Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, October 11, 2018

10/11 Links Pt2: Israel’s DC envoy snubs J Street, other left-wing Jewish groups; Marc Lamont Hill Moves From Justifying Terrorism to Promoting It; Roger Waters Booed At Brazil Concert

From Ian:

Israel’s DC envoy snubs J Street, other left-wing Jewish groups

Since taking his post as Israel’s ambassador to the United States in 2013, Ron Dermer has refused to meet with J Street, a liberal Middle East advocacy group. He has likewise not engaged with other left-leaning Jewish groups often critical of the Netanyahu government.

Liberal Jewish activists told The Times of Israel that the envoy’s unwillingness to speak with them is further evidence of the splintering relations between Jerusalem and the American Diaspora, and the growing partisan divide over Israel in the United States.

“He may deeply disagree with our views, but they are representative of the majority of American Jews on Israel and a viable solution to the conflict,” Jessica Rosenblum, J Street’s senior vice president of public engagement, told the Times of Israel. “And it’s not just a majority of American Jews, but a growing majority.”

Recent polling has shown that Democrats and Republicans are diverging on their views about the seemingly intractable conflict. The Pew Research Center found in January that 79 percent of Republicans “sympathize” more with Israel than the Palestinians, compared to just 27% of Democrats — of whom about an equal percentage supported Palestinians more. In the last election, 71% of US Jews voted Democrat.

Beyond J Street, which has sent multiple written requests for a meeting since Dermer assumed his post six years ago, and for him to address its galas and conferences, the ambassador has not met with other leading left-wing Jewish groups, including the New Israel Fund or Americans for Peace Now, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. Those groups, however, have not sought a meeting in the frequent and persistent way J Street has.

A source with Americans for Peace Now said a meeting was initially scheduled years ago, but Dermer then had to travel out of town. Since then, the organization has not “pursued it diligently,” the source said. But neither was any engagement initiated on the ambassador’s end.

Despite repeated requests, Ambassador Dermer declined to comment for this report. In public comments, Dermer has highlighted the importance of bipartisan support for Israel.

Dermer’s predecessor, Michael Oren, who held the post from 2009 to 2013, regularly met with J Street and other progressive Jewish organizations.

“Generally speaking, every ambassador sees his job in a different way,” Oren told The Times of Israel. “I saw myself very much as the ambassador of the people of Israel to the people of the United States. I don’t want to speak for Ron, but my sense is he’s more sort of the prime minister’s ambassador.”

Marc Lamont Hill Moves From Justifying Terrorism to Promoting It

Several months ago, CAMERA wrote about the self-promoting CNN commentator and Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill, pointing out his bigoted anti-Israel disinformation campaign and defense of Palestinian terrorists.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism provides new evidence that Lamont Hill has progressed from being a radical, anti-Israel propagandist and justifier of terrorism to one who directly promotes Palestinian violence and terrorism against Israelis.

Lamont Hill was one of the advertised speakers at a conference by a leading BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) group that was held on September 28-30, 2018. In an audio recording of Lamont Hill’s remarks there, he can be heard using his anti-Israel propaganda to advocate for violence.

He repeatedly urges his audience not to “romanticize nonviolence, ” and concludes that “we have allowed this nonviolent thing to become so normative that we’re undermining our own ability to resist in real robust ways.”

Lamont Hill previously justified the kidnappings and murders of three Israeli boys in 2012, saying:
This starts with occupation. There’s an apartheid state in Gaza. There’s an apartheid state in the region. That’s what we need to talk about. That’s what starts as resistance. It’s not terrorism.

He bemoaned Israel’s employment of the Iron Dome air defense system to intercept short-range rockets and artillery shells fired into Israel, because, he lamented, “it takes away all of Hamas’s military leverage.”

And he labelled the call for Palestinians to reject hatred and terrorism “offensive and counterproductive.”

Boycott-Israel activists disrupt Holocaust film in Berlin

Two activists from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign disrupted the presentation of an Israeli Holocaust film in Berlin last week, prompting Israeli security officials to evict the protesters as the audience booed the stoppage caused by the BDS people.

Based on video footage of the disruption, The Jerusalem Post was able to identify one of the BDS activists as Ronnie Barkan, an anti-Zionist from Israel, whose conduct Berlin’s intelligence agency classified in an August report as antisemitic.

Barkan did not immediately respond to a Post press query regarding his activity and the name of the second activist. He did, however, acknowledge on Twitter that “In case you were wondering what was being screened while we disrupted the event.” The activists can be seen on a video holding a sign that read, “No culture in whitewashing Apartheid.”

The nearly two-minute video of the disruption by Barkan and his co-activist was posted on YouTube by the pro-Israel Germany-based group Aktionsforum Israel. The group wrote under the video that BDS attempted to sabotage a film about the Holocaust on October 4.

“This recalls the speech from Bjoern Hoecke with the culture of forgetting,” the group wrote. “Both BDS and parts of the Alternative for Germany [AfD party] as well as the NPD [neo-Nazi party] have a problem with this topic.”

Hoecke, an AfD politician, slammed the memorial in Berlin to victims of the Nazi Holocaust as a “monument of shame.”

Pope To Transfer Accused Priests To Afghanistan, Where Western Media Ignore Pedophilia (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Rome, October 11 - The leader of the Roman Catholic Church will soon take drastic steps to address the sexual abuse scandal plaguing the organization, a spokesman announced today, by moving all those who have engaged in such conduct to a country where indigenous culture condones or encourages it, but Western activists and journalists deem it unworthy of sustained attention.

Father Suipette Underuggi told reporters at a Vatican press conference this afternoon that given the dearth of media and NGO protests against rampant pedophilia in Afghan society, and those groups' acceptance of the phenomenon as part of the country's cultural makeup, Pope Francis has decided to move the various clergymen dogged by sexual abuse accusations to the South Asian nation, where they would avoid continued attention to their crimes.

"After extended examination of the available options, the Holy Father has elected to augment the Holy See's presence in Afghanistan by several hundred personnel," announced Father Underuggi. "The Holy Father's chief concern has always been the good name of the Church, and this move, in his divinely-inspired assessment, will go furthest in ensuring that the scandal dies down."

Father Underuggi pointed to the relative paucity of international organizations denouncing, let alone working to reduce or end, pedophilia in rural Afghanistan. "Even the Western military coalition that operates there is careful not to say or do anything to disrupt it," he observed. "their considerations, obviously, are not the same as ours, but what the phenomenon demonstrates is that pedophilia in Afghanistan, especially of the men-on-boys variety that has been getting so much negative attention among Roman Catholic clergy, is generally ignored by the West. We can work with that."

Church officials declined to specify when the program might begin. A Vatican functionary told reporters that numerous bureaucratic and other hurdles remain before the initiative can launch. "For one thing, a robust presence of non-Muslims will hardly be taken lightly there," admitted the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, given the sensitivity of the issue outside Afghanistan. "But I am sure that with tact and flexibility, we can arrive at a mutual understanding with all the necessary parties."

Already, a fact-finding mission to the potential destination by two dozen of the affected clergymen is in the works, with participants expected to pay particular attention to the number and ages of people in the tribal areas where they expect to be posted over the long term.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

I first made aliyah to Israel in 1979, but returned to the US in 1988. During the 26 years between my yerida and my return to Israel in 2014, I became more and more involved in pro-Israel activism, both because I felt that I was more knowledgeable than most Americans about the issues, and because of a nagging feeling that I should never have left.

I wrote, spoke, arranged events, passed out fliers, picketed anti-Israel happenings, and tried to convince my mostly liberal and progressive friends that they should support Israel (see Rob Vincent’s comments about the futility of this enterprise here).

One of the things I did was to become active in the local Jewish Federation. I became a board member and served as treasurer for a number of years. I tried to keep the Federation involved in countering the anti-Israel activity that flowed from local “peace” groups, from activists in the university, and (later) from a growing Muslim community. I tried to influence the Federation to make grants to pro-Israel causes and to invite speakers and present films to correct the misinformation from the media and other sources that was so prevalent.

The Federation always allocated a portion of its grants to “Israel,” which traditionally meant via the national organization, the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA). I had some problems with this. For one thing, JFNA did not support projects across the Green Line. When it made grants to bodies that had projects all over the country, it even audited those bodies and deducted an amount equivalent to the funds spent in Judea/Samaria, the Golan Heights, and (then) Gaza. For another, I didn’t see why we should support the overhead of the JFNA bureaucracy when we could give directly to those causes in Israel that we thought were most effective. Finally, I found their annual meeting extravaganza, the “GA” (General Assembly), an orgy of self-congratulatory posturing, to be distasteful, counter-productive, and wasteful.

This year, JFNA is having its GA in Tel Aviv, for the first time (it is usually held in a major US city, and has been in Jerusalem in the past). There could be technical reasons for this choice, but it seems to me that in the year that the US Embassy is finally established in our capital, it is clear that holding the GA in Israel but not in Jerusalem sends a message – and not a very friendly one. I am sure that JFNA officials do understand this and did it deliberately.

In addition to the choice of venue, the theme of the conference itself shows an insensitivity that borders on insult. “Israel and the diaspora, we need to talk,” it says, and the clear implication is that they need to talk and we need to listen. What chutzpah!

Caroline Glick notes that the homepage of the GA’s website spells out what they think we need to talk about: only 8% of Israelis see themselves as “liberal” (in Israeli terms, on the Left) while 50% of Jewish Americans do; only 43% of Israelis compared to 61% of American Jews think Israel and a Palestinian state could coexist; and only 49% of Israelis compared to a whopping 80% of American Jews think that non-Orthodox rabbis should be able to officiate at Jewish weddings in Israel (my italics).

Obviously what Israel does about a Palestinian state must be entirely up to Israelis. Why would anybody think that the opinion of Americans, thousands of miles away, should be taken into account by Israelis who are next door to the prospective Palestinian state, and who would be the targets of its terrorism? Why should Americans even have an opinion about who can perform a wedding in another country? It is as ridiculous as Israelis complaining about Elvis impersonators performing weddings in Las Vegas. One can see now why “we need to talk” makes Israelis uncomfortable: what is really being questioned is our sovereignty as an independent state.

Glick believes it’s all about punishing Israelis for liking Donald Trump. According to a June 2018 AJC poll only 34% of American Jews approve of how he is handling relations with Israel, compared to 77% of Israelis. And from an Israeli point of view, Trump has been one of the most friendly of American presidents. While his decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem got more attention than anything else, it’s possible that his administration’s systematic puncturing of the Palestinian “refugee” myth and ending the policy of financing the endless multiplication of the refugee population via UNRWA will do more to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians than any of his predecessors’ failed initiatives.

American Jews, Glick says, simply can’t get beyond their liberal politics to notice that at least in the case of Israel, Trump is doing the right things. Reform Movement President Rick Jacobs even initially expressed reservations about Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the US Embassy there. But what can you expect from a Jewish organization that couldn’t even agree to oppose Obama’s Iran deal?

I am sure that Trump is yet another issue that American and Israeli Jews disagree about. But in my opinion, he is not the primary cause of the Federations’ decision to emphasize and magnify the disagreements.

Much of the material in the GA’s breakout sessions seems to be taken directly from the playbook of the Reform Movement, which has so far been unable to gain traction among a significant number of Israelis for issues like religious pluralism, concessions to the Palestinians, support for keeping illegal migrants in Israel, mixed-gender prayer at the Kotel, and so on. For a number of years – long before the advent of Trump – the movement has been working with its partners J Street and the New Israel Fund (both groups in which Jacobs was active before he became URJ President), to assist the forces of the Left in Israel in regaining the political dominance they lost when Menachem Begin became PM in 1977, and the popularity they have continued to lose since then.

Since Benjamin Netanyahu has been PM, one of the strategies that the Israeli Left and its partners in the US has employed has been to cook up “crises” between their American Jewish constituency and the Israeli government. These have included presenting proposed changes in the rules regarding conversion to Judaism in Israel (which have zero effect on American Jews) as “delegitimizing the diaspora”; comparing isolated incidents of ultra-Orthodox harassment of women with the government-sanctioned behavior of white racists in the Jim Crow South; hijacking the Women of the Wall movement; taking up the cause of illegal migrants in Israel; attacking the Nation-State Law; and so on. With each crisis, the spokespeople of the movement blame Netanyahu, and suggest that unless Israel undergoes a change of government, the relationship with American Jews – and hence with America as a whole – will be irreparably damaged.

It’s clear that JFNA, the national organization of Jewish Federations, has adopted the ideology and strategy of the Reform Movement in connection with Israel. This follows the general trend of non-Orthodox Jewish organizations in America moving leftward as older pro-Israel activists die off and younger products of the very biased American university system take their places. It’s happened in university Hillels, the ADL, Hadassah, and in numerous local Jewish organizations.

Their target is much larger than Trump. It is the character of Israel as an ethnic nation-state that the liberal Jewish establishment wishes to change. And why do they want to change it? They don’t really know. Perhaps they are just unfamiliar with it. But in fact their actions make them part of a much larger movement, one that can’t abide a Jewish state, and which would see it destroyed or changed beyond recognition.

Nevertheless, with all their sound and fury, the Jewish Federations no longer do very much for Israel, and they do nothing we cannot do for ourselves. We are not required to defer to them.

Like so many of the disparate concerns surrounding Israel today – the Temple Mount, the Gaza border, the Golan Heights, building across the Green Line, European financing of hostile NGOs – our issues with the American diaspora revolve around sovereignty. We need to defend it wherever it is in danger – even from our friends.

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.

10/11 Links Pt1: Trump Rejects UN and UNESCO’s Fictitious Palestinian State; Abbas’ advisor: Islam’s religious war to destroy Israel has started; Minister seeks posthumous Medal of Valor for terror victim Ari Fuld

From Ian:

David Singer: Trump Rejects UN and UNESCO’s Fictitious Palestinian State

Bolton was unequivocal in his statement:
“Palestine” is not a state… It’s not a state now. It does not meet the customary international law test of statehood. It doesn’t control defined boundaries. It doesn’t fulfill the normal functions of government. There are a whole host of reasons why it’s not a state.”

Article 1 of the 1934 Montevideo Convention completely substantiates Bolton’s claim.
Holding out the carrot after administering the stick – Bolton continued:
“It could become a state, as the president said, but that requires diplomatic negotiations with Israel and others… We have consistently, across Democratic and Republican administrations, opposed the admission of ‘Palestine’ to the UN as a state, because it’s not a state.”

Bolton’s tempting offer may have been made to try and get the PLO to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s soon to–be-released peace plan. It seems certain to fall on deaf ears as the PLO wants nothing to do with Trump’s plan.

The PLO will only be more infuriated at this latest Trump effort to engender some reality into the Arab-Jewish conflict – as happened when Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

UNESCO’s decision to admit “Palestine” as a member in 2011 in clear breach of UNESCO’s own Constitution has come back to bite UNESCO with a vengeance – with America and Israel quitting

UNESCO on 31 December 2018.

UNESCO anti-Israel decisions made since “Palestine” was admitted to UNESCO membership have included:

January 2014 – cancelling an exhibition at its Paris headquarters on the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel

October 2016 – disregarding Jewish ties to the Temple Mount – only referring to it by its Muslim names – then several weeks later – passing a softer version of the resolution that referred to the Western Wall by its Jewish name – though still ignoring Judaism’s ties to the site.

July 2017 – designating Hebron and the two adjoined shrines at its heart — the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Muslim Ibrahimi Mosque — as a “Palestinian World Heritage Site in Danger”.

On 29 November 2012, the UN General Assembly granted Palestine“non-member observer state” status.

Pure fiction.

Israel envoy to UNESCO: Do what you want, we’re leaving anyway

Israel’s top UN envoy blasted UNESCO’s attempt to water down its controversial bi-annual Jerusalem resolution, reaffirming that Israel planned to leave the organization at the end of the year.

Danny Danon spoke after the 58 members of UNESCO’s executive board in Paris hid language disavowing Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem in the lengthy annex to an otherwise short benign text called Resolution 28.

The statements in the resolution’s annexes are “further evidence, for anyone who did not understand why the United States and Israel withdrew from UNESCO," Danon said.

The board gave its preliminary approval to that text on Wednesday, with a final vote likely to be held on Monday.

UNESCO’s director-general Audrey Azoulay lauded the use of an annex text to bypass some of the controversy caused by the Jerusalem resolutions in past years.

“I wish to thank those who have worked to achieve this, especially the representatives of the Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian delegations, and all members of the Executive Board who supported this agreement, as well as the European Union,” Azoulay said.

A similar compromise had been reached at the April Executive Board meeting. At the time, the Israeli and the Palestinian delegations accepted the annex compromise, with Jerusalem welcoming Azoulay’s efforts to downgrade the anti-Israeli tone of the agency.

How Palestinians Lie to Europeans

In the eyes of Hamas and its supporters, it is fine for Palestinians to throw explosive devices and firebombs at soldiers, but it is completely unacceptable for the soldiers to defend themselves. According to the twisted logic of the Palestinian leaders, it all started when Israel fired back.

Those who sent the Palestinians to clash with the Israeli soldiers along the border with the Gaza Strip are the only ones who bear responsibility for killing more than 150 Palestinians and injuring thousands of others.

The goal the Palestinians have in mind is to see Israel gone. All of it. Mahmoud Abbas believes he can achieve this goal by waging a diplomatic war against Israel in the international community -- one aimed at delegitimizing and demonizing Israel and Jews.

The question, again, remains whether the international community will ever wake up to realize that Palestinian leaders are playing them for fools. The European Parliament delegation that visited Ramallah is a good test case: What message will its members convey back at home: the truth about the ruthless and repressive Palestinian Authority, or the lies that were spoon-fed to them by Abbas and his friends?

Palestine Times reports that Hamas leader Ahmed Kurd announced Wednesday morning the disbursement of funds for a number of "martyrs" and wounded from the regular riots on the Gaza border.

The funds will be distributed this morning through Gaza banks.

2000 families will receive between 400 and 600 shekels. Their names will be published through the website of the Ministry of Social Affairs.

The rioters know that they and their families will be supported if they get injured or killed, which is incentive to act more violently in the poverty-stricken area.

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For the first time, a member of Congress says Israel practices "apartheid." (Of course, J-Street calls her "pro-Israel.")

From a fundraising email by the US Campaign for Palestinian rights:

Ten days ago, a sitting Member of Congress used the “a” word: apartheid. And she did at our national conference, Together We Rise.

Smack dab in the middle of our three-day conference, where more than 550 people from around the country came together for 40+ workshops, panels, and artistic performances that organized, energized, and amplified the incredible work people like you are doing, history was made. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) openly, and correctly, named Israel for what it is:

“The world has a name for the form of government that is codified in the Nation State Law — it is called apartheid.”

This. Is. Huge. In that moment, Rep. McCollum became the first elected official in the US to tell it like it is. Of course, this isn't just about one word. But this moment is a benchmark in a narrative shift we have all been working towards for a long time.

There is a video of much of her talk but it cuts out at the time that she says Israel is an apartheid state. Mondoweiss has a transcript.

Naturally, J-Street is an enthusiastic supporter of Betty McCollum, claiming that she "has been a strong ally of the pro-Israel, pro-peace community since her election to Congress."

If this doesn't show what J-Street means when they say they are "pro-Israel," nothing does.

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Are there secret new discoveries under the Western Wall?

Palestinian news site Al Hadath says that a private WhatsApp message from an Israeli archaeologist was forwarded to them showing pictures of courses of stone underneath the Western Wall that had been hidden for 1670 years:

The WhatsApp message says that these finds are not yet public and are directly beneath the Western Wall plaza we know of today.

This seems likely to be an extension of the excavations under Wilson's Arch revealed last year that uncovered what appeared to be a Roman theater.

It appears that the message was sent to a group of archaeologists and an Arab was a member of the group; he forwarded it to the deputy chairman of the virulently antisemitic Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh Kamal al Khatib, who posted it on his Facebook page.

Al-Khatib warned that these excavations endanger the Al Aqsa Mosque.

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.

10/10 Links Pt2: Howard Jacobson: Corbyn’s Complaint; A Modern-Day Blood Libel, Dressed Up in Trendy Academic Language; BDS has zero impact on Israeli businesses

From Ian:

Howard Jacobson: Corbyn’s Complaint

Considering British Jews’ reaction to the anti-Semitism that has seized hold of the British Labor party since it elected Jeremy Corbyn as its leader, the novelist Howard Jacobson is reminded of a favorite expression of his father’s: “take a shtum powder,” meaning “swallow a pill that will make you shut up.” Jacobson accuses some among the UK’s left-leaning Jews of making a tacit compact with Labor: the party will limit its anti-Semitism to anti-Zionism, and they won’t complain. But Corbyn and his acolytes haven’t held up their end of the bargain:

Anti-Zionism can be anti-Semitism-free, but its exponents need to keep their wits about them. There usually comes a moment when a little Jew-hatred starts leaking out. And it wasn’t long into Corbyn’s leadership before the bargain—that Labor could have anti-Zionism, so long as it remained strictly what it called itself—showed signs of fracturing. . . .

The standard Corbyn defense [to revelations of his animus toward Israel] of not remembering, not noticing, not being sure, was wheeled out to counter each of these new embarrassments in turn. When it transpired that he had defended a mural showing the world’s capitalists—all Jewish or Jewish-ish—playing Monopoly on the bent backs of naked slaves, he claimed not to have looked carefully enough to see anything offensive. Looked carefully enough! A person driving past that mural at a hundred miles an hour while checking his emails would have grasped its message. And if Corbyn hadn’t given the mural even that much attention, what was he doing defending it against the criticism of those who had?

To many, the game was up. Corbyn’s previous defense—that Zionists were the object of his ire, not Jews—no longer held water. The subject of the mural wasn’t Zionism, but Jewish exploitation of the world’s poor. If Corbyn didn’t notice any gross caricature of Jews in the mural, it could only have been because he carried an identical picture around in his head: a picture familiar to anyone schooled in Soviet anti-Semitism of the cold war, which held the Elders of Zion to be no less zealous than they had ever been in pursuit of world domination.

What it took for members of his own party finally to accuse Corbyn of racism was his unwillingness to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism. The sticking point for Corbyn was one particular example of what constituted anti-Semitism—“Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor.” Though this was not a good time to be picking a fight with Jews, not being able to call Israel a racist endeavor with impunity was a concession too far. . . .

A Modern-Day Blood Libel, Dressed Up in Trendy Academic Language

In her 2017 book The Right to Maim, published by Duke University Press, Jasbir Puar—a professor at Rutgers University—advances entirely unsubstantiated and outlandish claims about Israel’s malevolent treatment of Palestinians. David Berger, a historian of medieval anti-Semitism, notes the similarities between Puar’s writings and the centuries-old accusations that Jews murdered Christian children and used their blood to make matzah, stole and “tortured” communion wafers, and poisoned wells:

Israel has been accused of poisoning Palestinians [and] harvesting their organs; thousands of Jews are said to have refrained from coming to work at the World Trade Center on that fateful September 11, with Jews responsible in whole or in part for the attacks. . . . The historian Gavin Langmuir proposed a term to characterize the [medieval] blood libel, the host-desecration charge, and the well-poisoning accusation: these figments of the anti-Jewish imagination should, he said, be termed “chimerical anti-Semitism.” [Now] we encounter chimerical anti-Israelism. . . .

[Thus] Puar asserts that Israel’s policy of shooting dangerous demonstrators or attackers in a manner that avoids killing them should be seen as a strategy of maiming the Palestinian population in order to create a debilitated people more easily subject to exploitation. Written in the highly sophisticated language of theoretical discourse current in certain historical and social-scientific circles, [the accusation] has led a significant number of academics to shower the author with extravagant praise. . . .

Building on a hyperbolic statement by a Gazan water-utilities official that it would be better [for Palestinians] if Israel were to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza, she asserts with evident agreement that he is essentially saying that “it is as if withholding death—will not let or make die—becomes an act of dehumanization: the Palestinians are not even human enough for death.”

“We Try to Learn Every Terrorist Attack”: Inside the Top-Secret Israeli Anti-Terrorism Operation That’s Changing the Game

On a spring evening in late April, I traveled to a fortified compound in the Ayalon Valley between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The location is not identified on Waze, the Israeli-built navigation tool, and so, as far as my app-addled cabdriver was concerned, it does not exist. Then again, the same could be said for its inhabitants: YAMAM, a band of counterterror operatives whose work over the last four decades has been shrouded in secrecy.

Upon arrival at the group’s headquarters, which has all the architectural warmth of a supermax, I made my way past a phalanx of Israeli border police in dark-green battle-dress uniforms and into a blastproof holding pen where my credentials were scanned, my electronic devices were locked away, and I received a lecture from a counter-intelligence officer who was nonplussed that I was being granted entrée to the premises. “Do not reveal our location,” he said. “Do not show our faces. And do not use our names.” Then he added, grimly, and without a hint of irony, “Try to forget what you see.”

YAMAM is the world’s most elite—and busiest—force of its kind, and its expertise is in high demand in an era when ISIS veterans strike outside their remaining Middle East strongholds and self-radicalized lone wolves emerge to attack Western targets. “Today, after Barcelona,” says Gilad Erdan, who for the past three years has been Israel’s minister for public security, “after Madrid, after Manchester, after San Bernardino—everyone needs a unit like YAMAM.” More and more, the world’s top intelligence and police chiefs are calling on YAMAM (a Hebrew acronym that means “special police unit”). During his first month on the job, recalls Erdan, “I got requests from 10 countries to train together.”

I made my way to the office of YAMAM’s 44-year-old commander, whose name is classified. I am therefore obliged to refer to him by an initial, “N,” as if he were a Bond character. N’s eyes are different colors (the result of damage sustained during a grenade blast). His shaved head and hulking frame give him the vibe of a Jewish Vin Diesel. At his side, he keeps an unmuzzled, unbelievably vicious Belgian shepherd named Django.
A damaged bus near Tel Aviv, Israel

Last fall, Israeli officials agreed to provide Vanity Fair unprecedented access to some of YAMAM’s activities, facilities, and undercover commandos. When I asked N why his superiors had chosen to break with their predecessors’ decades of silence, he gave an uncharacteristically sentimental response: “It’s important for operators’ families to hear about our successes.” (Field “operators,” as they are called, are exclusively male; women sometimes serve in intelligence roles.) N does not discount less magnanimous reasons for cooperating, however. (h/t Zvi)

The Barkan Industrial Zone terror attack was a shooting spree which left two dead, one wounded, two spouses with no partners, and several children who lost a parent. But all the talking heads want to discuss is “the threat to coexistence.” That’s because Barkan, with its 164 factories employing 4,200 Palestinians and 3,000 Israelis was one of those places you show off to foreigners: “See? Arabs and Jews can get along just fine.”

But it’s a false paradigm. The Barkan murders were, in fact, predictable. The larger the number of Arabs you have working side by side with Jews, the more likely it is, statistically, that one of them will decide to go berserk and murder a Jew or two. And that’s exactly what happened.

Arab-Israeli coexistence as a concept, is similar to describing Arab violence against Jews as the Arab-Israeli “conflict.” The prefix “co” suggests that it takes two to tango, that this is about two kids who either will or won’t play nicely in the sandbox. It suggests a sameness of intent and purpose, a moral equivalency. But this is a lie, the fear and the violence is on one side, only.

Israel's dynamic has never been one in which Arabs fear proximity to Jews. Jews are not a threat or a liability in the mixed Arab/Jewish environment. The Jews, rather, are at risk, the Arabs the threat.

Arabs do not fear to walk along Jerusalem's main thoroughfare, Jaffa Road, but Jews do fear to walk on Salah A Din Street in "East" Jerusalem.

Some years ago in Efrat, where I live, a trusted Arab worker, an installer of drywall to whom all were friendly, strapped on a bomb and attempted to self-destruct in our supermarket (by miracle, a Jew intervened with a pistol). This supermarket terrorist never feared spending time with Jews. He felt perfectly safe and comfortable in Efrat, and welcome in any home. But the Arab a Jew knows and loves, may turn out to be a deadly foe.

What happened at the recycling plant in Barkan can unfortunately, on the other hand, happen on any day, at any time, to any Jew who spends time in close proximity to Arabs.

That’s just the way things are. And there is no reason we need pretend otherwise. You can’t change things if you can't see them as they are, and this is indeed, the way it is: it’s Arabs against Jews. Not all Arabs are violent and out to kill Jews, and there may be a small minority of violent Jews who attack Arabs, but these are the exceptions that prove the rule. The danger is one-sided.

Ari Fuld, HY"D

I live in Israel, which means I have intimate knowledge of terror attacks and the way they can affect a community and a country. In the first days after terror strikes, you’re more watchful and you tell your kids to be vigilant, too. Then slowly, you relax back into what passes for normal. In my community, for instance, we are in gradual recovery from what happened to Ari Fuld, HY’D. By now we’ve been to the shopping center, the scene of Ari’s murder, several times. It makes you sad, but life goes on.

This made me wonder what it would be like to go back to a mixed work environment after a terror attack. Wouldn’t you wonder: “Who’s next? How do I know if I can trust my Arab coworkers?”

And the truth is, you can’t trust them. Even if you have years and years of beautiful “coexistence,” all it takes is one evil player one afternoon, and a gun or a knife to turn things on their head.

I looked to speak with someone from Barkan—someone who works there on a daily basis. I wanted to commiserate and ask how they were going to bear it: how they will go back to work, knowing it could happen again at any time. Because I know what it was like to go back to the Gush Etzion shopping center to do my mundane grocery shopping after Ari Fuld was murdered.

But my desire for commiseration was frustrated by Moshe Lev Ran, export manager of Twitoplast, a plastics factory that exports its products to 20 countries worldwide. Lev Ran isn’t angry or despairing. He is “sorry about what happened,” but his commitment to the idea of coexistence remains unshakable, even in the aftermath of the terror attack.

Moshe Lev Ran, at right

Judean Rose: How does it feel to go back to work after what happened?

Moshe Lev Ran: Nothing changed. Our workers at our factory, they’re like our family. We work together as if we’re on our honeymoon all these years, and even such a bump in the road will not change anything between us and the Palestinians.

Judean Rose: But surely you must be upset, nervous after the tragedy?

Moshe Lev Ran: We are very sorry about what happened and we have a lot of sympathy for those who died [sic!!], but as I said, it’s only a bump in a road. We’re back to working normally, the Palestinians are like our friends and they feel very comfortable to work here. (emphasis added)

Of course, I don’t work at the recycling plant. Our factory is only close by. Barkan is a big place with 160 factories. I can’t tell you how the people at the Alon Group, where the attack happened, are feeling.

I know that the owner is in a very bad mood, refusing to speak. The plant is closed for now.

Judean Rose: Has anything changed for you since the attack?

Moshe Lev Ran: The only thing that has changed is increased security. It takes another hour for the Palestinians to cross the checkpoints and arrive at work. We explained. But they are very angry. Because they know that this harms only the Palestinians, and not us. (emphasis added)

Judean Rose: Do some Jewish workers feel resentment: “we give them work and this is how they pay us back?”

Moshe Lev Ran: No, no, no. I don’t know him, don’t know why he took a gun and shot people. I don’t know what happened between him and management. I’m not a psychologist. My duty, my only responsibility, is to keep the good relations we have with the Palestinians. When they come in the morning, they are happy to work. (emphasis added)

Lev Ran isn’t worried or scared or feeling threatened, just as we were not worried about our drywall installer in Efrat. He sees the terrorist as mentally ill, an aberration. Someone who had problems with management. And since Lev Ran is a great manager, he’s never going to have this “problem.”

He’s only disturbed that the Palestinians are angry about having to spend more time going through security checkpoints.

Lev Ran says, “They feel very comfortable to work here.”

Of course they do. They’re not the ones in danger. They’re completely safe. Just as our drywall worker in Efrat, was safe until the day he walked into our supermarket with a bomb.

From my point of view, I wonder why the onerous security checks had to be explained to the Arab workers of Barkan. Is it not self-evident that if one of you attacks your coworkers, the rest of you will now exist under a cloud of suspicion? And if you really valued your jobs, why would you not work to prevent this from ever happening again? Why would you not do everything possible to cooperate with security?

Arab workers at Barkan who are paid by the hour will no doubt lose money by arriving late to work each morning. They choose to be angry about this. Instead, why not accept it as the deterrent measure it is? Is this not a fair price to pay to keep the people who pay you, safe?

The bigger problem at Barkan, perhaps, concerns Jewish workers: how will Jewish Barkan employees protect themselves going forward if their ideas about coexistence remain exactly the same? It's not just about not being able to change things if you can't recognize them for the way they are. There's also a high probability that if you can't see things they way they are, you won't be able to protect yourself from danger.

Fellow EOZ columnist Forest Rain told me about the normalcy bias, which according to Wikipedia, "is a belief people hold when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the likelihood of a disaster and its possible effects, because people believe that things will always function the way things normally have functioned. This may result in situations where people fail to adequately prepare themselves for disasters, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. About 70% of people reportedly display normalcy bias in disasters."

This would appear to describe the situation at Barkan, both before the attack and in its aftermath.

The thing about Arab-Jewish coexistence is that there’s a prerequisite: in order to have coexistence, the Jews must exist. Which is what stepped up security is all about: preventing Arabs from killing more Jews. What we mustn't do is pretend that when security measures function as they should, what we have is coexistence.

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Who can object to a smiling SJP president studying at Hebrew U? (EBoZ)

A guest post from Elder Brother of Ziyon:

___________________________________

Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss, two staunchly pro-Israel editorial writers for the NYT, have penned a rare criticism. “Why Is Israel Scared of This Young American?” pans Israel for barring Lara Alqasem, a past president of Students for Justice in Palestine, from entering the country and attending Hebrew University. Their argument is that Israel, as a liberal democracy, must display tolerance “for opinions we find foolish, dangerous and antithetical to our own.”

Stephens and Weiss do indicate in passing that “Students for Justice in Palestine has received funding and other assistance from a group called American Muslims for Palestine, some of whose leaders have links to groups flagged by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for their ties to the terrorist group Hamas. “ But look at her. How could such a pert, smiling innocent looking student be possibly associated with groups that advocate Israel’s violent destruction?

The extensive ties between SJP and terror groups such as Hamas and PFLP are well-documented (see http://jcpa.org/students-justice-palestine-unmasked/). If she were to be admitted, Alqasem could regularly visit friends and relatives in the West Bank and return to Jerusalem using her American passport and student visa.

What possible danger could someone of Palestinian descent who glorifies martyrdom and advocates for Israel’s destruction pose?

Hebrew University cafeteria bombing - July 31, 2002.

(9 killed, 100 injured)

______________________________________

I just want to add two pictures to this article.

This is one of the victims of the Hebrew University bombings, Marla Bennett. Like Alqasem, she was also a fresh faced young woman studying at university. Unlike Alqasem, there are no NYT op-eds about her.

She was murdered by people that SJP admires.

Here is a celebration of the attack in Gaza with Hamas flags.

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10/10 Links Pt1: UNESCO: Rachel's Tomb and Cave of Patriarchs part of 'Occupied Palestine'; Global News Erroneously Claims Palestinian Terrorist Killed 2 Israeli Soldiers – Not Civilians

From Ian:

UNESCO: Rachel's Tomb and Cave of Patriarchs part of 'Occupied Palestine'

The PX Commission of the Executive Board of UNESCO on Wednesday morning adopted resolutions 28 and 29, titled "Occupied Palestine," which state that the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem are "an integral part of the Occupied Palestinian territory" and condemning the construction of the security fence and "other measures aimed at altering the character, status and demographic composition of the Occupied Palestinian territory."

Both resolutions were sponsored by Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan, and were approved within minutes at the commission’s meeting, which includes the 59 members of UNESCO’s Executive Committee. Israel is not a member of the Executive Committee.

The resolutions also refer to Israel as "occupier" and condemn "Israeli army violations against Palestinian universities and schools," criticize the construction of the security fence, deplore the destruction of Palestinian schools, including in the village Khan al-Ahmar and regret Israel’s excavation projects in east Jerusalem.

UNESCO's assistant director-general for external relations, Nicolas Kassianides, said at the meeting that the resolutions were adopted following close consultations between the member states, and welcoming "the spirit of constructive dialogue that enabled to reach a consensus."

Kassianides further said the adoption of the resolution by consensus "confirms the positive momentum that started last year, especially on this subject which is very sensitive," hailing in particularly efforts by the Palestinians, Jordan and Israel to reach agreement.

Over the years, UNESCO included both items in the final text adopted annually by the agency’s Executive Committee. But when Audrey Azoulay took office last year as head of UNESCO, a compromise was achieved, with the resolutions adopted as an annex, and not inside the body of the text. This was the case today as well.

Belgium acknowledges Pisgat Ze’ev as part of Jerusalem

After sending the Tenzer family a letter stating that the parents of the family live in “Jerusalem”, while their two children live in “Palestinian territories,” the Belgian consulate in Jerusalem has announced the error was due to a technical malfunction in its computers that has since been amended.

"We would like to inform you that due to a technical error in our computer, the addresses of your children Talia and Gilad were incorrectly registered, and since then the error has been corrected," the second letter the consulate sent read.

The family reside in the Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood, which is located over the Green Line in eastern Jerusalem that was captured and annexed by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War.

The first letter, which was sent to every Belgian citizen as the Western European country approaches its national elections, was intended to explain to all expats their rights and how to cast their vote.

The family said that all letters addressed to the family from the Belgian consulate have always referred to all its members simply as residents of Jerusalem.

Caroline Glick: Russia Raises the Stakes in Syria with S-300 Missiles

Last week, India signed a deal to purchase Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile system. How likely is that deal to come to fruition if the U.S. and Israel expose the failings of the S-300? What about Turkey’s agreement to purchase the S-400?

While these key issues remain unknown, there are low-risk moves the U.S. can take in response to Russia’s adoption of a new, far more aggressive posture towards Israel and the U.S. that could serve to deter Russian adventurism and empower any moderate voices in Moscow that may have been sidelined since Sept. 17.

First, the administration could recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The move would empower Israel diplomatically and weaken the diplomatic position of Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime they control.

Second, the U.S. can launch a campaign to withdraw international recognition of the Assad regime.

Iran and Russia both base the legality of their operations in Syria on the fact that the Assad regime asked them to intervene in Syria. But the Assad regime only exists because of their support.

In truth, they are foreign aggressors asserting control over Syria and using a local Syrian proxy to legitimize their aggression. A U.S.-led campaign internationally to withdraw recognition of the Assad regime and remove regime representatives from international forums, including the UN, could weaken the Russian-Iranian political position in significant ways.

Third, the administration could ask Congress for a new, updated authorization for the use of force in Syria. Current authorization is based on the Obama administration’s strategy in Syria. The Obama administration’s strategy was to deploy U.S. forces to fight ISIS and take no action against Iranian or Russian forces in the country.

This paper by Shiri Eisner published in the Journal of Bisexuality in 2012 is truly insane. The abstract is only the beginning:

This text narrates the writer's story as a bisexual activist and, through it, also the story of the bisexual movement in Israel so far. In addition, the text endeavors to highlight the strands of militarism, violence and racism in Israeli culture, with a focus on the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the Palestinian people. This is meant to achieve two things: first, to deconstruct the false separation between the two fields of ‘LGBT rights’ and antiwar activism; and second, to promote the principles of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, encouraging solidarity with the Palestinian people and nonviolent struggle against the Israeli occupation.

The author admits in the abstract that this is a piece of propaganda. She is using her bisexuality to push BDS, even though "Palestine" has absolutely nothing to do with her bisexuality. But she insists there is a linkage - even though she agrees that this isn't a scholarly paper but a personal account.

Why on Earth did the journal publish this? Is everyone's personal opinions worthy of being published, or only if they fit some sort of trendy opinion?

The beginning of the paper is published in Eisner's blog, and her justification for her personal story being published in a presumably academic journal is bizarre:

This article will consist of a sequence of stories from my personal history as an activist.4 The reason why I chose to tell this story from my own perspective rather than take the more ‘dignified’ stance of an academic researcher is threefold. Firstly, by telling the story from my personal point of view, I denounce a single, unified, master-narrative. ...

Secondly, living in a patriarchal, masculinist world, we all learn to appreciate certain values over others: objectivity over subjectivity, universal over personal, rational over emotional. The values associated with masculinity are socially rewarded with respect, dignity and status, and are attributed more importance (both within and without the academia). On the other hand, the values associated with femininity are perceived as flawed, undignified and often even inappropriate. Indeed, in polite “Western” society, speaking of one’s feelings or personal life is often frowned upon. Of course, these values are also racially charged: the former, masculine ones often linked to whiteness and “Western-ness”, and the latter, feminine ones, to “race” and “third-world-ness”. Thus, it is my intent to undermine and subvert these values through use of a personal narrative and emotional writing. By this I mean to suggest that emotions, subjectivity and personal perspectives are central to our experiences as people and should be respected as crucial to our understandings of the world. I feel that to claim a space, and to incorporate these values in my writing is a political act of feminist and anti-racist subversion.

You see, objectivity is part of the evil patriarchy! Emotions and feelings are just as important to be published in an academic journal.

Some seven billion people are now entitled to be published, without any regard to whether their opinions have any validity, because objectivity is male and therefore racist.

The funny part is that the only people associating women with being emotional and unable to be objective are those who are biased against women. It is a negative stereotype - and one that Eisner celebrates.

Eisner embraces the stereotype of women who cannot think clearly and objectively and denigrates those who do as acting "male."

In an academic journal.

The considers this idiocy to be worthy of publication.

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Fatah is very upset at fuel being sent to Gaza.

Yesterday and today, Qatar sent tanker trucks of fuel to Gaza through Egypt to get the power plant going again and ease the electricity crisis there. Israel and the UN cooperated in order to get this to happen, bypassing the Palestinian Authority which is against any ease in the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that it is largely responsible for.

Fatah issued a statement today saying that this deal was a step towards Gaza becoming a separate political entity run by Hamas, and saying that this was all part of the Trump/Kushner "Deal of the Century".

Apparently, Fatah now believes that Hamas, Israel, Egypt, the UN and Qatar are all colluding to push the still-unannounced deal. (Maybe also Morocco, which is sending 2 tons of medical supplies to Gaza today while the PA restricts medicines.)

The truth, of course, is that while Israel restricts goods to Gaza that can be used to create weapons, there are no other restrictions from Israel and no desire to punish Gazans for the actions of Hamas, despite the lies that the Palestinians (and Western haters of Israel) try to push.

The PA, on the other hand, has been explicitly engaging in collective punishment of Gaza for 18 months, deliberately trying to hurt the people of Gaza in order to get them to pressure Hamas to unify with Fatah.

The amount of articles and public statements from the UN blaming the PA for the Gaza crisis is tiny compared the number of articles falsely accusing Israel of doing what the PA is doing.

The cracks are starting to become more visible. When it is obvious that Israel is working harder to bring fuel to Gaza than the Palestinian leadership, conspiracy theories can no longer work. Arab media is quite well aware of what the PA is doing, but that awareness is only starting to be seen in Western media.

This is not the first attack by Fatah against the UN, by the way. Earlier this week a top Fatah official accused Nikolay Mladenov, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, of working on behalf of the Trump administration.

When they think that the UN is the enemy then you know that the Palestinian Authority is grasping at straws to remain relevant.

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