Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 02, 2018

Our cognitive enemies (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

The missiles are falling all over Israel, their multi-ton payloads blasting the Jewish state, built at such great cost in human effort and blood over the past 70 years, to bits.

I am not talking about physical missiles. They are infrequent today, as we experience a slow period in the long, traditional war that our regional enemies have been waging against the Jews of the land of Israel since the days of the British Mandate. No, I am referring to blows being struck in the cognitive war that has been going on since the 1960s. In this arena, there is no intermission. The cognitive war is raging today at white heat.

In cogwar world the enemies are not precisely the same as in the kinetic war. Here we are also fighting Arabs and Iranians, but our most serious enemies are Western European governments, forces based in the USA, like the New Israel Fund and the Union for Reform Judaism, and post-Zionist intellectuals here in Israel.

One of the central battles is over the Nation-State Law just passed by the Knesset. If you haven’t read it, you must, in order to understand the paradox of how a law with almost no practical effect can create so much fury in its opponents. What happened is that the law blew open the uneasy truce between those who aspire to fulfil the vision of Herzl to create a democratic and free state that will nevertheless be a state of and for the Jewish people, and those who want Israel to be nothing more than a modern, democratic state that happens to have (at least for a while) a Jewish majority.

This is a legitimate conversation that can and should be had. For myself, I believe that it is possible for Israel to be, in a significant and fundamental sense, the nation-state of the Jewish people, while still providing equal rights for members of minority groups. This new law, which explicates the meaning of “the nation-state of the Jewish people” is part of the answer that the majority of Israel’s Jews have given to the question.

The opposition to the Nation-State Law is couched in the most inflammatory language possible, including epithets like “racist” and “apartheid.” This is nonsense and is part of a larger campaign to paint the Likud government as made up of right-wing extremists. According to PM Netanyahu and others, the New Israel Fund (NIF) is actively encouraging members of Israel’s minority groups to oppose the law.

Many other issues are brought up for the same purpose and in the same exaggerated way. For example, the controversies about the recognition of non-Orthodox forms of Judaism in Israel have no relevance for any but a tiny fraction of Israelis; yet the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) in America has established a lobbying and activism arm in Israel which seems to exist mainly to provoke crises that can be used to vilify the government. It also is doing its best to introduce an American-style obsessionwith race and racism into Israeli discourse.

Attempts by the government to deport illegal African migrants also received the same treatment, by the same players. Again the accusation of racism was deployed, despite the very real damage that this population continues to do to the residents of South Tel Aviv, and despite the fact that Israel went to great lengths to bring black African Jews to Israel. Again, various NGOs, the NIF, and the URJ vehemently attacked the government for its policy.

Another more recent issue to explode in this way is the the law that regulates how the health funds can pay for surrogate mothers in Israel. Although the PM promised that this benefit would be extended to include gay male couples, he gave in to pressure from religious elements in the coalition and opposed it. There was a massive demonstration and even a nationwide strike in protest. The PM was denounced as illiberal, anti-democratic, and homophobic, but at worst he was pragmatically keeping his coalition intact.

Everything negative that happens in Israel is blown up and appears in the New York Times, CNN, and other liberal/progressive media as an example of Israeli depravity. The stupid arrest of a rabbi for violating a stupid law forbidding anyone from performing a Jewish marriage without approval from the Rabbinate was a top news item (Israel’s Attorney General immediately ordered the rabbi’s release, and even ultra-observant Haredi rabbis criticized the arrest).

The pattern is always the same. In each case, a coalition of the Israeli and foreign left-leaning media, foreign-funded Israeli NGOs, outside players like the URJ, J Street, and the NIF, attack Israel, her government, and the Prime Minister. Even Trump’s move of the American Embassy to Jerusalem was criticized by these groups. Going back further, many of them supported Obama’s Iran deal, which in hindsight has been exposed to be as bad as opponents said it was.

This is a coordinated assault whose objective is to convince those who think of themselves as liberal and pro-democracy that Israel is a backward, undemocratic, racist theocracy.

You say this is just rough-and-tumble Israeli politics as usual?

I disagree. Traditionally, opposition politicians criticized the government and the Prime Minister (and when speaking for foreign consumption, they rarely even did that). Sometimes they threw water on other members (video here), but they did not attack the country itself. They did not conspire with foreign elements to disseminate anti-Israel propaganda.

The media, especially Ha’aretz, are even worse than the politicians. Reading the Ha’aretz English edition – very popular among foreign government officials – one could as well be reading Al Jazeera’s website (in fact, Ha’aretz writers are far more contemptuous of Israel and Israelis than Al Jazeera’s).

The Knesset passed a law two years ago that Israeli NGOs that receive more than half of their financing from foreign governments have to report it. The law was passed against strong opposition in a form far weaker than what was originally proposed. It was in reaction to the more and more outrageous actions of several dozen Israeli NGOs that function as subversive, anti-state agents (for example, Breaking the Silence, which travels the world spreading lies about the IDF). Their money comesmostly from European governments and charities, but also from the US, particularly the Rockefeller Brothers fund and the NIF. There is also money coming into this shadowy enterprise from charities linked to George Soros, whose anti-Zionism is well-known.

Together, the foreign-funded NGOs, the NIF and URJ, the anti-Zionist media in Israel and overseas, and much of Israel’s academic and cultural elite join the anti-Zionist Arab members of the Knesset in waging cognitive warfare against the state.

Time and again polls show that the majority of Jewish Israelis support the supposedly “hard line” government, which is actually very centrist and not at all extreme. But, ironically, that doesn’t seem to matter to these champions of “democracy!”

To re-engineer an old antisemitic phrase, as a Zionist, some of my worst enemies are Jews.

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08/02 Links Pt1: Airstrike kills 7 IS gunmen who crossed from Syria into Israel; Palestinians Have an Anti-Peace Plan; Trump Should Reject PLO and UN Propaganda on East Jerusalem

From Ian:

IDF: Airstrike kills 7 IS gunmen who crossed from Syria into Israeli territory

The IDF said it conducted an airstrike late Wednesday night killing seven Islamic State fighters who had crossed the 1974 ceasefire line into Israeli territory.

The gunmen had made it some 200 meters (650 feet) past the “alpha line” but did not manage to reach the technical fence bordering the Israeli Golan Heights, IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said, correcting an earlier army statement that said the “terror squad” had been in the Syrian Golan Heights when targeted.

A number of explosive belts and a Kalashnikov rifle were found during searches of the area Thursday morning, according to the army.

The gunmen had crossed into the Israeli territory through the Syria-Jordan-Israel border triangle.

According to Army Radio, the gunmen were en route to an attack on Israel.

The army later released a short clip showing the IS gunmen heading toward Israel and Israeli soldiers crossing into no-man’s land to search for them.

Jordan says it killed Islamic State jihadists who tried to breach Syrian border

The Jordanian army on Thursday said it had killed a number of Islamic State group jihadists who tried to approach its northern border with Syria.

The incident on Tuesday came as clashes raged between Syrian regime forces and “a gang of Daesh (IS) terrorists” in the Yarm0uk Basin region of southwestern Syria, an army statement said.

It occurred as Israel said it killed seven gunmen believed linked to IS at its own border with Syria.

IS jihadists “tried to approach our border” but Jordanian troops prevented them by pounding them “with all types of weapons” and “killing a number of them,” the Jordanian army added, without specifying how many.

The operation to secure the area continued into Wednesday, the statement said.

The Jordanian army said that on the Syrian side of the border, regime forces cornered the jihadists in a pocket of southern Syria around the Yarmouk Basin and neighboring villages.

Russia says UN peacekeepers patrol Israel-Syria border for first time in years

UN peacekeepers returned on Thursday to patrol the Israel-Syria border for the first time in years, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced — the latest development in efforts to negotiate a solution to the crisis along the volatile border.

Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy of the Russian General Staff told reporters at a press conference in Moscow that the UN peacekeepers, aided by Russian forces, conducted their first patrolling mission in the area earlier in the day.

The development also marked the first time that forces from Russia, a major ally of the Damascus government, were involved in the patrols.

The peacekeeping mission was halted on the Syrian side of the border back in 2014 amid the violence in the country’s civil war.

Rudskoy also said military police would be deployed in the border area and set up eight observation posts to prevent “provocations,” Reuters reported, citing the Russian Interfax news agency.

“With the aim of preventing possible provocations against UN posts along the ‘Bravo’ line, the deployment is planned of eight observation posts of Russia’s armed forces’ military police,” he was quoted as saying.

“As the situation stabilizes, these posts will be handed over to Syrian government forces,” he added.

“The arson terror kites and balloons come in the afternoon and the evening, sometimes in the middle of the night.”

That’s when the winds pick up, blowing from the sea, inland, carrying Hamas’s flying firebombs to the people of Israel.

Israeli firefighter Tal Goldstein stood in the sweltering heat, telling us about a more terrible heat (I had gone a special tour to see the impact of Hamas attacks on southern Israel): “It is our nightmare that a firebomb kite or balloon will land on the roof of a home in the middle of the night, when everyone is asleep. A family could be burned alive.”

Many who follow the news about Israel take note of missile bombardments that send Israelis racing to bomb shelters. How many truly understand the battle against arson terrorism?

Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization, openly states that their goal is the destruction of Israel.

They tried to attack Israel by land and failed.

They tried to attack Israel underground, spending millions meant to assist the people of Gaza, to build attack tunnels that would allow Hamas commandos to burst from the ground and surprise Israelis (some tunnels targeted civilians, others military installations). They failed at that too.

Plying their ingenuity to destruction, Hamas came up with an ingenious and diabolical solution – firebombs delivered by kites and balloons. Children’s toys perverted into weapons of war, to attack through the air. These weapons don’t need to be imported from Iran. They are cheap, easy to come by and to the international media, look innocent, even romantic.

Many media sources have published highly stylized photos of masked Gazans preparing kites. Who is taking note of the Israelis suffering from daily arson attacks?

https://www.facebook.com/tom.oren.denenberg/videos/10156790070427859/

There is no mention of Israeli farmers who have lost a year’s work, a year’s income in one fire.

There is no notice of the ecological disaster of torched nature reserves. The small animals, too slow or too young to run from the flames, burnt alive.

The larger animals, deer, jackals, wild pigs and even hyenas could escape the flames but have nowhere to return to – their food sources are gone, their hiding places are gone. Land rejuvenates after fires but that is when the fires are natural and singular. These are repeated fires and their damage has reached deep into the earth, burning the seed banks eliminating them as a possible source for regrowth.

Environmentalism is a popular interest but not, it seems, when it is the environment Israelis are forced to live in. Standard carbon emissions are nothing in comparison to being forced to breathe poisoned air day after day after day…

I experienced a single day of arson terrorism. The sky was full of smoke, the air in our home, although we had sealed all the doors and windows, was thick and difficult to breathe. The smoke permeated our clothes, the stench seemed embedded in our skin.

And that was just one day.

Can you imagine living in this reality day after, for months on end?! When you imagine that you will have the opportunity to begin to breathe freely again, you discover that while there is no fire in your community, there are fires raging in neighboring communities.

An air pollution expert spoke to us about the long-term effects of the fires. Unlike breathing in smoke from a bonfire or bbq where the effects are temporary, here people are breathing in microscopic particles that are so small they get embedded in the lungs and the body does not excrete them. These can have a carcinogenic effect, similar to breathing in asbestos particles. As we are still in the midst of the fires, with no end in sight, it is impossible to accurately foresee the impact this type of warfare will have on the health of the Israeli population.

What I do know now is that my friend who lives in Be’eri, near the Gaza border has reported that she is having difficulty breathing and has to use her asthma pump all the time – which she has not had to do in years. Needless to say, this kind of air quality can have immediate and possibly even deadly impact on asthmatics, the very young or the elderly.

Kite firebombs don’t sound like a real threat. Balloons sound even sillier (especially when the balloons are made from inflated condoms) but this is no game.

Kites have been found up to 40 kilometers from Gaza (24.8 miles!). Just a few days ago a balloon firebomb was found in Be’ersheba (approximately 40 kilometers from Gaza).

Brush fires occur in Israel but they are not prevalent as they are in places like Australia or California. Our homes are not made with wood, fires that do occur inside tend to be from problems in the electric wiring or with heaters in the winter. Now Israel’s firefighters are battling flames around the clock.

We laughed when, a few years ago, Israel’s firefighting service changed their name from the original Hebrew utilitarian descriptive name: “Fire Extinguishers” to the more evocative: “Fire Warriors”. Now there is no name that could be more appropriate.

Tal told us about his experiences battling flames. He belongs to the Ashkelon fire department, the biggest in the area. Most of the fires they have managed to extinguish within 15 minutes but a few they battled for three days. Thanks to the volunteers who have arrived from all over the country to assist, the firefighters have succeeded in containing most of the fires.

All firefighters risk themselves to protect others but Israel’s fire warriors have had to fight fire, under fire – with snipers shooting at them and sometimes mortar bombs falling. They have no choice but to hit the ground and cover their heads hoping the mortar bombs won’t kill them and then get up and continue to battle the flames.

Heroism doesn’t label itself heroic. There is nothing self-serving or glory-chasing in the true hero. Men (and some women), like Tal are quietly getting the job done, protecting the people, the land, our animals, trying to keep the air as clean as possible - doing the hard work because, if they don’t, who will?

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

Abbas appoints his spokesman to be deputy prime minister and minister of propaganda

Mahmoud Abbas issued a presidential decree appointing Dr. Nabil Abu Rudeina as deputy prime minister and minister of information.

Rudeina has been the long time spokesman for the Palestinian presidency and a Fatah media and culture commissioner.

This sounds like a very sudden ascension of Abu Rudeina to be the heir apparent for the aging Abbas.

I don't think Saeb Erekat looks happy:

Abu Rudeina has regularly issued mafia-style threats against the world, saying that if Abbas doesn't get his way then there will be terror attacks worldwide. Recently he called any US moves to limit free aid to the PA as long as they give salaries to terrorists a "declaration of war."

This hyperbole will now be more official. Abbas knows that the propaganda war is more important nowadays than any military war and he has chosen to elevate the lies and myths of the Palestinians by promoting the master of lies and threats.

In a normal world, the obvious lies and exaggerations by Abu Rudeina would long ago have prompted the media to accurately portray Abu Rudeina as "Baghdad Bob." But there are rules, you see. Palestinians must be treated seriously no matter what they say and how many times they are proven to have lied.

For Palestinians, the bigger the liar, the bigger the reward.

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

Real refugees

Ma'an reported earlier this week:

A new bill was introduced in the United States Congress this past week which several US senators are attempting to pass into law that recognizes only 40,000 Palestinian refugees instead of 5.3 million refugees.
The newly introduced bill would ensure that the contributed to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) would go towards the resettlement of Palestinians displaced by the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, and not their descendants – who are a total number of 5.3 million people.
The bill was initiated by Republican Congressman, Doug Lamborn, who entitled it as "The UNRWA Reform and Refugee Support Act."
Lamborn said in a statement that the "refugee status is not something that can be handed down from generation to generation," referring to the descendants of Palestinian refugees who were born and are living in other countries.

Responses from Palestinian leaders and Arab media have been predictable - and these reactions themselves show how untenable their position is that Palestinians remain refugees forever.

Middle East Monitor dismisses the proposal this way:

The secret American proposal says the US can continue to support the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) if it reduces the number of refugees it acknowledges from 5.3 million to only 40,000. This would mean the decedents [sic] of those violently evicted from their homeland in 1948 would not be eligible for aid in spite of continuing to live as refugees in a foreign country.

If that is the criterion for being a "refugee," then there are no refugees living in Gaza or the West Bank - since it is not a "foreign country" - nor are there too many in Jordan, since most of them are citizens.

Magically, this Arab definition just eliminated 4 million "refugees."

Saeb Erekat tries another argument:

Efforts by the US Congress to pass a new law that recognizes only 40,000 Palestinian refugees instead of 5.2 million will not change anything on the ground because the rights of refugees are guaranteed by United Nations General Assembly resolutions, particularly 194 and 302, experts and officials said on Monday.

Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said US efforts to draft a new law that recognizes only 40,000 Palestinian refugees instead of 5.2 million is unacceptable and illegal and will not affect the status quo.

Erekat stressed that the rights of refugees are protected by UN Resolution 194, which cannot be bypassed. He said neither the US Senate nor Congress has the right to override international law and impose their laws on other countries.

UN General Assembly Resolutions are not international law. And 194 does not guarantee descendants of Palestinians who fled in 1948 to be refugees anyway. There is no international law that gives Palestinians refugee rights denied to all other peoples. In fact, 194 refers to "refugees" on both sides - it does not single out Arabs - so therefore does Erekat consider the descendants of Jewish refugees who were expelled from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to have the right to return there are well, under international law?

Beyond that, 194 also calls for Bethlehem to be part of the "corpus separatum" of Jerusalem under international rule. Is that international law, too?

The PA Ministry of Information also says that treating Palestinians as refugees forever is international law, saying "attempts to manipulate the number of refugees from our people are a dangerous precedent in international relations, requiring the action of the General Assembly and organizations defending international law."

International law is clear on the definition of refugees. The 1951 Refugee Convention didn't give Palestinians a pass where their refugee status can be considered different from all others; it said that Palestinians who were getting support from UNRWA were excluded from being protected under the Convention as long as UNRWA exists.

Which is why UNRWA exists 67 years later.

But there is only one definition for refugee.

And indeed, the UNHCR lists five countries that are the source of the highest number of refugees - Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar and Somalia - of which only Syria has created more refugees that UNRWA has. Yet it doesn't include "Palestine" on that list.

One gets the impression that UNHCR is almost embarrassed to be sometimes forced to include Palestinians in its count of refugees because it is dealing with people who are in real crisis, not people who live as citizens in their own lands or who have been excluded by law from becoming citizens in the countries in which they have been born, which other international conventions call for.

In short, there is no international law that singles out Palestinians to be treated differently from other people; that idea is anathema to international law. The claims that Palestinian "refugees" are refugees under international law are ludicrous.

But Palestinian leaders have no other arguments, so they have to lie.

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

08/01 Links Pt2: Corbyn chaired antisemitic event comparing Israel to Nazi Germany in Parliament on Holocaust Memorial Day; Senior Muslim Brotherhood Official Touts Linda Sarsour’s Gaza Video

From Ian:

Jeremy Corbyn chaired antisemitic event comparing Israel to Nazi Germany in Parliament on Holocaust Memorial Day

An historian reviewing old reports has unearthed a 2010 account of Jeremy Corbyn using Holocaust Memorial Day to host an event promoting the narrative that Israel is engaged in acts comparable to Nazi war crimes. The event featured a slideshow decrying what it called the “Holocaust religion”.

The reports found by Dr James Vaughan, record that on 27th January 2010, on Holocaust Memorial Day, Jeremy Corbyn chaired and hosted an event in Parliament comparing Israeli actions in Gaza to the slaughter of Jews during the Holocaust. The event’s title, “Never again – for anyone”, appropriates the slogan “Never again”, which became the rallying cry of post-Holocaust Jewry.

Dr Vaughan, the Director or Undergraduate Studies at the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University, rediscovered a reference to the event whilst reading through an old CST report on antisemitic discourse following the 2009 Gaza War.

Investigating further he found a contemporaneous article from The JC and an account of the same presentation being given a day earlier, in which it was reported that one of the speakers said: “Judaism in Israel has been substituted by the Holocaust Religion whose high priest is Elie Wiesel, Elie Wiesel having literally said that ‘Auschwitz is comparable only to the Sinai experience’ [when Moses received the ten commandments]. Its content [Holocaust Religion] is that we Jews have the monopoly on suffering, nobody has suffered or ever will suffer like the Jews have, therefore whatever we do to the Palestinians is less than what we suffered, and can be done without feeling guilty.” The speaker also claimed that Zionists were dehumanising Palestinians in the same way as the Nazis dehumanised Jews, for example through the infamous Nuremberg laws. The talk was given by Hajo Meyer, an Auschwitz survivor who, in his latter years, turned to abusing the memory of the Holocaust in the way most offensive to Jews, by claiming that “Zionists” were the successors of the Nazis.

The International Definition of Antisemitism, which the Labour Party has refused to adopt, states that “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic. It is little wonder that under Mr Corbyn’s leadership, the Labour Party has tried to adopt its own version of the definition which does not prohibit comparing Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

CAA refers Labour Party to Equality Commission and issues new complaint against Jeremy Corbyn over “Holocaust religion” event and “hand of Israel” comments

Campaign Against Antisemitism has today written to the Labour Party issuing a disciplinary complaint against Jeremy Corbyn. We have also referred the Party to the Equality and Human Rights Commission over discrimination and victimisation in the Party.

Our complaint against Mr Corbyn relates to an event he chaired on Holocaust Memorial Day in 2010 which deliberately compared Israelis to Nazis, and in which a speaker decried what he called the “Holocaust religion”. We have also complained about Mr Corbyn’s paid interview on Iranian-controlled Press TV (months after Ofcom had revoked its licence) in which he blamed “the hand of Israel” for an Islamist terrorist attack in Egypt, and called a Hamas terrorist a “brother” live on air.

We have also referred the Labour Party to the Equality and Human Rights Commission over the Party’s refusal to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism, failure to investigate previous complaints against Mr Corbyn, unreasonable delay and secrecy in disciplinary investigations, bias in disciplinary matters and victimisation of Labour MPs who stand up to antisemitism, including Dame Margaret Hodge and Ian Austin who have today become Honorary Patrons of Campaign Against Antisemitism in an act of solidarity.

The moves come after Labour ignored a fresh protest by British Jews in Parliament Square, with Mr Corbyn’s office sarcastically wishing Campaign Against Antisemitism “good luck” ahead of the demonstration, and revelations that NEC member Peter Willsman will not face disciplinary action despite a shouted tirade against “Trump fanatic” Jews and “falsified” antisemitism allegations.

Corbyn sorry for ‘anxiety’ over event he hosted when Israel was likened to Nazis

Amid the ongoing UK Labour Party anti-Semitism controversy, party leader Jeremy Corbyn apologized Wednesday for “concerns and anxiety” caused by an event he hosted at the House of Commons in 2010 in which a Holocaust survivor compared Israel to the Nazis over its actions in the Gaza Strip.

“In the past, in pursuit of justice for the Palestinian people and peace in Israel/Palestine, I have on occasion appeared on platforms with people whose views I completely reject,” Corbyn said in a statement quoted by British media.

“The main speaker at this Holocaust Memorial Day meeting was a Jewish Auschwitz survivor,” he added. “Views were expressed at the meeting which I do not accept or condone.

“I apologize for the concerns and anxiety that this has caused.”

Corbyn was a relatively unknown Labour MP at the time of the talk, in which anti-Zionist Hajo Meyer also took aim at fellow Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel.

Corbyn’s hosting of the event was first reported by The Times, which said it was part of a UK speaking tour called “Never Again for Anyone — Auschwitz to Gaza.”

Meyer’s speech was reportedly titled “The Misuse of the Holocaust for Political Purposes.”

The language of occupation is an oft-wielded weapon against Israel. Those who use it have interests at odds with the existence of the Jewish State. They may refer to Israel as an “illegal occupier,” and the Jewish State’s presence in the Middle East as an “illegal occupation.” The IDF, Israel’s military, is variously known by the anti-Israel media as “occupying forces," the “military occupation,” and even Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Judea and Samaria, and sometimes all of Jerusalem, are referred to as “occupied territories.” We also see “OPT," shorthand for “Occupied Palestinian Territories,” in lists of countries we must choose from when filling out online forms or making purchases.

The purpose of this language is to negate the right of the Jewish State to exist on land that Arabs assert belongs to them. And since Arabs assert that all of Israel is on land that belongs to them, all of Israel is, according to this narrative, illegally occupied by the Jewish people, or put more simply, Israel is illegal, and therefore, has no right to exist. To date, there is no part of the current State of Israel in which Arabs would accept a Jewish state. Everywhere that Israel is, it is an occupier.

But the word “occupier” is more than just a vehicle for negation. There’s an unsavory quality to the word, suggesting that the entity in question is a usurper. Meaning: hey, that land belongs to someone else!

And of course, if Israel is an “occupier” and the land belongs to someone else, that makes Israel a thief. And the someone else must be Arabs.

The new media editor of the Times of Israel says that Ahed Tamimi's family lives under occupation. But the Tamimi Family lives in Nabi Saleh, which is governed by the Palestinian Authority.

Having painted Israel in this hideous light, the image of the Jewish State evolves into something shady and repellent. Using the language of occupation, in other words, serves not only to state your politics on the subject of Israel, it tells others that you have an actual dislike of Israel: that Israel disgusts you and is seen by you as morally corrupt, a thief that stole land that belongs to others—others with brown skin!

The language of occupation suggests, in fact, that you’ve made a moral choice regarding the State of Israel. That you believe Jews have no right to their ancient and indigenous territories, since some Arabs were born there in the 19^th or 20^th centuries. You believe this latter day history cancels out Jewish rights. And certainly it cancels out the bible, which is describing really old stuff, if any of it happened at all. Which you doubt.

Some people who use occupation language use it in an “ethical” sense. They aren’t talking about mandates and borders. They are talking about one people ruling over another people by force. They are saying that Arabs don’t wish to be ruled by Jews, therefore Arabs who live under Jewish rule are “occupied” and live under “occupation.” And here’s where it really gets nutty. Because the protests on the Gaza border are supposedly against Israeli “occupation.”

Except that Israel doesn’t rule Gaza. Hamas rules Gaza. Israel left Gaza, lock, stock and barrel, in 2005. The IDF is not in Gaza, therefore there are no “occupation forces” in Gaza. Hence, Gaza is not “occupied.” Not even a little bit.

What then are the people of Gaza, protesting? That our soldiers are on their border to prevent them from killing us? Is this the meaning of occupation? The United States has soldiers along its border with Canada. Does that mean that the United States is occupying Canada?

Is everything occupation? Or is it only occupation when it concerns the “thieving” Jews?

From a legal standpoint, of course, the entire subject of occupation remains murky. At the very least, clarification is in order. We know that when Jordan acquired Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem in 1948, this was not considered a legal occupation by the nations of the world. Only the UK and Pakistan deemed Jordan’s occupation of these territories a legal one, representing a minority opinion. You’d think that if Jordan was the illegal occupier of Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem—a thief, and a usurper of another’s land—that would make the Jews the ones they stole from. Unless we’re missing something, here.

Which we’re not. Because the truth is that the Mandate for Palestine remains legally binding until today. And the Mandate for Palestine sets forth the right of the Jewish people to settle anywhere west of the Jordan River. Which is why Jordan was labeled an illegal occupier by the nations of the world.

And get this straight: it was never about 1967. Take it from Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the pack:

"Israel, since 1948, has persisted with its contempt for international legitimacy by violating United Nations General Assembly resolution 181 (II), the partition resolution, which called for the establishment of two states on the historic land of Palestine according to a specific partition plan. Israeli forces seized more land than that allotted to Israel, constituting a grave breach of Articles 39, 41 and 42 of the United Nations Charter.”

Do you see anything about 1967 borders, there? Nope. He’s talking about Partition. Which was just a recommendation. Which his people rejected.

Let’s face it: the Arabs made out big time after WWI when they divvied out the bits and pieces that make up the Middle East. There are 22 states where Arabic is the national language and Islam the national religion. Their culture holds sway all over the Middle East.

Not to mention the fact that the Arabs could have stayed right where they were in Israel as a privileged minority. Israel is a democracy. It would have been fine. But since they up and left, the 22 states comprising their brethren should have absorbed them and poof! No more refugee problem. It’s what we did with the Jews THEY threw out of their countries. It’s called: “population exchange.”

Look, they made a gambit for the Mandate. They lost. We won. Finished. Time to man up and be a graceful loser.

Implying that Jews are thieves, having taken land that belongs to others, or telling Jews that they cannot build homes within the territory that comprises the Mandate for Palestine, is ugly and antisemitic, as it flies in the face of unanimously accepted international law. Professor Eugene V. Rostow, an expert in international law who helped draft resolution 242, explained that having affirmed the Mandate with the right to Jewish settlement anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the world essentially negated any future Arab claims to the territory.

“Under international law, neither Jordan nor the Palestinian Arab ‘people’ of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have a substantial claim to the sovereign possession of the occupied territories. Jordan cannot base a claim to the territory on its military occupation and administration of the West Bank between 1948 and 1967, after the Arab war of aggression in 1948. Neither can it base a claim on its attempt to annex the territory in 1950. The annexation was not widely recognized and has been withdrawn. By protecting Arab "civil and religious rights," the mandate implicitly denies Arab claims to national political rights in the area in favor of the Jews; the mandated territory was in effect reserved to the Jewish people for their self-determination and political development, in acknowledgment of the historic connection of the Jewish people to the land. . . (emphasis added)

“There remains,” said Rostow, “simply the theory that the Arab inhabitants of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have an inherent ‘natural law’ claim to the area. Neither customary international law nor the United Nations Charter acknowledges that every group of people claiming to be a nation has the right to a state of its own. International law rests on the altogether different principle of the sovereign equality of states. And nearly every state inherited from history contains more than one ethnic, religious, or cultural group: the French in Quebec, for example; the Basques in France and Spain; the Flemish in Belgium; the Kurds in Turkey, Iran, and Iraq; and so on.

“Therefore, it is a rule essential to international peace that claims of national self-determination be asserted only through peaceful means. The international use of force to vindicate such claims is and must be strictly forbidden by the United Nations Charter,” insisted Rostow, making the violent Gaza protests an obscene mockery, considering the people of Gaza were granted the right to self-determination, unilaterally, by Israel, in 2005.

The Lodge-Fish Resolution affirming the Jewish right to settlement in the Mandate for Palestine was passed unanimously and ratified many times over by bodies in the U.S. and U.K.

The late Howard Grief, an advisor to Israel on international law, suggested that Article 80 of the UN Charter, once known unofficially as the Jewish People’s clause, stipulates that the UN may not transfer any part of Palestine to any non-Jewish entity. That would include the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, for instance. Article 80, in fact, gives Jews the right to build settlements anywhere they wish from west of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Which makes one wonder about the legality of Israeli Jews being barred from “Area A,” which, after all, is west of the Jordan River. Who or what is an occupier? And who is right at home?

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Party With Undemocratic Leadership Really Concerned Nation-State Law Harms Democracy (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Tel Aviv, August 1 – A kingmaking faction in the Knesset whose parliamentary representation gets selected by it’s chairman’s fiat warned this week that last week’s passage of legislation affirming Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish People represents a threat to democracy.

Members of Yesh Atid, with its leader MK Yair Lapid, joined other Opposition figures in railing against the Nation-State Law, which among other provisions enshrines Hebrew as Israel’s official language and establishes the national anthem as the first stanza of a poem that invokes the millennia-old Jewish dream of returning to Zion and Jerusalem. The bill makes no change to voting rights or the political process and contains no discernible language abridging or compromising the rights of non-Jewish minorities in Israel, but Yesh Atid has joined Meretz, the Zionist Union, and Joint List of mostly Arab parties in condemning the law for rendering non-Jews “second-class citizens.” Yesh Atid, meanwhile, continues to conduct itself by the diktats of Mr. Lapid, a former television presenter and Minister of Finance under the previous Netanyahu government.

“We fear for Israeli democracy,” stated Lapid, who personally selected the eleven MKs now serving in the Knesset for Yesh Atid. “Only when all constituents enjoy an equal share in defining their way of life, their political aspirations, and their future can an entity call itself democratic. Israel has long prided itself on carrying the banner of democratic norms amid a sea of autocratic regimes in the region, but this new law tars us with the same brush as those who would disregard the constituency and impose the elite’s will instead.”

Lapid numbers among the few political figures who polling shows stands a chance to replace Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in elections. Such elections will take place no earlier than next year, but the various parties already have their eyes on the prize, with Lapid and other party chiefs attempting to portray themselves as worthy of leading the government. The celebrity-turned-politician aims to convince a larger percentage of the electorate to select him as the next democratically-elected prime minister, given his experience leading his own undemocratic party.

“The people want confident leadership, not wishy-washy fear-mongering,” asserted Lapid. “This Nation-State Law shows exactly what’s wrong with the current government. If you’re going to write off a fifth of the country’s citizens, better it be done by a leader who writes off large segments of the population all the time and never has to taint that with even feigned concern for what constituents think in real time.”

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08/01 Links Pt1: Was the peace process doomed to failure from the start?; Kontorovich: Not $1 of US funding for UN organizations which accept PA membership

From Ian:

Comment: Was the peace process doomed to failure from the start?

Finally, in terms of forging a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace, it can only be viewed as a pipe-dream considering the above-mentioned, less complicated issues—which, for that matter, are integral components of a potential wider deal—remain unsettled.

Notably, that the PA continues to boycott the US administration has conveniently been swept under the rug.

The present reality is a direct consequence of the mental stasis that has permeated Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking since the 2000 Camp David Summit blew up in the faces of then-US president Bill Clinton and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak—and then in Tel Aviv cafes and Jerusalem buses following Yassir Arafat's launch of the Second Intifada.

Ever since, no tangible progress has been made towards achieving anything resembling lasting peace; this, because the same failed ideas have been recycled time after time, as evidenced by present goings-on.

The faith-like devotion to repeating the same thing over and over again stems from a misguided confidence that the sides in 2000 were close to completing a deal, a fabrication that was categorically disproven eight years later when Abbas rejected then-Israeli leader Ehud Olmert's more generous offer.

Nevertheless, the near-sacrosanct mantra that "everyone knows what a solution to the conflict looks like" has become the de facto starting point for every fruitless negotiating process.

It should, by contrast, be clear that the basic assumptions that have driven the peace process backwards were never correct to begin with. Accordingly, there are two ways to proceed.

Either the current reality must be accepted and allowed to unfold, until such time that Israel, the PA or Hamas, or all three, takes decisive action to fundamentally alter the playing field. Or, a dramatically reconfigured diplomatic formula can be introduced into the mix, one in which existing variables are swapped out for new ones so that the Israeli-Palestinian equation may finally spit out a different result.

'Law: Not $1 of US funding for UN organizations which accept PA'

Professor Eugene Kontorovich spoke on Monday night at a conference hosted by Arutz Sheva and organized by Dr. Joseph Frager.

Dr. Kontorovich addressed the controversy surrounding the recently-passed Nationality Law and the balance of power between the Supreme Court and the other branches of government in Israel.

He called on the American government to enforce laws banning US government funding to international organizations which admit the 'State of Palestine' as a member.

"In 1994, Congress passed a law that says any UN-affiliated agency that accepts the PLO as a member is not eligible for US funding. This law - unlike many such laws - is non-waivable, is not optional, it is completely mandatory.

"In the last years of the Obama Administration, the Palestinians went ahead and they did join such a UN organization. And the Obama State Department came up with a fairly convoluted excuse to not cut off funding.

"Of course, that sets a very bad precedent. And since then, especially in the wake of the moving of the US embassy, the Palestinians have retaliated by joining three more US agencies, and the United States continues to fund [those agencies]. The law says not one dollar of taxpayer funding."

JCPA: Ahed Tamimi: What’s in a Name

Every person has a name given by his/her parents, and the very name that Ahed Tamimi’s parents gave her expresses the commitment to destroy Israel.

What is the meaning of this strange name, “Ahed”?

Ahed means “obligation, commitment.” It is part of the fundamental oath of terror organizations, and primarily Fatah. Anyone who joins the organization swears and pledges himself to the liberation of the whole of Palestine from the Israeli sword. This is called: al-Qassam and al-Ahed: the oath and the obligation. It is recited at a secret ceremony for each participant. After the signing of the Oslo accords, the leader of the PLO Yasser Arafat went to the grave of his deputy in Tunis, Abu Iyad (Salah Khalaf), and said that despite all of the agreements, he would remain obliged to al-Qasam and al-Ahed.

The release of Ahed Tamimi on July 30, 2018, created a wave of speculation over a renewed intifada. The spokesman for the Palestinian Authority hurried to crown her as an “icon” for the Palestinians’ “popular struggle.”

But Ahed Tamimi did not actually say a word about “popular struggle.” The opposite was the case – she praised the terrorists sitting in Israeli jails – those who chose the “armed struggle” – and used the term “muqawama.”

These are not the only problems facing Ahed Tamimi in her glory days: her image is in contradiction to the image of the traditional woman that the relatively conservative society in the West Bank expects. This young woman with wild blonde hair challenges the image of the modest woman covered in a hijab. In one West Bank village, I saw this graffiti on a wall: “Your beauty is in your hijab. (Jamalek behijabek)”. Ahed’s images painted on walls could be seen as a provocation against the traditional values that Palestinian society follows.

If you need more proof that the entire purpose of a Palestinian state is to attack Israel and not to actually build a state, here are all the statements that came out of this week's Palestinian Cabinet meeting.

Not too much about anything internal - practically everything about Israel (and getting more money.)

During its weekly meeting held in Ramallah, today [Tuesday], the Palestinian Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Dr. Rami Al- Hamdallah, condemned the latest Israeli escalation against Al-Aqsa Mosque, and considered it part of the plans of the occupying power to Judaize Jerusalem, alter its historical features, and obliterate its Arab and Palestinian identity. This escalation coincides with the latest settlement and forced displacement plans against Khan al-Ahmar and other areas of the West Bank, the repeated threats of aggression against the Gaza Strip, and the adoption of the racist Jewish Nation-State Law.

In this regard, the Cabinet called upon the international community, Arab and Islamic states to intervene to stop the Israeli escalation against the Palestinian citizens, to provide international protection for the Palestinian people and their holy sites, and to end the Israeli occupation and its measures that violate all international laws, treaties, and conventions.

The Cabinet also denounced the recent Israeli announcement by the Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman, which approves establishing new 400 settlement units, aiming at expanding “Geva Binyamin, Adam” settlement, southeast Ramallah, in a step backed up by the American Trump Administration. In addition to that, the Cabinet criticized the decision of the Israeli government to approve the construction of 270 settlement units in the so-called “Neve Daniel” settlement, near Bethlehem.

The Cabinet considered such plans a blatant challenge to the international community, and a clear attack against the Palestinian land and rights, in a manner which prevents the possibility of establishing an independent, sovereign State of Palestine based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This requires a firm stance, by the international community, to compel Israel to cease its illegal settlement activities in the Palestinian territory, foremost of which is the occupied city of Jerusalem.

Moreover, the Cabinet deplored the recent Israeli incitement campaign, led by Israeli right-wing and settler organizations, against Palestinian civil society institutions, which affected the image of Palestinian NGOs before the international community through linking such national institutions with terrorism.

The Cabinet stressed the importance of the role played by such institutions and its integration with the efforts of different ministries and government bodies. Of this, the Cabinet noted that civil society institutions work in accordance with the Palestinian Basic Law and all relevant international laws, and are a major advantage and form of support for the Government in meeting the needs of its citizens, especially in the so-called “Area C”.

The Cabinet called upon world countries to stand with Palestinian civil institutions against Israeli right wing and settler organizations that call for seizing more Palestinian land, destroying homes and facilities and attacking citizens’ capabilities, which violate all international and humanitarian laws.

In another context, the Cabinet hailed the United Nations Economic and Social Council for adopting a law regarding “the social and economic consequences of the Israeli occupation” in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem. This law condemns the devastating effects that the Israeli occupation leaves on both the Palestinian economy and society, and the arbitrary policies aimed at destroying the Palestinian economy.

Thus, PNN reports, the Cabinet expressed its gratitude to the Group of 77, and China, for meeting their legal and moral obligations through voting in favor of the resolution.

Furthermore, the Cabinet commended the UN Human Rights Council for appointing three experts to the Commission of Inquiry into Israeli violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, upon the Council’s decision, at its special session held last May, to establish an independent international commission investigating Israeli violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Above all, the Cabinet expressed its deep concerns over the financial crisis and severe budget deficit facing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The cut-offs in the $100 million US contributions to the UN emergency program, may lead to catastrophic consequences on more than one million Palestinian refugees receiving food, education and health assistance from the UNRWA.

Therefore, the Cabinet is appealing to the international community and donor countries to provide financial support to the UNRWA, to ensure that it continues to provide services to Palestinian refugees until achieving a just solution for their cause.

Furthermore, the Cabinet showed its gratitude to the World Bank for providing a $90 million grant to the Palestinian people, aimed at empowering the private sector, as well as financing infrastructure projects. Similarly, the Cabinet highly praised the Canadian financial support of $37 million to increase economic opportunities and prosperity for Palestinians, especially women and young people, through supporting economic empowerment programs, entrepreneurship and employment opportunities.

Also, the Cabinet congratulated Ahed Tamimi and her mother, on their release from Israeli prisons and held the Israeli Government fully responsible for the safety and life of Palestinian prisoners and for the racist violations, it commits against them. Consequently, the Cabinet renewed its calls upon the international community to shoulder its responsibilities to protect Palestinian prisoners in defense of international resolutions and UN conventions, to save their lives, maintain their basic rights, and meet their demands.

The Cabinet, thereupon, stressed the importance of the efforts exerted by the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, along with the Palestinian Government to stop the inhumane measures practiced against Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli prisons. These efforts also attempt to compel Israel to respect all international and humanitarian laws in treating Palestinian prisoners, until they are released unconditionally from Israeli prisons and detention centers.

Finally, the Cabinet approved the recommendations of the Minister of Local Government to hold elections for nineteen local communities that lost their legal status as a result of the resignation of the majority of their members on Saturday, 22/09/2018.

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Mondoweiss takes money from and promotes writings of someone who says "Jews pray to Satan"

Ron Unz is a former businessman, failed politician and now publisher of an anti-Israel website, The Unz review.

His latest article shows that he is also an unabashed antisemite.

This 7800 word article includes the most absurd lies about Jews and Judaism, mostly taken from the writings of antisemite Israel Shahak.

Unz claims that "The enslavement or extermination of all non-Jews seems an ultimate implied goal of the religion."

He writes that under Jewish law, "Jewish lives have infinite value, and non-Jewish ones none at all."

Unz goes on: "religious Jews apparently pray to Satan almost as readily as they pray to God, and depending upon the various rabbinical schools, the particular rituals and sacrifices they practice may be aimed at enlisting the support of the one or the other."

And: "Indeed, many deeply religious Jews utter a prayer each and every day for the immediate extermination of all Christians."

And for good measure: "It appears that a considerable number of Ashkenazi Jews traditionally regarded Christian blood as having powerful magical properties and considered it a very valuable component of certain important ritual observances at particular religious holidays. "

Of course the Jews hide all of this from Gentiles: "If the Gentile population became aware of these Jewish religious beliefs and the behaviors they promote, major problems for Jews might develop, so an elaborate methodology of subterfuge, concealment, and dissimulation has come into being over the many centuries to minimize this possibility, especially including the mistranslation of sacred texts or the complete exclusion of crucial sections."

Even more: "Naziism could best be described as 'Judaism for Wimps' or perhaps Judaism as practiced by Mother Teresa of Calcutta."

Every one of these is a blatant antisemitic lie.

Unz, unsurprisingly, also is quoted approvingly by and donates to a number of anti-Israel personalities and organizations. Here are the recipients of his money in 2012, including Mondoweiss and Norman Finkelstein:

Unz has paid anti-Israel site Mondoweiss at least $80,000 over the years.

Mondoweiss has returned the favor by linking to Unz' writings on a number of occasions.

The ADL in 2014 said that "Though Unz does not appear to be an anti-Semite, he provides support to extreme anti-Israel ideologues and his writings resonate with and are regularly cited by anti-Semites."

This evaluation must be changed, and Unz' crazed hate for Jews and Judaism must be exposed.

(h/t Petra)

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Amman University has offered a full scholarship to Ahed Tamimi, recently released from Israeli prison for attacking a soldier.

The invitation was offered by the head of the university's directors, Dr. Maher Hourani, on Tuesday, to attend their law school.

Tamimi had said that she wanted to study the law so that she could prosecute the Israeli occupation before international courts.

According to Jordanian media, Hourani said that the university also decided to offer free housing to "Shirley Temper."

Jordan already hosts and protects Ahed's cousin, the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, who was responsible for the Sbarro pizza massacre and who the rest of the Tamimi family openly admires and supports while they tell gullible Western media that they support only non-violence.

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