Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 02, 2019

Why Are Jews Being Drawn To Europe's Right Wing Parties? (Daled Amos)

by Daled Amos

One of Netanyahu's undeniable successes as Prime Minister of Israel is his ability to increase the circle of Israel's friends. Part of his agenda to improve Israel's ties with other countries is his outreach to Eastern Europe. For example, he has extended Israel's friendship to Viktor Orban, the far right Prime Minister of Hungary. More than pursuing some vague, abstract goal, Netanyahu's actions can be seen as an attempt to weaken the EU's hostile strategy against Israel.

For example, last December, Hungary abstained when the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly rejected the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Hungary also joined the Czech Republic and Romania to block an EU statement criticizing the US for moving its embassy to Jerusalem.

For their part, right-wing Eastern European leaders get a hechsher, "kosher certification" from Netanyahu that protects them from accusations of being antisemitic racists.

Now it appears that this wooing of Israel manifests itself not only on a global level but on a local level as well.

In his article in The Wall Street Journal, Bojan Pancevski writes how Europe’s Right Wing Woos a New Audience: Jewish Voters, reveals how right-wing groups in Europe are getting Jews to join their ranks:

Across Europe, anti-immigration parties with ties to far-right movements have stepped up efforts to recruit supporters in the continent’s small Jewish community, often drawing on perceptions in that community about anti-Semitism among Muslims.

Based on the recent release of the EU survey on the increase in Jew-hatred and hate crime in the EU, this 'perception' has a very strong and very dangerous basis in reality. The fact that much of this antisemitism comes from the Muslim immigrant community makes Jews natural allies of the far-right.

The article illuminates a developing trend -

Jewish legislators in the Swedish parliament are members of the Sweden Democrats, a party with Neo-Nazi roots (that it has renounced).
Austria’s parliament includes Jews who are members of the Freedom Party, which was founded by former members of Hitler’s SS.
Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician and vociferous critic of Islam, has a Jewish legislator in his party.
In France, which has Europe’s largest Jewish community, about 10% of Jewish voters are estimated to support the National Front. The party has renamed itself National Rally.
Right-wing political leaders Ms. Marine Le Pen, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban have all traveled to Israel, building ties with the Israeli government as well as with their local Jewish constituencies
Emanuel Bernhard Krauskopf and about 30 others recently founded a Jewish chapter of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), the largest opposition group in parliament, among whose members are people accused of being Antisemites and right-wing extremists.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban meets with Netanyahu.
Screenshot from YouTube video

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. Screenshot from YouTube Video

Keep in mind that this is not part of an attempt to win the Jewish vote itself. According to the Pew Research Center, the total Jewish population of Europe is a little over 1 million, far less than the growing Muslim population.

The Muslim vote is more important than the Jewish one. What the Jews do offer, through their participation in right-wing parties, is their own hechsher of these groups.

Krauskopf says he doesn't mind “being used as a fig leaf" by the AfD in order to fight the growing antisemitism, and no doubt many Jewish members of these groups and parties across Europe feel the same way.

But suspicions of AfD persist:

In January, a court ruled against an AfD member and lawmaker in a libel case after he was accused of being a Holocaust denier for challenging the number of the Nazis’ victims
The party’s co-chairman minimized the importance of the Third Reich in 1,000 years of German history.

In response to such events, Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the country’s biggest Jewish body, said “a party that tolerates people playing down the Holocaust cannot possibly stand for the rights of Jews.”

Sigmount Königsberg, appointed by the Jewish community in Berlin to monitor antisemitic acts takes a different tack in addressing antisemitism, noting that "if we want to fight it, we can only do it together with the Islamic community.”

This reaction in Germany is likely indicative of the kinds of reactions to be found by mainstream Jewish groups throughout Europe. Clearly, not everyone agrees that the right-wing parties are part of the solution and no longer part of the problem.

Pancevski does note an example of Muslim leaders making an effort to address the rise of antisemitism. He quotes Mohamad Hajjaj, chairman of the Berlin chapter of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, who says imams in Germany work together in their communities and in their schools to fight against antisemitism. Since only the example of Germany is mentioned, it appears to be a very limited initiative. After all, the potential backlash Muslim leaders would face for the perception of helping Jews or for supporting some kind of normalization with Israel is obvious. Don't expect any imam-led trips to Israel in the near future.

Of course, none of this is going to affect the ongoing Jewish love affair with liberals and the Democratic party in the US.

For now.

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Max Berger, co-founder of IfNotNow, made some very bizarre and almost certainly false claims about Birthright on Twitter last night:

Every birthright trip includes a heavy dose of right wing propaganda.

My trip leader was a settler who told us all Arabs were terrorists and threatened to throw me off the trip for my "Arab beliefs." American Jews were hazed by Israeli soldiers who pushed pins into their chests.
On my trip, one of our evening activities was a simulation of a checkpoint, in which we had to pretend to be IDF soldiers denying entry to pleading Palestinian women.

Even if they told us their children were sick, we were to deny everyone entry. It was horrifying.

He was immediately challenged:

David Sebs @dsebs

I went on a trip in 2012 and this couldn't be further from the truth.

If anything our guide was extremely sympathetic to the Palestinians... Even organizing Ultimate Frisbee tournaments with those on the other side of the 'wall'.

Gritty 2020🔥 @maxberger

It totally depends on your trip leader. They are discouraged from talking about the conflict, but some bend the rules.

David Sebs @dsebs

I mean you mentioned 'every Birthright trip' and then conceded that it 'depends on your trip leader.'

You understand the hypocrisy in that right?

I'm not even trolling, but it c'mon....

And:

Melissa Weiss
@melissaeweiss
I don’t often call people liars, but I went on Birthright as a student. Dozens of my friends have staffed and guided trips. Hundreds of my friends and colleagues have been participants over the years. Not a single one has had the experience Max describes. Not a single one.

Berger backtracks big time:

Gritty 2020🔥 @maxberger
Replying to @melissaeweiss
I don't think this was the least bit typical! Lots of stuff happened on my trip that wasn't according to protocol. But the larger point still holds.

The "larger point," apparently, that Birthright is still right wing propaganda even if his own supposed case was an outlier. And if that really happened, there would be lots of people talking about it.I

Berger was asked repeatedly the name of the leader of his trip. Obviously, if his claims were true, everyone from the left to the far right would condemn it. But he won't say.

His "bravery" at "exposing" Birthright apparently doesn't extend to allowing himself to be fact-checked.

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Palestinian Authority says accurate Israeli descriptions of how they honor terrorists are "incitement"

The official Palestinian Authority Wafa news agency has a weekly feature describing all of the cases of supposed Israeli media "incitement" that would cause Israelis to want to murder or attack Arabs.

Obviously they do this just to counter the very real incitement that they have daily in their media; if they can point to Israeli incitement they feel that they are blunting the message from Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI and others. Even the most ridiculous pretense of incitement irs enough for them to be able to point to statistics that no one will challenge of "Israeli media had X number of articles this weekinciting violence."

Here is the very first example from their report from last week.

The report presents a number of news articles that incite incitement and racism against the Palestinians.

According to journalists Asaf Jibur and Yishai Friedman, Israeli Arab terrorists, who were recently released from prison, were received like kings in Ramallah in the presence of senior officials of the Palestinian Authority. Among those who received a certificate of appreciation, during a ceremony held a few weeks ago, were Samir Sarsawi and Mahmoud Jabarin, who were accompanied by a convoy of long cars, horses, applause and encouragement from the public, and a ceremony at the grave of Yasser Arafat.

Sarsawi was charged with throwing hand grenades at civilians on the Noordo Street in Haifa in 1998, and was imprisoned on charges of placing explosives in order to kill, manufacture weapons or explosive materials, and membership in illegal organizations. Jabarin was accused of killing an Arab collaborator. The wife of the terrorist, Walid Daqqa, also participated in the ceremony.

The concert was broadcast live and live on Palestine TV channel, within the program "Giants of Patience", which follows the families of "terrorists".

From what I can tell, the story is largely accurate - I couldn't confirm that Jabarin, an Israeli citizen was honored in Ramallah at the celebration for Sarsawi but both of them were released in recent months after serving full 30 year sentences and both were highly honored - Jabarin in Umm al Fahm and Sarsawi in Ramallah.

Accurately reporting on how Palestinians honor murderers is considered "incitement" by the Palestinian Authority.

In a sense I suppose it is, because it causes Israelis to get angry at their "peace partners."

It is interesting how little coverage both these events received in English at the time. Everyone should see how Arabs - including Israeli Arabs - honor murderers.

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The Hasby Award Winners, March 2018

In March, I presented the Hasby Awards at Bar Ilan University.

The video of the event is unfortunately unwatchable because of sound problems, but I never listed the winners here!

So without further ado, here are the winners of the 2018 Hasby Awards!

Best Young Defender of Israel - Rachel Lester
Best Humorist - The Mossad Twitter
Best Advocacy Organization - Stand With Us
Best News Analysis Video - Richard Landes "Everyone Agrees"
Biggest Personal Sacrifice for Israel - Mahdi Satri
Biggest Balls - Hen Mazzig
Best Research Tweeter - Nurit Baytch

I haven't thought about what to do with the Hasbys going forward. I enjoy the live presentations, and haven't done any in the New York area yet, so that is a possibility.

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01/01 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The Labour party's out-of-body antisemitism experience; New York Times Ends Year with Epic Smear; Guardian falsely blames Israel for shortages of medicine in Gaza

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Labour party's out-of-body antisemitism experience

When Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry spoke last week at the annual Limmud Jewish cultural festival in Birmingham, she declared in relation to the accusation that the Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn was an antisemite:
“I don’t believe there is a racist or antisemitic bone in his body”. And she claimed that Corbyn had been unable to deal properly with the issue of Labour antisemitism because he had been so emotionally affected by being accused of it himself.

Cue derision and jeers. Which was only to be expected.

After all, Corbyn has not only personally endorsed numerous enemies of the existence of the State of Israel, Judaism and the Jewish people. He has not only failed adequately to tackle the blizzard of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish utterances by party members under his leadership.

He has himself endorsed unambiguously antisemitic tropes, such as the wall mural depicting grotesquely caricatured Jewish financiers making money literally on the backs of the enslaved poor (which he claims to have supported only on freedom of expression grounds and not to have noticed what the mural actually contained); and he also implied that British Zionist Jews were somehow alien to their own country by being unable to appreciate “English irony”.

So Thornberry’s protestations were ludicrous and clearly untrue and amounted merely to cynical dissembling, no?

Well actually, no. I think she was speaking honestly. And that’s even worse.

For I believe that Corbyn really is upset at the accusations against him – because he really does believe he is simply incapable of antisemitism (which he equates, shallowly, with racism, thus demonstrating he doesn’t even understand that antisemitism is not just a prejudice nor even just a form of bigotry but is a unique and ultimately murderous deformation of rationality and psychology).

And he’s not alone in that belief. Virtually all on the left believe they too are incapable of antisemitism because that is exclusively to be found on the right. Why so?

Melanie Phillips: US Syria pullout, EU antisemitism survey

Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Unwired some major events of the past few days in our crazy world.

We consider the implications of President Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, the ramifications of which are more complex than might be imagined from the shallow mainstream media accounts. You can also read my take on what really matters about America’s approach to Syria and Iran here.

We also talk about the recent EU survey of perceptions by Jewish communities in Britain and Europe of the incidence of antisemitism in their countries. The survey found rising alarm, especially in Britain, but once again this needs to be unpicked to discover findings which the mainstream media have not seen fit to explore, including a refusal to face realities by the Jewish communities themselves.

Know How to Answer #5: "Israel is Responsible for the Palestinian Refugee Problem"

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.

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.

Just How Do You Measure The Level Of Democracy In A Terrorist State? (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

In my last post, I wrote about the Democracy Index for 2017, compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Looking at its evaluation of Israel gave an opportunity to contrast two very different views of what the index revealed about Israel.

But the Democracy Index also evaluates "Palestine" and Iran, for example

Which raises the question: How do those two jive with this description of "democracy," from the report?

most observers today would agree that, at a minimum, the fundamental features of a democracy include government based on majority rule and the consent of the governed; the existence of free and fair elections; the protection of minority rights; and respect for basic human rights. Democracy presupposes equality before the law, due process and political pluralism.

Looking at how the report evaluates those countries reminds us of the bias of the West when it comes to the Middle East in general, and these states in particular.

Here is a composite of the scores for Israel as compared with "Palestine" and Iran.

The Middle East and North African (MENA) section consists of 20 countries. Not surprisingly, Israel ranks first.

And guess who ranks 5th out of 20 countries.

In the area of Electoral Process and Pluralism, they rank low -- as you would expect.
But when you read the report, you find that of the 12 questions used to determine the ranking in that category, 9 relate to having elections.

Now we all know that tracking how long Abbas has been president after his 4-year term ended in 2009 is practically a spectator sport. There have been no elections, neither for president nor Parliament. Of the remaining questions about the freedom to form political parties, by no stretch of the imagination would they get full credit.

Also, "Palestine" is classified as a "hybrid" as opposed to a Democracy or Authoritarian. Hybrids are countries where:

Elections have substantial irregularities that often prevent them from being both free and fair. Government pressure on opposition parties and candidates may be common. Serious weaknesses are more prevalent than in flawed democracies—in political culture, functioning of government and political participation. Corruption tends to be widespread and the rule of law is weak. Civil society is weak. Typically, there is harassment of and pressure on journalists, and the judiciary is not independent.

But in the West Bank, they don't have "election irregularities" -- they don't have elections at all!

Contrast the definition of 'hybrid' with the definition of 'authoritarian' government:

In these states, state political pluralism is absent or heavily circumscribed. Many countries in this category are outright dictatorships. Some formal institutions of democracy may exist, but these have little substance. Elections, if they do occur, are not free and fair. There is disregard for abuses and infringements of civil liberties. Media are typically state-owned or controlled by groups connected to the ruling regime. There is repression of criticism of the government and pervasive censorship. There is no independent judiciary.

And in the category of "Political Participation," "Palestine" comes in with a score of 7.78, tied for second place with Tunisia behind Israel. Add to that how the Palestinian score of 7.78 in Political Participation ties with Canada and exceeds the US score of 7.22 and it appears clear that different standards apply to different areas of the world -- the soft bigotry of low expectations.

As it turns out, the Index uses criteria that The Economist has decided are not really all that important:

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index is based on the view that measures of democracy which reflect the state of political freedoms and civil liberties are not thick enough. They do not encompass sufficiently, or, in some cases, at all, the features that determine how substantive democracy is. Freedom is an essential component of democracy, but not, in itself, sufficient. In existing measures, the elements of political participation and functioning of government are taken into account only in a marginal and formal way.

Yet the report claims that "the condition of holding free and fair competitive
elections, and satisfying related aspects of political freedom, is clearly the sine qua non of all definitions [of Democracy]."

The report also claims "freedom of expression is a sine qua non of democracy"

We have 2 areas that constitute a "sine qua non" of democracy, areas where "Palestine" is clearly deficient, yet it ranks 5th in the Middle East.

This mirrors how Europe bends over backward trying to find excuses not to label Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations and why a corrupt terrorism-sponsoring dictator like Abbas is always welcome in Europe and gets standing ovations.

Apparently, some elements of Democracy are judged to be less important than others when it comes to the Middle East, provided that the country is Muslim or Arab.

The report also expresses its concern numerous times that "anti-terror laws have also been widely criticised for curbing the exercise of freedom of expression in the name of protecting public order and national security." Oddly, there is no indication in the report that those states which commit acts of terrorism lose points at all, which mirrors the EU's general lack of an outcry in response to Abbas's habit of paying stipends to terrorists.

Also, while "Palestine" is included in the list, nowhere is there any indication how "Palestine" is being defined -- does it include Gaza with its Hamas terrorist leadership -- an issue that those calling for a two-state solution never get around to addressing.

Another example of the superficial nature of the evaluations in the report is its rating for Iran, which claims:

an improvement in Iran’s score in 2017, which saw it climb four places to 150th globally as a result of consistently high voter turnout in recent elections.

But according to the American Enterprise Institute, the reason for the large turnout may have nothing at all to do with political participation:

One correspondent explained that the government also stamps birth certificates at polling stations when the presidential ballot is collected. Those stamps are necessary for university admission, bank loans, or state employment. What reportedly happens is that many voters outside the capital and major cities pick up the presidential ballot in order to qualify for such benefits. The state counts the ballot, and the “voter” spoils the presidential ballot since their interest is local only and they do not wish to legitimize the broader regime.

At a time when the media, traditional as well as social, is understood to have its own biases and agenda, their reports and articles require a critical eye, now more than ever.

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01/01 Links Pt1: This Palestinian Was Tortured. But No One Cares Because It Wasn’t By Israel; The PA’s Apartheid land laws; Jordan adds insole to injury

From Ian:

This Palestinian Was Tortured. But No One Cares Because It Wasn’t By Israel.

Issam Aqel, a Palestinian-American with Israeli residency, has been detained, arrested and tortured.

You may be surprised that you’ve never heard of Aqel. It’s usual for the plight of the Palestinians to make big news. But the ugly truth is, they only make big news when they’ve been hurt by Israel.

And Aqel was tortured by the Palestinian Authority.
This Palestinian Was Tortured. But No One Cares Because It Wasn’t By Israel. by the Forward

Aqel responded to a PA summons to appear in Ramallah where he was called in to “sign paperwork.” But once he appeared, Aqel wasn’t allowed to leave. According to people who have been in touch with him, he was tortured.

Hi crime? Selling land to Jews.

A few weeks ago, the Palestinian Authority’s security forces announced that it had “foiled” the sale of roughly 741 acres to Jews throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In a statement posted on Facebook, the PA said that in a large-scale operation, 44 Palestinians were arrested for attempting to sell property to Jews.

The use of torture is not unusual in the PA. Another man who I will call Ali to protect his identity testified about it before the Knesset. He said he was taken from his family. He was kept in a cage for weeks at a time. His captors threw hot and cold water, threw garbage and rotten food on top of him. They forced him to sit on broken bottles and hung him upside down for days on end.

Ali is one of 52 so-called “collaborators” who were arrested and tortured in the 1990s and early 2000s. In the PA, collaborating with Israeli security forces is illegal, despite the fact that the Oslo accords call for security collaboration between the Authority and Israel. Over the years, many men and women have been accused of being “collaborators” and tortured and killed for their crimes.

“They punished me for saving lives,” Ali told the Knesset, “for preventing terror attacks.”

The 52 “collaborators” were freed by the IDF during Operation Defensive Shield, an Israeli military operation which tackled the suicide-bomber infrastructure in 2002.

PMW: The PA’s Apartheid land laws

An American-Palestinian, Isaam Akel, was convicted of selling land in East Jerusalem to Jews and sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor by a Palestinian court:
"In accordance with the instructions of clause 2/274 of the [PA] criminal procedures law, the [PA] Grand Criminal Court, which convened in Ramallah, convicted the accused I.A. on the charges attributed to him - an attempt to cut off part of the Palestinian territories and annex them to a foreign state [as described in] Penal Code Number 16 of 1960. Relying on the conviction and in accordance with the instructions of clause 2 of Decision with Legislative Force Number 20 of 2014, the court sentenced him to life with hard labor.
The lawsuit was submitted to the court on Dec. 23, 2018, and the verdict was given approximately a week later."
[WAFA, official PA news agency, Dec. 31, 2018]

The basis for the PA's prosecution of Palestinians for selling land to Jews is article 114 of the Jordanian Criminal Code (1960), which the PA later adopted. The original Jordanian provision stated that a person who attempts to sever any part of the Jordanian territory in order to annex it to a foreign state will be subject to at least five years of hard labor.

In 2014, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas passed an amendment to the law - Government Decision with Legislative Effect (No. 20), 2014 - in which he raised the maximum sentence to life imprisonment with hard labor.

The prosecution of Palestinians for selling land to Jews is not new and enjoys overwhelming Palestinian support.

In October, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction stated:
"The Fatah Movement emphasized that the sale of properties and lands to the occupation or their illegal transfer to dubious sources constitutes high treason against the religion, the homeland, and the people, and that 'whoever does this decrees upon himself shame and disgrace in this world and in the world to come.'"
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 14, 2018]

This position is also reflective of the general opinion of the Palestinians. In a recent study, 87.8% of those surveyed said they would call Palestinians who sell land to Jews "traitors" while 9.1% would call them "corrupt/despicable/non-patriotic." [Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, Dec. 18, 2018]

Honest Reporting: Is Israel an Apartheid State?

Jordan adds insole to injury

The fact is that malice toward Israel and Jews is also something that appears regularly in Jordanian media and civil discourse. As the US State Department’s 2017 annual report on international religious freedom noted concerning Jordan, “Editorial cartoons, articles, and postings on social media continued to present negative images of Jews and to conflate anti-Israel sentiment with antisemitic sentiment. The government continued not to take action with regard to antisemitic material appearing in the media, despite laws that prohibit such material.”

HENCE, EVEN though Jordan has formally been at peace with the Jewish state for more than two decades, it appears that our neighbor to the east is shamelessly fomenting antisemitic and anti-Zionist sentiment with little regard for the potentially dire consequences.

This cannot be allowed to continue. With all due respect for Jordan’s so-called “moderating” role in the region, the regime’s actions appear to be anything from moderate and threaten to add fuel to an already combustible situation.

Fortunately, both Israel and the US have leverage with Amman. Washington provided Jordan with $1.3 billion in aid in 2017, and the Jewish state provides the parched kingdom with 50 million cubic meters of desperately needed water annually.

So both in terms of the pocketbook and the pipes, Jordan is reliant on American and Israeli largesse to keep its autocratic rulers afloat. Now more than ever would be a good time to employ these tools to pressure the Jordanian regime to start acting more like a friend, and less like a foe.

Otherwise, there is little reason to continue pouring liquids and liquidity into a country that tramples on its commitments, both literally and figuratively.

Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah brags about its terrorism increasing after Oslo

From MEMRI:

Some say that after the Oslo Accords, armed struggle abandoned. However, particularly after the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian resistance, led by Fatah, was set free. In the years of the Intifada, between the years 2000 and 2005, it was set free in a way that was unprecedented in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The fiercest battles between Fatah and Israel took place after the Oslo Accords, not before them. I am referring to the years 2000-2005. This means that that negotiations that ended in failure in Camp David brought about armed resistance by Fatah with a ferocity that had not been seen before the Oslo Accords.

(h/t Yoel)

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On Alice Walker's blog, the author and poet publishes a letter from anti-Zionist Israeli Nurit Peled-Elhanan that pretends to defend the Talmud from Walker's antisemitic essay:

Dear Alice
I read your poem and the criticism of it and I must react.
The people who torture and kill Palestinian have never studied the Talmud. It is not studied in Israeli state schools. And no one can read it on their own. The ones who study it are the ultra-orthodox Jews such as the pro-Palestinian Neturei Karta in NY.

Really? Professor Peled-Elhanan, who has previously published lies about Israeli textbooks supposedly being "racist," is another academic fraud if she thinks that Talmud is only taught among the haredim.

In order to buttress her arguments she says that the disgusting Neturei Karta, rejected by every Orthodox Jewish group, study Talmud!

The quotes (whether true or false) are surely partial and do not characterize this 12 volume work (thousand pages in every volume) whose writing ended thousands of years ago.

Peled-Elhanan, as an academic, should have researched the Talmud a bit herself before giving Walker an out by saying her quotes might be true. She could have done a great service by informing Walker that she was repeating lies in her poem.

She chose not to, and allowed Walker to believe the lies she was hearing.

(And there are far more than 12 volumes of Talmud, none of which have a thousand pages.)

The rest of Nurit's letter is not too inaccurate, although there are errors.

The Talmud is not a prescriptive book. It is an endless interpretation of the Torah, always adapting the Torah to present times so that people can live by it. Ethiopian Jews never studied it and lived by the Torah as is.

In these volumes you read discussion and polemics between different sages about every tiny aspect of human life. And the discussions are brought as they happened, more or less because it was all discussed orally.

But the main thing is that each such discussion ends with: “and so they disagreed” and people would choose the interpretation they wanted. Every argument that is brought is immediately countered by an opposite argument and the discussion that ensued. It is always open ended.

In my time we learned a bit of it and I loved it, because it is Logic, like reading Plato. Today schools don’t teach it anymore.
So in order to know what is in the Talmud – which none of the non-orthodox Israelis or Jews know – you have to read at least a whole chapter, pros and cons etc.

One of the most discussed subjects in the Talmud as in the Torah is the treatment of foreigners, workers, slaves etc. Extremely human and enlightening.

I don’t want you to be trapped in superficial propaganda of ignorant people. And again: the reason for the ruthlessness and violence towards Palestinians is not to be found in ancient writings but in Modern ones. It is Modernity and European Enlightenment that brought slavery, colonialism, Fascism and Totalitarianism, national movements such as Zionism and the way to treat people as superfluous. Auschwitz was not prescribed in any ancient scripture, neither is Israeli colonialism.

Much love
Nurit

–
Prof. Nurit Peled-Elhanan

Walker responds with a newer poem where she repeatedly refers to "Zionist Nazis" as not representing all Jews, but those "Zionist Nazis" are pretty evil. An excerpt:

Zionist Nazis are not the Jews I know; terrorists who would and do kill anyone and anything to get what they want: Control over everyone.

(When you take out the random line breaks that make this drivel "poetry" the hate is much clearer.)

Walker is saying that "Zionists" want to control the world and everyone in it, and are willing to do any immoral act to achieve their aims.

Which is exactly what the Protocols of the Elders of Zion says!

Since over 90% of Jews support the existence of a Jewish state, Walker is saying that nearly all Jewish people are terrorist killers hellbent on world domination. But, no, she's not antisemitic, because she loves the other Jews.

Even after this explicit antisemitism, Walker pretends to be righteous:

I will never be divided from my friends, no matter how bad Zionist Nazis are making Jews look.

She can distinguish between good and evil Nazi Jews, but sadly, many others (on her side!) cannot. Which means that when Jews are shot dead for being Jews, from Pittsburgh to Paris to "Palestine," you can give the murderers the benefit of the doubt because they really hate Zionism and Zionists are to blame for making all Jews look bad.

A rough analogy would be for a white person to say "I will never abandon my black friends, no matter how bad the welfare queens and gangbangers and muggers make all black people look."

Then Walker addresses the Talmud specifically to Nurit:

As someone ignorant (yes, this is true) of what is in the ancient texts in their totality, I am, millions of us are, still wounded by the parts that have been inherited by word of mouth, over generations, and millennia, and are recognized as active in human behavior today. I don’t see how we will ever have peace without examining the deep past, and letting go of those parts that mean endless contention and war and suffering.

Walker's response is that the evil Talmud is in the DNA of all Jews and her extensive exposure of it using neo-Nazi YouTube videos helps excise the poison from the Jewish DNA.

THIS IS ANTISEMITISM.

Her letter talks about love but one doesn't have to scratch very much beneath the surface to see the hate and ignorance that fuels Walker.

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Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah celebrates 54th anniversary of first terror attack

Fatah was founded in 1954, but no one celebrates the anniversary of its founding.

Instead, Fatah celebrates the anniversary of the first terror attack it mounted against Israel, on January 1 (some say the 3rd,) 1965.

The terror group attempted to bomb Israel's National Water Carrier. Meaning, their very first act was to deprive Israelis of water.

And this is what is being celebrated today.

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12/31 Links Pt2: The good side of 2018; David Collier: 2018 and Antisemitism, a year in review; The Intellectual Dishonesty of 'I’m Just Criticizing Israel'

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: The good side of 2018

Newspapers tend to be in the business of bad news far more than good news. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a well-known adage. The downside is we often forget how good things are. Between rockets from Gaza, terrorist attacks, corruption, murder and whatever else makes headlines most days, there are plenty of great events happening in Israel and the world each day. Here is some news from 2018 to remind us all to see the glass as half-full, as the secular year comes to a close.

Netta Barzilai became an international name and a national hero, after she and her chicken sounds brought Israel to its fourth Eurovision victory, the first in 20 years, bringing Israelis to the streets to celebrate and sing “I’m Not Your Toy.”

Netta was part of another major good news story in 2018: the first-ever official visit to Israel by a member of the British royal family, Prince William. This year, a prince and Superman – OK, actor Dean Cain, who played Superman on TV – visited Israel.

Beyond visiting royalty, this was a banner year for Israel’s foreign relations. Our ties expanded throughout the Middle East, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting Oman and other ministers jetsetting around the Persian Gulf. By Netanyahu’s count, 300 senior foreign dignitaries – presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, senators and leading parliamentarians – visited Israel this year.

Israeli disaster-relief experts helped people around the world. Israelis provided aid in California, Puerto Rico and Guatemala, where Sara Netanyahu was personally invited by the president’s wife to dedicate the efforts. In Thailand, emergency mobile communication technology developed by Israeli company Maxtech Networks played a key role in rescuing the youth soccer team trapped in a flooded cave, whose survival and rescue captured the world’s attention.

The US recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved its embassy. We didn’t need them to tell us. It’s our eternal capital and has been that way for millennia, but it’s nice to get recognition. And US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley championed Israel repeatedly in that den of wolves.

David Collier: 2018 and Antisemitism, a year in review

To look back on antisemitism in 2018, I have split the year into calendar months, with each example representing a different element of the global battlefield.

I remember the end of 2017 as being part of a lonely battle. In November I recorded that there were 176 anti-Israel events taking place in the UK in a single month. By year-end we were just a handful shouting about the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn, but few seemed to be listening. I didn’t realise back then, how much things were about to change.

January 2018 – Alison Chabloz
2018 Alison Chabloz2018 began just as 2017 ended, with me sitting amongst neo-Nazis and far-left antisemites. On January 10 2018 I was in court, for the early stages of the Alison Chabloz trial. Chabloz is a far-right Jew-baiter, a woman who composes songs that ridicule and deny the Holocaust. To add that extra dose of ‘spiteful’, Chabloz sets the lyrics to classic Jewish folk tunes.

Her journey to the court-room was a long one and this case highlights the difficulty of actually bringing even the most odious haters to justice.

Sitting amongst neo-Nazis in the gallery, people who cheered to songs about the Holocaust, was a very lonely place to be. Yet by the end of 2018, I was almost never alone. One of the greatest changes that occurred in 2018, was the ‘waking up’ of the Jewish community (along with their friends).

In May, Chabloz was found guilty. She was sentenced in June.

The Intellectual Dishonesty of 'I’m Just Criticizing Israel'

The playbook exploited by Marc Lamont Hill and countless other anti-Israel activists ranging from Linda Sarsour to Jimmy Carter, to former Pink Floyd front man, Roger Waters, is the following:

Step 1: Fabricate a non-existent Israeli law or policy, that, if real, would constitute a colossal human rights violation. Don’t be afraid to be dramatic. Ethnic cleansing has a real ring to it. And always remember to be as vague as possible. Use broad terms and generalizations, making your claims harder to challenge on specific grounds.

Step 2: Next, feign outrage about the existence of this newly concocted law, and justify any acts of terrorism against Israel under the guise of “resistance” against this law you just invented.

Step 3: If anyone points out that what you’re saying lacks any smidgeon of truth, simply reply, “I am just criticizing the Israeli government! Are you a fascist? Am I not allowed to criticize Israeli government policies?”

It goes without saying that criticism of Israel’s government is as kosher as criticism of any country’s government. The only catch is the criticism hinges on the issue under scrutiny being real. It requires specific criticism, aimed at an existing law or practice. Conversely, what borders on bigotry is blithely fabricating non-existent laws or practices — like, Israel’s perpetration of ethnic cleansing — and using them to undermine Israel’s existence. Self-avowed “critics” of Israel who are derided as addled anti-Semites exclusively focus their ire on laws they themselves imagine into existence. Not for the betterment of the Palestinian Arabs, but for the belittling of Israel.

Daily Freier losing ground to hot new satire site called “The Forward” (satire)

With 2018 drawing to a close, the Daily Freier reviewed its web traffic numbers and discovered that it has been consistently losing market share to a hot new competitor in the “Goofy Jewish Satire” niche market that calls itself “The Forward”. This wacky blog has popped up out of nowhere it appears, and is consistently putting out material that is funnier and more nuts than anything the Daily Freier has managed to produce. So did the Daily Freier just give up? Heck No! We put together a focus group! Yes, the Daily Freier gathered a focus group of Jews: Young and Old. Gay, Straight, and the Israeli guy who you think is Gay but ends up trying to hook up with your girlfriend. Reform, Conservative, Conservadox, Dati, Haredi, and Masorti. Americans, Canuckians, and…. Well you get the point. And if you think this comes cheap, then you haven’t purchased bagels and coffee recently, thank you very much. So anyhoo, we put a bunch of Jews in a room with copies of the Forward downloaded onto Kindles and stealthily recorded their reactions. Like that movie with Sigourney Weaver and the Gorillas. Except the Daily Freier was Sigourney Weaver. Let’s call it “Hebrews in the Mist“. So where were we? Oh yeah, the Focus Group. They LOVED the Forward! But don’t take our word for it, check out some of their reactions below!

“Hey, check this one out!” exclaimed “Married North Jersey Dentist” to the other people sitting at his table. “No, You Can’t Be A Feminist And A Zionist“, by Mariam Barghouti! You know, this might be the funniest thing produced by a Barghouti since Marwan invented the “Hunger Strike with Designated Snack Breaks” last year!“

“OK OK you need to see this!” giggled “Canadian-Israeli Woman” as she took a break from showing everyone pictures of her dogs. “It’s called ‘Lay Off Linda Sarsour’. I know! Linda! The woman who said that there is nothing creepier than Zionism! And accused Jews of secretly controlling America. Yes! her! So anyways, the article says that Jews only criticize Linda because they’re racists! Amazing! ……What’s that you say? It would be funnier if they also threw in some random stuff about Trump? Well say no more. They did that too!”

Know How to Answer #4 - "Israel expelled 700,000 Arabs in 1948"

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12/31 Links Pt1: Palestinian-American sentenced to life in prison by PA for selling properties to Jews; srael, U.S. slated to leave UNESCO today to protest anti-Israel bias

From Ian:

Ten New York Times Journalists Accuse Israel of ‘Possibly a War Crime’

The Times article concludes by claiming that Najjar “has become a symbol, perhaps not of what either side had hoped, but of a hopeless, endless conflict and the lives it wastes.”

That’s a dodge, because the gist of the rest of the piece is that it’s not the “conflict” that killed her, but an Israeli sniper, in what was “possibly a war crime.” And now, thanks to the work of at least ten Times journalists and whatever editors decided to set them loose on this story and to give it prominent play, her life isn’t a “waste,” but rather has become a valuable propaganda tool for the Palestinian Arabs, who can now use her death to depict Israel to the Times audience as reckless murderers, and Israelis as war criminals, or at least “possibly” war criminals.

None of this is to say that the Israeli troops defending the border with Gaza performed perfectly, or that there isn’t room for journalism that can help Israel do a better job at it going forward. No human is perfect. US police and American troops accidentally kill people, too, and Palestinian Arab terrorists intentionally kill people. For whatever reason, though, the Times has decided that this Gaza death is worth the time of ten journalists and three pages of the Sunday newspaper, while the death of an Israeli American, Ari Fuld, wasn’t deemed fit to print by the Times at all.

If one were to take a Timesian approach, one would write it with a question headline: “Times Pays More Attention To a Palestinian Death Than to an Israeli American One. Was It an Accident?” And then one would weasel around the issue: “the Times journalism appears to have been careless at best, and possibly a blood libel.” But I’ll reject that approach and be more direct and forthright. The New York Times “investigation,” for all its dignified trappings, is just the same old Israel-bashing you can get for free on any extreme right or extreme left Internet site or social media feed. Save yourself the time and the money and the heartburn and skip it.

After damning report, IDF says it is probing killing of Gazan medic in June

The Israeli military on Sunday responded to a New York Times report that questioned its use of live fire in an incident along the Gaza border on June 1, in which a Palestinian medic, 21, was killed when a soldier fired into a crowd of protesters.

The IDF said the army’s internal investigations body is “probing to clarify the reasons behind the death of Razan al-Najjar. The results of the investigation will be sent to the military advocate general upon their completion.”

For its investigation, The Times analyzed over 1,000 photographs and videos of the incident, interviewed over 30 eyewitnesses, spoke to Israeli and Palestinian officials and ballistics experts, and worked with the Israeli-run company Forensic Architecture to build a 3D rendering of the shooting, which also integrated drone and cellphone footage.

“The bullet that killed her, The Times found, was fired by an Israeli sniper into a crowd that included white-coated medics in plain view. A detailed reconstruction, stitched together from hundreds of crowd-sourced videos and photographs, shows that neither the medics nor anyone around them posed any apparent threat of violence to Israeli personnel,” it said.

“Though Israel later admitted her killing was unintentional, the shooting appears to have been reckless at best, and possibly a war crime, for which no one has yet been punished,” the report added.

According to The Times, the bullet that killed Najjar also injured two other medics.

Too Big to Fail? How UNRWA Fails the Palestinians — and the World

To the consternation of many, the US government will no longer provide $350 million a year to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and the Trump administration says that it may cut more money for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Some analysts and pundits claim that this decision will cause more hardship and violence in Gaza and the West Bank, and plunge other areas of the Middle East into unrest. This is unlikely to occur.

The prophets of UNRWA’s impending doom underestimate its political usefulness. UNRWA, which was founded in 1949, is simply too valuable a political asset to fail. Its existence guarantees that Palestinian refugees and the contested right of return remain a generational and prioritized political fixture in international fora. Consequently, Arab and other states use the demise of the Palestinians to generate political capital by lambasting Israel for its subjugation of the Palestinians, and for instigating a “humanitarian disaster” in the Gaza Strip.

These states have a vested political interest in UNRWA, and there are already early indications that the EU, Ireland, Jordan, and Germany will pledge further support to make up for the current budgetary pitfall.

Much of UNRWA’s and its backers’ achievement in generating this political capital derives from their strategic interest to maintain the Palestinian right of return, and the Palestinian refugee, on the international political agenda. Former Commissioner-General to UNRWA Karen Abu-Zayed has stated that “Palestine refugees are the focus of the Agency’s thinking, planning and activities. Promoting their interests as individuals with rights and entitlements under international law and ensuring their well-being and long-term human development are the engines that will continue to drive all aspects of UNRWA’s activities.”

What is surprising is how UNRWA has ingeniously manipulated commonly accepted international humanitarian law and the 1951 UNHCR Convention definitions of a refugee. Why? Because by changing the definition of a Palestinian refugee, they have ensured that the Palestinian refugee issue can never be solved. This has turned UNRWA’s original temporary relief mandate into a quasi-governmental and permanent political fixture in the West Bank and Gaza.

More trouble in the Gaza paradise as Hamas arrests hundreds of Fatah members

According to Palestinian media, some 500 members of Fatah were arrested in Gaza over the past day.

Apparently, Hamas doesn't want to see a major celebration of the 54th anniversary of Fatah's first terror attack, on January 1, 1965.

But why should arrests of hundreds of Palestinians be newsworthy? When Israel can't be blamed, it is just another Monday.

Here is the official Fatah video celebrating the anniversary. It isn't exactly peaceful.

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