Tuesday, August 28, 2018

  • Tuesday, August 28, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon

A Mediterranean Theatre festival taking place in Tunisia is featuring what appears to be a thoughtful play on Jewish identity in the Arab world.

The piece seems to be titled "Joyev" and it deals with Jews in a fictional Jewish village during the Tunisian revolution. Parts of the plot include a Jewish law student who was expelled from university because of her religion, Jewish families who are too frightened to go out into the streets for fear of the Arab mobs, and a Jew who wants to smuggle out an ancient Torah to preserve it (presumably in Israel) while others want it to go to a Tunisian museum because Jewish heritage is an integral part of Tunisian history.

The piece is also predictably anti-Zionist, saying that Israel tries to sow and exploit divisions among Jews in Tunisia to prompt them to make aliyah.

But it asks basic questions of how to be a Jew in a country that has treated Jews badly even though they have lived there for years; how Jews grappled with the idea of emigrating to Europe when they were in danger, the Jewish struggle to defend their country of birth when they were marginalized. These are some serious topics and I have never seen them addressed in Arabic arts.

The description of the play makes it appear that the director took the subject matter very seriously and it is quite sympathetic to its Jewish characters. The director even took the actors to the Jewish community of Djerba to perfect their accents, as apparently there is a faint accent for the Jews that comes out when they are angry or upset. The director said that this is a subject that has been ignored in Arabic theater until now.

Altogether, this seems rather remarkable.





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I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Hasbara is a dirty word. A really, really bad word.
As a writer I am sensitive to words, the way they are used (or misused) and how they shape reality. Words describe reality but they also create it, forming a perspective or mindset which influences behavior and as a result, forms our experiences. Athletes know this, psychologists know this and so do abusive people who use words to maintain power over others.

The word “hasbara” is a problem.

Hasbara is the word often used to describe the actions of the pro-Israel advocacy movement. Hasbara is a word in Hebrew and it comes from the root word “hesber,” explanation or “lehasbeer,” to explain.

The implication is that it is necessary to “explain” Israel or Israel’s actions.

Is it necessary to explain France? Or America? Or  Russia?

Even the English term “advocacy” is problematic. An advocate is a lawyer who defends someone in court - defending the person accused of a crime.

The demand for explanations or even the feeling that advocacy is necessary is a mindset of guilt, as if we have done something wrong and need to explain ourselves. The Jew, presumed guilty until proven innocent… like medieval witch trials – throw her in the river, if she floats she’s a witch (and as such must be killed), if she drowns she is “proven” innocent…

There are a number of examples of words others have deliberately chosen as part of the propaganda war, designed to delegitimize the Jewish people and undermine the future of the Nation of Israel (Palestine, West Bank, Wailing Wall….). The fact that so many have adopted this this terminology, bringing it legitimacy, without thinking or through the (in my opinion, mistaken) belief that there is no other option, exacerbates an existing problem. “Hasbara,” on the other hand, is a word we chose and a mindset we are perpetuating in the supposed effort to empower our people.
Have we gotten so used to the hate that we have accepted and adopted as our own, the idea that we are guilty until proven innocent? After centuries of proof to the contrary, do we still believe that a good enough explanation will get us out of “punishment”?

After 2000 years of exile and 70 years of statehood, the Nation of Israel, Jews around the world and even many Israeli Jews, are still trapped in galut mentality. This is the thought process of the weak, of those who must suffer in silence, hoping that the “civilized” will prevent our misery from becoming too terrible.  

While an understandable position for a People with no state, guests in other people’s lands, this is not an acceptable position for a free and proud nation. Even our enemies do not explain themselves. They boldly claim victimhood, even when it is not true. They scream and accuse, with no shame - but they do not explain themselves. Their “rights,” in their minds, are obvious and need no explanation. Why should ours?

My right to life is not something that needs explaining, it is obvious. My country not only has to a right to defend her citizens but has an obligation to do so. No sovereign nation needs to explain this to anyone.

Hasbara is a dirty word because it is indicative of and helps perpetuate galut mentality. We are no longer a subservient people, after 2000 years of exile it is time to behave according to who we are and what we have achieved – the miraculous, what no other nation on earth has ever done before – sovereignty in our ancestral homeland for the third time. 

The strong do not explain themselves. No one respects the weak. While some might pity the victim, even pity is not empathy and we, thank God, are no longer at the mercy of the civilized.
Now it is only the prison of our own minds holding us back.






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From Ian:

Trump is busting the myths that prevent Middle East peace
Last week the State Department announced a $200 million cut in annual aid to the Palestinian Authority. Before that, America cut support to UNRWA, a body created in 1949 to tend to some 750,000 Arab refugees from the war Israel's neighbors launched to erase it off the map.

UNRWA now handles aid to over 5 million Palestinians, while another UN agency deals with refugees everywhere else on the globe.

Absurdly, Palestinian UNRWA clients living where the Palestinian Authority or Hamas has full control remain "refugees," despite Palestinian rule.

Former Knesset member Einat Wilf, a vocal advocate of peace negotiations with the Palestinians, nevertheless calls for dismantling UNRWA.

"UNRWA encourages radicalism. It keeps alive the dream that the pre-1948 status quo will return and that Israel as a Jewish state will be erased from the map. I'm not against aid to Palestinians, just against encouraging that dream," she said.

In the long run, peacemaking will succeed if it addresses 21st-century facts, rather than 1948 hopes.
Bypass Abbas and axe UNRWA
President Mahmoud Abbas reminded us once again last Saturday why he and his Palestinian demi-government may need be sidelined for sake of peace in the region. Because he and the so-called Palestinian “Authority” in the West Bank are corrupt, ossified and obstructionist in every way.

At a meeting of the PLO Central Council, Abbas called on Palestinians to “keep the ground aflame with popular resistance” against Israel – code words for violence, if not terrorism. Abbas’ main foreign policy deputy, PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat, went on to lead the Council in declaring support for “heroic” Hamas-led attacks against Israeli troops and civilians across the Gaza border, while condemning Hamas for negotiating a truce with Israel.

The resolution also savaged the Trump administration for seeking to “destroy the Palestinian national project” and of course called to ratchet-up BDS campaigns against Israel.

Abbas’ actions appear driven by his marginalization, with Israel and the Trump administration Mideast team clearly planning to bypass the PA altogether in favor of a plan to enhance security and economic prospects in the Gaza Strip. This marginalization is in turn driven by Abbas’ self-inflicted wounds; sourced in the fecklessness and growing radicalization of Abbas and his aging coterie.

Remember: Abbas has fled from real negotiation and compromise with Israel at every opportunity over the past 15 years. He has espoused maximalist positions, stoked hatred of Israelis and Jews, inculcated a culture that denies Jewish history and national identity, venerated terrorists, and pushed the criminalization of Israel internationally. He has driven most Israelis to the realization, alas, that there is no reasonable peace deal with the Palestinians to be had at this time.

'Trump was furious when he learned what UNRWA, PA were doing'
Bedein praised the reports that the Trump Administration would reject the 'right of return.'

"This is the conclusion of a process over the last two year: In December of 2016 I had the opportunity to meet with president-elect Trump's adviser, who was about to come to Washington. She was here in Jerusalem, and I showed her the [UNRWA] schoolbooks," he said.

"She told me who she was working for, and she asked if she could have all of the books. I gave the books to her, and for the last two years, our office, the Center for Near East Policy Research, has been in touch with the administration at the highest levels, giving them everything we could about the schoolbooks.

He said that the center's most recent report showed that "the right of return through the armed struggle become the most important and dominant theme of Palestinian Authority and UNRWA education."

"This got directly to the president of the United States, and he blew his stack, because he was told by the Peres Center for Peace ... that the Palestinian Authority has a peace curriculum. They just didn;t tell them that the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA had vetoed that peace curriculum.

He showed how a fifth grade textbook instructed students to model their lives after Dalal Mughrabi, one of the terrorists who carried out the Coastal Road Massacre in 1978, when 38 Israelis were murdered by terrorists.

According to Bedein, COGAT, the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories, is what is preventing reform of UNRWA. "They need feedback that an education system which teaches children to murder Jews is not appropriate for a peace process."





It is no secret that among the most influential countries in the world, the US stands apart in the strength of its friendship towards Israel.

This goes beyond politics.

video screenshot
Trump and Netanyahu at Press Conference. Screenshot of YouTube video
Even before the Trump administration, the US has supported Israel not only in terms of financial aid but also in terms of political backing in the UN.

Beyond that, polls have consistently shown a popular level of support for Israel among Americans that contrasts with the level of antisemitism and anti-Israel hatred increasingly evident throughout Europe.

One of the reasons for this bond may be the issue of terrorism. Both countries have been targeted by terrorists and continue to engage in "the war on terror." And both have turned to the law in order to engage more effectively in defending themselves from terrorist threats -- showing a willingness to go beyond International Humanitarian Law.

Two Categories in International Humanitarian Law: Civilians and Combatants


As far as IHL is concerned, there are 2 basic categories in war: combatants and civilians, with civilians getting special protection as non-combatants. This parallels the "conduct of hostilities paradigm" for dealing with combatants and the "law enforcement paradigm" for dealing with civilians during an armed conflict that we discussed in a previous post.

That "blur" between civilians and combatants in the case of the Gaza protests/riots gave rise to the disagreement in the report covered in that post as to what the appropriate response should be.

It also gives rise to the discussion of the possibility of a 3rd category, one not covered in the Geneva and Hague Convention nor recognized in International Law.

A Third Category: Unlawful Combatants


The concept of a third category, Unlawful Combatant, does not exist, strictly speaking, in IHL, but has been used by both the US and Israel. Neither the US nor Israel is a party to Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which does not recognize the status of unlawful combatant.

In the US, the term "unlawful combatants" was first used in a 1942 US Supreme Court decision in the case Ex parte Quirin, where the Supreme Court upheld the jurisdiction of a US military tribunal in the trial of 8 German saboteurs in the US during World War II:
By universal agreement and practice, the law of war draws a distinction between the armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations, and also between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but, in addition, they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals. [emphasis added]
That definition of an unlawful combatant as someone "who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property" would seem to apply to today's terrorists in general and Palestinian terrorists in particular.

In a 2004 article, Judge Amnon Straschnov, a former IDF Military Advocate General writes that the distinction between punishment by a military tribunal as opposed to POW status is not the only difference between unlawful and lawful combatants:
Israel classifies terrorists the same way the Americans classify terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq - as unlawful combatants. They are combatants but they do not have the privilege to be under the umbrella of international law because they do not adhere to the laws of war. They are not entitled to its protection since they have violated every possible provision of the laws of war and humanitarian law. They don't wear uniforms or abide by the conditions that entitle them to be POWS.

What measures are we taking against these unlawful combatants? If we have evidence and manage to bring them into custody, we bring them to trial before a court of law, a military court.

One new measure employed by Israel in the war against terror involves targeted interceptions, a subject of extensive debate. Once we define the terrorist as an unlawful combatant, he is a legitimate military target. It is allowed both legally and morally to fight and kill any terrorists for their notorious and ruthless terrorist activities, and we should not deal with them as protected persons. They are unlawful combatants, they want to come and kill us, and there is no question regarding the evidence. They've manifestly and openly declared their intentions. [Hat tip: Elder of Ziyon]
That is going beyond what International Humanitarian Law recognizes - as summarized by the ICRC:
That is the law regarding unlawful combatants. As long as he preserves his status as a civilian – that is, as long as he does not become part of the army – but takes part in combat, he ceases to enjoy the protection granted to the civilian, and is subject to the risks of attack just like a combatant without enjoying the rights of a combatant as a prisoner of war.
According to IHL, a civilian who takes part in hostilities, but not as part of the army,  loses his civilian status as far as protection and is not entitled to be treated as a POW if he is captured, but that is as far as it goes.

The issue of such a person seeking to deliberately target non-military targets and the lives of unarmed civilians is not singled out or addressed as justification for special action.

Unlawful Combatant vs International Law


The status of "unlawful combatants" under US law has been hotly debated, especially following 9/11 and has been challenged in terms of the detention and treatment of unlawful combatants in Guantanamo and the type of trial they are entitled to. Wikipedia traces the history and legal debate of the term "unlawful combatant."

There has been debate in Israel as well.

In 2004, The High Court of Justice in Israel decided in the case of Judgment on Preventative Strikes Against Terrorists.

In laying out the position of the Government of Israel, the court made clear that what was at stake was more than just a question of what to do in the event the terrorist was captured:
the State asked us to recognize a third category of persons, that of unlawful combatants. These are people who take active and continuous part in an armed conflict, and therefore should be treated as combatants, in the sense that they are legitimate targets of attack, and they do not enjoy the protections granted to civilians. However, they are not entitled to the rights and privileges of combatants, since they do not differentiate themselves from the civilian population, and since they do not obey the laws of war. Thus, for example, they are not entitled to the status of prisoners of war. The State's position is that the terrorists who participate in the armed conflict between and the terrorist organizations fall under this category of unlawful combatants. [emphasis added]
In relaying his decision, Justice Aharon Barak quotes from a decision in the case of interrogation:
We are aware that this judgment of ours does not make confronting that reality any easier. That is the fate of democracy, in whose eyes not all means are permitted, and to whom not all the methods used by her enemies are open. At times democracy fights with one hand tied behind her back. Despite that, democracy has the upper hand, since preserving the rule of law and recognition of individual liberties constitute an important component of her security stance. At the end of the day, they strengthen her and her spirit, and allow her to overcome her difficulties. 
photo
Aharon Barak. Source: Wiki Commons. Credit: Jonathan Klinger

Repurcussions


In the US, criticism has led to using the criminal justice system, instead of military tribunals, for trying unlawful combatants.

In 2007, James Taranto wrote that this was a mockery of International Law, not a defense of it:
By granting constitutional protections to detainees, Mr. Powell’s proposal would endanger the lives of American civilians. It would also afford preferential treatment to enemy fighters who defy the rules of war. This would make a mockery of international humanitarian law.

In the long run, it could also imperil the civil liberties of Americans. Leniency toward detainees is on the table today only because al Qaeda has so far failed to strike America since 9/11. If it succeeded again, public pressure for harsher measures would be hard for politicians to resist. And if enemy combatants had been transferred to the criminal justice system, those measures would be much more likely to diminish the rights of citizens who have nothing to do with terrorism.

By keeping terrorists out of America, Guantanamo protects Americans’ physical safety. By keeping them out of our justice system, it also protects our freedom.
In Israel, it is also not clear that limiting Israel's options in defending itself against terrorism will have the desired effect.

The admission that the court is knowingly limiting Israel's options in its own war on terror is not made less disturbing by the claim that Israel - as a democracy - gains some kind of moral victory "at the end of the day" by "preserving the rule of law."

Neither is it clear that this argument would have any compelling influence on those terrorist groups who plot to kill Israeli civilians.

The wisdom of releasing terrorists in return for Israeli hostages has been fairly well debunked.
The wisdom using WWII definitions of warfare over 70 years later is becoming increasingly questionable, especially when we see Europe in denial over the terrorist attacks directed against it.




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  • Tuesday, August 28, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
I had a ridiculous Twitter war with a NYC radio host yesterday.

In response to a pretty absurd tweet by Katie Halper,  who says she is a history teacher (God help us), I wrote:


To which she answered sarcastically:




So I dutifully responded that it was Sarsour herself who says that she could change her racial identity by changing her clothing, not me:


The first tweet I linked to is not embedded, so here it is from last year, where Sarsour says she used to be white and now she isn't:



But meanwhile Halper decided to branch the thread off to say that I was clearly the idiot:



To which I responded that if anyone is showing a lack of integrity, it is Halper:



Halper is a nobody but she represents the moronic ultra-Left of today (she calls herself a "Bernie-bro.") It is sort of idiotic that she actually cannot fathom that in today's environment, claiming to be a person of color is indeed a way to make yourself appear as a perpetual victim and therefore above criticism, which is exactly what Sarsour is doing. It is a political move, just like Salazar's pretense to be Jewish.

The bizarre thing is that nowadays, claiming to be a person of color is more important than one's actual color. 

If Sarsour can pass as white - which she admits she has - then how is she possibly being disadvantaged as a New Yorker who looks white? She chooses to wear the hijab for whatever reason (apparently more for identity politics than religion). I choose to wear a yarmulka. Which of us is more disadvantaged by a public display of our religion? And why does her hijab make her a person of color, and my headcovering does not do the same for me?

Moreover, according to the modern racists who feel that color is something one can choose rather than something objective, a Jewish member of Likud who is undeniably black does not get the "victim" brownie points of being a PoC, but a blonde Palestinian girl who punches a soldier does. 

There is discrimination in the world based on skin pigment. That is not in question. What is bizarre is that the people who pretend to care about racism are creating a funhouse mirror environment where they want to define the people on their side as people of color, and the people they disagree with  are automatically considered white. To them, the world really is black and white, and they want to ensure that all people they consider victims are also considered non-white while those they consider oppressors must be call white.

The formula seems to be that a Muslim is always considered a person of color and a Jew is always considered a white person, no matter how light or dark they are. And that completely arbitrary definition of race is what is proving that those who pretend to be against racism nowadays are too often the real racists.

Many of the people who really are being discriminated against cannot be considered victims because they are the wrong religion. The new "anti-racist" Left is institutionalizing antisemitism with their bizarre thinking that Israeli Jews are white, Palestinians are of color,  there is only room for one good side in this world and the white side must be bad.





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  • Tuesday, August 28, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon


YNet reports:

Three fires broke out on Monday afternoon, two of them near Israeli communities by the Gaza border. Firefighters, including KKL teams, gained control of the flames.

The first fire broke out near the Be'eri Forest, another in Sa'ad Junction and a third in the Shokeda Forest.

The fires are suspected to have been started by incendiary balloons flown from Gaza into Israel, and fire investigators are on the scene. Recent days saw a halt in incendiary balloon fires.

"It was likely a balloon, as the fire broke out at Sa'ad Junction within seconds and at this point there isn't anything else apart from an incendiary balloon that can be pointed to as the cause of the fire, but we're still examining the matter," said one of the security forces personnel on the scene.
 The fires are getting more coverage in Arabic media than in Israeli media.

There aren't as many as there were a month or two ago, when we would see 10 fires being set a day, but any single forest fire can be devastating.

The JNF page says that as of a week ago, their firefighters had been involved in putting out some 1160 blazes since this new form of terrorism emerged.

(Actually, not a new form of terrorism - Arabs have been setting Jewish fields on fire since at least the 1930s.)




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Monday, August 27, 2018

From Ian:

David Collier: Antisemitism, anti-Zionism and the principle of the divided cloth
Before I talk of a divided cloth, let me address the antisemitic events. Last September I was turned away at the door of a fringe event at the Labour conference because I was a ‘known Zionist’. Last summer as I sat to eat a meal with my wife and eleven-year-old son during a day out at the PalestineExpo I was approached by security and asked to leave. I was treated like a criminal. My ‘unwelcome’ presence had been ‘reported’ by Labour Party members.

I have been de-registered from an event at Parliament because I am a ‘Zionist’ and at Warwick University I was recently turned away from an event with feeble excuses about a ‘PREVENT’ strategy. These however remain oddities in a long line of events I have witnessed over that past few years. If I am recognised once successfully inside, I am treated as a pariah. I have my photo taken, I am ‘accidentally’ nudged, I have abuse hurled at me.

It is not the only reason I identify with the recent story about Jeremy Corbyn’s antisemitic attack on Richard Millett.
The Zoo animals

I have witnessed far too many events where I have seen both Richard Millett and Jonathan Hoffman treated disgracefully. As someone who researches antisemitism online, I have also seen that abuse frequently carried over into social media. These two posts about Richard were shared by two well-known antisemites:

Only those who have been to these events can truly understand how it feels to be inside one. You become an object of hate and ridicule. All Jews do. Antisemites are all around, each speaker trying to outdo the other and the more vivid the hatred of Jews, the louder the applause. Whether on campus or in parliament, the system is set up to protect the hate. If you protest, you will be evicted. There are feelings of helplessness and at times despondency and depression.
Vilified and vindicated

Sadly only a few Jewish people have been doing this circuit, Richard longer than most. Each of us have our own methods and in several cases our differences have allowed us to benefit from each other. Richard’s questions probe, Jonathan’s outbursts provoke or distract and my silence leaves me more unnoticed than most. Nothing though creates a better feeling than seeing the others in the room. I know this because those times I have felt the worst, were all the times I was the only Jew there.
In praise of Richard Millett!
In 2012, blogger Richard Millett was attending a SOAS Palestine Society event in London and was called “a typical Israeli” by a pro-Palestinian attendee who objected to his filming of the event.

Millett is not Israeli. He’s a British Jew whose family has been in the UK for nearly 150 years. He also routinely defends Jews and Israel with first person reports published at his blog – posts which include audio and video recorded while monitoring events featuring activists (and sometimes even MPs) hostile to Israel’s existence and, at times, openly hostile to Jews.

Moreover, If you’re wondering whether the charge hurled at Richard was racist, simply replace “Israeli” with any other identity and repeat the charge. “You’re a typical Arab.” “You’re at typical Black,” etc.

Or, how about “You’re a typical Zionist”?

Well, Jeremy Corbyn, the current leader of the British Labour Party, said something akin to this in a reference to Millett at a 2013 event, per a story in the Daily Mail last week.

Here’s a clip of Corbyn’s speech at the conference, which, tellingly, was promoted by the propaganda wing of Hamas.


IsraellyCool: Maajid Nawaz Rips Jew Hater a New Corbyn
See what I did there?

British activist and politician Maajid Nawaz rips a caller defending a-hole Jeremy Corbyn, claiming he is not antisemitic, after the caller shows the very kind of antisemitism of which people are accusing Corbyn.


How’s that for English irony?

  • Monday, August 27, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
I found this footnote buried in the 2012 UNRWA and Youth background document at the UNRWA site:


 The analysis in this section is based on UNRWA’s registration data, which tends to over-estimate the de facto refugee population in each field. Registration with UNRWA is a voluntary process. Individuals who move overseas, either permanently or on a temporary basis, may remain registered. Further, deaths tend to be under-reported, as do the numbers of those under five.


The 2010 UNRWA Annual report of the Department of Health is slightly more explicit about why UNRWA has no idea how many of the people it tracks may have died:

The demographic pyramids are difficult to analyse due known distortions related to a delay in the registration of new-borns leading to a smaller 0-4 age group estimation and the lack of a  compulsory death notification system in the Agency leading to a possible over-estimation of the over 60 age group.
At the top of this page are the pyramids they are talking about. Note how much the over-60 population has increased as a percentage of population between 1992 and 2010, even though the birth rate has been so high.

The only thing that can explain this is that Palestinian recipients of UNRWA aid, like their parents and grandparents, don't report the deaths of relatives because this way they get more free stuff.

UNRWA, which claims to be an efficient agency that is not at all wasting international funds, has somehow over 70 years refused to implement any actions to actually keep track of the number of actual people under its care. In fact, in every annual health report the agency notes that "deaths may be under-reported."

UNRWA knows this - and doesn't do anything about it. Because the more people it can claim as "refugees," the more money it can demand from the international community.






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From Ian:

Ron Prosor: UNRWA is not the solution
It seems quite a few officials at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv are concerned by reports that the United States plans to cut funding to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees and revoke its mandate to operate in the West Bank.

It is high time these officials realize that UNRWA – the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East – is not the solution, but the problem. It is hard to believe that in Israel, of all places, these officials claim to be in favor of finding a solution to the seven-decade-long refugee problem, but when push comes to shove, it seems the timing is never right.

Established for the exclusive benefit of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA has, instead of resolving the problem, done everything in its power to perpetuate it. Instead of peace and coexistence, it teaches hatred and incitement. Instead of fighting terrorist organizations, it collaborates with them. As someone who has worked toward UNRWA'S closure for years, I am glad Washington finally gets it and I hope the people at IDF headquarters will soon come to their senses.

According to media reports, the White House is determined to solve this persistent problem and plans to take the necessary steps, including ending the Palestinians' unique ability to inherit refugee status, and recognizing 500,000 Palestinian refugees instead of the 5 million UNRWA purports to serve.

While it is in Israel's long-term interest that UNRWA be closed, in practice the defense establishment acts as the agency's representative. Following the media reports, it took less than 24 hours for the fear-mongering to begin, with officials arguing that ending UNRWA's operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would result in Israel being made to bear the burden of providing the education, health and welfare services for which the agency is currently responsible.

What could happen if US rejects Palestinian 'right of return'?
David Bedein, head of Center Near East Policy Research, says implications of perpetual 'refugee' status more serious than just wasted money.


Bolton: US to Cut Its Funding to UN Human Rights Council
US National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Thursday that the United States plans to cut its funding to the United Nations Human Rights Council, which the US withdrew from in June due to the body’s anti-Israel bias.

“We are going to de-fund the Human Rights Council,” Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, told the Associated Press.

As the UNHRC’s largest donor, the US contributes 22% of the council’s budget. However, it does not contribute directly; instead, the funds are taken from the overall US payment to the United Nations.

“We’ll calculate 22% of the Human Rights Council and the High Commissioner’s budget, and our remittances to the UN for this budget year will be less 22% of those costs, and we’ll say specifically that’s what we’re doing,” said Bolton. “We expect that impact to occur on the Human Rights Council.”

The UNHRC was founded in 2006 to advocate for human rights globally. However, its constant double standard and demonization of Israel has frustrated American leadership, among other moves like allowing countries, such as Venezuela, which violate human rights, to be members of the UN body. Last May, it passed five resolutions against Israel, which is not a member of the council.

  • Monday, August 27, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon


Palestine Today reports that Jenin has been enjoying a huge economic boom in the past two years, as Israeli authorities allow Israeli Arabs to drive to the town to shop.

Visitors to the city have doubled since 2009, and their number accelerated since 2015 when Israel allowed Israeli Arabs to drive their personal vehicles into the city.

The Jenin Chamber of Commerce says that 860,000 vehicles crossed through the Green Line to the Jenin Governorate in 2016, and the number rose to 929,000 in 2017.

Most of the Israeli Arabs go to Jenin on Fridays and Saturdays.

The number of new malls, shops and restaurants, and coffee shops has doubled in recent years. In 2017 alone, the number of shops increased from 2300 to 3000.

Israeli Arabs are also flocking to the Arab American University in Jenin, where over half the students are Israeli citizens. 

Jenin is in Area A and officially Israelis are not allowed to go there but the IDF allows Israeli Arabs to go there freely while stopping Israeli Jews.

It should be noted that before the first intifada, Israeli Jews could freely go to Arab cities in the territories to go shopping. One person I know who lives in the territories said that she used to buy challah for Shabbat in Ramallah, where the local merchants brought in the bread from Israeli bakeries.





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  • Monday, August 27, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
From AFP:

Pre-war Lithuania was home to a thriving Jewish community of more than 200,000 people, with Vilnius a hub of learning known as the "Jerusalem of the North".

But historians contend that around 195,000 perished at the hands of the Nazis and local collaborators under the 1941-44 German occupation, nearly the entire Jewish population.
"Historians contend?" Usuallly, whenever that phrase is used in other news stories, it means that some historians have a theory about something - a theory that others may dispute. For example from recent news stories;

Historians contend that no single event caused the revolution on continental America inclusive of her 13 colonies. It was instead a series of event that led to the war.

Historians and economists, for example, have long disputed the cause of a mid-nineteenth-century spike in Southern productivity. Economists argue for agricultural innovations, such as new cotton seeds, while historians contend that greater levels of violence drove heightened production. 
Some historians contend the 1848 song [Oh! Susanna] is actually an early, subtle anti-slavery song.
In each case the use of the phrase means that there is a novel, possibly controversial assertion made by historians.

The decimation of Vilnius is a well-documented fact. If the specific number 195,000 is in dispute, then the paragraph should have been rewritten as "Virtually all the Jews in Vilnius were murdered by the Nazis and local collaborators..."

This is nothing less than a subtle form of Holocaust revisionism, given the imprimatur of a major wire service that newspapers throughout the world use as authoritative.

Worse yet, this is an AFP boilerplate. The exact same sentence was published in 2016 in another AFP story about Vilnius.

(h/t Jewdah Maccabee)




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  • Monday, August 27, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon


I don't know how reliable this report is, but Al Akhbar in Lebanon is reporting that PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas is drawing up plans to severely punish all Gazans if the current negotiations in Egypt with Hamas prove fruitless.

The newspaper quoted "informed political sources" that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has instructed his government to prepare a "full vision on stopping the financing of Gaza."

This would include stopping salaries of employees in ministries of social affairs, health and education.

According to the newspaper, the sanctions would also include stopping the work of the Monetary Authority in Gaza, which means the closure of all banks in the sector, which will paralyze all commercial activities and affect the ability to pay for any imports.

"There are other steps that the PA is preparing to implement, including stopping the transfer of social welfare services serving more than 80,000 families from Gaza, freezing medical transfers for patients, cutting off medicines and supplies for the health sector, cutting off electricity in Gaza" according to the report.

The head of the delegation of  Fatah to Cairo, Azzam al-Ahmad, told Egyptian officials of the intention of Abbas to impose these new sanctions if the truce agreement fails.

Ahmad has told the media that Fatah will respond to the Egyptian reconciliation plan sometime today.

Previous sanctions on Gaza by Abbas have been met with a big yawn from the international community and from virtually all supposed pro-Palestinian "activists" - except for the ones aligned with Hamas to begin with.




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Sunday, August 26, 2018

  • Sunday, August 26, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon

I don't remember this scene from when I was a kid....







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From Ian:

Late Senator John McCain Remembered as ‘True Supporter of Israel’
The death of Senator John McCain is being mourned by US Jewish groups and Israeli political leaders from across the political spectrum.

The 81-year-old McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who was the Republican nominee for president in 2008, passed away on Saturday at his home in Arizona after a battle with brain cancer.

During his three decades in the Senate, McCain — the son and grandson of four-star admirals who graduated from the Naval Academy and served his country as a fighter pilot — was known as a staunch advocate for freedom around the world.

Part of this outlook was manifested by his backing of a strong US-Israel relationship.

“Throughout his congressional career Senator McCain stood with Israel because throughout his life he stood up for America’s allies and our shared democratic values,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said in a statement on Saturday. “As Chairman and longtime member of the Armed Services Committee, Senator McCain consistently worked to ensure that Israel had the critical resources to defend herself. In times of crisis, his eloquent voice could always be counted on to speak out in solidarity with the Jewish state.”

American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris remembered McCain as a “statesman and a national treasure — and an avid supporter of Israel, an ally he first visited nearly 40 years ago.”

“A passionate advocate for American global leadership, Senator McCain rightly bemoaned those who favored a US pullback from world affairs,” Harris added.
Jewish leaders mourn McCain for his bipartisanship, fierce commitment to Israel
Sen. John McCain, who made human rights and Israel centerpieces of his advocacy for a robust US influence across the planet, has died.

The Arizona Republican, who on Friday declined further treatment for brain cancer, died Saturday. He was 81.

He was with his family at the family ranch in Sedona, Arizona, when he passed. “With the Senator when he passed were his wife Cindy and their family,” a statement from his office said. “At his death, he had served the United States of America faithfully for sixty years.”

Never-Trump Republicans and not a few Democrats during the campaign and presidency of Donald Trump have held up McCain as an avatar of what the Republican party once was, and still could be: the national security flagship ready to overcome partisan differences to advance US interests. Indeed, the relationship that was perhaps most emblematic of his dedication to national security and to bipartisanship was his close friendship with Joseph Lieberman, the Orthodox Jewish senator from Connecticut.

McCain became in his final years the reluctant unTrump; he was the hero who spent 1967-1973 in a Vietnamese jail for American POWs, when Donald Trump was a swinging young businessman who won five deferments from service; McCain was the victim of torture who led advocacy against the practice, while Trump embraced it; McCain was the flag-bearer for robust American interventionism abroad, while Trump counsels conciliation and isolationism; McCain was candid about his flaws while Trump seldom apologizes; McCain took long meetings and delved into detail, while Trump eschews particulars for the big picture; McCain forgave his enemies while Trump nurtures his enmities.
Netanyahu salutes McCain as American patriot, true friend of Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli politicians on Sunday hailed US Sen. John McCain for his principled leadership and stalwart support of the Jewish state, following his death on Saturday.

McCain, a war hero and towering figure in American politics known for reaching across the aisle in an increasingly divided nation, passed away Saturday following a battle with brain cancer. He was 81.

“I am deeply saddened by the passing of John McCain, a great American patriot and a great supporter of Israel,” Netanyahu tweeted in English Sunday morning. “I will always treasure the constant friendship he showed to the people of Israel and to me personally.”

“His support for Israel never wavered,” he said. “It sprang from his belief in democracy and freedom. The State of Israel salutes John McCain.”

President Reuven Rivlin bid farewell to the “great leader,” whom he hailed as a “defender of his people, a man of strong values, and a true supporter of Israel.”

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman praised McCain as “an American war hero” and one of Israel’s “greatest friends.” Liberman recalled that in a recent meeting with McCain, the senator showed him a photo of his time in captivity and told him that “even despite my terrible suffering I never wavered in my commitment to the values of freedom and justice.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) meeting Senator John McCain during a visit to Israel in 2015. (GPO)

Former prime minister Ehud Barak said that McCain, a longtime personal friend, was among the few principled political leaders today.

“A man that was in touching distance of the White House, but never let it crush his spirit. Neither in Vietnam, nor at the peak of his political career in Washington.” Barak added that McCain was “a huge friend to Israel, especially regarding its security.”


The Democratic Party versus the Jewish People

Michael Lumish

aKu - Turning Away
I understand that most American Jews do not want to hear this message, but there is no getting away from certain obvious political truths.

The progressive-left and the Democratic Party believe that the Jewish people of the Middle East, in the form of Israel, are not humane to the Palestinian-Arabs. What this means is that if the Democratic Party gains power in the forthcoming US midterm elections they will turn against Israel in a harsh manner, because they are already in the process of doing so. We can see this very clearly from the upcoming candidates that the Democrats are fielding.

In a recent piece for The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, PhD student at the School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs at Tel Aviv University, Doron Feldman, tells us:
Israeli decision-makers must recognize what is happening in American society and politics and prepare strategically for the worst possible outcome. If the Democrats manage to overtake the Republican majority in Congress as a result of the midterm elections, Washington could significantly reduce its military and diplomatic involvement in the Middle East, perhaps even to the point that it ceases to function as a superpower in the region and in the world – a situation that would benefit Russia and China. In the longer term, Israel’s decision-makers must consider and prepare for the possibility that the midterms are a harbinger of the presidential election of 2020.
Although I agree with the overall assessment, I do not agree that a US cut in military assistance to Israel is necessarily bad for Israel or for the Jewish people. US Diplomatic involvement must be emphasized, but Israel has the capacity to take care of its own military needs. In fact, it would presumably improve Israel's economy to transfer all Israeli weapons manufacturing from the United States to Israel, itself. The three billion per year that the United States spends on domestic weapons ear-marked for Israel is a tiny proportion of Israel's overall economy. It does not even equal what PepsiCo just spent in its purchase of SodaStream.

Of more significance, however, is Feldman's focus on what he calls the "leftist-socialist-progressive wing" of the Democratic Party. These are the people who, when they do not directly support antisemitic anti-Zionism, generally think that Arab violence against the Jewish minority in the Middle East is, at least, understandable. That is, they tend to view the tiny national homeland of the Jewish people as a European transplant onto "indigenous" Arab land while entirely forgetting that Arabs are from the Arabian peninsula and the Jewish people -- who are tiny by number in comparison -- hail from Judea, which is also known as Israel.

The Democratic Party, sadly, supports antisemitic anti-Zionism to the extent that it considers Israel a "colonial-settler" imposition onto a native people. Their problem is less anti-Jewish ill-will -- from what I can tell, at least -- than it is historical ignorance of thirteen centuries of Arab and Muslim imperial stomping on Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian faces.

But even in the unlikely event that the Democrats turn a cold shoulder to their anti-Zionists, it is increasingly evident that the Party is no friend to the Jewish people. Feldman writes:
Several individuals from the leftist-socialist-progressive wing of the Democratic Party are considering running for the presidency in 2020. They include Bernie Sanders, who won 43.1% of the vote in the 2016 Democratic primary, and Elizabeth Warren, who dubiously claims to be of Native American descent. Both these candidates have expressed anti-Israel positions. If they are elected, they can be expected to follow through on those positions, not only in terms of US policy but also at the UN.
On a less lofty level, we see Democratic Party friends of the racist Louis Farrakhan coming to prominence within the party. These include, but are not limited to, and in no particular order, Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, and NY candidate for Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, according to Ha'aretz:
In the midst of her primary campaign, Ocasio-Cortez spoke out strongly against the Israeli army’s actions on the Gaza border on May 14, tweeting, “This is a massacre. I hope my peers have the moral courage to call it such. No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can’t be silent about this anymore.” 
The obvious political trend on the American-Left and the Democratic Party vis-à-vis the conflict is increasingly friendly toward the hostile Muslim majority in opposition to the well-being of the Jewish minority in the Middle East. As Feldman points out, even if the moderate Hillary / Biden wing of the Party comes to prominence, the emerging hard-left is forcing them into a crusty, pro-Oslo, intransigent stance on Israel along the line of Obama's Middle East policies.

Progressive-left Democrats think of Israel as a racist, colonialist, settler-state and have little sympathy for it if they even believe it should exist at all. The moderate Democrats merely believe that the Jewish people must be leashed. The "moderates" believe that it is the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, our indigenous homeland -- what they insist upon calling "West Bank" and, thereby, erasing Jewish heritage -- that is the fundamental problem.

What we need to do is stand up for ourselves and insist upon the fact of Jewish indigeneity to the Land of Israel.

At the end of the day, it is our first and final home and if the Jewish people will not stand up for ourselves, nobody else will.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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