New York, December 12 - A lobbying organization billing itself as "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lauded a Congresswoman-elect from New York City today for disclosing possible Hebraic roots among her forebears, noting that they, as well, had some Semites among their progenitors.
J Street, which gained ascendancy under President Barack Obama as the latter sought a progressive counterweight to AIPAC to secure support for the nuclear deal with Iran, announced Wednesday morning that like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the organization's leadership could identify among its ancestors a large number of Jews. A subtext of the announcement included the observation that just as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez does not herself claim to be Jewish, neither does J Street does feel bound to uphold Jewish obligations or values. J Street endorsed Ms. Ocasio-Cortez in last month's midterm elections, and has remained silent on her entertaining the promotion of boycotts or sanctions targeting Israel.
"We commend the Congresswoman-elect for coming forward with this information," the organization proclaimed in a statement to the media. "It dovetails with the values J Street cherishes, chief among them the leveraging of Jewish identity to weaken the bond between Jewishness and Zionism, or at least to redefine either Jewishness or Zionism such that they appear unrelated."
J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami boasted that some of his distant ancestors spoke Yiddish and likely participated in such Jewish rituals as Passover seders, circumcision, eating kosher food, and talking during the Rabbi's sermon and other portions of the synagogue service. "Those roots are a source of pride," declared Ben-Ami in a telephone interview. "Well, some of them. We don't like to talk about the 'Next year in a rebuilt Jerusalem' part of the Passover seder, or about the prayers for the reestablishment of the Temple service in its proper place, or about the Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel in existential terms. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez didn't go so far as to claim she actually is Jewish, and I'm not going to go too far out on that limb, either."
Other organizations echoed J Street's response. A Jewish Voice for Peace spokeswoman told a journalist of the high likelihood some members of the group had at least one Jewish ancestor a few generations back. "That makes our voice as important and legitimate as anyone else's," she asserted. "Other people can't define for us who is and isn't Jewish. We, however, do get to define for everyone what being Jewish means in terms of Palestine, and if you disagree you're a fascist warmonger."
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The baby of Shira Ish-ran, delivered after his mother had been shot and critically wounded in Sunday's terror attack near Ofra, was pronounced dead on Wednesday, Shaare Zedek Medical Center announced in a statement.
The parents had met their baby son earlier Wednesday morning, the hospital said.
The baby was delivered by cesarean at 30 weeks due to the wounds Ish-ran sustained in the shooting attack at a bus stop outside Ofra. Ish-ran remains in serious condition but is said to be improving.
Amichai Ish-ran, her husband, remains in moderate condition after he was shot in the leg during the attack.
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Ish-ran's mother recalled the emotional moment when she woke up asking for her.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett called the death a tragedy, writing on Facebook, "our heart is with Shira and Amichai, the heart cries out."
"It's a vile murder of terrorists that stopped being afraid of us. We have to bring back deterrence that was lost. Otherwise, a wave of murders are on the way. Not with statements. In actions."
As the anniversary of Abbas' Fatah approaches - celebrated on the day of their first attempted terror attack against Israel in 1965 - the movement is emphasizing its values to the Palestinian public.
One of those values is Fatah's devotion to "the armed struggle" against Israel and Fatah's adoration for the rifle.
In an informative post on the terrorist attack three days ago in which 7 Israelis were wounded when terrorists shot at them, Fatah chose to adorn the post with the photo above showing masked Fatah members in military uniforms with assault rifles and yellow Fatah headbands.
Fatah overtly stressed its adherence to "the armed struggle" in another post showing a photo of a procession of masked men wearing military uniforms and carrying torches and yellow Fatah flags:
"Fatah is the torch of the armed struggle."
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Dec. 8, 2018]
In another post, Fatah directly stated that it won't abandon "the rifle":
"The 54th anniversary of the Intilaqa ("the Launch" of Fatah)
The revolution continues, and we will not drop the rifle."
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Dec. 7, 2018]
This announcement echoes a recent statement by Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki that was exposed by Palestinian Media Watch, in which Zaki declared that "the rifle will never fall."
On Oct. 27, 2018, while intensive contacts were being led by Egypt and the UN to reach an arrangement between Israel and Hamas, IDF Spokesperson Lt.-Col. Jonathan Conricus said that Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) had delivered heavy barrages of dozens of rockets on Israel from Gaza while working "under guidance, instructions, and incentives from Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force, based in Damascus."
In other words, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards directly ordered Islamic Jihad and orchestrated the rocket fire. IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis pointed out that "Islamic Jihad did not wait to get a green light from Hamas" to fire the rockets. Its activator was Iran, which precluded the necessity for Hamas approval.
Last year, Hizbullah, together with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), formed the Golan Liberation Brigade in Syria, an umbrella organization of Shiite militias who can be activated on the Israeli-Syrian border.
In addition, in 2012, Tehran created the Shiite terrorist faction Sabireen in Gaza. Sabireen and Hizbullah have very similar logos, and the founding document of Sabireen starts with the same words Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah uses at the beginning of his speeches.
Iran has significantly strengthened its position in Gaza to the point that it is now a critical factor. Tehran's chief goal is to obstruct the broad efforts of Egypt and the UN to stabilize the ceasefire between Israel and Gaza. Without Iranian interference, the situation in Gaza - indeed, in much of the Middle East - would be a great deal more promising.
Jamal
Khashoggi became hot topic in the media when he disappeared on October 2 after
visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. After days of incessant media
coverage, the story suddenly dropped out of the news cycle. Recently it has
made a tentative reappearance but the question is – why?
Most of us
had never heard of Jamal Khashoggi until the media began discussing his
disappearance. We learned that he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul but
did not leave it. Later it seemed that he was removed, in pieces, in the
luggage of the Saudi hit team who came to get rid of him.
Western
media seems to view this story as a Hollywood thriller - and that’s where the
focus on facts ended and narrative began.
The most
popular narrative reads like a movie synopsis: “The
revolutionary, brave journalist went to the embassy to get documentation that
would enable him to live happily ever after with the woman of his dreams, only
to disappear, setting off an investigation that reveals international
involvement with the evil regime that led to his brutal murder. The corruption
goes to the highest levels of government, including the US government.”
·Mohammad Bin
Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and his hit team
·Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan, President of Turkey, the location of the murder
·The media
There are
also “silent players” those who are not “on stage.” They are the audience this
story is designed to influence. Can you guess who they are?
The good
guy:
Every
Hollywood thriller has a good guy. The narrative presented by the media says
that Jamal Khashoggi was the good guy - but is that true?
Even
without knowing all the details, asking the most basic questions cause the
narrative to begin to unravel.
Western
values uphold freedom of the press so we assume the abused journalist must be
the “good guy” but did the media make the same fuss for Daniel Pearl (kidnapped
and murdered for being Jewish) or James Foley (kidnapped and murdered by ISIS
for being American)?
Has the media focused similar amount of time on the Yazidi genocide (by ISIS)?
The oppression in Iran? The slave trade in Libya?
No? Why?
Much has
already been written about Khashoggi and who he really was. Anyone interested
can easily find online the information about his connections to Osama Bin
Laden, his membership and vocal advocacy of the Muslim Brotherhood (a terrorist
organization that gave birth to Hamas and eventually Al Qaeda).
Personally,
as someone who enjoys her western freedoms and also happens to be Jewish, I
cannot categorize a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, openly and loudly
advocating for Sharia and the Caliphate as the “good guy”. This is a man who
belonged to a terrorist organization, an avid Islamist and a spokesperson for
the destruction of our way of life. Nope. Not good.
So, does
that mean Mohammad Bin Salman is the “good guy”? Before this murder occurred, the media
portrayed him as a great reformer, democratizing Saudi Arabia. This is “good”
right?
The
problem is that “democratizing” was also a media narrative. Salman passed reforms
that loosened some restrictions on the population of Saudi Arabia however these
have nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with creating a
strategic balance to retain power, so that the young people in his country will
not rebel. There is no actual freedom involved, just a little less oppression.
So why has
the media expressed such shock over the murder of Khashoggi? Is it some
big surprise that Saudi Arabia is an oppressive regime with little (if any)
regard for human rights? Mohammad Bin Salman, has disappeared members of
his own (extended) family. They usually don’t die but go on extended
“vacations” they can’t return from… What’s Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident, in
comparison to family loyalties, particularly in a tribal society like Saudi
Arabia?
The
reality is that in the Middle East (and in all dictatorial countries),
disappearing political enemies is standard practice. Murder, torture and abuse
is common. In the history of humankind freedom and democracy are an aberration,
not the norm.
This is
also true for Turkey and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The sudden demand for
justice for Khashoggi is laughable in the face of Erdoğan’s own abuse of human
rights, jailing of journalists and disappearance of political adversaries.
The victim
was an avid Islamist and terrorist sympathizer. The perpetrator is a
dictatorial abusive regime. The country crying out in shock and outrage for
what occurred on their soil has no better a track record.
None of
these players are “good guys”.
The
conflict between the facts and the narrative presented in the media raise
disturbing questions:
·Why did the
media so enthusiastically embrace Jamal Khashoggi, a known avid terrorist
sympathizer, a member of a terrorist organization himself, as an innocent
journalist?
·Why did the
media first uphold Mohammad Bin Salman as some great reformer democratizing
Saudi Arabia and now try to push for his removal?
·Why is there a
huge push for America to impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia when the same people
violently resisted sanctions on Iran?
·Why the demand
to dissolve the $110 billion dollar arms deal Trump made with the Saudis? What
lies in the balance? Prosperity and jobs for more Americans and arms for the
Saudis to protect themselves from Iran vs some sudden awakening that the Saudi
government is not democratic and doesn’t care about human rights?
Even without knowing all the details behind these obviously contradictory
positions, they raise more questions than answers. That is the point when it is
time to begin asking: who benefits from this narrative? What agenda is being
furthered by this type of reporting?
Israel
Recently
the Khashoggi story has reentered the news-cycle, this time with a new angle.
Supposedly the technology the Saudis used to track Khashoggi was created by an
Israeli company. This seems to be a tacit way to imply that Israel can be
blamed as an accessory to this murder. Because Israel is always to blame. Or
something.
Not my
circus, not my monkeys
As much as
the media might imply and insinuate, this story, thank God, is not our circus,
not our monkeys. This story isn’t about Israel. It’s not about Jews. It’s not about
America or Europe either. This is a story about Islamism and the internal war
within Islam. This is about dictators and the way things are done in places
that are not free.
The
problem is that what is being presented as a Hollywood screenplay, is not. Real
lives are at stake as is the balance of power among nations. When Middle
Eastern countries are destabilized the “circus” does not stay “over there,” the
“monkeys” stop being amusing and become very dangerous to people all over the
world.
WE are the
silent players in this show, the audience it is designed to influence. But why?
Who benefits from this narrative? What agenda is being furthered?
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.
by Daled Amos
The conventional wisdom is that the best chance for peace in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs is the Two-State Solution. Failing that, there is the One-State Solution.
The problem, of course, is that decades of pursuing the Two-State Solution has produced nothing except period increases in violence.
On the other hand, it has the advantage of allowing people half a world away of being able to spout off about what is best for Israel and the Arabs without having to live in the region, having a grasp of the situation nor having to live with the consequences of their unsolicited advice.
Actually, there are ideas out there for peace that are being discussed between the people who are affected, between Israelis and Palestinians, and those solutions are not about a One-State Solution or Two-State Solution.
An Unlikely Arab Peace Activist
When he was younger, Ziad Sabateen was filled with anger and hate at Israel for what he saw as the theft of Arab land. When the First Intifada broke out in 1982, he joined in the violence.
Sabateen was arrested and ended up in an Israeli prison for 5 years.
Looking back -- that turned out to be fortuitous.
While in prison, Sabateen spoke with his fellow prisoners: doctors, engineers and other Arabs to discuss how to deal with Israel. They came to the conclusion that rather than rely on violence, it made more sense to turn to non-violence and start a dialogue with the Israelis.
They created a group called “Combatants for Peace,” made up of former soldiers on both sides. They supported the Two-State Solution and started working for equal rights.
Settlers For Peace
It was around this time that Ziad Sabateen met Rabbi Menachem Froman.
Rabbi Froman, who passed away in 2013, was a "settler" and a founding member of Gush Emunim -- a right-wing Orthodox Jewish group dedicated to the settlements and served as the chief rabbi of Tekoa in the West Bank.
He was also a peacemaker and negotiator with close ties to Palestinian Arabs leaders.
For Sabateen, meeting with Rabbi Froman and being invited to his home, helped dispel the stereotype that Religious Jews are extremists and troublemakers. He eventually became uncomfortable even with calling them "settlers" -- a pejorative term, preferring to refer to them as either neighbors or residents. With Rabbi Froman, Sabateen became among the first to promote interaction and cooperation in Judea and Samaria.
The Home
In 2014, a year after the death of Rabbi Froman, a new group was formed by Inon Dan Kehati, of which Sabateen is a member: The Home.
a Jewish-Israeli-Arab-Palestinian platform which is open to every community all over the Holy Land in its entirety, in order to develop and promote an inclusive discussion, inter-communal action and political progression intended to provide the residents of the land with the security, dignity and freedom which each individual deserves in their own home.
The Home is all about trust-building.
Ziad Sabateen in the middle, flanked by Inon Dan Kehati on the left
and David HaIvri, a settler and Zionist leader, on the right. Credit: Bennett Ruda
The group is a grassroots organization, working on the inside, with the people who are directly and personally affected. They see many of the problems being caused by outside interference and by the money coming from the United States and the European Union, with those living in the land paying the consequences. They point to the money going to the Palestinian Authority and disappearing and the money Iran sends to Hamas. Palestinian Arabs see the corruption.
While The Home does not want outside interference from those who are not Jewish or Palestinian and living in the land, others are welcome to support their efforts but have no say in the decisions they make.
Working Together
The Home works on joint programs that generate goodwill between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs -- programs such as Cleaning The Hate, where everyone joins together to pick up garbage in Jewish and Arab communities. It seems like a small thing, but the key is the goodwill generated by working together for a common good that focuses on the common perception of the holiness of the land. They become more accepting because of their commitment to the land.
Kehati says that of the Palestinian Arabs he has spoken to, 1,000 to 2,000, about 80% are supportive. Of the Israelis in Judea and Samaria he has spoken to, 30-40% support the work of The Home.
That is not to say that the rest are against the group per se, but they do not currently support it.
Kehati explains this as a problem of perception, that because he works with the Arabs, some see him as some kind of lefty -- which makes him suspicious in their eyes.
At this point, The Home is not even considered to be a small player among those who present other options to the One-State and Two-State Solution. They are not considered by the others as being either on the left or the right, though The Home would like to be considered both. They do not see themselves as part of the "Peace Industry," nor are they interested in sitting together singing kumbaya and eating hummus - they want real discussion among the actual people who represent their identity.
Here is a sample from 2016
Values and Goals
In concrete terms, the mission is to restore Israeli sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria and Gaza, creating a federal structure providing the Palestinian Arabs and all residents with both equal human rights and political rights. Human rights include freedom of movement, to study where you want, work where you want and live where you want, such as in the big cities. Palestinian Arabs in Bethlehem could live in Jaffa, Haifa, Acco and Jerusalem -- just as a Jew in Tel Aviv would have the choice to live in Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah. Political rights include the right to vote for the Knesset.
Because there are between 1.5 and 2.5 million Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria who have no familiarity with a Democratic system of government, there would be 3 options:
o Those who fulfill their duty to the State, such as serving either in the military or doing civil service, and paying taxes -- they would get both full equal rights and full political rights. o Those who are not willing to contribute to the State of Israel in terms of army or civil service and refuse to pay taxes do not get political rights, but do get equal rights. Similarly, the same would apply to Mea Shearim. If you don’t do your civil/political duty to the system, you don’t get political rights from the system. o Those who join Jihad and fight against Jewish aspirations in the Land of Israel have no place in the State and will be deported.
The idea is to create the potential to start to integrate Palestinians into Israel not as enemies but as contributing members and tie their destiny to Israel.
It is a long-term idea that has the benefit of involving the people who will be directly affected by the plan, bypassing the politicians -- both in Israel, the territories and in the West -- who do not have to deal with the consequences of their actions.
Maybe now is not the time for such a plan, but at the very least it is the start of an idea that can grow to something bigger.
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.
It is useful to be reminded that even when there were elections for the leadership of the Palestinian Authority in the distant past, it did not at all make the PA into a democracy. The PA is not an independent government, but it reports to the PLO, a decidedly non-democratic organization that is ruled essentially by one person, Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas' role as Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization is what makes him essentially a dictator.
Recently, Abbas vowed to dissolve the Palestine Legislative Council. The PLC hasn't met in years, but it is dominated by Hamas based on the results of the last election. There is nothing in Palestinian law that allows Abbas to do this, but he plans to anyway.
The prime minister of the PA, Rami Hamdallah, has no power - most people have never even heard of him. The PA rubber-stamps what the PLO - Abbas- wants it to do.
The PLO has always been a terror group. Even though it supposedly has abandoned all the parts of its charter that supported terror, it never issued a new Charter without those paragraphs. Its main component is Fatah which still explicitly supports "armed struggle" in its platform. The head of Fatah? Mahmoud Abbas, of course.
Today, Abbas has proven again that he supports terror by his Fatah group issuing congratulations to another terror group, the PFLP, on its anniversary, and stressing how both groups have been an important part of the PLO. This was reported in PA-run media.
The resistance option proved its effectiveness, as demonstrated by its forces, which supported it and defended it and exercised it in all its forms, especially the armed struggle, its ability to use it successfully in more than one arena despite all the attempts of the hostile forces to strike its foundations and dispersing its forces and popular support.
The PFLP also issued a statement of praise for the terror attack in Ofra this week, calling it a "bold heroic operation."
Both Fatah and the PFLP feature guns in the current logos on their media.
Anyone who pretends that terrorism is not official Palestinian policy is consciously deluding themselves.
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.
I had no idea I was that much of a threat to the PLO, but apparently I am.
Saeb Erekat, who may be the only person remaining at the PLOs' Negotiation Affairs Department since they have not been interested in negotiations for many years, is apparently upset at me for pointing out, repeatedly, what a liar he is.
Anyone else out there been banned by the PLO?
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.
At the same time, she saw from the start that there were serious issues brewing within the organization. Harmon began to share that view. Both said in interviews that, at this point, they were each contacted by Bland, who told them she had started butting heads with the co-chairs.
At the end of December, Harmon said she received a panicked call from Bland, who she said was calling to tell her that the co-chairs were suggesting they pay themselves 2 percent of all national funds raised. Morganfield said she also heard this at the time. According to one source who spoke with Tablet and who worked in close contact with Bland and the national team, $750,000 worth of merchandise was sold within the first couple of months before the march.
In an email to Tablet last week, Bland claimed she never said anything about the co-chairs asking to take any percentage of national funds.
Questions also began to emerge about the ideological values upon which the movement was being built. On Jan. 12, the Women’s March made public their Unity Principles, which asserted: “We must create a society in which women, in particular women—in particular Black women, Native women, poor women, immigrant women, Muslim women, and queer and trans women—are free and able to care for and nurture their families, however they are formed, in safe and healthy environments free from structural impediments.” Numerous observers noted the absence of “Jewish” from the list of signifiers, and began questioning whether it signaled something about whether and how warmly American Jews—the vast majority of whom vote and identify as Democrats—would be welcomed in a changing left.
In an email to Tablet the Women’s March wrote: Women’s March models intersectional leadership through our organizing work, which includes 200 women who worked on the conveners table, 500 partners, 24 women involved in developing the Unity Principles—including some of the folks who are expressing concern now. They were part of the process then, and did not express the concerns they are noting today. Women’s March is greater than our small team of national staff and leadership, and we’ve never claimed their identities equal full representation of U.S. women.
But whatever concerns were popping up were ultimately no match for the steamroller of the event’s progress. And when the day came, the reality far exceeded expectations. Estimates for the March on Washington range between half a million and a million people, giving the city’s metro system its second busiest day in history. Estimates for all the Women’s Marches that took place in cities across the country, had between 3.6 and 4.6 million people participating. In terms of attendance and publicity, the event was an enormous, iconic success. It took the swirling, latent energy of the country’s broad political opposition to Trump and turned it into a dramatic showing of strength.
It also seemed to solidify four women—Mallory, Perez, Sarsour, and Bland—as the public face of what was, in reality, an amorphous movement. Multiple sources active at the time point to the media as part of the reason for this—with television cameras more drawn to the flash of fame than the tedium of logistics. “As we got closer to the march, the press piece was one thing that ended up outside of Vanessa [Wruble]’s purview,” noted a source with direct involvement at the time.
At the end of January, according to multiple sources, there was an official debriefing at Mallory’s apartment. In attendance were Mallory, Evvie Harmon, Breanne Butler, Vanessa Wruble, Cassady Fendlay, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour. They should have been basking in the afterglow of their massive success, but—according to Harmon—the air was thick with conflict. “We sat in that room for hours,” Harmon told Tablet recently. “Tamika told us that the problem was that there were five white women in the room and only three women of color, and that she didn’t trust white women. Especially white women from the South. At that point, I kind of tuned out because I was so used to hearing this type of talk from Tamika. But then I noticed the energy in the room changed. I suddenly realized that Tamika and Carmen were facing Vanessa, who was sitting on a couch, and berating her—but it wasn’t about her being white. It was about her being Jewish. ‘Your people this, your people that.’ I was raised in the South and the language that was used is language that I’m very used to hearing in rural South Carolina. Just instead of against black people, against Jewish people. They even said to her ‘your people hold all the wealth.’ You could hear a pin drop. It was awful.” (h/t steelraptor from Saturn)
In a December 9, 2018 article on Al-Arabiya titled "Details of calls to attack Trump by U.S. 'Muslim Sisters' allied to [Muslim] Brotherhood," by Hudah Al-Saleh, criticized Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, "with roots in Muslim Brotherhood and a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations known as CAIR," and reviewed her activity over the years.
MEMRI has released two clips of Ms. Sarsour; in one, dated June 30, 2017, she says that ISIS is the product of a politicized foreign policy of war on our people, and in the other, dated September 8, 2018, she calls for voting against Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the upcoming midterm elections, questions the faith of Muslims who defend the police, and says she doesn't care "what [any] young black person did before he got shot."
Below is the article, in the original English. All subheadings and images were also in the original.[1]
"For the first time in U.S. political history, two Muslim women joined the ranks of the U.S. Congress, with Western and Arab media widely reporting on their win during the first midterm elections under U.S. President Donald Trump. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, is the first Somali American to serve in Congress and Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib is a Palestinian American.
"However, the Democrats' battle against the Republican control of the U.S. Congress led to an alliance with Political Islamist movements in order to restore their control on government, pushing Muslim candidates and women activists of immigrant minorities onto the electoral scene.
"The common ground between Congresswomen Omar and Tlaib is that both are anti-Trump and his political team and options, especially his foreign policy starting from the sanctions on Iran to the isolation of the Muslim Brotherhood and all movements of political Islam. Those sponsoring and supporting the two Muslim women to reach the U.S. Congress adopted a tactic to infiltrate through their immigrant and Black minority communities in general, and women's groups in particular.
"One example of that is the Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour with roots in Muslim Brotherhood and a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations known as CAIR.
"Who is Linda Sarsour?
"The name of the Palestinian Linda Sarsour (38) appeared in the public scene, when Barack Obama took office in 2008 as President of the United States. Since then, Sarsour became a familiar face in the White House. 'I have been invited at least to seven meetings in the White House since April 2010,' she has been quoted [as saying].
"This culminated in [her] receiving the 'Champion of Change' award from President Obama in 2012. A social media site still carries a previous U.S. Department of State promotional tweet, published in July 2014, saying: "Share with Mrs. Linda Sarsour about Islam in America."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), who was initially scheduled to speak at the same conference as controversial Women's March organizer and liberal activist Linda Sarsour, is no longer speaking at the conference due to a scheduling conflict.
Warren had been slated to speak at the National Immigrant Integration Conference, which began on Sunday and runs through Tuesday in Arlington, Virginia, the Washington Free Beacon recently reported. However, the senator's picture and biography have now been scrubbed from the conference website.
NIIC is the largest immigration conference in the United States and "plays a central role in the powerful, diverse and broad immigrant and refugee rights and integration field," according to its website.
"At the NIIC, the many different spokes of this field gather to develop relationships, build campaigns, amplify shared values, be inspired, build relationships, and share ideas, strategies, lessons learned and new information and innovations," the website says. "It is an important space for leaders and organizations, and strengthens collaborations and partnerships that power work at the local, regional and national level."
Warren's office did not respond to a request for comment. However, the conference's communications strategist, Susana Flores, told the Free Beacon by phone that Warren had canceled her appearance due to a "scheduling conflict." It is unclear what that conflict is.
Sarsour, a Palestinian-American, has a long history of anti-Israel rhetoric, including a speech in 2015 at a Nation Of Islam event. She has also discounted anti-Semitism, saying that "while anti-Semitism is something that impacts Jewish Americans, it's different than anti-black racism or Islamophobia because it's not systemic."
In Jordan, a movie called "The Old Story" is being shot, with Amman standing in for Jerusalem and Tel Aviv where the film is set.
There has already been controversy in Jordan over this film, as cars and streets were changed to look Israeli for the filming, and seeing Israeli license plates is apparently a trigger for all sorts of terrible psychological issues for many Jordanians.
The film, produced by Netflix, is supposedly pro-Palestinian. Nearly all the people involved in production are Jordanian with a smattering of Americans.
The newest problem just came up as there was to be a scene where a Palestinian terrorist flees to a mosque after his attack. It was to be filmed at a mosque in Amman, and the Waqf approved the filming, but residents objected - because, they claimed, some Jews were part of the production (possibly actors) and would pollute the holy site with their presence.
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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.
UNRWA is very proud of their microfinance program, giving small loans to people who need them:
The UNRWA microfinance department provides sustainable income-generation opportunities for Palestine refugees, as well as other poor or marginalised groups who live and work near them.
It extends credit and complementary financial services to households, entrepreneurs and small-business owners. These investments create and sustain jobs, reduce poverty and empower our clients, particularly women.
But if you look at their annual report you can see that Palestinians only take a small percentage of the microfinance loans that UNRWA offers. They gave out loans to 38,595 people in 2017, but only 13,756 went to Palestinians.
In Syria, practically none of the loans go to Palestinian "refugees." Out of 11,094 loans total in Syria, a mere 288 went to Palestinians.
Who gets the rest?
According to an investigative report in the Arabic Daraj site, some of the loans have been made to elements of the Syrian intelligence services and militias active in Syria.
The wife of the Syrian president, Asma al-Assad, seems to have worked with UNRWA on the loan program. Here's a photo of her with the then-head of UNRWA Karen Abu-Zaid.
The article has interviews with former UNRWA employees who testify that the agency's loans were taken over by Syrian officials, and loans were made to those that the regime wanted to get the loans.
The investigation uncovered hundreds of applications and documentation from UNRWA.
In addition the UNRWA program covers the Gaza Strip, Jordan and the West Bank. In all of these areas, loans are granted to elements of the Ministry of Interior (Jordan and PA) or armed militias (West Bank and Gaza.) For example, In Jordan, the General Intelligence is granted loans.
In the West Bank, elements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are heavily hostile to UNRWA, will happily allow their terrorists to accept UNRWA loans, according to the report.
The West is giving hundreds of millions to an agency that loans money to terrorists and allies of despots.
(h/t Varda)
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Medical staff at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem were still battling on Tuesday to save the life of a baby delivered by cesarean section after his mother, Shira Ish-Ran, was shot in her upper body in a terrorist attack near the settlement of Ofra on Sunday.
Six other Israelis were wounded in the attack, including Ish-Ran's husband. She was 30 weeks pregnant.
As of Tuesday morning, the baby was still in very serious condition. Ish-Ran's father, Chaim Silberstein, told Israeli media on Tuesday morning that while his daughter's condition was improving, her hemoglobin levels had dropped. Silberstein said this could indicate that there was still some bleeding and hoped that it was not serious.
The hospital reported Tuesday that Ish-Ran was awake and communicating.
Silberstein said his daughter had not yet been informed of her newborn son's precarious condition.
Dr. Alon Schwartz, a senior trauma surgeon at the hospital, said Monday that the medical team was concerned that the baby had sustained neurological damage as a result of the shooting.
"The baby is in critical condition in the neonatal intensive care unit. He is on a ventilator and his blood pressure is being regulated by medication. We're still fighting for his life," Schwartz said.
Silberstein said his daughter teared up when she first saw her parents.
"We were so excited we had to leave [the room] because her heart rate spiked," he said.
A Culture Of Death Versus A Culture Of Life — In 7 Tweets
On Sunday, as Hanukkah wound to a close, Palestinian terrorists attacked Jews waiting for a bus, targeting them with a hail of bullets. A pregnant woman and the baby she was carrying were hit, among others. Here is how two cultures reacted to the murderous attack, in a story of death, life, and God's providence told in seven tweets.
Just think: The family of the pregnant woman who was shot yesterday by a terrorist are praying that the baby will survive. The family of the terrorist who shot the mother can look forward to a lifetime of monthly payments as a 'reward'.
Hamas has welcomed tonight's Palestinian shooting attack, in which a pregnant Israeli woman and six others were wounded, calling it a "blessed" demonstration of "the ability of the resistance to hurt the enemy in its most sensitive places." https://t.co/3FOFicjOgh
Today is International #HumanRightsDay, a day that reinforces the universal rights of people all over the globe. Yet, one group of people continue to face hatered and discrimination, everywhere around the world. The one place on earth that ensures the saftey of the Jewish people is Israel.
Of the topics that came up during the Jewish New Media Summit in Israel 2 weeks ago, one thing that was not discussed was what exactly we were doing there.
That of course was taken for granted, though not all of us necessarily had the same goals in mind.
Jewish New Media Summit 2018 logo
There were approximately 150 bloggers and journalists from about 30 different countries attending. The bloggers outnumbered the journalists.
there is a difference between journalists, whose mandate is to strive for facts and fairness, and bloggers, whose goal is opinionated engagement.
That is the standard answer, and generally still valid.
But there are qualifications.
Unlike in the world in general, when it comes to Israel the distinction between journalism and blogging is not necessarily iron-clad.
There is arguably no country in the world whose very existence, policies -- actually, almost every move -- are attacked as vociferously in both the old and new media as is Israel. Under the circumstances, it would be understandable for the Israeli government to see such a summit as an opportunity to strengthen its defense in the media. But as one of the attendees pointed out at the end of the summit, he bristles at the idea of being an "ambassador" for Israel -- and no wonder. An ambassador by definition defends the country he represents and is expected to never criticize it, at least not publicly. What blogger wants to be hemmed in like that?
it is hard to expect diaspora Jewish journalists to take Israel seriously, and vice-versa, if it insists on treating them as an extension of its public relations arm, a practice long derided by communities around the world.
Yet when discussing Israel, we seem to enter a Bizarro world where journalists are the ones who are opinionated (if not outright jaundiced), while it is the bloggers defending Israel who often respond with facts, and pointing out what often appears to be a lack of fairness and balance on the part of the journalists.
Glenn Greenwald was prescient, if not a cause, of the current state of journalism, sometimes referred to as "fake news". Back in 2013, Greenwald decried how
this suffocating constraint on how reporters are permitted to express themselves produces a self-neutering form of journalism that becomes as ineffectual as it is boring...all journalism is a form of activism. Every journalistic choice necessarily embraces highly subjective assumptions — cultural, political or nationalistic — and serves the interests of one faction or another.
This may have signaled the first manifestations of "blogger-envy" by journalists, abandoning objectivity for subjectivity, though you need to keep in mind that Greenwald's own roots are in blogging -- and old habits die hard.
This touches on comments that Matti Friedman made to the group, as described by Judean Rose in her post, Framing the Narrative: Matti Friedman on the Israel Story on what encourages this bias and how it exhibits itself in the media. Friedman explained that the goal in countering this bias is educating the journalists, which sounded encouraging when he said it. But rather than addressing how to do this, he later conceded that this was nearly impossible and that the bloggers in the audience should content themselves with working towards making Israel a better place.
For myself, I did not see a tension between being informed and being persuaded. The former made be better equipped to do the latter by being better armed with facts and background material.
The fact that other bloggers had different goals and a different threshold of subjectivity was simply a function of the wide spectrum of blogs they represented.
At the very least, being at the new media summit was a source of food for thought.
And resulted in this post.
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Bild.de looks at the study of antisemitism in Europe released yesterday and dives in deeper on the situation in Germany.
Frightening: In no country have so many Jews experienced anti-Semitic harassment as in Germany. 41 percent said they had had an anti-Semitic experience last year, 52 percent in the past five years - both well above the EU average (28 percent and 39 percent).
The Jews draw their lessons: 75 percent of German interviewees abstain - sometimes, often or always - from wearing Jewish symbols in public. 46 percent of Jews in Germany avoid entering certain areas. In plain English this means: There are no-go areas for Jews.
Felix Klein, anti-Semitism commissioner of the Federal Government, is shocked. "The fact that people identified as Jews do not want to enter certain areas for fear of hostility is something I find alarming," says Klein to BILD. He promises: "I will fight against this!"
Does this promise come too late? According to the survey, 38 percent of European Jews have thought about emigrating in the last five years because they no longer feel safe as Jews. Here, too, is Germany (next to France) with 44 percent is the sad leader.
But one question remains: where does anti-Semitism come from?
The results of the new EU survey contradict the police crime statistics (PKS). In 2017, the PKS recorded 1,504 anti-Semitic offenses and allocated 94 percent to the right-wing spectrum. Only five percent of the deeds were said have a Muslim motive.
The survey provides a completely different picture: 41 percent of the Jews surveyed in Germany stated that the perpetrators had a Muslim background. Other political offender groups were much less common - rightists with 20 percent and leftists with 16 percent.
"This data is a slap in the face," says historian and journalist Michael Wolffsohn to BILD. "They refute the political and media emphasis on anti-Semitism. The danger from the right exists, but it is not the greatest danger. "
Wolffsohn demands:" Those responsible must name the issue by name and finally act. The integration of Muslims is a human and political matter of course. But crimes committed by Muslims must be punished, not sugar coated for political correctness. "
For a long time there has been criticism of the assignment of anti-Semitic offenses to political motives. Anti-Semitism Commissioner Felix Klein also expressed doubts: "According to the police crime statistics only about 5 percent of the anti-Semitic offenses committed by Muslims. We must pursue this great deviation from the statements of Jews on anti-Semitic experiences! "
In this sad study, however, one number is remarkable. Despite Muslim anti-Semitism, Europe's and Germany's Jews worry about Muslims.
72 percent of European and 89 percent of German Jews said that intolerance towards Muslims has increased over the past five years. 57 percent of European and 54 percent of German Jews see this intolerance as a major social problem.
"Almost exemplary is the tolerance of the Jewish victim group, their compassion and concern for those from whom they experience the most intolerance, the Muslims," says Michael Wolffsohn to BILD. And says: "That is, in cliché, downright Christian charity."
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When she took ill the previous week, my wife and I were surprised that while the interfaith chapel in the large non-East Coast city hospital she was in included prayer mats and Korans and Christian Bibles - it provided nothing for Jews (besides an electric menorah.) The chapel did not include any Tehillim (Hebrew Psalms), Siddurim (Jewish prayer books,) or chumashim (Hebrew Pentateuchs).
New York area hospitals generally do provide all of these materials, either in the chapel or in special "Bikur Cholim" rooms and lockers.
In my mother in law's memory, we would like to buy these books and distribute them to any hospital that desires them throughout North America for the benefit of their Jewish patients. We are calling the project Tzivia's TiSCH.
My mother in law's Hebrew name was Tzivia. "Tisch" is an acronym for Tehillim, Siddurim and CHumashim. It is also Yiddish for "table" or "celebration."
In phase 1 of the project, I hope to use this platform to both fundraise and to find hospitals that want to participate. If things go well I can make it more formal.
I estimate that the cost is about $200 per hospital chapel for two sets of each three volumes, so phase 1 will be able to offer these volumes to about 25 hospitals.
I plan to work with major Jewish publication companies to find the best discounts on these books so we can distribute them to more hospitals.
If you are associated with a hospital that needs these materials, please contact me.
And if you for some reason have lots of Hebrew/English Tehillim, siddurim, or chumashim to give away for this project, please contact me as well.
Thanks!
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The detailed Palestinian Authority budget for 2018 that was published recently has new details about the allocations to arrested terrorists and the families of those who died or were wounded in the context of the “struggle against Zionism:”
The total PA budget is $5 billion. The amount that supports prisoners is $155 million, out of which $147 million are spent on transfers to the prisoners. These include salaries to 5,000 prisoners, paying Israeli fines for 1,200 prisoners, grants to 1,500 prisoners upon their discharge, grants for 1,200 unemployed released prisoners, delayed payments to 1,000 prisoners, salaries for 5,500 released prisoners, unspecified amounts to released prisoners who spent more than 10 years in jail, canteen expenditures for 6,000 prisoners, and clothing allocations for 5,000 prisoners.
The PA budget for supporting the families of “martyrs” and the wounded is $185 million. This sum is used to make sure that 24,000 families of “martyrs” and wounded who reside inside the “homeland” get a monthly allowance, 13,500 such families who reside outside the “homeland” get a monthly allowance, 375 families get special monetary assistance, 28,000 families get health insurance, and monthly allowances are paid to the victims of the 2014 conflict in Gaza. On top of all this, the budget is used to finance a variety of benefits to the family members (such as going on pilgrimages and exemptions from education tuition).
On November 28, 2018, Temple University professor and then-CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill advocated the elimination of the Jewish State of Israel in his prepared remarks before the United Nations. The pundit’s decision to use a chant employed by genocidal terrorist groups like Hamas received widespread media coverage and likely prompted CNN to sever ties. It also received widespread applause from Hill’s audience: the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP).
A Cold War relic, CEIRPP continues the Soviet Union’s war against Jewish self-determination. The committee remains at the forefront of international efforts to delegitimize and attack the Jewish state.
According to Gil Kapen, a special adviser to the American Jewish International Relations Institute (AJIRI), CEIRPP and its sister UN organization, the Division for Palestinian Rights, are used for “organizing conferences and disseminating information condemning Israel, and otherwise spreading one-sided propaganda consistent with the most extreme Palestinian positions.” Indeed, it was founded for that express purpose.
CEIRPP was established on November 10, 1975 after the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3376, which was backed by the Soviet Union and co-sponsored by its satellite state, East Germany. That same day, both communist powers successfully advocated for Resolution 3375, which gave Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) observer status at the UN a mere two years after Arafat approved the murder of the US ambassador to Sudan, Cleo A. Noel, Jr. in March 1973.
Most infamously, the UN also passed the Soviet-inspired Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism – Jewish self-determination – with “racism and racial discrimination.”
As historian Jeffrey Herf detailed in his 2016 book Undeclared Wars with Israel:
“The resolutions of November 10, 1975, made Israel a pariah state at the UN. They placed the language of “inalienable rights” and the search for a “just and lasting peace” in the service of the PLO’s ongoing terrorist campaign waged against Israel.”
The UN, historian Gil Troy noted, “was building an institutional infrastructure” for an “ideological assault” against the Jewish state’s very right to exist. That assault was being led by the Soviet Union.
A permanent resident of Israel, a Jew with American citizenship, has been held captive in Ramallah by the Palestinian Authority for two months.
Does that sound credible? Could it really happen? It doesn’t seem plausible. But that’s precisely the situation, except for one small detail that shouldn’t make any difference whatsoever: The man in question is an Arab. He is accused of a very serious crime – selling property to Jews. For our neighbors, this is a felony so heinous that it incurs the death penalty.
Imagine an Israeli law prohibiting the sale of property to Arabs. The whole world would be up in arms and we would be ostracized, and rightly so. Shouldn’t the same standards be applied? Now imagine a law forbidding Jews to purchase property in the US, or Britain, or France. How would we react? We’d do whatever it took to get the antisemitic legislation rescinded.
So why aren’t we doing anything about the current situation? The PA lives by the bayonets of the Israeli Army. Otherwise, they’d be reliving what happened to them in Gaza when their loyalists were thrown from rooftops and anyone who managed to get out ran straight for the arms of Israeli soldiers.
When they had to make the choice between their brothers and our troops they chose us, and they knew very well why. So how come we’re tolerating their anti-Jewish law? Mahmoud Abbas made the Palestinian vision very clear: a territory free of Jews.
The man behind bars is Issam Akel. Contrary to law and mutual agreements, this resident of Israel is incarcerated in a Palestinian prison, most likely undergoing torture, and no one is kicking up a fuss. Israel isn’t in an uproar. Instead of doing everything in our power to put an end to this outrage, we’re dragging our feet.
Today is Human Rights Day. And it is also a day that shows how hypocritical most human rights organizations are.
Issam Aqel holds American citizenship. He bought a share in a property in Jerusalem and later sold it to the Jewish organization Ateret Cohanim. As a result he was arrested by the Palestinian Authority and reportedly tortured.
Amnesty International advocates freeing political prisoners, and what else is someone whose crime was to sell land to Jews? But they have not said a word about his arrest.
Human Rights Watch had a large report on torture and arbitrary arrests by the Palestinian Authority published well after Aqel was arrested. But they do not mention anything negative about him, or about any Palestinian law that prohibits selling land to Jews.
Aqel is only representative of one type of person that human rights organizations do not consider truly human, based on their literature and tweets. Jews who live in Judea and Samaria have no human rights either, because when they are killed or attacked - as happened yesterday where a pregnant woman and others were shot for being Jewish - these supposed human rights NGOs are utterly silent (or in this case, an ex-HRW official seemed to blame the victims more than the terrorist.) They might utter a condemnation for a bus bomb within the Green Line, but they don't say a word when Jews are slaughtered or attacked in land that these hypocrites believe shoudld be Judenrein.
HRW and Amnesty and the others love showing how much they support the human rights of terrorists. But that is because they consider terrorists human - but anyone who is Jewish, or who supports Jews, in the "West Bank" or Jerusalem is not truly considered human, and therefore they have no rights.
That's the only explanation I can see for the complete silence that these major organizations have when Jews, or people who help Jews, are attacked.
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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
The Hamas wall of defense
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Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Elder of Ziyon
