Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

12/26 Links Pt1: US: top Hezbollah brass hit in alleged Israeli strikes in Syria; Israel rails at Lebanese government after 5th cross-border tunnel found

From Ian:

US official says top Hezbollah brass hit in alleged Israeli strikes in Syria

An alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria Tuesday night hit several senior Hezbollah officials as they boarded a plane bound for Iran, Newsweek reported Wednesday morning, citing a Defense Department source.

The unnamed source told the magazine he had received the information from top Israeli military brass.

He said strategic Iranian munitions were also targeted, including advanced GPS components for weaponry.

Syrian state media said the strikes, beginning at about 10 p.m., were carried out from Lebanon and that a number of targets were intercepted. It said its own air defenses had opened fire on “enemy targets,” shooting them down.

Syrian TV quoted a military source saying weapons warehouses were hit, and three Syrian soldiers wounded.
A screenshot from video purporting to show a Syrian surface-to-air missile being fired near Damascus on December 25, 2018. (Screen capture: YouTube)

Syrian media said Wednesday morning that Israel hit a base used by Hezbollah in Al-Dimas, a weapons depot at a base belonging to the Syrian army’s 4th division in Sabura and the military’s 10th Division command in Qatana.

Additionally, Syrian air defenses in Attal and the 68th Brigade and 137th Battalion in Khan-al-Sheikh were also reportedly attacked, Hadashot reported.

Netanyahu vows to keep hitting Iran in Syria: ‘We stand firmly on our red lines’

Brushing aside Russian criticism of a reported Israeli airstrike in Syria overnight, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday doubled down on Israel’s policy of attacking Iranian-linked targets in Syria.

“We will not abide an Iranian entrenchment in Syria,” Netanyahu, who is also the defense minister, said at a graduation ceremony for fresh Israeli Air Force pilots at the Hatzerim air base in the south.

“We are taking action against it aggressively and powerfully, including in these very days,” he said.

US President Donald Trump’s “decision to pullout American soldiers from Syria does not change our policy,” Netanyahu said. “We stand firmly on our red lines in Syria and everywhere else.”

The Israeli air force’s capabilities are unmatched, and can reach arenas “near and far, very far,” he added.

US President Donald Trump surprised the world and many of his own officials by announcing last week that he would pull all 2,000 US soldiers in Syria out of the warn-torn country. Israel is concerned that Iran will take advantage of the military vacuum to expand its entrenchment in Syria.

An administration official tells me this is “totally not true.” Senior Israeli official adds: “ridiculous” https://t.co/ukw9k3Coo8
— Amir Tibon (@amirtibon) December 26, 2018

Israel fires at missile from Syria; IDF jets said to pound Damascus arms depots

Israel said Tuesday night it had deployed its air defenses against a missile shot from Syria as Damascus attempted to repel an alleged Israeli airstrike against Hezbollah or Iranian targets near the capital.

The Israel Defense Forces said there was no damage or injuries from the surface-to-air missile fired from Syria at Israel.

“An IDF aerial defense system activated in response to an anti-aircraft missile launched from Syria,” the army said in a statement.

It did not say where or even if the missile was successfully intercepted.

Pictures shared on social media showed an air defense missile being fired near Hadera, a city some 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the Syrian border where residents had earlier reported hearing a loud explosion.

YNet reports:

Authorities in Qatar are preparing to host thousands of Jews and Israelis during the 2022 FIFA World Cup competition. Arrangements need to be made to supply kosher food and places of prayer for soccer fans traveling to the Gulf state.

Hassan al-Thawadi, Secretary-General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (the organization responsible for coordinating among public and private entities to ensure that infrastructure and development projects are delivered in readiness for the 2022 FIFA World Cup), met with US Rabbi Marc Schneier, considered the unofficial Jewish chaplain of the Persian Gulf states, and asked him to serve as an adviser with regards to matters relating to hosting Jewish sports fans who will attend the matches.

"This is an exceptional development that attests to the sensitivity that the Qataris show toward Israelis and the Jewish world," said Rabbi Schneier. He said the Qataris sought his advice with concern for the needs of Jewish fans in everything related to kosher food. "I responded to the request with joy. The fact that our conversation took place on this subject is already amazing," Schneier said.

Whether the Qataris will set up a synagogue for Jewish fans to pray inside Schneier said: "No comment. They have left me to advise them on how to host the Jewish fans. We have begun discussing the details. Al-Thawadi told the New York Times in an interview with that Israelis will be very welcome during the Mondial games in Qatar."

Arabic site Mobtada is not happy, saying that Qatar, by welcoming Jews, "shows its ugly face."

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EoZ suspended from Twitter for 12 hours

Yesterday, I asked Ken Roth from Human Rights Watch a question, and some idiot from Gaza answered this way:

Ahlam is a freedom fighter. Nazi Israel uses its "civilians" as human shields.
— Refaatesque (@ThisGaza) December 25, 2018

I responded:

My obviously sarcastic suggestion for this lowlife to contribute to world peace in the only possible way he physically can was flagged by Twitter as a violation of their rules.

Since strictly speaking it was a violation, I am not appealing.

So no tweets from me for the next 11 hours and change.

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Dictator Mahmoud Abbas also controls the court system that just consolidated his power even more

A few days ago, Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the largely symbolic Palestinian parliament. He pretended to do it in a "legal" way, and therein lies a tale.

The PLC is dominated by Hamas, who won more seats than Fatah in the only parliamentary election ever held in the territories. While it hasn't met since 2006, it still has one meaningful function in Palestinian law: If Abbas dies, the Palestinian Basic Law says that the speaker of the PLC becomes acting prime minister, and that is a Hamas member. So Abbas has incentive to ensure that Fatah remains in control should he expire.

In October, the Fatah Revolutionary Council called on the Palestinian Central Committee to dissolve the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) — the Palestinian parliament. The Fatah Revolutionary Council is dominated by Abbas supporters.

However, the PCC does not have the legal right to dissolve the PLC. And neither does Abbas.

In early December, Abbas vowed to dissolve the PLC "in a legal way." It is unclear if there is any legal way to do so under the Palestinian Basic Law.

But now Abbas has declared that the Palestinian Constitutional Court has indeed dissolved the PLC, just like he wanted.

The Court does not have a webpage. It has a Facebook page that doesn't mention any such decision, or indeed any of its decisions. From that page it appears that members of the court travel to other Islamic countries to conferences on constitutional law - and do little else.

But the Palestinian Constitutional Court, although mentioned in the 2003 Basic Law, was not set up until 2016.

And guess who handpicked all members of the court? Mahmoud Abbas!

Even when that court was created in 2016, it was seen as a power play to further restrict what the PLC could do, or even as an effective replacement for the PLC.

So it is fitting that Abbas declared that his "Supreme Court" made the decision he told them to do. They could do little else.

Hamas members of the PLC vowed to meet anyway, or at least to hold a press conference in front of the shuttered building of the parliament. Abbas' security forces went there to physically stop them from doing so....claiming that they are just following the decision of the court.

It is remarkable how the Western media still reports on Abbas as if he is somehow a legitimate ruler who is accountable to his people. He is just as much a despot as Syria's Assad, and he controls every single major Palestinian legislative, executive and judicial power.

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A group of Technion students won a competition for creating new, protein rich and sustainable foods by inventing falafel balls based on Spirulina seaweed.

The tahini is enriched with astaxathin.

This was part of the international competition where innovative micro-algae products were developed and business plans for their commercialization and exportation were presented.

The Technion students algae-based falafel were judged to be ready to market, now.

Congratulations....I think.

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EoZTV - Review of Xmas Tweets

Mrs. Elder and I review my tweets during Christmas in the latest episode of EoZTV.

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EoZTV - The Reboot

Mrs. Elder and I have rebooted our EoZTV podcast/videocast. In this episode, Mrs. Elder interviews me to go back to basics - what is antisemitism and anti-Zionism? Why do people hate Jews? Why should people support Israel?

It is about 30 minutes long but it is pretty good.

Any feedback or suggestions for future topics are welcome!

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12/25 Links Pt2: Anti-Semitism is not just another opinion. The New York Times should know better; Wiesenthal’s top ten list of antisemites includes Pittsburgh shooter

From Ian:

WaPo (click tweet): Anti-Semitism is not just another opinion. The New York Times should know better.

In its response, the book review editor, Pamela Paul, submitted to some questions, one of which was why the Times did not ask Walker to account for her odd literary taste. “We never question people on their choices,” Paul said. A sentence later, she added, “The people’s answers are a reflection of their opinions, tastes and judgment.” In other words, anti-Semitism is just another opinion, taste or judgment.

Paul went on in that vein, saying that the Review has been down this road before. “We’ve also faced criticism when a writer only named white authors, or male authors. My response to that is the same as in this case: Does that answer tell you something about the subject? I think it does.” But it doesn’t. For some reason, my book group — wearily stuck on Jon Meacham, Michael Beschloss and Doris Kearns Goodwin — never got around to the Icke book. So, not having heard of Icke, I didn’t know that I was being informed that Walker cuddled up nightly with the rantings of a Jew hater. My bad, I suppose.

“Our readers are intelligent and discerning,” Paul added. “We trust them to sift through something which someone says in an interview, whether it’s the president or a musician or a person accused of sexual harassment, and to judge for themselves: Do I agree with this person?” Sexual harassment? The Holocaust? I guess they’re both bad.

In interviewing itself, the Times neglected to ask the Times (Paul) if it even knew that Walker was an anti-Semite. It might also have wondered if that might have caused the Times to feature someone else. After all, anti-Semitism has become something of a common leftist tic, especially among Israel haters, and has even polluted the leadership of the Women’s March. Walker is in that category. She will not even allow “The Color Purple” to be published in Hebrew.

The tone of Paul’s response is appalling. She surely does not mean to, but she manages to treat anti-Semitism as just another point of view — not a hatred with a unique and appalling pedigree that has led to unending slaughter, including the murder of 6 million, pogroms in Kielce in Poland (1946), York in England (1190) and the lynching of Leo Frank in Georgia (1915). What’s lacking from the Times is appropriate shock at Alice Walker’s bigotry and its own refusal to admit a mistake. An apology would be fit to print.

Opinion: Anti-Semitism is not just another opinion. The New York Times should know better. https://t.co/8WKK94gUi8
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 25, 2018

New York Times slammed for ‘trumpeting Hezbollah propaganda’ with Christmas story about terror group

The New York Times was mocked Tuesday for a piece that romanticized efforts by militant group Hezbollah to help spread holiday cheer.

While Hezbollah has been described as an Iranian-backed terrorist organization, the Times' World section sent out the following tweet:

“Even Hezbollah, the Shiite political movement and militia that the United States has branded a terrorist organization, has helped ring in the season in previous years, importing a Santa to Beirut’s southern suburbs to distribute gifts.”

Even Hezbollah, the Shiite political movement and militia that the United States has branded a terrorist organization, has helped ring in the season in previous years, importing a Santa to Beirut’s southern suburbs to distribute gifts. https://t.co/JTbtAgghQ3
— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) December 25, 2018

Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor wrote that the Times “does the bidding of murderous Hezbollah cowards.”

Hezbollah was formed in the early-1980s as part of an Iranian effort to counter the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon during that country’s brutal civil war. The U.S. has designated Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization since the State Department list was created in 1997.

The Times' tweet linked to a feature story headlined, “Christmas in Lebanon: ‘Jesus Isn’t Only for the Christians,’” that referred to Hezbollah as “the Shiite political movement and militia that the United States has branded a terrorist organization.” The piece noted that Hezbollah representatives attended a recent Iranian Christmas concert and has helped ring in the holiday season.

“These demonstrations of Christmas spirit seem intended, analysts said, to demonstrate Hezbollah’s inclusivity as a major political and military force in Lebanese society and to highlight its political alliances with Christian parties,” the paper wrote.

Wiesenthal’s top ten list of antisemites includes Pittsburgh shooter

The prominent US human rights organization the Simon Wiesenthal Center announced on Tuesday its top ten list of the worst outbreaks of antisemitism in 2018, including a year that saw the most lethal incident of Jew-hatred in America’s history.

The right-wing extremist Robert Bowers, who allegedly massacred 11 worshipers at the Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Congregation and wounded six more people, made the list’s number one spot. The Wiesenthal Center wrote “Bowers was an avowed neo-Nazi,” adding that “only FBI intervention thwarted another deadly attack on a Toledo-area synagogue in early December. This attack was planned by Damon Joseph, a fanatical convert to Islam and ISIS adherent.”

The radical African-American Islamist Louis Farrakhan was listed as number two because of his October speech in Detroit. The Nation of Islam leader said about Jews: “I’m not mad at you because you’re stupid… So when they talk about Farrakhan, and call me a hater, you do what they do: call me an anti-Semite… Stop it, I’m an anti-termite.”

The Wiesenthal Center noted that “Throughout the 1930s, before the Holocaust, Nazi propaganda serially demonized Jews as vermin and rats, seeking to dehumanize German Jews in the eyes of their neighbors.”

US campuses earned the third dishonorable spot because of “Alarming ant-Semitic attacks on American campuses” after the Pittsburgh shooting. Swastikas, antisemitic graffiti and posters were found at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Duke University, Cornell University, Penn State, University of California campuses in Berkeley and Davis, and Vassar and Marist colleges.

The British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn scored the fourth spot because he endangers the existence of Jewish life in Great Britain.

Jewish MP Dame Margaret Hodge told Corbyn in July: “You have proved that you don’t want people like me in the party… It is not what you say but what you do, and by your actions you have shown you are an anti-Semitic racist.”

HonestReporting’s Top 10 Posts of 2018

Israel had plenty of intense moments in 2018, with Gaza border riots, air strikes on Syria, the discovery of Hezbollah tunnels, embassies opening in Jerusalem, an entire warehouse of nuclear documents stolen from Tehran and an ongoing investigation into alleged corruption by Israel’s own Prime Minister.

We cheered for Netta Barzilai, mourned the victims of Palestinian terror attacks and the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre and watched with frustration as antisemitism festered in the British Labour Party. Snap elections announced at the end of the year surprised nobody.

So as we wrap up 2018, it’s worth looking back on our 10 most-read posts. What do these articles say about the year that was?

1. The violence

When the first clashes broke out along the Gaza border in April, we cleared the fog of fumbled news coverage. As the violence played out over the year, it became even clearer that the so-called spontaneous March of Return protest was neither “spontaneous” nor a “march,” nor a “protest.” Myths and Facts: Gaza’s Deadly “Protests” was far and away our most-read post of 2018. The myths and facts format identified issues we saw come up again and again.

Too few people know how to argue for Israel - Know how to Answer (video part 1) - Is Israel colonialist?

A tweet I made yesterday seems to have resonated with a lot of people:

Actually, I think Birthright SHOULD go to Hebron, to Shuhada Street, and explain exactly why things are as they are - the snipers who used to shoot at Jews with impunity, the Jewish rights to our second holiest city, the 1929 pogrom, the sacrifices Jews make to live there.
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) December 24, 2018

Apparently, people understand that even Birthright, as great as it is, often does not directly answer the questions that attendees might have.

Nearly six years ago I gave a lecture at Yeshiva University on how to answer anti-Israel arguments. Since the lecture was over an hour and twenty minutes, I decided to break it up into 20 sections, one each to answer one popular anti-Israel argument.

Here's part 1, on the accusation that Israel is a colonialist state.

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Palestine mission to Netherlands sends Christmas message showing children getting gifts over barbed wire

A joyful holiday message tweeted out by the Palestine Mission in the Netherlands shows that for Palestinians, literally everything is an occasion to give the world an anti-Israel political message:

St. Nicholas/Santa uses "peace doves" to deliver presents over the barbed wire that supposedly separates Palestinians from the rest of the world, according to this highly offensive piece of propaganda disguised as innocent holiday greetings.

The hate message for Israel is subtle but undeniable.

(h/t GS)

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12/25 Links Pt1: Haaretz Op-Ed Says Shooting IDF Soldiers Is Legitimate; Oren: A One-Time Opportunity for Israel in the Golan?; Christmas sympathy for Palestinian Arabs - wrapped in lies

From Ian:

Haaretz Op-Ed Says Shooting IDF Soldiers Is Legitimate

An op-ed in Haaretz last week by Kobi Niv was headlined, “Shooting at Soldiers of Occupation is Legitimate.” It is sick.

According to Niv, “Shooting at an occupying army is a legitimate action according to any law. And unfortunately, in Ofra and its sister settlements, in Hebron and its environs and in all the territories occupied in the 1967 war, we are an occupying nation and army. … These areas do not belong to us and not one person in the entire world … recognizes our rights or ownership over these lands. We are a nation, an army, a security service and settlers who are occupiers there.”

He goes on to say that it is the “right of any people around the world who are living under an occupation, … to rebel against the occupier and to try to remove him from their land. Thus, shooting at soldiers of an occupying army, in this case an Israeli one, is a totally legitimate action, by any moral or legal standard.” [Emphasis added]

A phrase mistakenly attributed to Lenin famously referred to those who work against their own people’s best interests — and in support of their enemies’ — as “useful idiots.” There can be no kinder words than this to describe Niv and all those who agree with him.

Haaretz Op-Eds Argue IDF Soldiers Are Terrorists, Israeli Vandals Are KKK

Within a week, Haaretz has managed to publish two Op-Eds demonizing Israel with main arguments based on blatant lies. Namely, shortly after recent West Bank terror attacks which targeted soldiers and civilians, and which claimed the lives of soldiers and a prematurely born infant, Haaretz argues that Hamas is a legitimate guerilla organization. And after Israelis were apparently responsible for vandalizing Palestinian property, a Haaretz column maintains there’s a “flourishing of the Jewish KKK,” that is similar to the American KKK “at its height.”

In the first Op-Ed, Haaretz contributor Kobi Niv claims that the Dec. 13 terror attack in Givat Assaf, near the settlement of Ofra, in which two IDF soldiers were killed, is “a legitimate action according to any law” because the attack targeted “an occupying army” (“Shooting at soldiers of occupation is legitimate,” Dec. 21).

Kobi Niv is lying. As was widely reported, including in his own newpaper, not only “soldiers of the occupying power” were targeted in the Dec. 13 attack; a young woman who stood nearby, a civilian, was also shot from point-blank range and seriously wounded.

In the second Op-Ed, attorney Michael Sfard today labels Israeli settlers who are apparently responsible for the graffiti on the walls of Palestinian houses and who damaged Palestinian-owned cars a Jewish Ku Klux Klan (“The Flourishing of the Jewish KKK“):
We have to face reality. We are witnessing the flourishing of a Jewish Ku Klux Klan movement. Like its American counterpart, the Jewish version also drinks from the polluted springs of religious fanaticism and separatism, only replacing the Christian iconography with its Jewish equivalent. Like white racism’s modus operandi, this Jewish racism is also based on fearmongering and violence against its equivalent of Blacks — the Palestinians.

Like the members of the KKK, the Jewish rioters throw stones, shoot, and set fire to homes, and in one instance, even burned down a house with its residents inside. And like the American Klan at its height, the Jewish Klan also enjoys law enforcement authorities who turn a blind eye.

Is it possible to equate the actions of “the American Klan at its height,” to those of the “price-tag” perpetrators, however repugnant their actions?

“At its height,” the KKK murdered thousands of innocent people, mostly African-Americans. The lynchings, often hangings, were carried out in central squares and streets, in front of a large, inflamed crowd.

David Singer: Trump Must Enjoin UN to Condemn Hizballah, UNIFIL and Hamas

President Trump should urgently enjoin the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to condemn Hizballah and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) following Israel’s discovery of four tunnels dug from Lebanon into Israel.

Trump signed the Sanctioning the Use of Civilians as Defenseless Shields Act (“HR 3342”) into law on 21 December demanding sanctions against Hamas and Hizballah personnel – foreign terrorist organizations proscribed under 8 U.S.C. 1189.

Trump is probably still smarting from the humiliating defeat – by the narrow margin of nine votes – of the American-sponsored Resolution at the UNGA condemning Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza for:

repeatedly firing rockets into Israel

using airborne incendiary devices

constructing military infrastructure, including tunnels to infiltrate Israel and equipment to launch rockets into civilian areas

Resubmitting the Resolution to the UNGA would determine whether those countries that voted:

against the Resolution (57),

abstained (33) or

did not vote (16)

will be prepared to change their morally-reprehensible decisions.

Hizballah and UNIFIL have to be made accountable for creating the current dangerous threat to peace and security on the Israel-Lebanese border in flagrant breach of international law and international humanitarian law.

How to Battle Hizbullah Rockets Using Artificial Intelligence

Amit Meltzer, former chief technology officer for a key Israeli government agency, discussed the application of artificial intelligence (AI) against Hizbullah rockets at a recent conference in Tel Aviv.

Israeli intelligence is constantly surveilling Hizbullah rocket crews and known or suspected locations of rockets. He said AI can collect massive amounts of data about the location of rocket crews before and during their preparations for firing rockets, in order to target those teams before they launch their rockets.

In some cases, AI can identify an operational window precisely for deploying paratroopers to deal with a Hizbullah threat for which aerial strikes may be insufficient.

Moreover, since Israel wants to be ethical and reduce collateral civilian casualties, AI can help calculate when and where a terrorist will be alone with a rate of precision that past intelligence could almost never approach.

Melzer also noted that there is "a big difference between intelligence collection by the Chinese versus the Russians" when they use cyber tools on Israel. Russia could pass on intelligence it obtains to the Assad regime in Syria. But in terms of retaliating, he said, "we also do not want a conflict with Russia."

In contrast, "the Chinese have no interest against Israel. They just collect intelligence on the entire world." The "chance they will give this intelligence to adversaries" of Israel is "much lower than with the Russians."

Tell The Leaders of The Women's March: Jews Were Not Always Considered "White" In The US

By Daled Amos

Finally, the media has begun to take the issue of Antisemitism in The Women's March seriously.

A turning point was the article Is The Women's March Melting Down featured on Tablet. In one of the key passages, a conflict during a meeting of some of the leaders is described:

“Tamika [Mallory] 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 [Wruble], 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.”

Later, in an interview with The New York Times, Mallory is quoted patting herself on the back for how she has become more educated about Jews since that meeting:

“Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy, ALL Jews are targeted by it.”

Apparently, we are supposed to be impressed by her new level of enlightenment.

Tamika Mallory with Farrakhan (Cropped from screenshot)

Mallory is one of many whose fixation on 'white people' dictates her statements and politics. But preoccupation with race has a history.

On the PBS program "The Origin of Everything," one episode covered "The Origin of Race in the USA," and makes the point that Jews were not always considered to be "White":

The non-White categorization of Jews predominated from between the mid to late-19th century into the first couple of decades of the 20th century and is a distinction that no longer is used today:

According to the beginning of the program, the change in categorization of Jews from the "Hebrew" race to the "White" race was in part one of convenience, shoring up a "white" racial majority against immigrants.

More importantly, the idea of categorization by race is itself a matter of convenience -- and manipulation. The concept of race was used to support colonialization and slavery in the 17th and 18th centuries and then the Enlightenment provided the rationalization to justify it.

Eric Goldstein, author of the book "The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity" gave further background on the issue of Jews and race in a lecture last year entitled "Jews and the Science of 'Race' in America"

In that lecture, Goldstein explains that Jews during the late 19th century and early 20th century wanted to preserve the possibility of Jewish assimilability, something that was far from being a given.

For example, Goldstein showed the following during his talk:

This is not some caricature from Der Sturmer -- it was published in New York in 1902 and illustrates the kind of images of Jews that circulated in popular culture in the US at the time. Jews were perceived as being different both physically and racially.

They were hardly white supremacists.

Ships passenger lists around that time used the European designation for Jews, where the nationality would be given as Russian, while the race was registered as Hebrew -- as opposed to the US designation that defined race along white/black lines.

In 1909, the Commerce Department, which was in charge of the census at the time, suggested using the European system to better track and understand the new immigrants, a move that would promote Jews as being separate. The American Jewish Committee and Union of American Hebrew Congregations saw this as a liability and successfully lobbied against using the European designation.

Also around that time, there were some courts that denied naturalization to Syrian immigrants, based on the understanding that they were not "white" -- which again caused concern among the Jewish committee because of the fear they could have the same problem.

In his book, "Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race," Matthew Frye Jacobson notes that Jews were not unique in being considered as non-white. The Irish, Armenians, Italians, Poles, Syrians, Greeks, Sicilians, Finns and others were also not considered "white" and in fact only became considered white over time.

Jacobson writes that "whiteness" itself is a fiction:

As races are invented categories--designations coined for the sake of grouping and separating peoples along lines of presumed difference--Caucasians are made and not born. White privilege in various forms has been a constant in American political culture since colonial times, but whiteness itself has been subject to all kinds of contests and has gone through a series of historical vicissitudes.

But while "whiteness" is a fiction, it is a very useful fiction.

The concept of race is malleable and "whiteness" was used in the past by colonialists to enable and justify the subjugation of others.

Today, there are those who share Mallory's obsession with race and manipulate the concept of "whiteness" to ostracize Jews.

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Yesterday, UNWRA was embarrassed by UN Watch when they noticed an UNRWA tweet complimenting a terrorist as a "famed Palestinian writer."

UNRWA then claimed that it was all a mistake:

But this isn't the only time UNRWA has mentioned Ghassan Kanafani.

On multiple occasions since 2010, UNRWA has partnered with the Ghassan Kanafani Cultural Center in Lebanon. In 2015 and 2016 it called the Kanafani Center a local partner,

While the Ghassan Kanafani Cultural Center indeed works with disabled people, it makes it very clear that it is anti-Israel and antisemitic, in violation of UNRWA's rules.

On its webpage, it says:

There is nothing wrong with reiterating that Ghassan was assassinated because he was committed to the ideas of the original Palestinian movement, which believes in the final belief that the destruction of the Zionist ghetto [Israel] and its removal from existence is a historical inevitability that must be done. Even if it takes a thousand years. ...The stalemate of the Palestinian leadership, especially those who engineered the infamous Oslo Treaty, will only further humiliate the Palestinian people.

Therefore, the idea of coexistence with the Jews is an absolutely heretical idea, and it is certainly flawed. In truth, Shylock takes and does not give, nor does he coexist with anyone, and the Palestinian would rather be dead than kneeling.

Put this ingrained idea into the rubbish bins and alert those who kneel to the Jews.

This explicitly antisemitic organization is who UNRWA partners with.

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The official Palestinian Wafa news agency has an article about a friendly soccer match between the Palestinian team and Iran that took place in Doha.

The article headline refers to the team as the "fedayeen." Wikipedia confirms that this is the team's informal name, how it is referred to by Palestinian Arabs.

"Fedayeen" is the Arabic word for commandos, and that is the name that was used for the terrorists who infiltrated Israel in the 1950s as well as the Palestinian terrorists who hijacked airplanes and terrorized the West in the 1970s. For example, this article refers to the 1972 Munich Olympic terrorists as "fedayeen."

When Palestinians are looking for heroes to associate with their sports teams, they choose terrorists.

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12/24 Links Pt2: Netanyahu to Christian IDF Soldiers: ‘You Belong to the Most Moral Army on Earth’; The Democratic Socialists of America Are Bringing Hatred of Israel into the Democratic Party

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Merry Christmas

The majority of Christians in Israel will not be celebrating this week, as they are Greek Orthodox, and their Christmas falls on January 7.

But this is still a good time to take stock of religious freedom in our region.

Earlier this month, the head of the Church of England wrote in the Sunday Telegraph that millions of Middle Eastern Christians are on the verge of “imminent extinction.”

“In the birthplace of our faith, the community faces extinction,” Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby wrote, calling it “the worst situation since the Mongol invasions of the 13th century.”

Christians face government harassment in Egypt, leading them to emigrate in record numbers.

Lebanese Christians fear Hezbollah’s growing power in their country, along with an influx of Syrian refugees. Turkish Christians are also facing oppression by their government. And in Iraq, the Christian population has been nearly wiped out, but those remaining are trying to rebuild their lives.

Closer to home, the Christian Palestinian population is in a constant downward trend.

Christians have long been fleeing Palestinian-controlled areas in light of systemic abuse. Terrorists affiliated with then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat famously raided and trashed the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002, holding monks hostage.

Last year, Christians were only 2% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, less than half their numbers a generation ago.

In 1950 in Bethlehem, Jesus’s birthplace, 86% residents were Christians. In 2017, they were only 12%.

Netanyahu to Christian IDF Soldiers: ‘You Belong to the Most Moral Army on Earth’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Christian members of the Israel Defense Forces on Sunday.

“We are proud of you; the entire nation is proud of you,” Netanyahu told them at a civil New Year event at the Tel Aviv Palmach Museum. “You belong to the most moral army on earth.”

Netanyahu then took a shot at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who said on Saturday that “the Jews in Israel kick men, but also women and children, when they’re on the ground.”

“He is obsessed with Israel,” said Netanyahu. “He knows what a moral army is, and he knows what a genuine democracy is, as opposed to an army that massacres women and children in Kurdish villages and a state which, to my regret, is becoming more dictatorial day by day.”

“But there has been an improvement,” he added. “Erdoğan used to attack me every two hours and now it is every six hours.”