.
Behan refutes:
Why else would Hamas’ charter include Islamic hadiths in it? Why else would they regularly invoke the Gharqad tree hadith explicitly commanding Muslims to kill Jews? Why else would the PA exclaim that Jews have “no right to desecrate our holy sites with their filthy feet” in response to Jews visiting the Temple Mount?...

I didn’t know indigenous peoples (Jews, in this case) could become “foreign settlers” in their own land by being exiled for centuries.

And I didn’t know colonizers (Arabs, in this case) could become indigenous by stealing land and replacing indigenous sacred sites with mosques.

3. It’s very complicated.

Hill writes:
Too often, however, the claim that “it’s complicated” functions as an excuse to sidestep a very simple reality: this is about the 70-year struggle of a people who have been expelled, murdered, robbed, imprisoned and occupied.
Behan refutes:
And now you’re saying that it was only 70 years?

So which one is it? 70 years or 100+ years? Pick one.

4. Palestinians keep turning down fair deals.

Hill writes:
This argument wrongly presumes that any deal that includes the sharing of stolen land with the victims of said theft could be fair. But even in relative and pragmatic terms, this is not true. Think back to the wildly disproportionate U.N. partition agreement of 1947 that allotted 55 percent of the land to the Jewish population even though there only comprised 33 percent of the population and owned 7 percent of the land.
Behan refutes:
Only half of the land was given back to the Jews, and most of it was indefensible, inarable desert. The only reason we weren’t offered even LESS than that is because the UN anticipated further mass aliyot in the aftermath of WWII. The Arabs got the better deal by far, but they rejected it because they could not stomach the idea of living with Jews as neighbors and as equals, rather than as second class citizens.

5. Palestinians don’t want peace.

Hill writes:
This argument plays on Orientalist narratives of Arabs as innately violent, irrational, pre-modern and undeserving of Western democracy or diplomacy. The argument also castigates Palestinians for resisting their brutal occupation and repression. Occupied people have a legal and moral right to defend themselves.
Behan refutes:
If your idea of “peace” entails either a wholesale genocide/expulsion of Jews or restoration of the post-conquest/pre-Zionist status quo of Jewish subordination (and yes, this is what most Palestinians want), then it’s absolutely fair (and certainly not a myth) to claim that you do not want peace, but rather continued conflict until the other side is “defeated”.  

6. Israel has a right to exist! 

Hill writes:
This claim is a product of U.S. and Israeli hasbara, a term for propaganda. First, this argument is only rhetorically deployed in relation to Israel, as opposed to Palestine or virtually any other nation-states.
Behan refutes:
No, this claim is common sense.

7. You’re anti-Semitic!

Hill writes:
Anti-Semitism is a very real phenomenon around the globe. And we must be vigilant about addressing and destroying anti-Semitism wherever it emerges. Too often, however, this claim is leveled against anyone who critiquesor protests the practices of the Israeli nation-state.

Under these conditions, allegations of anti-Semitism become nothing more than a reflexive retort, intended to shut down the conversation. More importantly, this is a key part of Zionist strategy: equating Judaism with Zionism and the Israeli state itself.
Behan refutes:
Marc, listen very carefully to what I’m about to say. Are you ready? Good. 
1. You are NOT Jewish. You do not get to decide what is and is not antisemitic. Period. End of story.

2. Where do you get off lecturing us about our culture, especially when you can’t even get the definition of “hasbarah” right? Get back in your lane, fella.

3. You complain of “Orientalism”, only to invoke Orientalist tropes about Jews (i.e. that we are irrational, conspirational, and innately predisposed to lying and trickery for personal/political gain) mere moments later. Good show.

4. Antisemitism is any belief or action, intentional or otherwise, that serves to threaten our national, racial, religious, or political equality. It does not mean “critique of Judaism”, you ignoramus.

5. You obviously consider yourself a progressive, so what makes you think it’s okay to dismiss Jewish claims of antisemitism out of hand? What makes you think it’s okay to decide for us what constitutes antisemitism? Do you do this sort of thing to other minorities? I seriously doubt it.

6. No one, not even the most unhinged right wingers in our community, believes that “criticism of Israel” is a priori antisemitic. Literally NO ONE says that. These Jews who believe that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic are strawman inventions that exist only in the fevered imaginations of antisemites.

7. Denying Israel’s right to exist, demonizing/dehumanizing its people, holding it to a standard expected of no other nation, and hurling libel after libel after libel at it (as you’ve done throughout your entire article, if not your entire career) is not “critique”. It is antisemitism, nothing more.




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  • Sunday, May 27, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
Filmmaker Pierre Rehov has made a part 2 of his "Behind the Smokescreen" video, updating what is really going on in Gaza.


Behind The Smokescreen Part 2 ( The great deception ) from Pierre Rehov on Vimeo.

Part 1 is here.


(h/t Forest Rain)




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  • Sunday, May 27, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
Last week, TOI reported:

A group of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip breached the security fence on Tuesday morning and set fire to an empty IDF position on the other side, the army said.

The suspects got through the fence east of the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. The target of their arson attack was a tent that had been used by Israeli snipers during recent riots along the border.

Islamic Jihad published this video on their Palestine Today site:


How can anyone watch this and think that the Gaza incidents are simply demonstrations and not military?

Similarly, here is video of one of the forest fires in Israel started by incendiary kites from Gaza last Friday - a clearly military action:


"Human rights groups" argue that Israel should treat these sorts of incidents like riots and use the international laws of policing, not of war. But this is war.






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Saturday, May 26, 2018

From Ian:

Ronen Lubarsky, soldier struck by marble slab in West Bank, dies of wounds
A soldier from an elite army unit died Saturday after being critically injured Thursday when a marble slab was dropped on his head during an operation to arrest suspected terrorists in the West Bank.

The Israel Defense Forces named the soldier as Ronen Lubarsky, 20, from the central city of Rehovot.

The army posthumously promoted him to the rank of staff sergeant.

He was to be buried at 2 a.m. overnight Saturday-Sunday at the Mt. Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem.

“On Shabbat we lost Duvdevan soldier Sergeant Ronen Lubarsky, who was critically wounded during an operation to arrest wanted suspects,” said Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman. “Duvdevan, one our elite units, every night carries out many arrests in an endless war…”

“I wish to send my condolences to the family in the family of the entire nation of Israel and am closely monitoring the efforts to arrest the terrorist,” added Liberman. “We will bring justice for Ronen.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also expressed his condolences to Lubarsky’s familly.

“Our security forces will get to the terrorist and the State of Israel will bring him to justice,” he said.
Sarsour, Adelson, and Ha’aretz: Unraveling the Lies
Writing in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Uri Blau claims in “Spying on Linda Sarsour: Israeli Firm Compiled BDS Dossier for Adelson-funded U.S. Group Battling Her Campus Appearances,” to have outed a Sheldon Adelson-funded Israeli “spying” operation against the American Islamist Linda Sarsour.

But Blau and Ha'aretz got the story entirely wrong: The Middle East Forum (MEF), an American think-tank, compiled the Sarsour dossier.

The real story: MEF has publicly and openly tracked Linda Sarsour’s career since 2010, when she was still an obscure figure. MEF’s president and founder, Daniel Pipes, has maintained a running account since then of her foibles and extremism. Using this and other information (see here, here, here, and here for examples), MEF created the Sarsour dossier in December 2017.

There is nothing shocking or wrong about this. MEF is a research organization and has produced similar documents studying other American Islamists. For instance, see our CAIR study here, our Islamic Relief study here, and our recent report on Islamists lobbying Congress here. We’ve disseminated our research all over the world, working with moderate Muslim allies.

Further, MEF has never received funding from Sheldon Adelson; nor is MEF part of any coalition mentioned in the article; and no foreign government has been involved with financing or providing information for our research on Sarsour.

With Blau’s article established to be fake news, the Middle East Forum calls on Ha’aretz to issue a public correction and apology.

Rather than waste his own and his readers’ time investigating the research on Sarsour, Blau would do better joining us in researching Sarsour’s career, for she has a long history of vicious antagonism and radical sentiments.
Iranian FM caught chanting 'death to US, UK, Israel'
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, considered a moderate by many, was caught on tape Thursday joining a crowd in a chant calling for the destruction of Iran's enemies—among them the US, UK and Israel.

The chant broke out after a speech delivered by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held in Tehran.

The crowd is then heard chanting "Death to America", "Death to Britain" and "Death to Israel," all while Zarif is seen smiling and mouthing the words shouted by the participants.

Among the participants in the event were Iran's Atomic Energy Commission, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and Iran's Chief of Staff General Mohammed Hussein Bakri.

Zarif left last week for a trip to Asia and Europe as part of efforts to maintain the nuclear agreement after the US withdrew from it.

In the days before President Trump's decision to withdraw from the deal, Zarif attacked the United States and Israel, threatening I ran is ready to resume its nuclear activities "at a much greater speed" should the US decides to pull out of the 2015 international agreement aimed at preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

On Wednesday, Khamenei set out seven conditions for Tehran to stay in its nuclear deal with world powers, including steps by European banks to safeguard trade with Tehran.

Friday, May 25, 2018

From Ian:

The Media’s Palestine Narrative Reads Like Fan Fiction
Take, for instance, the issue of the peace process. Most media outlets have decided on behalf of the Palestinians that they want peace with Israel and are willing to share the land, which Israel won’t allow. That is, despite what Palestinian leaders from Hamas to Fatah say publicly.

News outlets simply rationalize facts away. The Palestinians waving machetes in Gaza don’t really want to kill Israelis; they’re just props. Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas Political Bureau chairman who runs Gaza didn’t mean it when he led chants at the May 11 riots: “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh, Jews! The Army of Muhammad has begun to return!” Sure, it may refer to the wholesale Muslim slaughter of Jews near Medina in the year 628 but it’s probably just a figure of speech. It doesn’t matter that he explicitly declared “Palestine is from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River and we shall never, never, never recognize Israel!” I’m sure that’s negotiable and beside the point.

As for Palestinian actions, their internal politics, or their societal struggle, they don’t matter. If there are allegations of corruption involving an Israeli politician, reporters are all over it. If the accusations involve Palestinians, those stories usually fall by the wayside. Outside Israel one likely won’t read about the father of two in Gaza who recently set himself on fire in protest of Hamas’s mishandling of the humanitarian situation. That was how the so-called “Arab Spring” began, with a street vendor in Tunisia who engaged in self-immolation; he was striving to make a point. Yet reporters would likely be tripping over themselves to get the story out if he had blamed Israel instead.

All of this points to what should be painfully obvious by now: After 70 years of a failed strategy to secure their statehood in place of Israel, Palestinian leadership would still rather use its population as cannon fodder for a media stunt and its reconstruction aid for building terror tunnels than devote resources to building the institutions necessary to run a state and provide for its people. The longer Palestinians cling to the mythology that they will kick the Jews out of Jerusalem, flood Israel with millions of refugees, and replace the Jewish state with a state of their own, the more distant the prospects for progress become. That change is even more unlikely to happen while mainstream media outlets remain wedded to the promotion of Palestinian fiction.
Bomb hurled at IDF troops on Gaza border as hundreds protest
An explosive device was thrown Friday at Israeli troops along the Gaza border in the Strip’s north, the army said, as Palestinians took part in weekly clashes near the security fence.

The army said no soldiers were injured by the bomb.

It said some 1,600 Palestinians took part in riots at two locations along the border, where they threw rocks and burned tires. Numerous attempts were made to damage security infrastructure, the army said.

Troops used riot dispersal means and live fire in accordance with IDF regulations, it added.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said 86 people were injured. Most were treated for tear gas inhalation while some sustained gunshot wounds.

Also during the afternoon several incendiary kites were flown into Israel from the Palestinian coastal enclave, sparking fires. Strong winds hampered efforts to douse the blazes, though all were eventually brought under control.

MEMRI: CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush At Orange County Event: The Governmental 'Countering Violent Extremism' Program Exclusively Targets American Muslims; It Should Target Jewish Kids Who Join The Israeli Army
Hussam Ayloush, Executive Director of the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), spoke at an event titled "Challenging Islamophobia with My Vote" at the Islamic Institute of Orange County (IIOC), California on April 20, 2018. He said that the U.S. governmental Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program exclusively targets American Muslims although white supremacism is the number one cause of "domestic terrorism and violent extremism" in the U.S. "Do you know how many hundreds of Jewish American kids are recruited to join the Israeli occupation army?" he asked, adding: "No one has ever established a CVE program to see why normal American kids leave their homes to become part of an army committing war crimes... They go to the American Muslim community, although the number of Muslims who join ISIS and Al-Qaeda is... tiny." Professor Khaled Beydoun of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, the other speaker at the event, said that it falls upon the shoulders of the community to spearhead efforts to educate people about Islam and to counter Islamophobia. The event, co-hosted by the IIOC and CAIR, was billed as encouraging Muslim Americans to fight Islamophobia and empower themselves through voting. The event was posted on the IICO YouTube channel.

Having been executive director of Greater Los Angeles chapter of CAIR since 1998[1] Hussam Ayloush is also an active member of various interfaith groups.[2] He has made some controversial statements on social media and on television. Following the December 2015 San Bernardino terror attack, Ayloush said on CNN: "Let's not forget that some of our own foreign policy, as Americans, as the West, have fueled that extremism."[3] In November 2016, Ayloush tweeted an Arabic phrase chanted across the Arab world during the Arab Spring, that translates as "The people want to bring down the regime," and exhorted his readers, "Ok, repeat after me."[4]

In January 2017, on Facebook, he criticized an imam who participated in an inaugural event for U.S. President Donald Trump: "In the face of unreluctant and unrepentant defamation and animosity toward Islam and Muslims... by this Trump team, [this imam's] symbolic participation... does not qualify as engaging or correcting the wrongdoers, but rather enabling them and providing them with a token cover for their bigotry."[5] Following the December 25, 2016 crash of a Russian passenger jet en route to Syria in the Black Sea, Ayloush tweeted: "I'm sad about the crashed Russian military jet. The TU-154 could have carried up to 180 military personnel instead of just 92!"[6] Also, in October 2017, he spoke at a teacher's workshop that some described as portraying Israel as the villain and Palestinians as the victims.

From Ian:

Col Kemp: Do not be fooled by what Hamas is doing
The Hamas-organised crowds were hell-bent on breaking through the border fence. Had the IDF allowed the fence to be breached, they would have surged through in their thousands. Using their Google maps showing routes from the border, they would have dashed for pre-designated villages, intent on mass slaughter.

Yes, the IDF would have stopped them — but to do so they would have had to kill many times more than have been killed already.

The Jewish community in Britain must not succumb to the hysteria demanded by Hamas and stoked by a predominantly anti-Israel media which has the world howling in outrage as the Gaza terrorists again and again jerk the strings.

Of course, we can only be horrified by the heart-breaking death toll on the Gaza border in the last six weeks and especially on Monday. But those of us who remain sober know this has been directly caused by Hamas and their Iranian paymasters.

At the Gaza border, I met five officers and four soldiers from North London. With their brothers in arms from Israel and around the world, these young people were risking death every minute of the day to stand between innocent men, women and children in villages like Nahal Oz and the bloodthirsty hordes desperate to butcher them.

These fine, courageous soldiers are your brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. They would no more indulge in an orgy of unnecessary killing than you or I would. Do not believe the lies that are told about them.

There is another reason you must stick up for them and the Jewish state in this dark hour. Those who falsely condemn Israel play into Hamas’s hands, fuel their terrorism, encourage their use of human shields and contribute to the death and bloodshed.

Standing up for the IDF is also standing up for innocent Palestinian civilians so betrayed, exploited and sacrificed by their leaders.

If the Jews won’t find the courage to do that, who will?
Richard A. Epstein: The Israel-Palestine Standoff
Few issues produce more political and emotional discord than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In principle, there is much to commend a two-state solution. If achieved, it could allow the two groups to live beside each other in peace. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, the interminable peace process came to a screeching halt this past week as the American embassy opened in Jerusalem. An exultant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed before Israeli and American dignitaries, “We are in Jerusalem and we are here to stay.” At the same moment, thousands of angry Palestinian demonstrators were rebuffed with deadly force as they sought to storm into Israel from Gaza. The confrontations took place on May 14 and 15—and the Palestinians consciously timed their protests to correspond with the seventieth anniversary of the Palestinian Exodus that resulted in the birth of the Israeli state. Some 62 Gazans died and thousands were wounded as the Israelis used live ammunition to keep protestors from storming over the barricades into Israel.

Now that the protests have subsided, Hamas seeks to capitalize on the deaths and injuries to isolate Israel diplomatically. The United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva has harshly condemned the Israelis for a “wholly disproportionate response” to the provocations they faced. Any fair-minded assessment can only judge the Israeli response by first looking at Hamas’s provocation. But as with other UN tribunals, the evidence on the ground does not matter. In this instance, Hamas was fiendishly clever by mixing in children with violent protestors to bolster its common claim that the Israelis fired on “unarmed individuals” who posed little or no imminent threat to the Israelis, a claim that was quickly repeated by Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn) and Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).

Hamas’ charge is bizarre for two reasons. The first is that a mob, even of “unarmed” individuals, is typically intent on committing acts of violence by its sheer force of numbers. Indeed, the fiery confrontation looked like a war zone, marked by the hurling of Molotov cocktails, rocks, grenades, and pipe bombs at IDF border guard forces, backed up by the use of incendiary kites flown over Israeli territory. At multiple points along the border, Hamas operatives used wire cutters to tear up fences in order to allow hordes of thuggish Palestinians to fan out into Israeli territory. As Israeli intelligence reports, Hamas paid women and children to go to the front in order to put them in the line of fire.

This was no peaceful protest, and it takes an uninformed view of the law of self-defense to insist that Israeli soldiers should have held back their fire until personally faced with “imminent danger,” at which point it would have been too late both for them and the civilians they were there to protect. There is no principle in the law of self-defense that requires a group to forego self-defense because there is some chance that the assailant, if successful, will inflict fewer casualties by its aggression than are in fact inflicted on it. The Israelis were right to stand their ground.
Melanie Phillips: Going onto the front foot on the battleground of the mind
The attempt to scapegoat the IDF communications team for the shocking western media coverage of the Gaza Strip border riots reveals once again that Israel’s political class simply hasn’t got a clue about the anti-Israel madness.

Mainstream media in Britain, America and Europe presented the murderous attempts by Hamas to storm the border, using Molotov cocktails, IEDs, firearms and flaming kites under cover of the unarmed civilians they pushed to the front, as peaceful demonstrators being killed by brutal Israeli soldiers. That was the coverage Hamas was out to procure.

The media thus made themselves accessories to Hamas war crimes.

Within Israel, this has been blamed on the IDF spokesperson, Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis, and on Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, head IDF spokesperson to the foreign press. This is deeply unfair.

Doubtless, they could have done things better. When BBC Radio asked Conricus how he could justify firing live ammunition at unarmed protesters, he said they were members of Hamas – but failed to list the weapons they were using or that the IDF had tried tear gas, rubber bullets and shooting at legs before the last resort of lethal fire.

Merely saying they were Hamas meant nothing to a British public indoctrinated by wall-to-wall propaganda that unarmed protesters were mowed down – a public, moreover, for whom the greater the violence Hamas uses against Israel, the deeper the Gazans’ desperation is thought to be as a result of Israeli “oppression.”

The problem is far too profound to be adequately addressed in such circumstances by any individual. For the demonization of Israel is a derangement that has gripped the media and intelligentsia in Britain, Europe and America.

  • Friday, May 25, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
From TOI:

A legal team headed by US lawyer and academic Alan Dershowitz is preparing a international lawsuit to force Arab countries that host sports events to allow Israeli athletes to compete under the Jewish state’s flag and play its national anthem if they win.

Israeli athletes face various restrictions when competing in the Middle East or against Arab countries due to hostility toward the Jewish state. Gulf countries have allowed Israelis to compete, but without the Israeli flag or other symbols displayed on the athletes’ uniform or in the competition facility.

Jerusalem has long considered pursuing legal action against the practice but postponed it for various reasons. But now a legal team, assembled by Yesh Atid MK Yoel Razvozov, is working on a lawsuit on the issue to be filed at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, an international body for settling disputes related to sport.
The headline in the Arabi21 site says that Israel is not happy with mere normalization with Arabs, but wants more and more.

Obviously because insisting on being treated like any other country is simply more evidence of Jews acting above their station.




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  • Friday, May 25, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon

Egypt made a big deal over opening the Rafah crossing for Ramadan.

The statistics for the first 11 days of Ramadan shows that Egypt allowed 4200 Gazans to enter, but only three of them were admitted for medical treatment. (490 people returned to Gaza.)

In that same time period, Israel allowed 30 injured people to travel to Jordan for treatment. And Israel has allowed about 1000 Gazans to enter Israel altogether for "humanitarian reasons" (which usually means the people seeking medical attention and one family member.) I count 86 ambulance crossings into Israel in that time period.

Egypt has hardly flung the gates open when less than 400 cross everyday while tens of thousands want to leave. Yet there is no criticism of Egypt as far as I can tell - after all, Rafah has been almost completely closed this year before Ramadan.





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  • Friday, May 25, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the Twitter account of the Government of South Africa:

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but why should that be relevant?

I looked at the minutes of the cabinet meeting. This was the only international topic mentioned.

I looked at the minutes from every cabinet meeting this year. This was still the only statement on anything happening outside South Africa.

As hundreds are killed weekly around the world, the only people that the South African government seem to care about are the members of Hamas and other terror groups who are the vast majority of those killed in Gaza.

Priorities.




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Thursday, May 24, 2018

From Ian:

CAMERA OP-ED: Is It Criticism or Bigotry?
Note: A slightly different version of this article appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune on May 20, 2018. (The commentary was written in response to an anti-Semitic Op-Ed that was published earlier in that newspaper. Following the negative publicity generated by CAMERA’s harsh criticism, the newspaper published an apology by the author.)

Honest and civil criticism based on truth is an essential component of any democracy. Bigotry is an expression of visceral hatred against a person or a people. Both are protected free speech, but the first strengthens democracy while the second erodes it.

A controversial opinion column by Michael Robinson in the May 6 Salt Lake Tribune has raised the question of what differentiates the two. The author claims his commentary simply represented criticism of human rights abuses by the Israeli government. Yet its misrepresentation of facts and reality and its inflammatory language convey undisguised bigotry, which is why it was the subject of a critique by CAMERA (Committee for Middle East Reporting in America), of angry comments and outraged letters, and of an editor’s column.

This was in reaction to the author’s self-declared hatred for Israel, rooted in misconceptions and inaccuracies about Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli conflict. By lashing out emotionally and attacking Israel inchoately, without any facts to back up his accusations, the author precluded any rational discussion that might arise from legitimate criticism.

Many readers were appalled by the crude invoking of classic, anti-Semitic caricatures that have been used for centuries to demonize the Jews as a people possessing malign attributes — as monsters lacking human compassion. Such demonizing in the past has been the precursor to grotesque violence. Referring to “the Jews” interchangeably with “Israel” and conflating the two, the author was not criticizing specific government policies as much he appeared to be attacking “the Jews” as a people. And in dismissing the wholesale slaughter of European Jewry as akin to a child’s “owie,” the author did nothing to dispel that impression.

David Collier: The Parliament Square Kaddish. We have to fight back
The blog on the Parliament Square Kaddish event was the hardest I have ever had to write. My research has taken me into some of the darkest anti-Jewish movements on the internet. I have got up close and personal with neo-Nazis, Rothschild conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers. I have worn a Kaffiyeh, walked with the Hezbollah and broken bread with people who think Jews are ‘evil’ and Israel needs to be ‘nuked’. Yet after all this, it was reporting on a small gathering of Jewish ‘peaceniks’ saying Kaddish for Hamas terrorists that hurt me the most.

I admit to being angry and sickened by that event in Parliament Square. The act was deliberate, public and provocative. It was designed to create a stir. Those involved have little cause to complain about the publicity they asked for, simply because the publicity they received was overwhelmingly negative. The stunt simply backfired on them.

But these people are still not ‘the enemy’. Those that really wish us harm are numerous and determined and deadly. The people at the Kaddish event are not ‘traitors’, nor ‘kapos’. Nor is there anything malicious in their activity. They are even unaware that they have been infected with a poison that is dripping from within the organisations that are supposed to ‘educate them’. These people are our kids. Our nieces and nephews and cousins and siblings and children.

Looking to put names to faces and then to find those who act as ‘influencers’ was soul-destroying. There was no joy in this. This type of research is one of the things I excel at, but there was no sense of accomplishment when I succeeded. There was only sadness.
Anti-Israel Protesters Shout Down Amb. Nikki Haley at University of Houston
Washington’s ambassador to the United Nations was interrupted by protesters waving Palestinians flags while speaking at the University of Houston in Texas on Tuesday.

Less than three minutes after taking the podium, Nikki Haley’s speech on US foreign policy achievements was interrupted by a male protester who accused her of sanctioning “the genocide of a native people.” She seemed startled by the exclamation, muttering, “Oh jeez.”

About two dozen students, some affiliated with the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter, quickly rose in unison and chanted, “Nikki, Nikki can’t you see, you are on a killing spree,” and “free, free, free Palestine.”

The disruption continued for more than two minutes, until most of the protesters were removed from the Cullen Performance Hall by police. The audience then applauded and Haley resumed speaking, only to be shouted over once again. “Any more?” she asked to loud applause after the final interruption.

“You know, while disruptive as that might have been, it’s a reason to celebrate,” she said. “Because my husband and my brother are combat veterans, and they fought for their right to be able to do that.”

The protesters continued displaying their signs outside the event hall, where SJP member Muhammed Fattoush expressed his objection to Haley’s defense of Israel’s response to recent Hamas-led riots in the Gaza Strip.




RISING UP: Showcasing Israel and Progressive Values in Unison
by Noah Phillips

We were all electrified by Nettas Eurovision performance. Whether you were bobbing your head and clucking your arms, or, like me, swelling with Israeli pride while partly confused with the European infatuation with this kind of music, we loved her moment. Netta, a proud representative of Israeli culture (Next year in Jerusalem! she declared to 180+ million viewers) and an important voice for the #MeToo movement of female empowerment, was fantastic in all respects.

As one of the foremost celebrities originating from Israel should, Netta embodies the progressive and inclusive principles of Israeli society through her music and personal triumphs. Nettas hit song, Toy, is emblematic of the #MeToo movement, embracing feminism and denouncing patriarchy of the past. The song rejects the objectification of women and resonates with a global audience at a time when individuals are disclosing painful past experiences of sexual assault.

From her various interviews, we know of Nettas personal struggles with bulimia and bullying from others about her weight and appearance. In Eurovision, Netta embraced her eccentricities and quirks. Garbed in a Japanese kimono and, at times, clucking like a chicken, Netta sang powerfully and connected with a diverse audience.

Her personal life story and messages conveyed through her music reach a current audience of young progressives demanding change from ideas of exclusivity and elitism--be it weight, size, race, or other markers. Nettas words: Thank you so much for accepting differences between us. Thank you for celebrating diversity. Thank you!

Nettas messaging as a champion of diversity only bolsters Israels international reputation, particularly among progressive-millennials. Its a stark contrast to both Israels general European and American-liberal perception as a state of apartheid, utilizing differences as divisors to further hate. To see Netta succeed while carrying her progressive ideals brings Israels complex reality and a more nuanced and positive state of Israeli society to millions of viewers. For example, while the LGBTQ community seeks acceptance and support in many closed, restrictive countries, Israeli society is known for embracing LGBTQ causes, and Israels largest city, Tel Aviv, hosts an annual week-long celebration of gay pride which attracts thousands of attendees from across the world. While the United States still awaits our first female president, Israel already reached that milestone nearly half a century ago. And while Jews have been expelled throughout history from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, and Spain among other nations due to religious intolerance, Israeli-Arabs enjoy religious freedom and integration in Israeli society, a fact often overlooked by Israels detractors.

Netta helps defy stereotypes personally and even about the State of Israel. Her influential agendas of feminism and gender equality are timely; similarly, her declarations of Israeli pride and inclusivity through her performances are long overdue.






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