Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 04, 2018

Disgusting Swedish priest lists dead Hamas terrorists along with Pittsburgh martyrs: "Pittsburgh and Gaza in our hearts"

Here's a photo of one of the most immoral members of clergy you are likely to ever seen

Anna Karin Hammar is a Swedish member of clergy and theologian. Her blog has a memorial to the victims of Pittsburgh - and she then adds the people killed in Gaza riots since March, including many known Hamas terrorists and leaders.

Because, hey, their deaths are just as tragic, right? And it would be immoral to mention the names of 11 dead Jewish worshipers without also listing the names of dozens of terrorists who share the philosophy of their killers.

Here is an English autotranslation of the beginning of her post, where I show pictures of some of the dead Gaza terrorists that this perverted, disgusting example of a religious Christian equates with the martyrs of Pittsburgh.

(h/t Tomer Ilan)

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11/04 Links: A rude awakening for the Palestinian dream; Anti-Semitism and the fragmentation of society; Jewish nurse who treated synagogue shooter: I chose to show him empathy

From Ian:

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: A rude awakening for the Palestinian dream

When something is built on an unstable foundation, it is only natural for its long term survival to be at risk. It is also natural for it to be in need of constant support just to keep from falling. The belief that it will eventually be able to stand on its own two feet causes people to lend their support, but only egregious fools continue to do so if there is no hope of its ever being independent, because in that case, everythiing those supporters have invested is doomed to be irretrievably lost.

The Palestinian Authority is in exactly that position today and this article will expound on the reasons it has no hope of every being able to become a viable and independent entity.

The prime reason for this situation is the very reason the PA was founded. In 1993, the Israeli government tried to find someone who would accept responsibility for eliminating the terror network created by the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, someone willing to be rewarded for anti-terrorist activity by being granted the authority to rule the area and administer the lives of the Arabs living there. This was the "deal" concocted by the Israelis, and the "contractor" who accepted the challenge was the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) headed by arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat. The Israeli government actually believed that Arafat was serious about eliminating terror and establishing an autonomous administrative system for running those territories.

Of course, this deal was doomed to failure from the start due to the residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza and also the government of Israel. The Arab residents considered the Palestinian Authority (PA), the governing arm of the PLO, to be the operative arm of Israeli policy, an organization collaorating with Israel by means of the coordinated security system that exists up until this very day.

"Security coordination" to the Palestinian Arab mind is a laundered word for cooperation, meaning PA security forces attempt to apprehend the terrorists that belong to organizations other than their own and hand them over to Israel. Many of the Arab residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza see this as no less than treason.

In order to cover up that perceived betrayal and silence its critics, the PA employs thousands in both real and artificial jobs (the kind where the worker does not have to do anything in order to be paid) . For the sake of earning a livng, people are willing to shut their mouths and utter not a word about what they really think of the PA and the reasons for its existence. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Tablet Editorial Voter Education

Eight candidates who have expressed blatantly anti-Semitic views, or who openly associate with anti-Semites

If nothing else, the Pittsburgh massacre should underline for all American Jews that our ongoing struggle against hate is not a narrow sectarian interest or a partisan political tool. It is a matter of life or death—for your neighbors, your synagogue, your family, your children, your parents and grandparents, for our community.

In that spirit, we want to emphasize, as Nathan Rubin does today in our pages, just how important it is to have friends and allies in the ongoing struggle against hate.

We also want to make clear that open and blatant anti-Semitism—as well as validating and associating with open and blatant anti-Semites who spread their poison in our country or call for the elimination or destruction of Jewish communities anywhere else in the world—is not acceptable, ever. Licensing hate means death for Jews.

Anti-Semitism is a bright red line in our politics that no one in our public life can be permitted to cross and expect to receive the support of our community, whether we are proud Democrats or proud Republicans.

Support for Israel is not an excuse for calling for the elimination of Jews or the Jewish religion. Support for immigrants or other marginalized groups is also not an excuse. Past histories of individual or group oppression at the hands of anyone, anywhere is not an excuse. Being Jewish, or having a Jewish parent or grandparent, is not an excuse. There are no more excuses.

In that spirit, here is a list of candidates in Tuesday’s hotly contested congressional elections who have expressed blatantly anti-Semitic views or endorsed or refused to condemn individuals or ideas that are blatantly anti-Semitic.

I just want to take a moment to note how deeply stupid and toxic is this line of thinking--which we see every time Farrakhan says something anti-Semitic. pic.twitter.com/gLWh8e9caF
— John-Paul Pagano (@johnpaulpagano) November 3, 2018

BBC report on Jerusalem-Tel Aviv train parrots absurd Palestinian claims

The BBC produced a slick piece about the newly opened high speed train between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv:

Of course, it has to say things that are anti-Israel, so it interviews Palestinians in Beit Surik, who live as much as 80 meters above the train tracks.

They don't know much about the train, but they are sure of one thing: their human rights are being violated, somehow.

"Villagers fear they may lose access to some of their land," the BBC caption tells us, backed up by a resident of the village who says "We do not have enough information about the route of the train. But whether it is above land or under the land, it is the same problem. I am sure we will not have the freedom to work our lands."

But that part of the route is completed. The farmers of Beit Surik aren't impacted - they have not been restricted from farming, even while the tunnel was being excavated. They don't even know exactly where the tunnel is! Certainly they are not affected by this train line in the least.

The claim that the train will force the villagers to lose access to their farms is provably, obviously false. Yet the BBC parrots it as if there is any credence to it.

Beyond that, the BBC article implies that the train might be extended to the Western Wall, which is absurd. The controversial talk about a light rail to the Western Wall would be a different line, which has nothing to do with this train.

(h/t Yoel)

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A couple of weeks ago, I reported that J-Street's leaders, including Jeremy Ben Ami, had met with Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders, including one whose statements showed that he supported terrorism.

It turns out that that member of the Fatah central committee, Hussein al-Sheikh, is a terrorist himself.

Stephen Flatow, father of a terrorist victim, writes:

Thursday, March 21, 2002, was a pleasant early spring morning in Jerusalem. King George Street, in the heart of the city, was packed with shoppers. Suddenly, a Palestinian suicide bomber struck. The explosion left three people dead, and more than 100 wounded. One of the fatalities was Tzippi Shemesh, who was five months pregnant with twins.

Among the wounded were a number of Americans. The force of the explosion hurled U.S. citizen Alan Bauer 20 feet. Two screws that were packed into the bomb ripped clear through his left arm. His 7-year-old son, Jonathan, suffered severe shrapnel wounds and fell into a coma. Jonathan subsequently underwent numerous operations to remove nails and screws from his head, including one that was lodged in his brain. Needless to say, he was left with permanent injuries.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is the military arm of Abbas’s Fatah movement, openly claimed responsibility for the bombing. In fact, it was that bombing that moved the U.S. State Department to finally put the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade on its official list of terrorist groups.

Members of the Shemesh family filed suit against the PA and, as a result, details of those who were involved in the attack became public. Earlier this year, the Jerusalem District Court ruled that the PA was responsible for the bombing. In its ruling, the court cited closed-door testimony provided by Israeli intelligence officials who named names—including “senior Fatah official Hussein al-Sheikh, who met the suicide bomber and two other operatives and gave them money and two hand grenades to carry out the bombing.”

So Al-Sheikh literally put hand grenades into the hands of the bomber and his assistants, in order to murder innocent people, and financed their attack. Which, according to American and Israeli law, makes Al-Sheikh equally guilty of the murders and maiming of their victims.

Al-Sheikh's involvement in terror has been known for years:

Even before the Jerusalem court ruling, the American government was aware of Al-Sheikh’s terrorist background. Several years ago, a scheduled meeting between Al-Sheikh and U.S. diplomats at the American Consulate in Jerusalem was canceled when U.S. officials realized Al-Sheikh’s connection to the bombing.

Hussein al-Sheikh should be extradited and tried in the US for his role in shedding the blood of Americans. But to J-Street, he is someone to be embraced as someone who supports peace.

Jeremy Ben Ami must be forced to answer why he chose to embrace a terrorist with Jewish and American blood on his hands.

(Al-Sheikh is also a known sexual harasser. Since J-Street doesn't give a damn about Israeli and American lives, perhaps Jeremy Ben Ami will apologize for that.)

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The World Forum of Interfaith Dialogue Ambassadors, sponsored by the Organization of Muslim Scouts and taking place starting today in Tunisia, will not allow any Israelis to attend.

The Republican Party of Tunisia appealed to the Tunisian High Court to ensure that no Israelis could step foot in Tunisia, and the Court agreed. There were rumors that a single Israeli delegate would arrive via Paris.

The Scouts didn't deny that they invited the Israeli but commended the Court decision and emphasized their full support for Palestinians.

The conference's materials claim that the conference is open to any members of the World Religions Forum, World Scouts Organizations and national representatives of scouting organizations.

The topics of the sessions, ironically, include "dialogue between civilizations" and "promotion of the culture of tolerance."

The international scouting movement claims that "Scouting should reflect the societies in which it exists and actively work to welcome all individuals without distinction. This diversity should not only be reflected in the membership, but also the methods and programmes used within the Movement."

Israel is a member of the world scout organization.

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11/03 Links: Bari Weiss: When a Terrorist Comes to Your Hometown; Ben Shapiro: Israel is protecting Western civilization; The not-so-sweet taste of hypocrisy about anti-Semitism

From Ian:

Bari Weiss: When a Terrorist Comes to Your Hometown

I want to tell you what it is like when your neighborhood becomes the scene of a mass murder.

The first thing you should know is that when your phone pings with a text from your youngest sister saying, “There is a shooter at tree of life,” your brain will insist that it is not true, that it is a hoax.

But your fingers will write back immediately, unthinking: “is dad there.”

Your mouth will turn to cotton while you wait for your mom to confirm that your father, who goes to one of Squirrel Hill’s synagogues every Shabbat morning, was not in the building.

Then another of your sisters will send a link to the police scanner and you will listen as the calls come in from the scene. You hear an officer report that the shooter declared he wants to “kill all the Jews.” He has hit officers. “Shots fired. Shots fired. Shots fired.”

You will cancel all your plans and book a flight home. Before you are even on the plane you will start to hear rumors — a couple has been killed, a doctor. You will wonder which families in your neighborhood will be shattered.

The numbness will break only when you find out that Cecil Rosenthal — the intellectually disabled, gentle giant of a man your mother has known since grade school — was murdered along with his brother, David. You will picture him as a proud usher standing in the entrance to services, and you will wonder if he greeted the killer, too. And you will weep.

When an anti-Semitic murderer mows down Jews in the synagogue where you became a bat mitzvah, you might find yourself in the sanctuary again. But instead of family and friends, the sanctuary is host to a crew of volunteers — the chevra kadisha — who will spend the week cleaning up every drop of blood because, according to Jewish tradition, each part of the body must be sanctified in death and so buried.

Ben Shapiro Interview: Israel is protecting Western civilization

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro‘s star has been rising in the US in recent years. He’s only 34 years old, but he began his career 17 years ago, writing a syndicated column, and now he has his own news site, The Daily Wire, “The Ben Shapiro Show,” a podcast with millions of listeners.

In between, he managed to become editor-at-large of the far-right – these days, some would say alt-right – website Breitbart, and resigned in 2016. Shapiro accused Breitbart chairman Steve Bannon, an eventual adviser to US President Donald Trump, of turning the site into “Trump’s personal Pravda.”

Later that year, the Anti-Defamation League identified Shapiro as the No. 1 target of online antisemitism among Jewish journalists in the US, and he received the most hate by far.

Shapiro continues to be targeted from all ends: from the Left, because he’s staunchly conservative, and from the Right, because he is not a Trump cheerleader, and doesn’t hesitate to criticize the president.

His no-nonsense attitude and caustic humor have attracted admirers and detractors; “facts don’t care about your feelings” is his most famous slogan, and he sells coffee mugs that are labeled “leftist tears.” He’s found allies in the self-described Intellectual Dark Web, a group of thinkers – their day jobs include academia, journalism and comedy – who don’t fit perfectly into mainstream media’s liberal or conservative labels, and have found wild success producing their own content online.

Although Shapiro is an Orthodox Jew and a vocal supporter of Israel, his content is aimed at a broader American audience, and therefore he doesn’t often focus on those areas.

In a conversation with The Jerusalem Post last month from his LA podcast studio, the father of two – married to a Moroccan-Israeli doctor about whom he often sweetly scheps naches (expresses great pride) – discussed American Jewish identity, support for Israel and more, in his typically no-holds-barred manner. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Caroline Glick: Israeli Cabinet Minister Challenges Propaganda on Trump and Antisemitism

Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett kicked in the foundations of the left’s case against President Donald Trump on Tuesday. And they didn’t like it.

Since Saturday’s massacre of 11 mostly elderly Jews at prayer at the Tree of Life Synagogue, prominent left-wing American Jewish activists and Never Trump pundits have blamed Trump for the massacre by insisting that he has empowered antisemitic forces in the U.S.

The “proof” these commentators provide for their incendiary allegation is the Anti-Defamation League’s 2017 report on antisemitic incidents in the U.S. The ADL alleged that during Trump’s first year in office, there was a 57 percent rise in antisemitic incidents.

Bennett flew to Pittsburgh Sunday as the representative of the Israeli government to show solidarity with the Jewish community in the aftermath of the massacre. Before travelling back to Israel, he participated in a roundtable discussion of antisemitism in New York at the Council on Foreign Relations.

When asked about the ADL data, Bennett said that he wasn’t certain that the report was accurate. “I’m not convinced those are the facts,” Bennett said adding, “I’m not sure there’s a surge in antisemitism in the United States.”

“We need to look at the facts. I understand that the ADL themselves have stated there is a drastic reduction in violent anti-Semitic events, but that has for some reason been hidden from the public discourse,” he maintained.

📆101 years ago today, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, endorsing the Jewish people’s right to a national home.

“The Balfour Declaration puts Britain on the right side of history.”
—@IsraeliPM

📷Inspecting the original Declaration with Mrs Netanyahu at @BritishLibrary pic.twitter.com/JwXN5xwu7e
— Mark Regev (@MarkRegev) November 2, 2018

Iran threatens Gulf states, Israel, with missiles

From Ma'an:

Member of the Iranian Fatwa Council Ahmad Al-Huda warned of dire consequences for the countries of the region in the event of damage to his country's economy.

"The Iranian navy will control the Straits of Hormuz and three Saudi tankers will cross this strait every day, so if necessary we will stop the three vessels, confiscate the oil and take the workers to the families," he said in a Friday sermon.

"If they try to attack Iran, six international airports will be destroyed in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Riyadh, Bahrain and Qatar within 30 minutes using our missiles. The global economy and stock markets, especially those owned by Arab countries, will plummet and oil will reach $ 400 a barrel. "

"If Iran decides, within 90 minutes, all the Persian Gulf states will be eliminated, and the UAE and Saudi Arabia will be destroyed within 60 minutes, and above all Israel."

What's Israel have to do with it?

Obviously, everything! As always.

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11/02 Links Pt2: Caroline Glick: American Jewry’s false prophets; Most Progressive Israelis Are Zionists; UK police launch criminal probe of anti-Semitism in Labour

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: American Jewry’s false prophets

Contrast Trump’s actions with Obama’s actions. Not only did Obama refuse to transfer the US Embassy to Jerusalem, he rejected even symbolic acceptance of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem. The Obama State Department erased all the captions on archival photos of American dignitaries in Jerusalem that referred to the location as Jerusalem, Israel. This petty act demonstrated a deep-seated hostility to the history of the Jewish people and was nothing if not bigoted.

Yet, by the lights of Foer, Ioffe, Milbank and their fellow American Jewish Trump-haters, Obama was a friend of American Jews, and Trump and his Jewish supporters are their enemies.

Likewise, Trump’s decision to remove the US from the congenitally antisemitic UN Human Rights Council which Obama joined despite its open bigotry against Jews; his ending of funding to the genocidal, antisemitic UN Refugee Works Agency for the Palestinians (UNRWA), which Obama expanded; and his decision to cut funding to the terrorist-financing Palestinian Authority – which Obama increased – and close the PLO diplomatic mission in Washington – which Obama upgraded, were moves of historic significance in the fight against antisemitism and for Jewish rights. Trump is the first president in a quarter century to make the Palestinians and their international enablers pay a price for their rejection of peace and facilitation of terrorism and armed aggression against Israel and Israeli Jews.

Are these actions bad for American Jewry? When Trump says that Israel has a right to defeat its enemies and respond to aggression, is he harming American Jewry?

Of course not.

TRUMP’S JEWISH antagonists in the US media and their partner, ADL executive director and former Obama White House official Jonathan Greenblatt, insist that under Trump, antisemitic incidents in the US have risen 57%. But as David Bernstein demonstrated this week at Tablet magazine, the ADL data everyone is citing tells the exact opposite story. The claim that antisemitic incidents have risen under Trump is not supported by the ADL data.

What the data do show is that violent antisemitic attacks in the US have decreased significantly since Trump took office, while they increased significantly during Obama’s presidency. And as the blogger Elder of Ziyon noted this week, the data show no causative relationship between either administration and the level of antisemitism.

What is clear is that Trump has spoken far more seriously about antisemitism and the need to combat it than Obama ever has.
In January 2015, an Islamic terrorist massacred and held Jews hostage at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris. Obama refused to acknowledge that it was an antisemitic attack and that the victims were killed because they were Jews. Instead he referred to them as “a bunch of folks in a deli.” (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Melanie Phillips: Grappling with the roots of anti-Semitism after Pittsburgh

For to acknowledge that fact would be to admit things that would shatter their view of themselves as wholly virtuous, and that the Muslims or Palestinians they support are always virtuous victims.

Those in the West who deny the true, metaphysical nature of anti-Semitism also fail to realize that it fuels the threat they themselves face from Islamist aggression. They think the Muslim world in general hates the Jews because it hates Israel, but they have this precisely the wrong way round. The Muslim world in general hates Israel because it hates the Jews—and much of the hatred of the West by radical Islamists arises from their conviction that the West is run by the Jews.

Blaming Israel is a way of blaming the Jews for anti-Semitism. People do this not just out of their own bigotry, but because they cannot acknowledge the unique and uniquely evil nature of the phenomenon.

They ask the question: Why are the Jews hated so much? And they conclude that the only possible explanation is that it must be the Jews’ own fault.

It is a tremendous mistake to assume that anti-Semitism arises from any political activity or ideology. It is a pathology based on the wish to exterminate the Jewish people—a moral and spiritual sickness unique in human history, and which morphs and mutates across religious, secular and political systems.

The continued existence of the Jewish people in the face of expulsion, exile and persecution defies rational explanation. Anti-Semitism is a never-ending evil that also defies reason.

But while the murdered Jews of Pittsburgh are mourned, the Jews remain the eternal people; and whether anti-Semitism comes from left, right or anywhere else, its diabolical goal will never be achieved.

Melanie Phillips: Jews and conservatism an idea whose time has come

This has all left American Jews in particular difficulties. Unlike British Jews, most of whom vote for the political party that at least calls itself Conservative, some three quarters of American Jews vote for a Democratic party that has embraced the identity politics, grievance culture and enraged narcissism that threaten to destroy American society.

Worse, these liberal Jews either embrace or minimise the animus against Israel and open antisemitism displayed on campus by the left and by personalities embraced by the Democratic party. Worse still, they have told themselves that these universalist, secular “liberal” values are authentic Jewish values. They are in fact the very antithesis of Judaism.

Thus liberal Jews – the overwhelming majority in America – are on course to destroy themselves as a community while aiding the left in the undermining of America.

That’s how bad it is. But here’s the hopeful thing. Last year saw the JLC’s first conference on Jews and conservatism and some 300 people turned up. This year, 800 attended with a further 200 on the waiting list, some reportedly offering in desperation black market prices for a ticket.

Something out there is changing, and in the right direction. The people, the ordinary, decent people who understand and value the basic principles of western culture and want to defend them, the American Jews who realise the terrible danger to their own community and who feel a duty and responsibility to help save American civic society, all those disenfranchised, silent millions are now beginning to stir. Conservatism, even for American Jews, is an idea whose time has come.

11/02 Links Pt1: Imagining Israeli-Palestinian Peace; Florida Friday Sermon: Palestine Must Be Liberated 'Even If This Leads To The Martyrdom Of Tens Of Millions Of Muslims'

From Ian:

Cliford D May: Imagining Israeli-Palestinian Peace

Security Council Resolution 2334 sent Palestinians a message that the ethnic and religious "cleansing" of the Jews was not wrong, and that the Hamas narrative was right. Because if Jews don't belong even in the Jewish Quarter, they don't belong anywhere in the region, have no history or homeland here, and are not a people.

From that, the delegitimization of Israel and the dehumanization of Israelis ineluctably follow. That's not the precondition for a two-state solution. It is the precondition for a final solution.

The resolution also told Palestinians there was no need to negotiate or compromise: Appeal instead to the "international community," which will demand much of Israelis and nothing of you.

I'm willing to believe Obama intended none of that. The fact is, however, that Security Council Resolution 2334 placed an enormous obstacle in the path of any peace process undertaken thereafter.

Repealing a Security Council resolution is virtually impossible, but Trump did the next best thing: He moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, thereby reaffirming and re-emphasizing U.S. support for the legitimacy of Israel and for Jerusalem as its capital.

This does not rule out the possibility of Palestinians also having a capital in Jerusalem or adjacent to it. But such an outcome would have to be the result of negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis.

In addition, Trump last month ordered the closing of the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington, the de facto Palestinian embassy. The PLO "has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel," the U.S. State Department said, adding that Palestinian leaders also have "condemned a U.S. peace plan they have not yet seen and refused to engage with the U.S. government with respect to peace efforts and otherwise."

Also helpful: In late August, Trump slashed funds to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which provides services to Palestinian refugees – and to millions of their descendants, whom UNRWA also designates as refugees.

Soon afterward, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat announced that he was replacing UNRWA in east Jerusalem's Shuafat refugee camp. Charging that the agency had "failed utterly" to provide adequate sanitation, health care, education and welfare, and that it not only tolerated but incited terrorism, Barkat committed the municipal government to assuming responsibility for Shuafat's 30,000 residents who, he said, should be treated "like any other residents" of the capital.

If this initiative succeeds, it could constitute a kind of peace process, albeit one carried out by people in the streets rather than diplomats in drawing rooms. Over time, it could shift the views of Palestinians in the West Bank, and perhaps even those in Gaza.

Imagine what it would mean if the next generation of Palestinian leaders did not oppose "normalizing" relations with Israelis. Imagine if jihadist terrorists were no longer glorified as martyrs in Palestinian mosques and media. Imagine if Palestinians willing to work with Israelis for the benefit of both peoples were no longer condemned as apostates and traitors.

I don't expect any of that to come to pass while Trump is in the White House. But he has fixed what his predecessor had broken. And he has made it clear that the Palestinians can have a state of their own, but only if they recognize that a two-state solution implies two states for two peoples, both willing to coexist peacefully. That may not amount to the "deal of the century," but it is more than any past peace process achieved.

MEMRI: Pompano Beach, Florida Friday Sermon By Imam Hasan Sabri: Palestine Must Be Liberated 'Even If This Leads To The Martyrdom Of Tens Of Millions Of Muslims'

In an October 12, 2018 sermon, Imam Hasan Sabri, of the Islamic Center of South Florida (ICOSF) in Pompano Beach, Florida, stated that a "believing Muslim's" position is that Palestine is "Islamic waqf land that was occupied by force" – and that it should be liberated "even if this leads to the martyrdom of tens of millions of Muslims." Sabri also said "Allah wants each and every one of you to be a man with a cause... for which he lives and dies," noting that the Palestinian cause "is being plotted against" with "the Deal of the Century." The sermon was posted on the ICOSF YouTube channel.

According to Pompano Beach elected officials, Sabri has recited invocations annually at Pompano Beach city meetings since 2005, and the ICOSF has had a peaceful, 25-year presence in the city, even serving as a polling station.[1] In September 2017, Imam Sabri was a panelist at "Interfaith and Race Relations Peace and Acceptance Conference" at Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth, Florida. The invitation described the event as "promoting peace and acceptance for building a just community," adding that it would "highlight the importance of interfaith relations, education, and community involvement in combating racial discrimination" and that it was "a joint effort by the clergy and the education community to combat hate and bigotry across religious and racial lines."[2]

The ICOSF Facebook page lists the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR) as a related page. In June 2003, Bassem Alhalabim, an ICBR president,[3] was charged by the U.S. Commerce Department with illegally shipping a $13,000 military-grade thermal imaging device to Syria.[4]

A building that is listed as the address of the ICOSF, 507 NE 6th Street in Pompano,[5] is owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT).[6] In 2007, NAIT was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist financing case in America history, U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation, which resulted in convictions and imprisonment of several U.S.-based Hamas leaders. Then-NAIT chairman Gaddoor Saidi, now on the NAIT Board of Trustees,[7] also appeared on the government’s co-conspirator list.[8]

It's really a shame that the Western media ignore the insanity that Israel's supposed "peace partner" spouts.

The latest is a reaction to the news that Hamas has agreed to calm things down in Gaza.

Munir Al-Jagoub, a Fatah Information Office official, warned of the dangers of this "truce." He said that by Hamas negotiating separately, it divides Palestine and threatens the entire national project.

He also said that this "truce" shows that Hamas supports Donald Trump's "Deal of the Century."

Al-Jagoub called on Gazans to reject this move by Hamas - perhaps by making sure that they keep breaking through the fence so they can be killed.

Meanwhile, Saeb Erekat issued a statement on the occasion of the Balfour Declaration saying, "More than a hundred years ago, Britain facilitated the process of ethnically cleansing Palestine, and in flagrant violation of the values of international justice, celebrated this occasion last year, and held proud of its colonialism and its denial of the rights of our Palestinian people. Unfortunately, the Balfour Declaration continues to inspire the occupation government to continue ethnic cleansing and to end the Palestinian presence, in addition to the support of the US administration and its peace team attempting to liquidate the Palestinian cause."

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.

Antisemitism is hate first, politics are just an excuse

Yesterday, Bret Stephens - Jewish and conservative opinion writer for the New York Times - wrote about how Trump's inflammatory rhetoric is partially responsible for creating a universe where a right wing terrorist like Robert Bowers was empowered to seek out and murder Jewish worshipers.

What bothered me most about the column is that Stephens defended his thesis by saying that one must use accurate, plain language and not euphemisms:

Maybe we should refer to Saturday’s massacre of 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue, along with the campaign of mail bombs that preceded it, as “man-caused disasters.”

That was the euphemism then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano used in lieu of the word “terrorism” during congressional testimony in 2009. Conservatives like me never let her live it down. How can you address a problem if you won’t even call it by its proper name?

Conservatives objected again when President Obama went to great lengths to use the acronym ISIL or ISIS instead of Islamic State, lest there be any association between a religion and the barbaric deeds carried out in its name. And we objected a third time when liberals tried to suggest that personal derangement, not Islamist sympathies, explained acts like Omar Mateen’s 2016 rampage at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub.

So conservatives should be just as clear about what we saw last week. There is no reason to think that Pittsburgh shooter Robert Bowers and alleged Florida mail bomber Cesar Sayoc are “deranged.” There is every reason to believe their acts are politically motivated. They are not “crazies” in the category of Gabrielle Giffords shooter Jared Lee Loughner. They are terrorists in the class of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, or Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter.

To call them anything else is to engage in the same evasive wordplay for which conservatives once scolded liberals. And it’s no less evasive to avoid drawing conclusions about the political basis of these acts.

I agree with everything but I'm not so certain about the last sentence.

If Stephens wants to call things as they are, then why does he take pains not to call this attack antisemitic, and instead apply its reasons to a rightist political viewpoint?

Let's talk plainly: When one targets and kills Jews, it is because he hates Jews. It isn't because of immigration or political power or controlling the banks or because Jews are Christ-killers. Those are excuses, and it is very dangerous to give credence to the excuses as if they are valid.

The murderer hated immigration, but he didn't murder immigrants - he murdered elderly Jews at prayer.

Attacking Jews because they support immigration is like attacking Jews because they support Israel, or because they support capitalism, or because they support socialism, or because they act different, or because they try to integrate. Taking away the excuse won't stop the hate.

The Jew haters are Jew-haters first and foremost. They twist that hatred into whatever is trendy to hate in the circles they already inhabit.

In my recent research of anti-Zionism in academic papers, the trend is so clear as to almost be comical. Anything that is considered evil by the leftist writers is assigned to Israel ex post facto no matter what the facts: colonialism, racism, misogyny, terrorism. In one paper I saw the author argue that Israel's giving full citizenship to Palestinians is a way to oppress them. Others argue that the IDF not raping Arab women shows their racism. An award-winning book that argues that the IDF shooting not to kill proves how much it hates Arabs.

It isn't liberalism or even leftism that causes such unhinged thinking - it is antisemitism, garbed as anti-Zionism, that leads the thinking, and the excuses come after the fact.

There is no fact that cannot be twisted against Jews, and nothing Jews can do to stop people from hating them. Which is why looking at the political affiliation of the haters is meaningless - there is no logic to hate, and by assigning categories we implicitly say that if the circumstances were different, they wouldn't hate Jews so much.

Jew hatred precedes the reasons given, and the reasons given are mere excuses. If Jewish refugee organization HIAS didn't exist, Bowers would have killed Jews anyway. Making these links is, in a small way, making it easier to "understand" the "motivations" of the shooter. That is wrongheaded.

When someone so consumed with hatred of Jews gives a "logical" reason for it, why do we give it any credence? No one would take seriously a KKK member who gives "reasons" to hate black people, because the idea that blacks should be treated differently than anyone else based on what they supposedly do or believe is prima facie absurd. No one would believe it if a racist says that his racism comes from black people dominating sports, but when people say they hate Jews for dominating the media their argument is given enough of a measure of respect that we spend time refuting it.

The real reason for anti-black racism is that they are perceived as being different from the haters. And that is the only reason people hate Jews and Israel. Everything else is window dressing.

Yet everyone treats the reasons for Jew-hatred as if they are semi-legitimate excuses that must be argued against. Pointing out that Marx was baptized and the Jews were victims of Communism will not suddenly enlighten Jew-haters who claim that Jews were responsible for the deaths of 60 million people in the Soviet Union.

Giving credence to Bowers' claims that he hates Jews because of immigration elevates the excuse and minimizes the unhinged hate.

The whole Left/Right argument over antisemitism misses the point. Jew-hatred is completely independent of the "reasons" the haters give.

Are The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion a left-wing or a right-wing talking point? It is used by both, either in its original form or when respected academics write a book called "The Israel Lobby." It is pure antisemitism and the "arguments" of hidden Jewish/Zionist control of the nexuses of power appeal to extremists and haters of all political wings.

We can learn about today's antisemitism by looking at history.

Here is an excerpt from a popular antisemitic tract published in England in 1703 that argued that Jews should again be expelled from not only England but from all of Christiandom:

We can look at this 18th century antisemitism and recognize it now for the hate it was then. We can see the lies. It is obvious that the antisemites were making up and spreading calumnies to gain more haters to their cause.

That's what is happening today as well. From all sides.

I do want to be clear: there is a responsibility by the people who create environments where Jew-hatred is considered acceptable. That is what is happening on the Left in academia with the bizarre anti-Zionist "research" that keeps trying to find more and more reasons to hate Israel, and it happens in the cesspools of the extremist Right websites. There is such a thing as incitement to hating Jews among the Left, the Right, among Christians and Muslims and even among some Jews themselves. There is no shortage of people who are more than willing to believe anything that can make them feel better about themselves by demonizing others. Weak-minded people do follow crowds, and in that sense we must of course fight the toxic environments that can foster such thinking.

But it isn't politics or ideology that creates Jew-hatred. The hate is deep within the hater first and foremost, and the justifications happen afterwards. Don't elevate the "reasons" given for the hatred because that gives the reasons legitimacy.

Hating Jews (or any other ethnic or racial group) is disgusting, full stop. Saying that Pittsburgh proves something about "the other side" waters down the horror of the reality. Antisemitism needs to be attacked directly, and its philosophy of hate must be treated contemptuously.

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Ma'an reports that the organizers of the weekly riots at the Gaza fence will continue their protests today, under the slogan of "Down with the Balfour Declaration."

Somehow it doesn't sound like they are against "occupation."

But the report says that the terror factions of Gaza - Islamic Jihad, Hamas, PFLP and others - have informally agreed to reduce the number of incendiary balloons, to reduce the number of burning tires, and to discourage people from cutting the fence, "in order to reduce the casualties and keep the marches in their peaceful nature."

Which is an admission that the "marches" were never peaceful.

According to the report, an Egyptian security delegation will be at the border to monitor the protests, so there is extra incentive to keep things calm today.

We'll see soon enough.

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11/01 Links Pt2: The Many Faces of Jew-Hatred; Holocaust survivor faces evil, cheats death for second time; Ben & Jerry's Israel distances itself from political U.S. flavor

From Ian:

Anne Frank, the Beloved Victim of the Nazis Who Never Had the Chance to Write about the Holocaust

Seeking to answer the question of why Anne Frank’s diary is the best known, most widely read, and most popular book about the Holocaust, Dara Horn reaches some unsettling conclusions, most notably that “people love dead Jews” far more than living ones:

This disturbing idea was suggested by an incident this past spring at the Anne Frank House, the blockbuster Amsterdam museum built out of [the] series of tiny hidden rooms where the teenage Jewish diarist lived with her family and four other persecuted Jews for over two years. . . . [W]hen a young employee at the Anne Frank House in 2017 tried to wear his yarmulke to work, his employers told him to hide it under a baseball cap. The museum’s managing director told newspapers that a live Jew in a yarmulke might “interfere” with the museum’s “independent position.” The museum finally relented after deliberating for six months, which seems like a rather long time for the Anne Frank House to ponder whether it was a good idea to force a Jew into hiding. . . .

[This, and other] public-relations mishaps, clumsy though they may have been, were not really mistakes, nor even the fault of the museum alone. On the contrary, the runaway success of Anne Frank’s diary depended on playing down her Jewish identity. . . .

[By contrast], an Anne Frank who lived [through the Holocaust] might have been a bit upset at the Dutch people who, according to the leading theory, turned in her household and received a reward of approximately $1.40 per Jew. An Anne Frank who lived . . . might have told people about what she saw at Westerbork, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen, and people might not have liked what she had to say. . . .

The line most often quoted from Frank’s diary—“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart”—is often called “inspiring,” by which we mean that it flatters us. It makes us feel forgiven for those lapses of our civilization that allow for piles of murdered girls—and if those words came from a murdered girl, well, then, we must be absolved, because they must be true. That gift of grace and absolution from a murdered Jew (exactly the gift, it is worth noting, at the heart of Christianity) is what millions of people are so eager to find in Frank’s hiding place, in her writings, in her “legacy.” It is far more gratifying to believe that an innocent dead girl has offered us grace than to recognize the obvious: Frank wrote about people being “truly good at heart” three weeks before she met people who weren’t.

Ruth Wisse [WSJ - click twitter link bellow]: The Many Faces of Jew-Hatred

This Jew-hatred dates from the year Germany surrendered in World War II, when anti-Semitism became the dominant ideology of the Arab and Muslim Middle East. Just as Europeans organized politics against the Jewish “usurper” among them, the Arab League sought to expel the Jewish people—their fellow Semites. And just as European anti-Semitism united left and right, revolutionaries and traditionalists, internationalists and nationalists, populists and elites, so too anti-Zionism unified otherwise adversarial Arab and Muslim countries.

Assailing Israel deflected blame for domestic flaws in Arab societies. It still does. It redirects grievances against the Jews, inspiring national and religious fervor through opposition to a common enemy. The Jews, a small minority whose power is hugely inflated, are a perennial target, though they have no incentive for counteraggression and every reason to seek acceptance in their usual position among much larger surrounding nations. The typical reaction of the Jews of Pittsburgh was not to call for the death penalty but to reveal that Jewish doctors had treated the shooter. The Jews of Israel imprison but do not execute those who slaughter their women and children. Mr. Bowers has rightly been called a coward for attacking the innocent; so are those who attack Israel.

The most discouraging feature of the anti-Israel brand of anti-Semitism is its penetration of Western societies, including the U.S. That a single shooter wants to kill the Jews is less dangerous to this country than Louis Farrakhan’s smiling designation of Jews as “termites,” broadcast to a vast audience, or the vicious movement to boycott Israel—an extension of the Arab boycott launched in 1945. The incursion of fanatical anti-Israel politics into the American campus and the Democratic Party is a threat not to the Jews alone but to what they represent in liberal democracy.

Even as we try to comfort the mourners and suggest better security measures, we must stop the scourge before a full-fledged anti-Semitic politics emerges in America under the unifying banner of “intersectionality.” Anti-Semitism is the only ideology that can unite the far left and far right. Its success would signify America’s failure.

"The incursion of fanatical anti-Israel politics into the American campus and the Democratic Party is a threat not to the Jews alone but to what they represent in liberal democracy."

A woman of wisdom weighs in, and her warning should be heeded https://t.co/IZmPC4dZ1m
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) November 1, 2018

Ben Shapiro: Fighting Anti-Semitism Should Be Bipartisan

Trump’s words on the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting themselves are far stronger than any words we’ve ever heard from a president before: “If you seek the destruction of Jews, we will seek your destruction.” Furthermore, we must distinguish between the alt-right, a relatively new phenomenon, and the persistent white supremacist movement, which has routinely attacked Jews; Trump wasn’t a gleam in the political eye when a white supremacist shot up the West Valley Jewish Community Center in Woodland Hills in 1999.

All of this suggests a certain gross partisanship on the part of people who, without sufficient evidence, blame Trump for the Tree of Life Synagogue murders. That’s particularly true of people who seem fully complacent with the Democratic Party’s open embrace of Keith Ellison, Linda Sarsour and Louis Farrakhan; people who brushed off President Obama labeling an anti-Semitic terror attack in France as “random”; people who shrugged away Obama’s statements about Iranian anti-Semitism (he said that they would only act in anti-Semitic fashion “at the margins”); people who pooh-pooh the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement and Hamas.

Here’s the reality: If we wish to be accurate, we shouldn’t link normal but heated political rhetoric with anti-Semitic violence. If we wish to fight anti-Semitism, we should label all anti-Semitic rhetoric and anti-Semitism-enabling rhetoric for what it is, regardless of partisan persuasion. And if we wish to have a country, we ought to stop conflating politics we dislike with incitement to violence.

"Students for Justice in Palestine" conference logo: UCLA Bruin flying a Palestinian kite (UPDATE)

From The Jewish Journal:

National Students for Justice Palestine (NSJP) unveiled their logo on Oct. 27 for their upcoming conference at UCLA: the UCLA Bruin playing with a Palestinian kite.

Simon Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper told the Journal in a phone interview that the logo is “poking their finger at the eye of the UCLA administration and the UCLA community” by “co-opting the UCLA Bruin icon.”

“What does the Palestinian kite stand for today?” Cooper said. “It’s not going out with peace kites from Japan. It’s setting aloft arson terrorist kites to burn down crops and forests as they’ve done in southern Israel.”

Cooper added that Palestinian terrorists have been using explosives disguised as children’s toys in order to lure Israeli children into touching it and having it blow up in their faces.

“If this doesn’t wake up the UCLA administration to cancel the event at UCLA, then they’re going to have to deal with the consequences that the UCLA Bruin has now been hijacked by people who want to destroy Israel and are pro-terrorist,” Cooper said.

Anyone who thinks that SJP wasn't thinking about incendiary kites when designing this logo is fooling themselves. SJP wants Israel to be destroyed, as an op-ed in another University of California (Davis) says: "It is an ideological fantasy to really believe that progress is possible so long as the state of Israel exists. "

Don't be fooled by the doves. They are as incendiary as the kites.

UPDATE:

UCLA has sent a cease-and-desist letter to National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) over their logo for the upcoming NSJP conference on Nov. 16-18.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Much is made of the idea of asymmetric warfare, in which the side that is weaker in a traditional military sense manages to inflict harm on its enemy by the use of simple weapons and tactics involving small units, hit and run attacks, human waves, and often complete disregard for the traditional law of armed combat – human shields, attacks on civilians, and child soldiers may be employed. In addition, it may be accompanied by advanced cognitive and psychological warfare, including subversion of media, faking enemy atrocities, and propaganda techniques far more sophisticated than the methods of kinetic warfare at their disposal.

Although asymmetric warfare can be a way for culture with a low level of technology to defeat (or at least seriously wound) an enemy with better technology or a stronger army, sometimes even a relatively advanced country can use it to their advantage. So Iran, a country on the verge of reaching the pinnacle of military technology, nuclear weapons, effectively deploys its asymmetric proxy, Hezbollah, around the world, in order to support Iranian political goals by means of terrorism. And of course Hezbollah directly confronts Israel on behalf of Iran.

I divide Israel’s enemies into hard and soft enemies. The hard ones, like Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PLO, employ all forms of asymmetric warfare, especially including terrorism, but also such low-tech weapons as large numbers of inaccurate rockets, incendiary balloons and kites, attack tunnels, and so on. At the same time, they use friendly and/or easily duped media as part of a continuing cognitive, diplomatic, and legal battle against the Jewish state.

The soft enemies, primarily the European Union countries, support the hard ones while maintaining enough distance to deny responsibility for wars or terrorism; but they take part enthusiastically in the cognitive, diplomatic, and legal battles against Israel.

What is often ignored by those discussing the asymmetric warfare that characterizes the multi-front, alternately hot and cold, never-ending war against the Jewish state, is that not only are the meansof fighting asymmetric, so are the goals of the combatants.

Historically, the aims of warring combatants are diverse. They include such motivations as obtaining booty and slaves, conquering territory, getting access to natural resources or trade routes, building an empire and collecting tribute, religious or ideological conflict, and simple self-defense.

I don’t think that any reasonable person can deny that Israel’s motives are 100 percent self-defense. There is no enemy territory that Israel wants to conquer, no resources or booty she wants, and certainly no desire to create an empire. Her opponents are another story.

The motive of her Muslim enemies can be expressed in one word: jihad. In general all of them believe that they are obliged to fight to regain land lost by Islam, and in particular to one of the historic enemies of Mohammad, the Jews. In the case of Iran, there is also the long-term goal of creating an empire, a Shiite caliphate, and Israel – in addition to being that abomination, a sovereign Jewish state in the Muslim Middle East – is seen as an outpost of the West, an agent of the US, and an obstacle to the establishment of the caliphate.

Jihad has historically been very destructive to the conquered non-Muslim populations. For one thing, there is the so-called win-win proposition that motivates Muslims to engage in jihad. They are told that if they defeat their enemies, they can take whatever they want from the civilian population, including valuables and women, who are raped and enslaved (most of the male population is killed). The behavior of Islamic State fighters has followed this pattern in the present day. Judging by the behavior of PLO, Hezbollah, and Hamas terrorists so far, there is no reason to believe they would not act similarly if they had the opportunity.

The asymmetry of goals in turn produces an asymmetry of means, with Israel tending to defensive strategies (e.g., Iron Dome and other antimissile systems, barriers, non-lethal crowd control means, bombing empty installations, and so on), while her Muslim enemies emphasize offensive operations – terrorism, invasion, rocket barrages, and so on.

Israel also employs defensive strategies because she is deterred from more aggressive ones by the coordinated international diplomatic and legal campaign waged by both her hard and soft enemies. As a result of the reliance on (imperfect) defensive measures, Israeli morale is damaged by the appearance that she is content to partly ward off the blows of the enemy without striking back. Her enemies, on the other hand, are encouraged by her apparent weakness.

My contention is that a primarily defensive posture – even if Israel’s objective is self-defense – is inadequate to deter asymmetric attacks. Her enemies respond by escalating the attacks of proxy forces, while keeping them below the level that will force Israel to change to an offensive posture. The result is an escalating war of attrition, of which the attacking forces have complete control. In the meantime, the morale of Israelis is damaged, that of the attackers boosted, and the attacking proxy forces, supplied by Iran, have time to stockpile weapons and improve fortifications, develop tactics, and generally prepare for the final war on multiple fronts.

At that stage, Israel’s enemies hope that her lack of strategic depth, combined with a large number of simultaneous attacks, will allow for a successful invasion of Israeli territory by numerous militia forces from the north, south and east. In such a case, Israel will have difficulty in deploying its powerful air force and artillery, leading to (they hope) a complete collapse or at least a cease-fire that will leave Israel critically wounded.

The way to overcome this threat is to force the confrontation to take a different form. One way to do this would be to take control of the developing war of attrition ourselves by taking the offensive, escalating disproportionate responses to asymmetric proxy provocations, with an objective of ending the fighting ability of the proxies. At the same time, visible preparations should be made to use our most powerful weapons directly against the source of the aggression, Iran. Then Iran could be put on notice not to interfere.

There is no doubt that stepped-up attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah, which will necessarily cause civilian casualties in Gaza and Lebanon, will be met with a massive propaganda, diplomatic, and legal attack orchestrated by our European soft enemies. This is where our American ally, which still has great leverage in Europe, could step in.

But we’d better act fast, before Iran goes nuclear – and while we still have a friend in the White House.

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