Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Whether Testing For Either Indian or Khazar Lineage - Accept No Substitutes! (Daled Amos)

Elizabeth Warren has come under fire -- again -- for her contested claim to being descended from Indians. Donald Trump, in particular, has hammered away at this claim, and in response Warren had herself tested.

The results of Warren's DNA test, appearing in The Boston Globe, seemed pretty impressive:

Senator Elizabeth Warren has released a DNA test that provides "strong evidence" she had a Native American in her family tree dating back 6 to 10 generations, an unprecedented move by one of the top possible contenders for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president.

Warren, whose claims to Native American blood have been mocked by President Trump and other Republicans, provided the test results to the Globe on Sunday in an effort to defuse questions about her ancestry that have persisted for years. She planned an elaborate rollout Monday of the results as she aimed for widespread attention.

The analysis of Warren's DNA was done by Carlos D. Bustamante, a Stanford University professor and expert in the field who won a 2010 MacArthur fellowship, also known as a genius grant, for his work on tracking population migration via DNA analysis.

He concluded that "the vast majority" of Warren's ancestry is European, but he added that "the results strongly support the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor."

Senator Elizabeth Warren. Public Domain.
Credit: Wikipedia

So far, so good.

Almost.

Later, the article admits

The inherent imprecision of the six-page DNA analysis could provide fodder for Warren's critics. If her great-great-great-grandmother was Native American, that puts her at 1/32nd American Indian. But the report includes the possibility that she's just 1/512th Native American if the ancestor is 10 generations back.

The number 1/1024 has also been bandied about.

This dilution of Warren's possible Indian ancestry gave rise to the following response on Twitter:

But there is another problem with Elizabeth Warren's DNA test:

According to a report by the Boston Globe, there is no Native American DNA available for genetic testing "because Native American leaders have asked tribal members not to participate in genetic databases." (RELATED: Boston Globe Issues Major Correction On Liz Warren's Ancestry Claims)

Therefore, in order to test for Native American ancestry, genetic researchers have to use samples from other parts of the world.

Carlos D. Bustamante, a Stanford University professor, used samples from Mexico, Peru, and Colombia to attempt to calculate how much Native American ancestry is in Warren's DNA.

To make up for the dearth of Native American DNA, Bustamante used samples from Mexico, Peru, and Colombia to stand in for Native American. That's because scientists believe that the groups Americans refer to as Native American came to this land via the Bering Strait about 12,000 years ago and settled in what's now America but also migrated further south, the Boston Globe explained. [emphasis added]

That lack of Native DNA did not stop Bustamante.
Lack of proof does not stop those who claim Ashkenazic Jews are descended from the Khazars either.

There is a Christian Conference that is attacking Israel -- and Jews:

For example:

And also this:

Shlomo Sand, an historian with no background in genetics, is not alone in making this claim.

Eran Elhaik, described by Wikipedia as "an Israeli-American geneticist and bioinformatician [who] uses computational, statistical, epidemiological and mathematical approaches to fields such as complex disorders, population genetics, personalised medicine, molecular evolution, genomics, paleogenomics and epigenetics" has also come out in favor of the Khazar theory.

And he claims to have proof.

In 2013, he wrote, "The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses" -- basing his proof on the comparison of genomes.

Somewhat similar to Warren's DNA test.

But this is where Elhaik's proof gets busted -- by historian Shaul Stampfer in a review of Elhaik's article:

...The trouble with obtaining Khazar DNA is that no population group today is recognized to have descended from the Khazars. Elhaik acknowledges this difficulty and deals with it efficiently. According to him, Caucasus Georgians and Armenians were considered proto-Khazars because they are believed to have emerged from the same genetic cohort as the Khazars...Moreover, elsewhere in the article Elhaik himself refers to a study by Balanovsky et al., but fails to mention that it concludes that of all the national groups in the Black Sea region, the Georgians and Armenians were the least likely to have absorbed significant populations from other national groups. In other words, while there was DNA from eight Ashkenazi males in Elhaik's study, there was no Khazar DNA at all. This makes it a bit difficult to come to significant conclusions about the Khazarian ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews. [emphasis added]

Just how prevalent is this kind of sloppiness in academia?

Elder of Ziyon has recently been posting debunkings of academic journals which feature this kind of slipshod research and hypothesizing.

Unfortunately, it is nothing new.

From the New York Times, April 4, 1966:

JERUSALEM (Jordanian Sector), March 30 -“The Arab states will not integrate the Palestine refugees because integration would be a slow process of liquidating the Palestine problem." Ahmed Shukairy. chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. declared in an interview today.

“Consequently. the refugees don’t want to be integrated.” he continued. “If there are no Palestinian people. there is no Palestinian cause. We can't conceive of a Babylonian cause today because there are no Babylonians. But we start from the premise that we will achieve the liberation of Palestine soon."

The then-PLO leader is explicitly saying that he doesn't want the Arab nations to integrate the refugees because the "Palestinian cause"is more important then their human rights.

(The claim that the refugees didn't want to be integrated is a lie. Every time they had the chance to gain citizenship, in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon or the West, they eagerly took that opportunity.)

The very end of the article makes this even more explicit. The reporter interviews a Palestinian who is about to go to Sweden for training as a mechanic. Even so, he insists that he would return - but there is a PLO official in the room during the interview.

Hamdi Hizrallah. 40 years old. a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was present at the interview. A native of Beersheba. now part of Israel. he said with great intensity:

“I will tell you something. and I wish you would quote me. If they try to leave. we will stop them, by force if need be."

I'm happy to quote him. It proves that creating and perpetuating the myth of a Palestinian people is more important to their leaders than their very lives.

And it also proves that Palestinian identity was so weak in the 1960s that the PLO was convinced that without a perpetual refugee problem, no one would want to identify as Palestinian.

Without UNRWA, they really would have gone the way of the Babylonians - and they would today be happy Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Kuwaitis and Egyptians.

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All the major terror groups in Gaza issued a joint statement that not only denied any of them shot the rockets this morning at Beersheva and off the coast near Bat Yam, but that denounced whoever shot them.

Even the Hamas Al Qassam Brigades published the statement.

The "Joint Operations Room" that represents all major Gaza terror organizations issued what appears to be an unprecedented statement that says they "reject all irresponsible attempts that try to sabotage the Egyptian (reconciliation) effort, including the rocket fire last night."

I have never seen any terror groups condemn any rocket fire from Gaza, or any terror operation.

The factions said that when they fight Israel, they do it openly and proudly and not "hiding behind any curtain" as the unknown group that shot the rocket has been doing.

This remarkable statement seems to be an attempt to avoid an escalation from Israel.

As far as I can tell, the "Joint Operations Room" includes Hamas, Islamic Jihad, DFLP and PFLP as well as Fatah.

If these groups are telling the truth (which is a big assumption,) then who did it?

Every once in a while we see stories about Salafist and ISIS-associated groups in Gaza who hate everyone else. Fighting flares up between them and Hamas. From all reports they are tiny.

The rockets that were shot this morning were not small homemade Qassams. They has a much longer range. Either they were smuggled in - which is very difficult nowadays - or they were built in Gaza, which would require a significant workshop.

Perhaps someone from one of the major terror groups defected with the rockets.

The thought that there is a wildcard group with that capability in Gaza is unsettling, to say the least.

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John Lyons is an award winning journalist in Australia who has recently written a book about Israel. The book is apparently an anti-Israel hatchet job.

He tweeted this:

LIVING IN JERUSALEM for 6 years taught me the importance of the city. For 70 years, every President of both sides refused to move the US embassy there as that would kill any 2-state solution. For 70 years, every Australian PM refused such demands. Then along came Donald Trump...
— John Lyons (@TheLyonsDen) October 16, 2018

How many wrong assumptions can be in one tweet?

"For 70 years, every President of both sides refused to move the US embassy there as that would kill any 2-state solution."

The reasons that the US didn't move the embassy has had little to do with the two state solution before Oslo. Until then, it was because of the legal fiction that Jerusalem should be a "corpus separatum" as the UN insisted, even though there is no legal basis for that. Then, when Israel declared sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, the UN Security Council passed a biased resolution saying that no country can put an embassy or diplomatic post in Jerusalem for Israel (they could serve Arabs, though.)

We're not done with that sentence. Because there is no logical reason why a two-state solution is dependent on where the US puts its embassy. Over 170 nations somehow manage to exist without Jerusalem being their capital; why can't "Palestine" be one more? What exactly is the dependency?

It doesn't exist.

But wait, there's more. To blame the lack of a two state solution on the US Embassy move is ridiculous. Embassies can be in the western part of the city that everyone agrees is Israeli. How can they impede peace?

In fact, the Palestinians have been offered a state. Multiple times. They rejected it. Multiple times. Isn't that a more reasonable explanation for no two state solution than the location of an embassy?

Palestinians are the ones who blew up the Oslo process, quite literally. After rejecting the Clinton parameters they chose terror instead. This isn't ancient history. They abrogated the Oslo agreement where they claimed to abandon terror.

I made a pithy tweet for those who always blame Israel for lack of peace:

Since everyone is sure that recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital dooms peace, please explain why there is no peace now.

Since everyone is sure that
"occupation" dooms peace, please explain where peace was before 1967.

And explain why there was no peace before 1948, too.
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) October 16, 2018

Lyons' statement seems like it makes sense on the surface - but that is only because of decades of reporters and journalists who simply refuse to report the facts in context. The world has been brainwashed by hacks like Lyons.

There is an underlying racism there as well. Palestinian Arabs are not expected to make peace; only Israeli Jews must keep trying. Even in the face of terror. Even in the face of peace plans being rejected. The Jews simply must try harder!

Jerusalem is Israel's capital. No one can deny that. Pretending otherwise does not bring peace - on the contrary, it gives Palestinians more reasons to be even more intransigent.

If journalists like Lyons really cared about peace, they would do their jobs and report the actual reasons there isn't peace today, not these fictional narratives about the location of third-country embassies.

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10/16 Links Pt2: Telling the Truth about the IDF; 'Anti-racism' rally in Berlin calls for destruction of Israel; The Japanese Man Who Saved 6,000 Jews With His Handwriting

From Ian:

Telling the Truth about the IDF

Next week, Harvard University will be hosting the Israeli organization Breaking the Silence (BTS), an organization funded by anti-Israel groups that incites against the State of Israel and defames the IDF.

I served in the IDF during the Second Intifada. I also stood at checkpoints, stood guard, arrested people and fought in the Second Lebanon War. As an Israeli Arab and IDF solider in the Golani Brigade, I served together with Jews of all backgrounds, Druze and Bedouin. We were all equal, we were all brothers fighting side by side, and I can testify that I served in the most humane and moral army in the world, with the highest code of ethics and human values.

The IDF is an army that is level-headed and always keeps as its ultimate highest value human life. The IDF is an army that will bend over backwards to save lives and to ensure that innocent individuals are not harmed, even if it means complicating the military operation.

It is possible that there were incidents that did not live up to these standards, but these were the exceptions; they were not the norm and they were not the code by which the IDF is guided. They do not reflect the IDF nor the State of Israel.

During the Second Lebanese War, I was badly injured after I was hit by a Kornet missile that was fired by Hizbullah. My fellow soldiers saved my life while under attack; they risked their own lives to save mine.

Two days after BTS takes it stand at Harvard University, I will be there to speak to the students with Reservists on Duty.
The truth will prevail.

The writer, a resident of Nazareth, is an Arab Israeli Christian.

Eisenhower, the Rebbe and the bombs that weren’t dropped

It is sometimes assumed that public criticism of the Allies’ failure to bomb Auschwitz began only in the late 1960s, when historians first began writing on the subject.

But a powerful new documentary film, to be screened in Jerusalem later this month, sheds light on a rabbi who publicly raised the issue just months after the war ended – and did so in the presence of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The Rumanian-born hassidic sage, Rabbi Yekutiel Yehudah Halberstam, better known as the Klausenberger Rebbe, was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 along with his wife and nine of their 11 children. He managed to survive the rigors of a slave labor brigade in Warsaw, as well as several death marches on the eve of the Allies’ liberation of Europe.

Rebbetzin Halberstam and 10 of their children were murdered by the Nazis. Their eldest son survived the Holocaust, only to die in a displaced persons camp shortly after.

The Rebbe ended up in Feldafing, a DP camp operated by the American occupation forces near Munich. That’s where he was on Yom Kippur in 1945, when Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied Forces in Europe and future president of the United States, was visiting the region.

Earlier this year, I spoke with Moshe Reich, whose father-in-law, Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak Barminka, was an aide to the Klausenberger Rebbe. Reich (who has since passed away) shared with me his father-in-law’s eyewitness account of the Rebbe’s encounter with Eisenhower that Yom Kippur.

According to Barminka, the communist and Zionist DPs were at odds over who should have the honor of greeting Eisenhower and speaking at the welcoming ceremony. The compromise choice was the Rebbe. On Yom Kippur afternoon, the Rebbe ascended the podium where Eisenhower was seated.

Both the communists and the Zionists wanted to focus on postwar issues, rather than the Holocaust, but the Rebbe had other ideas. He spoke at length about what the Jews endured at the hands of the Nazis, then declared: “The Americans and England share in the guilt along with Hitler, because the Americans knew, for at least several years [what was happening in the death campus]. And they had the ability to bomb the railway lines [leading to Auschwitz] and they could have bombed the places [where Jews were being murdered]. A million Jews could have been saved [including] all the Jews of Hungary. If the Americans had intervened just a little bit earlier, it wouldn’t have happened.”

THE REBBE made his remarks in Yiddish. A simultaneous translation in English was provided to Eisenhower by Lt. Mayer Birnbaum, a young Orthodox soldier from Brooklyn who had been assigned to the American forces governing the DP camps. “Lt. Birnbaum told me that Eisenhower had tears in his eyes when the Rebbe finished,” Reich said.

We were saddened to see our tube poster at Russell Square defaced this morning. We have reported this graffiti & continue to welcome all to learn about Kristallnacht by visiting our exhibition pic.twitter.com/Bs3JmrI3aW
— The Wiener Library (@wienerlibrary) October 16, 2018

When the EU bans dual-use items, it is just fine. Only Israel gets attacked for doing that.

Except under specific circumstances, Israel allows pretty much anything into Gaza that cannot be used to attack Israel.

There is a list published by the IDF of "dual use" items that could be used for both innocuous and malicious purposes that are restricted from entering Gaza, like metal pipes that can be used to build rockets.

So-called "human rights" organizations routinely rail against these restrictions.

But read about the sanctions that the EU imposes on Libya:

- The European Union introduced in 2017 restrictions on the export or transit of inflatable boats and outboard motors to Libya.

The reason is to help limit human trafficking from Libya.

There are exceptions for, say, fishing boats, but Israel allows exceptions as well for clear humanitarian needs where the materials can be accounted for.

When the EU does it, they are "sanctions." When Israel does it, it is a "siege."

(h/t Irene)

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Check out this abstract for the paper "Palestinian women in Israel: embodied citizen strangers" written by Kim Jezabel Zinngrebe and published in Settler Colonial Studies:

Palestinian women’s bodies constitute a central site of the struggle between the Zionist state and Palestinian ‘citizens’ in Israel.

Note the scare quotes around 'citizens' as if Arabs are not truly citizens of Israel.

At the intersection of critical feminist and settler colonial studies scholarship and drawing on empirical data collected in 2013–2014, it will be argued here that Israel’s continuous drive to control Palestinian women’s bodies plays a pivotal role in the completion of the Zionist project.

I wish I could read the paper to understand exactly how Israel is trying to control the bodies of its Arab female citizens, but I'm more interested in how the author defines "the completion of the Zionist project." It sure sounds like she defines Zionism as ethnically cleansing all non-Jews from Israel.

In line with classic settler colonial logic, this project has always closely linked native women’s bodies and native land in its discourses and practices.

I read a fair amount of Zionist literature and I don't recall seeing anything that linked Arab women's bodies with the "native land" - since Zionism defines Israel as the Jewish native land and Jews as the natives of the land!

Therefore, Zionist settler colonialism must be considered a not only racialised but also gendered process.

If one could find these fictional proofs that Zionists care so much about Arab women and treat them differently than Arab men, sure.

Palestinian women’s stories are complex and contradictory and cast the body as the key medium through which they experience citizenship in Israel as a continuation of settler colonialism by other means.

So they are citizens. They can vote and create Internet startups. They can drive, become Knesset members and news anchors and reality TV stars. But somehow their citizenship is a continuation of the equally nonexistent settler colonialism.

This paper claims that it is, in fact, via citizenship that the Palestinian women’s forced exclusion from the Israeli body politic is realised, thereby debunking prevailing Zionist myths of citizenship in Israel and the Nakba as a one-off event.

So by giving them full rights of citizenship, Israel is really taking away their rights! How insidious these Jews are!

Please, please, someone send me the full text so we can see how the author debunks obviously verifiable facts about Arab women citizens of Israel.

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10/16 Links Pt1: Hamas Turns Israeli Border Into ‘24/7’ War Zone in New Bid to Kidnap Israeli Soldiers; Khashoggi to Post in 2007: Nakba no different than Holocaust

From Ian:

Hamas Turns Israeli Border Into ‘24/7’ War Zone in New Bid to Kidnap Israeli Soldiers

Hamas has intensified its violent demonstrations against Israel, turning the border between the Jewish state and the Gaza Strip into a "24/7" war zone as the terrorist group amps up its efforts to kidnap Israeli soldiers, according to Israeli security sources and regional reports.

Hamas ramped up this past week its months-long violent demonstrations along the Gaza border as part of new plans to "kidnap soldiers so that it will have a bargaining chip to use against Israel for speeding up the removal of the blockade," according to an investigation into new ways Hamas is probing Israel's defenses provided by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, or JCPA, a security research institute.

Violence raged throughout the weekend and into late Monday, with some 20,000 Palestinians participating in the demonstration, which have grown increasingly violent as Hamas operatives begin to deploy explosive devices, grenades, incendiary balloons, and other makeshift weapons.

Hamas's goal is create as much confusion and violence on the border as possible to elicit a response from the Israeli Defense Forces that could provide the terror group with an opportunity to kidnap soldiers. The renewed border violence is part of an effort by Hamas to test Israel's will and provoke a violent response.

"Over the past few weeks, Hamas has intensified the violence on the border after the failure of talks with Egyptian intelligence services in Cairo about reconciliation and calm and after the refusal of [Palestinian Authority] chairman Mahmoud Abbas to remove the sanctions that he imposed on the Gaza Strip," according to the JCPA's report.

"The number of participants in the demonstrations has risen to 20,000 people," the group disclosed. "Extensive use has been made of lethal tactics such as throwing explosive charges and grenades at IDF soldiers, and there has been a rise in terror attacks caused by sending incendiary balloons and kites into Israel."

Hamas's chief priority: The kidnap of Israeli soldiers so that they can be used as pawns in the terror group's campaign against Israel.

Defense minister: Israel needs to deal Hamas a heavy blow

"We have reached a red line. Israel needs to deal a heavy blow to Gaza and Hamas," Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said at the culmination of a security assessment near the Gaza border Tuesday.

As clashes between Israel and Palestinian rioters in Gaza steadily escalate, Lieberman indicated that the remark was prompted specifically by events last weekend, when "in the morning we permitted the U.N. to bring four truckloads of fuel into Gaza, and in the evening we sustained an outburst of violence – unlike any violence I can remember in a long time."

Lieberman called on the "entire cabinet" to reach a decision on the matter, saying the escalating violence has dictated "the direction we must take in terms of security."

The Diplomatic-Security Cabinet was expected to convene on Wednesday to discuss Israel's steps in Gaza.

Referring to increasingly violent border protests and a months-long Palestinian campaign involving firebombs launched across the border into Israel on kites and balloons, Lieberman said that "we tried to resolve the problem nicely by cooperating with the international community, with U.N. bodies and with anyone who wanted. We have exhausted the options and now the time has come to make a decision."

"My position has been very clear, and I have only grown more resolute," Lieberman continued. "We need to deal a heavy blow. It's the only way to restore the reality to what it was before and lower the violence level down to zero."

Khashoggi to Post in 2007: Nakba no different than Holocaust

Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who disappeared in suspicious circumstances in early October, described the relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia as only a "political," not a religious problem in an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post years before his disappearance.

"Yes, we have a problem with Israel, but it's a political problem," Khashoggi told the Post at a 2007 Capitol Hill reception condemning antisemitism, when he was part of the diplomatic corp of Prince Turki Al Faisal, then Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States.

"It should be a known fact that the Arabs never had a problem with antisemitism, but we need to state that over and over again," Khashoggi added, justifying the surprising Saudi presence at the event.

Speaking of the Holocaust, Khashoggi called the chapter a horrible episode in history, but also said that there were other terrible events throughout history, such as the burning of Baghdad by the Mongols in the Middle Ages or the Palestinian Nakba.

"I know Jewish people don't like this comparison, but everyone has his own Holocaust," he said.

Every time I hear about a movie being made from one of the stories of Israel, I cringe. On one hand our stories are the best stories. On the other hand, all too often, instead of being told as they were, our stories are twisted to fit an agenda, perverted, even to the point of becoming vehicles for modern day anti-Israel propaganda, perpetuating antisemitic lies, denigrating our legacy and connection to our ancestral homeland (see
From Exodus to Munich: How did we get here?, Operation Thunderbolt).
When I saw the video of Ben Kingsley explaining why he took on the role of Adolph Eichmann, I knew I had to see this movie.

Ben Kingsley, promised Elie Wiesel, the voice of morality and Holocaust Memory that he would, at the next appropriate opportunity, take on a role and dedicate it to him – and that is exactly what he did.

Eichmann is not an easy character to take on. Sir Ben Kingsley, one the greatest actors who has walked the earth, is a total actor who seems to actually become the people he portrays. He turned himself into Gandhi just as completely as he did Itzhak Stern in Schindler’s List. Who would willingly step into the dark refuse of the spirit of Adolph Eichmann?

Kingsley found the task utterly repugnant but he did it willingly, in honor of Wiesel, because he believes in the importance of teaching the message of the Holocaust that remains unlearned – evil does not common in the form of slavering horned monsters but rather in average people who become twisted enough to do monstrous, unspeakable things.

When Nazis are dismissed as monsters we make them not real. We let down our guard, turn a blind eye and allow new monstrosities to encroach.

This movie is a service to humanity. A warning. But will anyone listen?

Thankfully, as far as I saw, there was no veiled agenda in this movie. Unlike in Spielberg’s Munich where the Mossad operators are morally conflicted, here morality is very clear – a dead Nazi is a good thing and yet the goal is justice, not vengeance. After all, no type of revenge would be enough to balance the horrors of the crime and we are not like those who terrorize, torture and murder our people.

It was important to not allow the masterminds of the Final Solution to end their days in freedom and comfort but it was more important to give the victims, the survivors an opportunity to be heard and to let the world know that the incomprehensible suffering they experienced was real.

Many like to talk about “nuance” in relation to the telling of our stories. This is the first time I have seen realistic nuance in the depiction of Israeli perspective, where it is possible to recognize the innocence of children who did not choose to be born to parents who committed crimes against humanity, against our humanity and at the same time, unflinchingly execute justice on the criminal. It is possible to be enraged at the evil abuse our people have experienced and yet hold back on becoming an abuser ourselves.

This is the nuance no one wants to see in regard to Israel. Many of those who say they support Israel feel the most comfortable with the weak Jew, the Jewish victim. Those who do not want to admit the evil perpetrated against our people prefer to spin the tall-tale of the powerful Jew who has now become the abuser of others (namely the “poor Palestinians”). This movie, thankfully, did neither.

I finished watching this movie with a kind of empty feeling. How much of the story was accurate? Perhaps I was distracted by some of the strange casting choices, actors who did not look or sound anything like the real people they were depicting. The un-Israeli look of some of the scenes that took place in Israel made it difficult for me to be swept away by the story itself. Would a historical movie about any other people or location go forward with so little attention to the details that make it seem like it really was?

I’m left with a feeling of uncertainty and concern. Perhaps Operation Finale was too subtle for the average viewer. Will anyone who doesn’t feel directly connected, make the effort to understand? Can a viewer who is unfamiliar with this story comprehend its enormity?

Will Ben Kingsley’s portrayal of this average man with a demonic hate inside him be enough to explain the horror that was Eichmann? , a survivor of Auschwitz told me of Eichmann’s visits to the camp and how he would come in a big shiny car and if there was a column of Jews walking in front of his path (for example doing forced labor outside the camp), he’d just drive through them, as if they didn’t exist.

Will the viewer understand what this meant to Israel? Will they understand the bravery of those whose families were stolen from them, who went on to build a nation? Will they understand the significance of a State brining to her people a man whose talents were utilized to run the machine designed to exterminate us? Or the supreme effort it took not to execute Eichmann at first site? Or the horror of a Jew who believed the Holocaust over, seeing the same Jew hate rising up in new ways and places?

My lack of certainty drove me to look for historical documentation to reinforce the fictional depiction. Amazingly I found an old video, in poor quality, of Peter Malkin, who was depicted as the main character in Operation Finale, explaining what it was actually like to capture Eichmann. Watching this reinforced Operation Finale, many of the details in the movie (including ones that seem unrealistic) come from this testimony.

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Palestine Times (Hamas-leaning) has a report about Dr. Imad Mohamed El Masry, a Gazan who has lived in Ramallah for ten years.

El Masry, who works for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, has recently become an outspoken critic of Mahmoud Abbas' policies to punish all of Gaza over the past 18 months.

After he held a protest in Ramallah, he received threats to his job and his life last Thursday from the Ministry, according to the report.

And then he was kidnapped on Sunday.

His family found him yesterday, in a semi-conscious state, and his wife posted about it on Facebook.

The story is plausible, although the source is problematic. There have been plenty of reports of Palestinians arrested for political reasons over the years, and there are still Fatah military groups active in the West Bank.

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In the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel, two areas were decided to be leased to Israel for 25 years while officially considered Jordanian territory: Naharayim (Baqoura) near the Kinneret, and part of Tzofar (Al Ghamr.)

The peace treaty refers to Naharayim as an "area which is under Jordan's sovereignty with Israeli private land ownership rights and property interests." Jews had bought that land in the 1920s to build an electricity plant, and the "Island of Peace" is there.

The treaty refers to the lands of Tzofar across the 1949 armistice line as an "area which is under Jordan's sovereignty with Israeli private land use rights." The IDF seized some of the land after Fatah terrorists used it as a base of attacks after 1967, and subsequently the people of Tzofar started to cultivate it.

The agreement says "this Annex will remain in force for 25 years, and shall be renewed automatically for the same periods, unless one year prior notice of termination is given by either Party, in which case, at the request of either Party, consultations shall be entered into."

The one year deadline is coming up on October 25.

There has been mounting pressure in Jordan to not renew this lease, and multiple parties have banded together to pressure the government to end the agreement.

An article written last year in a Jordanian website claims that Pinchas Rutenberg, who purchased the land for Naharayim, was only allowed to use what he needed for the electric plant and was obligated to return the unused lands to Transjordan. Instead, he sold the land to the Jewish Agency.

This article upset the Jordanians who now claim that Jewish private land ownership there is illegal.

It seems unlikely that the king will change the current agreement but the pressure is increasing on him.

This is going to become a major story in the upcoming days.

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10/15 Links Pt2: ‘Our Struggle Is My Struggle’: The Dangers of Grievance Studies; The Guardian acknowledges there’s no ‘settler-only’ roads in the West Bank; Russian Jewish leader injured by mail bomb

From Ian:

‘Our Struggle Is My Struggle’: The Dangers of Grievance Studies

The world of academia has been riveted by the full account of an elaborate hoax that resulted in several high-profile academic journals publishing articles based on ludicrous notions and fake field research, but couched in the language of social justice and identity politics.

The hoax was the brainchild of three academics — editor and writer Helen Pluckrose, mathematician James Lindsay, and philosopher Peter Boghossian — none of whom are likely to receive “A” list university posts now that they have performed this valuable service. Over a period of about a year, the three of them concocted 20 hoax papers relating to themes like identity, sexuality, body shape, and the significance of “intersectional” struggles. By the time they called a halt to the project, seven of these hoaxes had been published in various academic journals, essentially confirming their initial suspicion that, as long as it is in the proper political packaging, there are plenty of journal editors out there receptive to any old garbage.

One paper about “rape culture” in dog parks in Portland, Oregon received a special citation from the journal that published it. Another paper, on how “masculinist and Western bias” in the science of astronomy “can best be corrected by including feminist, queer, and indigenous astrology,” was enthusiastically received by academic reviewers with a request for only minor revisions. Most spectacularly, the feminist social-work journal Affilia published a hoax paper titled “Our Struggle Is My Struggle: Solidarity Feminism as an Intersectional Reply to Neoliberal and Choice Feminism” that was composed of passages lifted from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf with, in the words of the three hoaxers, “fashionable buzzwords switched in.”

Many academics have protested that the hoax project was unethical because its methodology hinged upon dishonest dealings with the editors and peer reviewers of the journals where these papers were published. There is some merit to that argument, but more importantly, we can learn a great deal about human behavior from these types of underhand experiments. When the controversial American social psychologists Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo carried out their respective studies of obedience more than 50 years ago — in Milgram’s case by setting up unknowing subjects to believe that they were inflicting electric shocks on others at the behest of an “authority figure,” in Zimbardo’s by placing student volunteers in “guard” and “inmate” roles in a laboratory “prison” — these were similarly denounced as unethical. But they also demonstrated that willfully engaging in state-sanctioned brutality is something that all human beings are vulnerable to, even when doing so violates the values and standards taught to them all their lives.

Revealed: Group whose leaders have been disciplined for racism and don't agree with the international definition of anti-Semitism gives anti-Semitism training to the Labour party

A group whose leaders have been disciplined for anti-Semitism is providing 'anti-Semitism training' to the Labour party, MailOnline can reveal.

Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), which doesn't sign up to the internationally-recognised definition of anti-Semitism, has trained up to three constituencies so far, with plans for 70 more.

JVL is promoting its own definition that says it is not anti-Semitic to compare Israel to Nazi Germany.

At a meeting with 50 Labour officials and trade union leaders last month, JVL co-chairwoman Jenny Manson said that her group is running workshops for 'political gain'.

Ms Manson, who has received a warning from Labour for anti-Semitic comments, added: 'We were asked by Corbyn's office whether we have any ideas for a training course ourselves.'

'I don't think there is a real problem with anti-Semitism in the Labour Party… but [Mr Corbyn's office] asked us if we could provide training.

'This is quite a political point. We don't want to say, 'no, we don't think any training is needed'… It is a political gain for us.'

UKMW prompts Guardian to acknowledge there’s no ‘settler-only’ roads in the West Bank

The myth that there are ‘Jews-only’ or ‘settler-only’ roads in the West Bank has been debunked numerous times over the years by CAMERA and its affiliates – prompting corrections at media outlets such as CNN, Associated Press, Washington Post, The Economist, Financial Times and The Telegraph.

As we’ve explained on numerous occasions, the overwhelming majority or West Bank roads are open to all traffic, Israeli and Palestinian. However, there are, for security reasons, a very small percentage of roads in the West Bank restricted to Palestinians. But, all roads are open to Israeli citizens of all religious backgrounds and foreign nationals of all religious backgrounds.

There is not, nor have there ever been, religiously based restrictions on roads in Israel or the West Bank – nor roads only for settlers.

The latest publication to publish a version of this lie is the Guardian, in an Oct. 11th op-ed by Nkosi Zwelivelile (the grandson of Nelson Mandela) attempting to use this ‘fact’ to support the larger lie that Israel is an apartheid state.

Here’s our tweet pointing out the erroneous claim – one of several in the paragraph, but, we concluded, the one most egregiously inconsistent with the accuracy clause of the Editors’ Code.

Hey @guardian, there's so much that's untrue or misleading in this op-ed accusing #Israel of practicing apartheid, but, under the terms of the editors' code, we're asking you to correct the categorically false claim that there are "settler-only roads" in the West Bank. pic.twitter.com/qPfAz2gDWA
— UK Media Watch (@UKMediaWatch) October 11, 2018

We followed up our tweet with an email editors, who upheld our complaint and amended the text in the sentence to the still misleading but improved “roads built for settlers which are not accessible to Palestinians”, and, more importantly, included the following addendum at the bottom of the op-ed:

Not By Might

Each year, I am reminded about what an unfair fight we face when battling against BDS and the other manifestations of the propaganda attack on Israel when my temple holds an annual service in celebration of Scouting (Boy and Girl) and alumni of Jewish summer camps.

At a mock campfire after services (complete with s’mores), a folk singer leads the kids in the room through the canon of Jewish camp tunes, including one I remember when one of my boys was involved with the temple singing group: “Not by Might and Not by Power” based on a passage in the Book of Zechariah. (The song was written by Debbie Friedman, a pioneer who helped transform the music of the Reform and Progressive Jewish movements.)

Now I have some friends and allies who dismiss the sentiments in songs such as “Not by Might,” with its chorus of: “Not by might and not by power, But by spirit alone shall we all live in peace” as one more example of “kumbaya thinking,” the tendency of many Jews to try to find common ground and avoid conflict at all costs, even when faced with situations when conflict is unavoidable or a foe who is teaching their children to fight until victory over those hoping to prevail by spirit, rather than might.

Like so many situations in the real world, the duality of compromisers vs. militants misses some critical points, starting with the experience of Jewish history. Once again, I am in the debt of Professor Ruth Wisse who summarizes and reflects on the challenging relationship Jews and Power in her masterful short book of the same name.

Jews, after all, were once citizens and rulers of a political entity, the original Jewish state, and (like all small powers in antiquity) had to contend with the continual encroachment of numerous imperial neighbors such as the Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans. The lessons of most of these conflicts were mixed, with the fall of the first Hebrew kingdoms to Babylon by a failure of Jewish arms, followed by a restoration of that nation due to the act of generosity by a Persian king (which many thought acted as an agent of God).

The Greek conquerors both captured the land and tried to force Hellenized culture onto the monotheistic Jews, only to repelled (again, by arms) by the Brothers Maccabee. But it was the experience with Rome which provided a unique historical lesson to the Jews, setting up a struggle between compromise and force that informs us millennia later.

For in various revolts against Rome in the First and Second centuries AD, the Jews faced off against the superpower of the day, a foe whose legions had made Rome the undisputed ruler of the world. And despite the hopelessness of their cause, the Jews fought on and rekindled their revolt again and again, each time deciding that the imbalance of power would be rectified by having their own one true God on their side.

The failure of this quasi-religious, but ultimately political conflict was total, with the Jews first defeated, then defeated again and disbursed throughout the empire, their political homeland erased from the map (until the last century). Now some Jews still take heart in the courage and steadfastness of their ancestors in the face of odds that probably ensured defeat before the first battle began. But many more internalized another more significant lesson that might (in the form of armed Jewish revolt) led to near destruction, while spirit (in the form of Judaism recast in the new Diaspora in religious rather than political terms) kept the Jewish nation alive for centuries after Rome was just a memory.

Given this background, who can blame Jews for their peculiar relationship with any sort of power, political, military or especially state? If recent history demonstrates that spirit alone will not save Jews from the ovens or give birth to a state, older history shows that might and power do not provide all the answers either and, indeed, might create the very problems (such as lack of Jewish independence) it tried to solve.

This debate between might and spirit has been going on so long with sides so hardened that little light is shed when proponents of each side argue their positions, which today use the terms (or, more often, accusatory labels) of “Left” and “Right” as the foundation for sterile debate.

Lost in all of this history, however, is an example worth thinking about: that of Rome. While it might seem odd to look at our historic enemy and destroyer for lessons, keep in mind that Rome was not an empire that simply pillaged and enslaved, enjoying war for its own sake and caring little for anything but spoils. Rather, Rome’s success (especially its military successes during the Republican era) came from the careful deliberation it took before entering a conflict (bordering on hesitancy) coupled with a resolution to never back down once conflict began.

Today, Jewish might (while nowhere near as huge as in our enemy’s imaginations) is not inconsiderable. Yet part of that might derives from the hesitancy with which it is applied. As needs to be pointed out again and again, the people who sing “Not by Might and Not by Power” have created for themselves a pretty decent homeland. Precarious certainly, but a state with which those who built it (and those of us who support it from the sidelines) can be justly proud.

At the same time, the people who have been teaching their children for decades to fight on until their enemy is vanquished either live in squalid holes, or in states on the verge of civil war between totalitarians and fanatics, each claiming to be able deliver victory by the sword more quickly and thoroughly.

Food for thought as we all make our own decisions of how to interpret and act on the words of Zechariah.

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Electronic Intifada proves that BDS founder violates BDS guidelines

From Electronic Intifada:

PACBI – the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel – takes a different and clear stance. The campaign group wrote to The Electronic Intifada:

“Any international student, regardless of her/his identity, enrolling in a complicit Israeli university, like the Hebrew University, is violating the relevant BDS guidelines. We strongly advise against such enrollment and against any other connection to these complicit institutions.”

“The Hebrew University, like all Israeli universities, contributes to Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid. These institutions play a persistent role in planning, implementing, justifying or whitewashing Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights,” PACBI added.

There’s a couple of important things to note about this statement – its reference to international students as well as identity.

Some might argue that Alqasem’s Palestinian ancestry justifies her attending Hebrew University. But this is not the case.

PACBI’s academic boycott guidelines do permit some Palestinians – those with Israeli citizenship – to attend Israeli universities, but this is not merely because of their ethnic identity as Palestinians.

Rather, it is because they are in a “coercive relationship” with the Israeli state. As taxpayers and citizens – albeit second class because they are not Jewish – Palestinians in Israel have no choice but to attend Israeli schools and universities to fulfill their right to an education while remaining steadfast in their homeland.

This “coercive relationship” analysis can arguably be extended to Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank, especially East Jerusalem, where Palestinian educational choices are severely restricted by Israel.

Do these exceptions apply to Omar Barghouti, the founder of BDS?

Barghouti is not an Israeli citizen although he holds Israeli residency status and lives in Acre. He has a master's degree from Columbia University and appears to have been studying for his PhD in philosophy at Tel Aviv University since 2009. His Palestinian identity is no more relevant than that of Lara Alqasem.

Barghouti routinely travels around the world and gives lectures at universities worldwide. The idea that he is coerced into attending an Israeli university is simply not true - he has the ability and means to attend any university he wants, including in the West Bank but also in the US and Europe where he lectures on supposed Israeli crimes. Nowadays, he can almost certainly tailor a program where he can attend and check in with his thesis advisor online to any major university worldwide he desires. The fact that he has not yet apparently received his PhD after 9 years of study shows that he is not forced to attend classes in person; he could pursue a similar PhD program literally anywhere worldwide and visit his university when he goes on his regular speaking tours.

So if, according to PACBI and Electronic Intifada, there is no "coercive" relationship loophole for BDS' founder, he has violated and may still be violating his own standards on academic boycott of Israel.

This is what a hypocrite looks like.

All "international" students without my special "loophole"
must "boycott" Israeli universities

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10/15 Links Pt1: Australian PM to announce he is 'open' to moving embassy to Jerusalem; Bibi: Israel Is the Only Country in the Middle East Where the Christian Community Thrives

From Ian:

Australia PM to announce he is 'open' to moving embassy to Jerusalem

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison is open to Australia’s recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moving its embassy to the capital, the Australian media reported on Monday.

The Australian said Morrison will announce this on Tuesday when he makes a foreign policy statement explaining why Australia will vote “no” in the UN on Tuesday to a vote to recognize the Palestinian Authority as the chair of a important block of nations there called the G77.

Morrison is also expected to move to a much tougher position against Iran, and announce a review whether Australia should follow the US and abandon the Iranian nuclear deal.

Morrison credited former Australian ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma for influencing his thinking on the embassy move.

"The previous discussion was premised on the point that you couldn’t pursue this issue without risking or without prejudicing the final status. Now Dave is arguing the opposite to that and he’s saying that is possible,” The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Morrison as saying.

Morrison said that Sharma was arguing that the move can be done consistent with Australia’s long-running position of support for a two-state solution, and is “actually changing the way in which the issue is conceived."

Sharma, a Liberal Party candidate in a crucial Australian by-election next week, said Monday that Australia should be open to considering moving its embassy.

Romanian PM to consider moving embassy to Jerusalem

Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Teodor Melescanu said on Friday that the Ministry has completed the analytical report on the potential relocation of Romania's Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and referred the document the Premier.

The Romanian Government will next send it to the Presidency and the Speakers of the two Chambers of Parliament, Melescanu said.

"The assessment of the Embassy's move to Jerusalem was sent to the Prime Minister and after the relevant observations are made - we'll see if there are any - the Government will send it to the Presidency and to the heads of the two Chambers. How long it will take to make the decision does not depend on me, as far as we are concerned, we have finished our job, the Ministry has practically completed the analysis," Melescanu said.

He said there are no bottlenecks, that "this is a process in which everyone is involved," but the issue is indeed very complicated. "As far as we are concerned, we have listed in our report both the elements of interest and the things that can have a negative effect, but the decision does not lie with us. The purpose of this analysis was to present to the political decision makers all the pros and cons for everybody to know and for Romania to have a current, coordinated position," the Foreign Minister said.

Deepening Diplomatic Partnership With Africa, Israel to Open Rwanda Embassy

Israel will open an embassy in the central African state of Rwanda in 2019, Israel Hayom learned on Sunday. The new embassy will be located in the capital, Kigali.

Although the two countries have maintained diplomatic relations for years, contacts have been held via the Israeli Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Foreign Ministry officials support the move, which is now pending final approval from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also the acting foreign minister.

Rwanda maintains an embassy in Israel, located in Tel Aviv.

Diplomatic relations between the countries are close and include, among other exchanges, security cooperation and Israeli weapons exports to Rwanda. Additionally, Israel has sought to send a portion of the illegal African migrants in the country to Rwanda, although efforts have thus far failed due to internal pressure on the Rwandan government to oppose the measure.

The issue of opening an embassy in Rwanda was first raised in 2016, when Netanyahu visited the country and promised that Israel would open a mission there. The prime minister has repeated that promise several times, but now, with the closing of the Israeli Embassy in Paraguay, a quota for a new embassy was made available.

Israel ties warming with Central Asian countries

Much has been written about the growing ties between Israel and Arab states, such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but there is also great potential for stronger relations between Israel and Central Asian countries.

The friendly relations between Israel and Central Asian countries go back to their foundation during WWII when the then-Soviet republics hosted an estimated two million refugees from the Nazi German invasion of the USSR – most of them Soviet Jewish refugees during WWII (it is estimated that there were some five million Jews in the Soviet Union in 1941).

The quietly improving cooperation between Israel and some Arab Sunni states is due to realpolitik – or national interest – with the Sunnis afraid of the interference of revolutionary Shia Islamic Iran in their affairs. Relations between Israel and Turkey have become increasingly strained due to the Islamist policies of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.

Relations with Central Asian countries also involve mutual interests; however, they are not beholden to radical religious and cultural factors, as in the Arab world.

Israel’s 1950s strategy, known as the “periphery doctrine,” was meant to seek allies beyond the hostile Arab world, such as with Iran and Turkey, but now the situation has reversed itself.