A Muslim student at Punjab University has written an article spinning a bizarre conspiracy theory where Jews were instrumental in Pakistan losing Kashmir.
The essay includes these gems:
The murder of Gandhi right after five months of India’s independence was not merely an accident it could have been a carefully planned operation by the Zionists who used Nathuram Godse (an RSS member) to kill Gandhi and to pave the way for their friend Jawaharlal Nehru to rule India. ...Nehru was a dedicated member of the Zionist Movement in India. Everyone knows that he was the father of Indira Gandhi and but very few know that he was the son of a Zionist Motilal Nehru who according to official Masonic website of India was initiated into Freemasonry at Lodge Harmony in Kanpur in 1884.
These secret relationships are still maintained today in between the ruling families in India and Israel, and are based on their mutually shared common ideology of “The End of History”. The Hindu-Judaic conception of “The End of History” is remarkably similar to each other; both the Brahman Hindu and Jew consider themselves as the elite of human civilization and consider all other non-Brahman and non-Jew to have been created with an inferior status. This laid the foundation for secret brotherhood in between the Brahman Hindus who rule India and the Zionists who rule Israel today.
This is one secret of all secrets which are only known among the elite Jewish-Kabbalistic circles and the elite Brahmans of India.
My favorite part was where he calls the Balfour Declaration an "open secret:"
It is an open secret today how British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour under Lloyd George’s administration wrote a letter to Lord Rothschild to ensure a Jewish national home in Palestine.
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.
A dustup within the organized Jewish community here in Boston helps clarifywho genuinely represents “The Big Tent” when it comes to coalition politics.
In many major US cities, Jewish Community Relations Councils (or JCRCs) bring together Jewish communal organizations (some religious, some cultural or political) in coalition. Boston’s JCRC has historically been one of the largest and best-organized institution of this type in the country which means their decisions (which can take a long time to make, given the opinionsthat need to be balanced) tends to establish precedent followed by other communities.
The Boston JCRC’s “Big Tent” policy has caused controversy in the past, notably when J Street was given membership without formal organization-wide approval after they had “acquired” an existing member organization called Brit TzedekV’Shalom.
During debates over that earlier controversy, J Street and its allies made the case that – regardless of what you thought of their politics – the organization has positioned itself as an opponent of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) targeting Israel. In a coalition with remarkably few red lines, support for BDS was and still is one of the few things that can get you left outside the “Big Tent.”
Although some organizations have danced close to that red line, none had ever crossed it. At the same time, organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, which exists primarily to support BDS, understand their positions place them outside looking in.
The wisdom of such exclusion was made clear when JVP finally said out loud what anyone paying attention to the group has known for years: that they are an anti-Zionist organization dedicated not to improving the Jewish state or finding peaceful compromises between Israel and her enemies, but to denying to the Jews a right to their own nation.
As JVP’s mission expanded to include the spreading of anti-Semitic canards channeling the nation’s racial tensions towards hostility towards Israel, the wisdom of keeping distance between them and an organization (JCRC) that represents the vast majority of Jewish opinion on the Middle East seems wise indeed. But one group, the Workman’s Circle (a founding JCRC members) decided to take a step over the red line right when JVP’s anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish animus hit high gear by officially signing onto a petition, created by JVP, that condemned the equation of criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
I’ll leave it to readers to decide if denying Jews rights given without question to hundreds of other peoples, or telling African Americans that the Jewish state is responsible for cops killing their children constitutes “legitimate criticism of Israel.” But JCRC, in a vote of 62-13, decided that the support lent to an anti-Zionist, BDS-supporting organization like JVP was enough to get Workman’s Circle removed from the Council.
In typical Jewish-organization fashion, a vote was only taken after endless discussion and deliberation, including months of direct talks with Workman’s Circle members. But, in the end, the rest of JCRC decided overwhelmingly that anti-Zionism and BDS were positions that others were free to take – but not in the name of the rest of the community.
It is worth comparing the extended discussions, debates, editorials, offers of compromise and, ultimately, democratic voting that led to the anguished choice to ask a member to leave with the behavior of those who criticize JCRC’s decision as an attack on inclusivity.
As I’ve noted before, Jewish Voice for Peace has been very careful to insist that anyone joining its ranks, and certainly anyone who speaks in their name, tow the organization’s political line, especially with regard to support for BDS.
Pulling the lens wider, political coalitions that have formed in the last few years under the banner of “intersectionality” (based on the premise that all oppressed groups have an affinity to one another and should thus work together as a united front) have rapidly developed their own sharp red lines separating oppressed from oppressors, as well as rigid internal hierarchies to determine whose oppression counts most.
Progressive Jews find themselves in a double-bind within such intersectional boundaries and hierarchies, excluded if they show any type of support for Israel (whose role as an oppressor must remain unquestioned), and stuck on the bottom of the oppression hierarchy (as “white Jews”) even if they abandon enough Jewish identity to satisfy intersectional gate keepers.
Do choices of who is in and who is out of an intersectionality club, and who is up and down within them, bear any resemblance to the extended deliberation, search for understanding and compromise, and democratic decision-making you just read about in the story of Boston JCRC’s decision to say goodbye to a member that made the conscious decision to embrace positions rejected by the rest of the community?
Hardly. For these intersec-coalitions are driven by ruthlessness, not be conversation or democratic values. Hostility to the Jewish state has become the hallmark, if not the defining element of “the movement” not because people have agreed to it, but because those who have clawed their way to the top are ready to see the organizations they lead destroyed, rather than allow any opinion that contradicts their world view to be heard, much less gain purchase. The recent implosion of the Woman’s March is just the latest example of this toxic dynamic in action.
So, in one of the many great ironies punctuating history (especially Jewish history), it is the parochial organization trying to carefully and thoughtfully police its boundaries that represents genuine universal values, such as the virtues of negotiation, compromise and democracy, while those who insist they (and they alone) represent progress that behave the most narrowly and tyrannically.
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.
The Iron Dome’s-based greatest test came when IDF troops attacked Hamas positions in the Gaza strip in July 2014. Gaza militants launched around 4,600 rockets and mortar shells in response, around one-quarter of which landed near areas populated by Israeli civilians. The six Iron Dome batteries then active were hastily reinforced with three more. Together, they shot-down 735 rockets and mortar shells and failed to intercept around seventy, consistent with an 85 percent to 90 percent success rate claimed by the IDF.
In total, Palestinian rockets and mortars killed five Israeli and one Thai civilian and injured eighty in 2014. Additionally, nearly three hundred short-firing militant rockets landed in Gaza, killing thirteen Palestinian civilians, most of them children.
Despite the system’s popularity in Israel, critics have questioned whether officially successful Iron Dome intercepts are actually effective at neutralizing incoming projectiles, though some of the more sweeping critiques themselves appear flawed when given scrutiny . A more measured 2018 assessment by Michael Armstrong argues the system’s success rate against projectiles landing in populated areas may lie between 59 percent to 75 percent.
Cost-efficiency is another concern. Though some sources list the Tamir missiles as costing as little as $35,000 each, the new Pentagon’s funding request lists a price of $150,000 per missile. Even this higher figures is peanuts compared to multimillion-dollar Patriot air-defense missiles. But even going by the lower figure, each Tamir is many times more expensive than the projectiles it is destroying.
This has led some Israelis to advocate for a directed-energy weapon component to more cost-efficiently handle mass attacks. The Israeli firm Rafael has developed a laser called the Iron Beam with this capability in mind, though atmospheric diffusion limits its engagement range to a seven-mile radius.
A week after raising doubts on President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a leading Mideast policy expert reversed course and affirmed Trump as “the most pro-Israel president ever.”
Daniel Pipes, founder and president of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum think tank, had written in a January 23 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that although the specific details of Trump’s peace plan have not been publicly revealed, recent hints indicate that the proposal “doesn’t sound good.”
But on January 30, in the aftermath of his discussion on the Wall Street Journal column with U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, Pipes wrote on Twitter that that Trump is “the most pro-Israel president ever.”
“In particular, the president bucked conventional thinking and made overdue changes by: Withdrawing from the disastrous Iran deal; moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, carrying out a law on the books since 1996; obstructing efforts at the United Nations to delegitimize Israel; accepting Israeli acts of legitimate self-defense; encouraging Arab countries to cooperate with Israel; cutting funds for the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA, including active support for the Taylor Force Act,” Pipes tweeted. “I hope for a continuation of this positive record despite my known concerns.”
Others have shared Pipes assessment of President Trump’s record on Israel.
I just found this video put out by the "Government of Palestine" for World Children's Day 2017 in English. Only a a couple dozen people watched it, but it shows how easily they lie.
A central point was this one:
Really?
At this moment, according to B'Tselem, there are 203 minors in Israeli prisons. 80% are over 16, none are under 14. Some more might be in IDF detention, but certainly less than 250 total.
The chances that a Palestinian minor from the West Bank is in Israeli custody right now is about 1 in 10,000.
The chances that an American minor is in detention (prison or juvenile detention) is about 1 in 1500. The chances that an American minor is in adult prison is 1 in 7500.
Canadian rates are comparable.
A Palestinian minor has a much lower chance of being in Israeli custody than an American or Canadian minor being in custody in those countries.
The Palestinian video went on to accuse Israel of torturing the children, an equally false accusation.
The obvious audience for this failed video is the English speaking world - NGOs, the UN and other Westerners, most of whom would not believe that a government that they want so desperately to succeed would lie so blatantly.
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.
Arabs are celebrating Ezzeddine Faraj, a Lebanese teenager who was to compete in a regional taekwindo competition in Cyprus.
When he found out that he was going to compete against a "Zionist" on February 1, he withdrew from the competition.
From what I can tell, the World Taekwondo Federation has no rules about a situation like this, although the Israeli team can file a complaint.
Most of the competitors in the tournament are from the Mediterranean region like Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Lebanon and Italy, with a few Swedes scattered in.
Faraj is being hailed as a hero. The concept of hero in the Arab world seems to have changed from someone who wins a victory into someone who runs away from the fight - what others would call a coward.
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.
In reality, the words mean "Here they incite to kill Jews."
That is quite different.
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.
Walid M. Sadi, writing in Jordan Times, writes that Jordanians are still not used to the idea of having peace with Israel 25 years after the peace treaty.
His Majesty the late King Hussein made a strategic decision when he decided to sign the Wadi Araba Peace Treaty due to far-reaching strategic considerations and out of consciousness of the country's long-term national interests, despite all the pitfalls and dangers associated with it. King Hussein must have felt that on balance, entering into a peace treaty with Israel would serve Jordan's national interests more than maintaining the status quo. Yet, some quarter of a century later, many Jordanians have yet to get used to the implications of that peace treaty, and cling to the notion that anti-normalisation with the Zionist state serves Jordan's interests more.
He feels that a line needs to be drawn between what Jordan must do to legally uphold the peace treaty and what it must do to avoid any warming of relations between the two countries:
The anti-normalists are failing to distinguish between normalisation of relations with Israel, which is basic, legally necessary and binding under the peace treaty on one hand, and elevating bilateral relations with Israel to warmer levels on the other, which is not legally binding.
Jordanians at large do not differ on the need to cool off relations with Israel for as long as it continues its current path of defiance of everything sensible to the Palestinian's overtures for peace. But when it comes to “normalisation” per se, it would be difficult to reconcile such a stance with the letter and spirit of the peace treaty. This growing stance is clouding the national thinking and judgments on many regional projects.
The government is called upon to speak out more coherently on this dividing subject, with a view to providing guidance to the public on what is right and what is wrong when it comes to the bilateral relations between Jordan and Israel.
I wonder what Palestinian "overtures for peace" he is referring to.
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.
As of January 31st, the US administration ceased all its aid to the Palestinian Authority. In response, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Chief Negotiator, said: “Hundreds of Palestinians will be losing their jobs as a result of the U.S. decision to terminate all USAID projects in Palestine. An additional step in a series of punitive and unethical measures, carried out by the Trump Administration, against the people of Palestine to pressure its leadership to compromise on our inalienable right to self-determination.”
[Website of the State of Palestine PLO Negotiations Affairs Department, Feb. 2, 2019]
Upon closer examination, it becomes clear that Erekat, on behalf of the PA, is once again distorting a very simple fact.
In reality, it is not the US that has made any such decision. Rather, it is the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, which has positively decided to reject all of the considerable US aid to the Palestinians. It has done so by actively choosing to continue its ”Pay for Slay“ policy, whereby the PA squanders hundreds of millions of dollars annually to incentivize and reward terrorism and terrorists including convicted murderers and the families of dead terrorists (so-called “Martyrs.”)
American veteran Taylor Force was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist while touring Israel. When the US understood that the PA pays the family of the murderer of Taylor a monthly allowance, it passed the Taylor Force Act (TFA, passed March 2018). According to the provisions of TFA, most of the US aid to the PA became contingent on the PA abolishing its ”Pay for Slay” policy.
Instead of heeding the call of the US administration, the PA made a positive decision to waive the US aid and continue its ”Pay for Slay“ policy, with Abbas declaring that the PA prioritizes rewarding terrorist prisoners rather than taking care of the rest of the Palestinian population:
There are more than 100 links between the internationally-designated terrorist organizations Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) with NGOs promoting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, some of which receive funding from European states and philanthropic funds, a new report by the Strategic Affairs Ministry has found.
More than 30 members of Hamas and PFLP hold senior positions in BDS-promoting NGOs, the vast majority of whom have been in prison for terrorism-related crimes, including murder, and maintain active ties with the terrorist groups.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said the research “reveals the true nature and goals of the BDS movement and its connection to terrorism and antisemitism.”
“When people talk about the goals of the BDS movement, they don’t bother to read official statements from its leaders,” Erdan lamented. “If you do, it becomes clear that the goals of its leaders are the same as those of the leaders of Palestinian terror organizations. BDS rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state within any borders. They want to see Israel wiped off the map.”
“Promoting boycotts is [just] a different means to achieve this goal,” he added.
One such example is Laila Khaled, a PFLP member infamous for hijacking two civilian planes in 1969 and 1973, who was found to have planned terrorist attacks in Jerusalem as recently as 2011, and called for “armed struggle” against Israel last year. She continues to actively fundraise for BDS organizations in Europe and South Africa.
Another example is Rani Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and also a PFLP operative. His organization releases weekly reports calling to boycott Israel and received $1.5 million of European funding in 2014-2017. Sourani and Iyad al-Alamo, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights’ legal department, provided legal aid and advice to Hamas as recently as 2017. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Al Jazeera and SputnikNews note that when Qatar won the Asia Cup tournament last week with a victory over Japan, the news media in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain did everything they could to avoid or minimize the name of the victor.
The tournament was played in the UAE.
Al Bayan in the UAE headlined the story as "Japan loses" instead of "Qatar wins," only mentioning the Qatari team as an aside in the second paragraph.
Most of this UAE article referred to Qatar as merely "the opponent."
Gulf nations cut off relations with Qatar over its policy of remaining friendly with Iran.
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.
A Detroit-area historical group is protesting a mayor’s decision to stop it from sending out the latest issue of its publication, which delves into Ford Motor Co. founder Henry Ford’s anti-Semitism.
Officials with the Dearborn Historical Commission say the latest edition of The Dearborn Historian, a city-financed quarterly journal, should be sent to its roughly 200 subscribers and that Mayor Jack O’Reilly should reverse his decision to cut ties with longtime Detroit journalist Bill McGraw, who wrote the Ford piece.
The story, which can be read online, highlights Ford’s writings and views on Jews and explores how they still influence modern neo-Nazi groups. The cover of the halted edition noted that Ford bought a publication called the Dearborn Independent 100 years ago and “used it to attack Jews.” It added, “the hate he unleashed flourishes in the Internet age.”
The mayor is censoring a history journal???
O’Reilly said in a statement that he thought the publication and dredging up “hateful messages” from a century ago “could become a distraction from our continuing messages of inclusion and respect.”
No, that's not the reason the mayor of Dearborn quashed the article.
This is:
Dearborn now has one of largest communities of Arabs outside of the Middle East.
He is catering to his Arab voter, who (he believes) would be upset at an article about antisemitism.
The article is online and is quite good. The article notes that the topic of Ford's antisemitism has been "off-limits" in Dearborn. Excerpts:
Under Ford, the Independent became notorious for its unprecedented attacks on Jews. But Ford’s anti-Semitism traveled far beyond the Dearborn borders. Showing the marketing expertise that had catapulted Ford Motor into one of the world’s most famous brands, Henry Ford’s lieutenants vastly widened the reach of his attacks by packaging the paper’s anti-Semitic content into four books. Experts say “The International Jew,” distributed across Europe and North America during the rise of fascism in the 1920s and ‘30s, influenced some of the future rulers of Nazi Germany.
In 1931, two years before he became the German chancellor, Adolf Hitler gave an interview to a Detroit News reporter in his Munich office, which featured a large portrait of Ford over the desk of the future führer. The reporter asked about the photo.
“I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration,” Hitler told the News.
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.
Open Doors, an organization for protecting Christians from persecution, issues a ranking of the 50 worst countries and territories for Christians.
Palestinian Territories makes the list at #49. While not as bad as many other Muslim majority countries, it still is not a great place for Christians. Specific issues are:
• During the WWL 2019 reporting period, at least one female convert has been confined to the family home for some time. Several forced marriages of female converts to Muslim men were reported and a number of converts had to relocate within the country, due to pressure from family and society.
Generally speaking, Christians are affected by Islamic oppression throughout the Palestinian
Territories, although there is noticeably more pressure in Gaza than in the West Bank, because of the
presence of active radical Islamic movements. Islamic militants more radical than Hamas have been
active in Gaza, and are also present in the West Bank. These include Islamic State group (IS) cells -
either active or "sleeping". Despite the fact that these groups do not have any major power yet, their
influence cannot be dismissed.
In addition, there is a continuing influence and enforcement of age-old norms and values.
In the
Palestinian Territories it is very much mixed with Islam and especially affects converts from Islam. As
in the rest of the Middle East, religion is connected to family identity. Therefore, leaving Islam is
interpreted as betraying one’s family. In general, families put strong social pressure on converts to
make them return to Islam, leave the region or to be silent about their new faith. In many cases,
converts are alienated from their families as a result of their faith.
Dictatorial Paranoia is connected to plain greed and the safeguarding of the interests of a small group.
Nepotism is widespread within the clan-based society and people with connections to those in power
are most of the time well-off. Christians have traditionally been involved with Fatah and the nationalist
movement. Most Christians support the factions in their struggle against the Israeli authorities and
face no difficulties. Nevertheless, without elections for many years, the democratic legitimacy of the
government is low. Both parties within the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and Hamas, try to maintain
power with all means necessary. Freedom of expression and therefore the freedom of religion is
limited; if church leaders criticize the Palestinian Authorities or their Islamic rule, it can have negative consequences, especially in Gaza. Christians also face the pressure of Israeli government control; for
example, church leaders in Jerusalem have to operate carefully in order not to lose privileges such
as easy access to obtaining visas and permits.
(h/t Irene)
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.
And don’t forget the little matter of such falsehoods blatantly violating the Oslo Accords. Those accords obligate the PA to refrain from “hostile propaganda” against Israel. Accusing Israel of murdering the PA most beloved leader surely qualifies as “hostile.” So why does the PA keep violating the accords? What happened to all those promises that it can be trusted to honor the agreements that it signs?
Also in the past few days, a rally was held in Tulkarm — under Abbas’s official auspices — to honor convicted Palestinian murderer Maher Younes, while the Bethlehem branch of Fatah (the ruling party, chaired by Abbas) posted photos on its Facebook page glorifying teenage terrorist Ahmed Sanagrah.
Wait, that doesn’t make any sense, either. The proponents of creating a Palestinian state keep telling us that it’s safe to create such a state because the PA is against terrorism. They say Hamas is the bad one, while the PA is moderate. So if the PA is against terrorism, why do its leader and ruling party keep glorifying, sheltering, and paying terrorists?
By the way, when Abbas spoke at the United Nations earlier this month, he proclaimed the PA’s “commitment to international law and legitimacy and to a peaceful solution.”
And that makes perfect sense. Abbas is truly bilingual. When he speaks to Western audiences, he uses all the right words that they want to hear. He sounds peaceful, reasonable, and moderate. But when he speaks to his own people, he literally speaks another language: the language of hatred and violence. It’s the kind of language that gets innocent people killed.
There was a time, not so long ago, when it was almost impossible to find out what was being said by Palestinian Arab leaders in their own media. Every once in a while, something would leak out. But by and large, the world news media did an effective job of keeping Americans in the dark about what Arafat, Abbas, and the others were saying.
That’s all changed thanks to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which exposed the above-cited outrages and so many others. By exposing the PA leaders’ true words, PMW has affected US and European policy towards the PA and in some cases has led directly to reductions of Western aid to the PA. Palestinian Media Watch is a uniquely worthwhile organization, and it deserves to receive a level of support from Jewish federations comparable to what is given to various other Israel-based agencies that do good work. Now that would make a lot of sense.
LIKEWISE, THE Alawites were promised a fair amount of autonomy in their own area around Latakia, between Lebanon and Turkey. A nominally Shi’ite sect that most Muslims, including regular Shi’ites, regarded as heretical, the Alawites were eager to associate with the new non-Muslim rulers. They provided the French with excellent and disciplined native levies, which later turned into elite forces.
The Druze issue was more awkward. Another offshoot of Shi’ite Islam that had developed into a fully separate religion, the Druze community was a major power both in the mountainous areas south of Damascus – the Jabal Druze – and in several parts of Lebanon. While the French provided the Jabal Druze with a state of its own, they subordinated the Lebanese Druze to the Christians. That major departure from their global scheme and major mistake was soon met by a bitter all-Druze insurgency and more unrest in other parts of the country. It took two years, and a very discerning general, Edouard Andrea, to quell it in 1927. Finally, de Caix’s map was cosmetically redrawn. The states of Damascus, Aleppo and Jabal Druze were merged into a single Syrian Federal State. However, Lebanon and the Alawite State were maintained as separate entities.
Wrested from Vichy France by the British and the Free French in 1941, Syria was granted independence as a single state in 1945, with the exception of Lebanon, which was confirmed as a separate independent state. It did not mean, however, that the ethnic, religious and geographic tensions or rivalries that appalled de Caix vanished instantly. On the contrary, they were exacerbated by an enormous demographic growth – from five million in the 1950s to about 10 million in the 1970s to about 20 million today. Democracy quickly gave way to military regimes, a succession of coups and even a brief incorporation into Gamal Nasser’s United Arab Republic. Finally, the Alawites took over.
Ironically, the pro-French Latakia sectarians had converted to militant nationalism and then Ba’athism in the 1940s, and their military power had allowed them to assert an ever-increasing role in the country’s politics in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1970, Hafez Assad, an air force general and a leader of the Ba’athist Syrian branch, emerged as the sole ruler. The Assad regime, under Hafez Assad from 1970 to 2000, and then under his son Bashar, was outwardly pan-Arabist, but relied in fact on carefully calculated sectarian alliances.
In a nutshell, the Alawites coopted all non-Sunni or non-Arab minorities in order to check the Sunnis. The system was cemented by socialism – in effect, family and sectarian patronage – and a close alliance with the USSR. Once the Soviet Empire fell that started to unravel. The civil war that started in 2011 brought back to the surface a geopolitical Atlantis: de Caix’s map, with only one major difference, the assertiveness of Trans-Euphrates Syria.
The post-Soviet Russians have been back in Syria since 2015. While they see the preservation of their Alawite ally as a priority, they are realistic enough to commend federalization as a long-term solution. This is all the more so since they know they are bound to compete with their Iranian allies and their Turkish allies-in-the-making. The Americans and the Europeans should not, at that point, leave it to the Russians alone. Nor should the Israelis. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Britain’s far right has never been so politically weak, fractured or disorganized. The British National Party – whose leader, Nick Griffin, once warned against the “unholy alliance of leftists, capitalists and Zionist supremacists” which had conspired “with the deliberate aim of breeding us out of existence in our own homelands” – is now a spent force.
A decade after winning nearly a million votes and seats in the European Parliament and London Assembly, the far right is now “almost extinct,” in the words of the anti-extremist organization Hope Not Hate.
“Organizationally,” Hope Not Hate suggested in its annual report last year, “the movement is weaker than it has been for 25 years. Membership of far-right groups is down to an estimated 600-700 people.”
But counting votes or membership rolls, its opponents fear, fails to capture the nature of the threat it poses.
That threat has seen growing warnings by the police of the danger of far-right terrorism. Last year, Mark Rowley, then the UK’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, warned that the “right-wing terrorist threat is more significant and more challenging than perhaps public debate gives it credit for.”
Over the previous two years, he suggested, far-right activity had evolved from unpleasant protests and hate crimes committed by isolated individuals. “Right-wing terrorism wasn’t previously organized here,” he claimed.
Thus while much media and political discussion on anti-Semitism over the past three years has focused on the opposition Labour party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, that attention has somewhat disguised the danger posed by the far right — a danger which the country’s current political instability and divisive debate over its planned departure from the European Union appears to be fueling.
Al-Monitor has an article about how upset some Palestinians are at the new Atarot Mall, opened up by Rami Levy, meant to attract both Jews and Palestinian Arabs:
A new shopping center in the Atarot Industrial Zone, between Ramallah and Jerusalem, has Palestinians grappling with how to respond to it. Atarot Mall, built by the Israeli supermarket magnate Rami Levy on the western side of the separation wall, is promising high-quality goods at low prices and jobs for Jews, Muslims and Christians. Many, however, see the mall as a threat to Palestinian-owned shops in East Jerusalem and have called for Palestinian merchants and consumers to boycott it.
The shopping center, inaugurated Jan. 11, is part of a chain that also has branches in Israeli settlements on the West Bank and in Jerusalem. What differentiates the Atarot branch is its location on Route 60, the highway that separates the northern and southern parts of the West Bank and is used by Palestinians as well as Israeli settlers. Also of note is that Palestinian merchants from Jerusalem have purchased or rented space in the mall, which will have a reported 50 stores.
The shopping center embodies Levy’s policy of promoting economic coexistence and normalization between Jews and Arabs. He has pursued these policies through Rami Levy Hashikma Marketing, Israel's third largest supermarket chain, which hires Muslim, Christian, and Jewish workers and caters to both the Arab and Jewish communities.
In an article and video posted Nov. 20, 2017, to the website for Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Levy said, “In Judea and Samaria we have four branches. … I think that coexistence needs to come from here. To show that it is possible to live together, to work together, and serve each other in a fair and moral way.”
Levy, who invested 200 million shekels ($54 million) in the new shopping center, which took two years to build, told COGAT that 65% of the merchants will be Jews and 35% Palestinians. “We treat everyone here equally,” he said. “Everyone wants to make this center a success.”
So of course...
Various Palestinian parties have called for boycotting the mall. In a Jan. 8 statement, Fatah asserted, “Buying and renting shops or shopping there is a betrayal of the homeland.”
We've seen this before. Rami Levy supermarkets have similarly been blasted by the Palestinian Authority - and Arabs shop there anyway, despite threats.
Rita Abu Ghosh, media coordinator of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, told Al-Monitor, “The BDS movement considers anyone taking part in the mall to be working with the occupation and must be boycotted.”
She said that BDS in cooperation with the National Labor Authority, a Jerusalem-based NGO comprised of political, national and religious figures, had succeeded in dissuading prominent merchants from Jerusalem not to open stores in the mall. One of them owns a large electronics company that was supposed to occupy an entire floor, and another owns a mobile phone business.
Abu Ghosh remarked that BDS also contacted several owners of small shops, such as those selling bread, shoes or clothes, but the majority refused to withdraw from the mall because of the potential benefits, such as expected high demand for their goods, or for fear of having to pay hefty fines should they withdraw from their lease agreement.
Once again, BDS and Palestinian "leaders" are acting to hurt Arab owned businesses and Arab consumers.
This shows once again who cares about coexistence and who doesn't.
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.
Book Review: ANTISEMITISM Here and Now By Deborah E. Lipstadt
Another guise is anti-Zionism, which pretends that one can malign Israel as a uniquely diabolical and illegitimate state, guilty of Nazi-like atrocities, and still be acquitted of anti-Semitism. The leading Western voice for this view is the British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has repeatedly joined hands with virulent anti-Semites who share his pro-Palestinian, anticapitalist views — all the while insisting that he opposes racism. Lipstadt makes short work of that defense.
Image
“Is Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite?” she asks.
“My response would be that that’s the wrong question. The right questions to ask are: Has he facilitated and amplified expressions of anti-Semitism? Has he been consistently reluctant to acknowledge expressions of anti-Semitism unless they come from white supremacists and neo-Nazis? Will his actions facilitate the institutionalization of anti-Semitism among other progressives? Sadly, my answer to all of this is an unequivocal yes. Like Trump, Corbyn has emboldened and enabled anti-Semites, but from the other end of the political spectrum.”
This analysis — that the resurgence of anti-Semitism owes as much to its political enablers who aren’t openly bigoted as it does to its ideological practitioners who are — is the most valuable contribution the book makes to our discussion of modern-day Jew hatred. Still, Lipstadt misses something important by insisting that anti-Semitism “has never made sense and never will.”
Not quite. However irrational, cynical or stupid anti-Semites may be, most Jews nonetheless can be said to stand for certain ideas and attitudes. A particular concept of morality. A reverence for law founded on the idea of truth. A penchant for asking nettlesome questions. Skepticism toward would-be saviors. A liberal passion for freedom.
Anti-Semites tend to have the opposite set of views, for reasons that may be repugnant but are perfectly rational. The fundamental truth about anti-Semitism isn’t that it’s necessarily crazy. It’s that it’s inevitably brutish.
The conclusion to be drawn is that the enemies of the Jews, whether in Tehran or Virginia, will always be the enemies of liberalism — which is why the fight against anti-Semitism must also be a fight for liberalism. Lipstadt gets this, of course, even if she arrives at the point by a different set of stairs. Fair enough. She has written a book that combines erudition, clarity, accessibility and passion at a moment when they could not be needed more.
That is one reason why Holocaust Memorial Day is so important - because as the survivors pass on, we need to retain a collective memory of what happened on European soil so recently.
But there is a deeper issue. Were those older generations, in those countries, uniquely capable of such evil? As a Jew, I grew up almost entirely unaware of anti-Semitism. It was indeed just history to me. My grandmas told me stories of pogroms in Poland and Lithuania. One kept a suitcase packed and stored in a cupboard "because you never know when we might have to leave". I thought she was living in the past, that the Holocaust had somehow forced an end to anti-Semitism.
But I was wrong.
It was arrogance for me to assume that my generation, alone in history, was cured of that virus. Anti-Semitism is not called "the oldest hatred" for nothing. And slowly, I started to see it - and to experience it. A comment about being a "Jew boy", not really British; a snide remark that we Jews stuck together and really ran the country. But I didn't think too much about it. Half a dozen stupid remarks in 40 years is hardly a torrent.
That was then.
This, though, is now - when I have to block 2,000 people because otherwise my Twitter feed would be an even greater cesspit of anti-Semitism than it is. When people openly tell me that I should be in the gas chambers and that my children will not live to adulthood because Hitler's work will be finished; when I am told I am running a Jewish paedophile ring; when I am said to be a paid agent of Israel, a foreign agent in a foreign land.
Yes, it's just words. But the people who send such words are real. And my office has to have guards due to the threats.
Most of those who choose to attack me as a Jew on social media have one thing in common: they describe themselves as supporters of Jeremy Corbyn.
If Mr Corbyn had taken real action, had attacked them with vigour and with purpose, things might be different. But he has not. Ever. He has chosen not to. Is it any wonder I am scared of what may come, if he ever takes power?
There are 43 countries with official state religions, and another 40 that give one religion preferential treatment over other faiths. Of the former group, 27 countries enshrine Islam as their state faith, and 13 do the same for Christianity—including nine countries in Europe. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) does not seem to have a problem with any of them; one would be hard-pressed to recall a single word of criticism. But she does have a problem—a big one—with the world's only Jewish state—a tiny country, home to just under nine million people—recognizing itself as, well, the Jewish state. Why the double standard? Maybe it's not the obvious.
Omar's most recent public criticism of Israel came during an interview on Yahoo News' "Through Her Eyes" on Tuesday. After Omar lamented how the United States strongly supports Israel and has a policy that "makes" Jerusalem "superior" to the Palestinians, whatever that means, host Zainab Salbi pressed her to provide specifics. Omar pointed to Israel's Jewish nation-state law, which was passed last year and affirms that Israel is the "nation-state of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, religious, and historic right to self-determination."
"When I see Israel institute a law that recognizes it as a Jewish state and does not recognize the other religions that are living in it, and we still uphold it as a democracy in the Middle East, I almost chuckle," Omar said. "If we see that in any other society, we would criticize it. We would call it out. We do that to Iran. We do that to any other place that sort of upholds its religion."
Perhaps Omar can provide examples of her colleagues in Congress "calling out" Christian countries in Europe for affirming the prominence of Christianity or, more controversially, doing the same for Muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East—such as her native Somalia—that define Islam as their state religion. Has she ever questioned whether Denmark is still a democracy because its constitution recognizes the Lutheran church as the state religion? Has she ever called out Jordan for establishing Islam as the religion of the state? It's not even worth going into Omar's asinine attempt to compare Israel, a true democracy, to Iran, an Islamist theocracy that abuses minorities.
In her interview, Omar went on to say, in a wonderful show of irony, that she is "aggravated" by "those contradictions," apparently blind to her own double standard. She does not seem to understand, or knows but will not acknowledge, that Israel's nation-state law, which is similar to constitutional provisions in several European countries, neither creates individual privileges for any Israeli citizens nor infringes on the individual rights of any citizens. Moreover, Israel has never even officially proclaimed Judaism as the state religion. Palestinian Basic Law, meanwhile, states that "Islam is the official religion in Palestine" and that "the principles of Islamic Shari'a shall be the main source of legislation."
So we are left with a question: why single out Israel?
Former member of Congress and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney has been spouting insane anti-Israel (and antisemitic) stuff on her Facebook account:
There's 9/11 Truther stuff, she says John McCain was a "ZioCon" traitor....
Is anyone listening?
This whining post about Nikki Haley indicates....no.
"I have lots of truth to say and can't get a $5 gig. What's up with that?"
Even she knows she's faded into irrelevance.
(h/t Tomer)
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.
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.
Swedes celebrate Jewish culture in Cairo
-
The Swedish Embassy in Cairo recently held an event advertising an
exhibition on Egyptian Jews at the Medelhavsmuseet in Stockholm. (With
thanks: Sos) T...
A Three-Way
-
Taking out the Islamofacist Iranian dictatorship is the key to peace in the
region.
* * * *Please support Dry Bones*
(through PayPal or your Credit Car...
The Pope's Genocide Cowardice
-
Pope Francis recently implied that Israel was committing “genocide” in its
campaign against Hamas. While the pope was eager to apply the term to
Muslims...
An open letter to the police and CPS
-
To the police and CPS. With reference to complaints made by Gabriel
Kanter-Webber about Rupert Nathan. I understand that the matter has now
been referred...
7 Biggest Dungeons In Elder Scrolls Games
-
Please verify your email address. Labyrinthian in Skyrim is a maze of
Nordic ruins with fiends to battle and treasures to find. Sundercliff Watch
in Oblivi...
Gaza: A Brief Modern History Outline
-
Pre-1917 - Gaza part of the Ottoman Empire
1917 - Gaza conquered by British Army and subsequently becomes part of
Mandate Palestine
1948 - Gaza conquere...
One Choice: Fight to Win
-
Yesterday Israel preempted a potentially disastrous attack by Hezbollah on
the center of the country. Thirty minutes before launch time, our aircraft
destr...
Yom Hashoah 5784 – 2024
-
Israel’s Yom Hashoah began at sundown this evening with the annual ceremony
at Yad Vashem with torches lit in memory of the 6 million Jewish victims of
the...
Closing Jews Down Under Website
-
With a heavyish heart I am closing down the website after ten years.
It is and it isn’t an easy decision after 10 years of constant work. The
past...
‘Test & Trace’ is a mirage
-
Lockdown II thoughts: Day 1 Opposition politicians have been banging on
about the need for a ‘working’ Test & Trace system even more loudly than
the govern...
Monday, February 04, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
