Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Presidential candidate @TulsiGabbard accuses Netanyahu of dragging the US into World War III

Here is a statement from presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard where she pretty much says that Benjamnin Netanyahu is pushing for the US to go to war with Iran - and Russia! - to start World War III.

Here's the text:

I've always supported Israel's right to exist even more so after I had the opportunity to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp in 2005. That's why I'm so concerned with Bibi Netanyahu who's aggressive annexation policies which are simply going to stoke the flames of resentment and conflict. This is bad for Israel, bad for the United States, Palestinians and the region.

Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia want to drag the United States into war against Iran and Trump is submitting to their wishes. The cost in lives and money will be beyond our imagination.

Netanyahu's annexation of the Golan Heights and his promise to annex parts of the West Bank and Trump's declaration that the Iranian military the IRGC is a terrorist organization like Isis will undermine any chances for peace between the Israelis the Palestinians and Israel's neighbors this brings the United States closer than ever to war against Iran which will be absolutely disastrous for our country, for Israel, for Iran, the Middle East, Europe and the world. It's going to cost Americans trillions of dollars, dollars that should stay in the pockets of our people or be used to rebuild our infrastructure, educate our kids, provide universal health care and meet so many of the
other urgent needs that we have.

It'll also lead to many more of our troops paying the ultimate price, sacrificing their lives and increasing death and suffering of people in the region this will increase tenfold the present refugee crisis that Europe is facing and could even lead to direct conflict between the United States and Russia which could quickly leads to nuclear conflict that would mean the end of the world as we know it.

This is an existential threat that requires every American to stand up and say no.

To put it bluntly, this is insanity.

First of all, Israel didn't annex the Golan. Trump's declaration recognizing Israel's rule over the Golan didn't change anything. The Arab world put out some obligatory statements and yawned.

To throw Trump's declaration into a list of things that will upset Palestinians and make peace less likely is a head scratcher. True, Islamic Jihad and Hamas have denounced the move, but they aren't exactly peace partners.

To claim that designating the IRGC, which everyone admits has killed hundreds of Americans, as a terrorist organization is Bibi bringing the US to war with Iran is a fever dream of someone who hates Netanyahu and Trump so much that no accusation is over the top.

And to say, with birds chirping in the background, that not only will Israel's actions lead to US war with Iran but also to war with Russia is completely nuts. Why, exactly, would Russia intervene? Gabbard doesn't say.

She assumes an Israel that is directing US policy with no ability of the US to resist doing things against its own self interest.

Israeli Jews must be hypnotizing the world again. Those Jews can convince a superpower to ignore infrastructure, education and health care and instead start a nuclear war on its behalf.

Notice that she is not denouncing Trump. In her mind, Bibi is calling the shots and Trump is obediently listening to him - because Trump is a wild uncontrollable bully in evry other aspect of his policies but a slave to the Zionists.

Notwithstanding her invoking of Auschwitz as a reason for Israel to exist (self determination of the Jewish people is apparently not a good enough reason,) Gabbard is implying that the Israelis, by likely electing Netanyahu, are warmongers who for some reason want World War III - which would incidentally destroy Israel.

This is the Ilhan Omarization of the Democratic Party. And there are not enough prominent Democrats who are willing to go out on a limb and say that this kind of accusation is not only wrong and ignorant but it gives comfort and ammunition to real antisemites.

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04/09 Links Pt2: You Say Anti-Semitism, NYU says Worthy Work!; Why Are Democrats Kissing The Ring Of Al Sharpton?; Another Israeli election, another BBC claim of a ‘shift to the right’

From Ian:

NYU president Hamilton – Is this how you support justice?

On April 4, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) announced on their Facebook page that they were selected to receive the NYU President’s Service Award, given to students who have had an “extraordinary” and “positive” impact on the school’s community. It is clear to so many students on campus – Jewish, non-Jewish and pro-Israel – that this group does the exact opposite of improving the “quality of student life at New York University.” This has not yet been confirmed by NYU, but even the possibility cannot be ignored and must be addressed.

SJP has worked immensely hard each year to demonstrate their anti-Israel hatred, sometimes even violently, in more ways than one. Realize Israel, a pro-Israel group on NYU’s campus, mentioned in a Facebook post that members of SJP have defaced Israel’s flag, physically assaulted pro-Israel students, and continually present factually inaccurate anti-Israel resolutions to the Student Government Assembly. Why celebrate such behaviors with an award? Why give an award to an organization that in itself is “anti” and not to an organization that is solely “pro”?

We ask NYU’s senior vice president of student affairs, Marc Wais, if any of the pro-Israel groups on campus will be selected for this year’s award, seeing as none were chosen in 2018. We hope that NYU’s leadership recognizes that: 1) Israel is at the forefront of improving the world with its focus on human rights, diversity and equality for all its citizens; 2) Israel, a country the size of New Jersey, is leading the world in innovation within the healthcare, agriculture and various technological fields; 3) When humanitarian crises strike throughout the world, particularly natural disasters, Israel is always one of the first countries to utilize their financial resources, technology and manpower to help recover and rebuild. How ironic is it that a group which has blatantly shamed students who devote their efforts to support a country that helps communities all over the world is now being praised?

In April 2018, NYU president Andrew D. Hamilton denounced the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This was an amazing step forward for the community, and for helping Jewish and pro-Israel students feel safe on campus. The Jewish, non-Jewish and pro-Israel community thanked him then, and again say now: THANK YOU president Hamilton for standing against the BDS movement. But why is the student organization that very much supports the BDS movement allegedly receiving your prestigious President’s Service Award?

You Say Anti-Semitism, NYU says Worthy Work!

What has SJP done to have such an extraordinary and positive impact? The greatest impact they’ve had in recent months was on the passage of a boycott resolution by NYU’s student government. SJP members introduced and fought for it. That resolution, though limited in its reach, explicitly supported the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, and made use of easily exposed propaganda.

NYU President Andrew Hamilton—presumably, the “president” in “president’s service award”—has repeatedly said that boycotting Israel, which is very nearly the sole purpose of SJP, is “contrary to” NYU’s “core principles of academic freedom” and “antithetical to the free exchange of ideas.”

But it’s not merely that SJP’s mission contradicts the university’s. Adela Cojab, past president of the NYU branch of Realize Israel, has said that for “the overwhelming majority of [her] community, Zionism is a part of who they are, and they see an attack on Israel as an attack on their Judaism.” When SJP led other organizations in declaring that they wouldn’t work with pro-Israel groups, Cojab adopted the language of the left. Anti-Zionist activities were creating “unsafe spaces” on campus for many Jews, she said.

That may be going too far, but it is shocking that this university isn’t just tolerating an organization that promotes what many Jews consider anti-Semitism but patting it on the back. Giving SJP an award reserved for those who benefit the community is a gross insult not only to Jewish pro-Israel activists but also to the many others who, just as Cojab says, consider SJP’s attack on Zionism to be an attack on Jews.

If SJP is really set to receive such an award—NYU did not respond to my request for confirmation–it should be rescinded.

Why Are Democrats Kissing The Ring Of Al Sharpton?

Then again, ruined lives are strewn across Sharpton’s career. Maybe Democrats need to be reminded that Sharpton used a tragic 1991 car accident to incite a four-day race riot in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Or maybe they just don’t care. It was Sharpton who stoked anger over the imaginary nexus between “Tel Aviv” and “South Africa” and the “diamond merchants right here.” After the Jewish community protested, Sharpton said, “Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.”

But, of course, Sharpton’s bejeweled and rotund frame was, as always, hiding behind bodyguards. It was his mob that took over. And one man who forgot to pin back his yarmulke was Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year old Orthodox Jew visiting from Australia who, after turning down a wrong street, was dragged from his car to the shouts of “Kill the Jews!” by throngs of angry protesters and stabbed to death. Never once has Sharpton shown any remorse for his role in this bloodletting.

When, in 1995, Fred Harari, a Jewish sub-tenant who operated a store called Freddie’s Fashion Mart, evicted his own sub-tenant, a black-owned record store owner, Sharpton, who told the protesters, “We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business,” saw another opportunity to provoke chaos.

Never mind that it had been a black Pentecostal church that had asked Harari to evict the record store owner. If you’re inclined, you can listen to his ceaseless race-baiting and anti-Semitism that Sharpton allowed, and engaged in, on his show day in and out. The venomous protests, fueled in part by his show and his presence, soon began to resemble a mob. When Roland Smith Jr. went in with a gun, he asked all the black patrons to leave before he killed everyone else. The “white interloper,” as Sharpton perceptively predicted, “did not expand his business in Harlem.”

Never once, as far as I can tell, have any of his didactic colleagues on cable news asked him about these career highlights. Not once did a reporter ask any of the presidential candidates about Sharpton’s history.

As a native New Yorker, I hold a grudge. That doesn’t mean others can’t forgive Sharpton for the horrible things he’s done. It’s something else, however, when a remorseless man with a history of hucksterism and cruelty is not only being flattered as national moral leader by presidential candidates but that those same politicians are being given a free pass as they kowtow to a reprehensible character.

BDS founder Omar Barghouti heads to DC, for panel with Peter Beinart, seeks Congressional meetings

Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, is in the U.S. this week to promote the economic battle against Israel.

According to Congressional sources, Barghouti is seeking meetings on Capitol Hill.

Barghouti will also participate on Thursday in two panels at the Arab American Institute in Washington, D.C.

The first event, co-sponsored by the Foundation for Middle East Peace and NYU-Washington, D.C., is billed as a “candid conversation about the BDS movement” between Barghouti and Peter Beinart. The other event, later in the day, is co-sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace – D.C. Metro chapter.

Someone thinks they leaked hundreds of Israeli government emails

From Rogue Media Labs:

Yesterday, March 8th 2019, a hacker going by the name of “Neptunex3c” of “CYB3R C0V3N Security” released a data leak of several high profile/ranking members of Israeli Government. To be more exact, Neptune released approximately 812 emails across 4 Government offices – The Office of The Prime Minister (125), Israeli Secret Intelligence Service – Mossad (20), as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (226) and Ministry of Justice (441). The leak itself is over 1,600 lines, including locations of subdomains attached to these offices websites, IP Addresses, as well as the mirrored names of file folders attached to various databases affiliated with the Israeli Government.

In a message to Rogue Media Labs, Neptune claims to have assembled the data using different OSNIT tools, such as TheHarvestor, which leverages over 20 different search engines and platforms to scan for information such as this. I can also confirm that the list of emails in question is indeed real, because I sent emails to every single person on that email list – with only maybe 3 dozen emails or so bouncing back to out of the first few hundred. Interesting enough, while b.netanyahu‘s email didn’t work, the emails of propaganda@mossad and supreme-reptilian@mossad did.

The author of the piece then describes how he emailed everyone on the list telling them how awful Israel is.

Clearly, the original leaker and the author know nothing about how email works nowadays. They think that if you send an email to a recipient and it doesn't bounce back, then the address exists.

But as the example of supreme-reptilian@mossad.co.il shows, it isn't true. If you send email to a bunch of random characters at Mossad it takes hours for the bounceback message. (Yes, supreme-reptilian@mossad.co.il does eventually bounce.) And some email systems will silently absorb bad emails depending on the characteristics of the originating email.

So the first anti-Israel idiot uses search engines to find a bunch of addresses - search engines that will grab fake addresses from petitions, or jokes, or whatever. The second idiot thinks that the first list is accurate because he doesn't understand email.

Many of the emails on the list are probably legit, but this is hardly a hack. This is little more than Googling.

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ElderToon, poster and a tweet for @IfNotNowOrg

I made this cartoon for IfNotNow on Twitter after they showed how proud they were to stop traffic on Friday to the block where Taglit Birthright has its offices in New York.

Since the group has such a finely tuned sense of justice, I asked them this question in a meme I created:

Finally, I asked them a question about their purported "Jewish values":

Hey @IfNotNowOrg , when King David conquered Jerusalem and declared it the capital of his kingdom, was he acting in accordance to Jewish values?

If not, please give me the sources you use for the "Jewish" values you were raised on.

Thanks! https://t.co/UvUA2LKtK3
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) April 9, 2019

Of course, IfNotNow - which falsely claims that Birthright does not answer any questions about Palestinians on its trips - doesn't respond to any questions asked about it.

Transparency is only for one side, it appears.

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04/09 Links Pt1: To Truly Confront UNRWA, the US Must Change Its Policy Immediately; No Matter What Happens in the Israeli Election, There Is No Palestinian State to Build

From Ian:

Try as It Might, the U.S. Can’t Disengage from the Middle East

While the previous and current president have often spoken of greatly reducing America’s involvement in Middle Eastern affairs, the events of the past several years have time and again shown that doing so often causes grave problems. While cautioning against excessive ambitions, Hal Brands argues that Washington has no choice but to remain engaged in the region:

[It] is a fantasy to think that the United States can disengage from the Middle East without consequence. This is because America still has pressing interests in that region—and because those interests are as unlikely to protect themselves today as they ever have been in the past. Growing Russian influence, Iran’s hegemonic ambitions, the potential resurgence of key terrorist organizations, and the massive political instability and violence that plague large swaths of the region are real problems that demand competent management. America’s partners in the region can do more to manage those problems than they have done to date, but they remain manifestly incapable of doing so without significant U.S. support.

[Furthermore], hasty withdrawals are likely to be followed by hasty re-engagements. After the United States left Iraq in 2011, the state nearly collapsed, Islamic State surged to prominence, and an emergency military intervention—which has now lasted nearly five years—was needed to repair the damage. If the United States disengages from Syria and Afghanistan today and the result is a significant terrorist attack, the pressure to get back into the region and take decisive military action will be strong indeed—even if that means shortchanging other geopolitical priorities. If America goes home from the Middle East, it will sooner or later face pressures to go in big.

To Truly Confront UNRWA, the US Must Change Its Policy Immediately

Taking UNRWA at its word, the loss of US support in 2018 may have helped its overall funding efforts.

At this moment, it does not appear that the Trump administration’s decision to cut off funding to UNRWA has had a negative impact on UNRWA’s operations.

However, an Al Jazeera report in September claimed that the United States allowed Gulf states to fund UNRWA in 2018, but that funding in 2019 “will be subject to agreeing with the US demand to count only 500,000 refugees out of the five million” claimed to exist by the agency.

At this time, UNRWA has not reported any pledges from Gulf states.

Withholding funds to UNRWA satisfies those that have advocated for an end to sending US taxpayer dollars to such an “irredeemably flawed” organization. However, the funding cut in 2018 came with no policy success to show for it.

The Trump administration should work with Congress to condition future funding to UNRWA on its acceptance that “Palestine refugees” refers only to the original refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Then, their descendants should be categorized as “other Palestinians in need.” This would be consistent with US policy towards those seeking refugee status in our country.

This approach would put the onus on UNRWA to refuse US funding, and may spur other donors to do the same. Right now, UNRWA is winning this definitional battle. A shift in strategy, however, can help us win the war over fake refugee status.

MEMRI: The Trump Administration's Designation Of The IRGC As A Foreign Terror Organization – Goals And Impact

Introduction

On April 8, 2019, President Trump announced the designation of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), including its Qods Force (see Appendix).[1]

This report will discuss the impact of the designation, economically and militarily, both within Iran and on the regional and international level.

The IRGC As An Economic Organization

The IRGC, part of Iran's military, is a huge economic entity; its economic arms are an integral part of Iran's strategic infrastructure in construction, energy, communications, and agriculture. Designating the IRGC as an FTO will be a tremendous blow to its economic might within Iran and to its ability to operate outside Iran.

The Economic Aspect Of Designating The IRGC As An FTO

Thus, designating the IRGC an FTO constitutes a continuation of the Trump administration's policy that focuses on economic sanctions against Iran. If the U.S. sanctions to date have mainly concerned the oil sector – the main sector of Iran's economy – and banking, the sanctions will now harm the Iranian regime's most vital economic entity.

This move appears to be aimed at thwarting Iran's partial consent to the guidelines of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)[2] aimed at fighting money laundering and terrorism – guidelines which Iran has so far rejected for fear that by consenting to them it will expose the IRGC and its organizations to direct harm. Under European pressure, Iran has so far obtained a series of postponements for the imposition of FATF guidelines on it, and there is now a fear that Iran will obtain special status, in the framework of which it will be required to comply with only some of the FATF laws and regulations. The Trump administration's move at this time to designate the IRGC an FTO appears to preempt the possibility that Iran will accept such a special arrangement, which would allow the IRGC to continue its activity in the country and across the region.

Fatah proud of a mosque that was built to destroy priceless Jewish artifacts

The Fatah Facebook page published this photo:

It says it is a picture of mosque under southeast of the Temple Mount.

This appears to be part of the Marwani Mosque.

It is clear that the tunnel under the Mount was ancient, but the contents were scooped out in the 1990s by bulldozers, eradicating hundreds of tons of priceless archaeological data that showed a Jewish presence on the Mount that pre-dates Islam by over a thousand years.

The mountains of dirt and debris are still being sifted through to save whatever can be after this crime, the biggest crime against archaeology in history.

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The Wits (University) Vuvuzela reports:

A guest speaker for the South African Union of Jewish Students (SAUJS) at the Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) was escorted off the Wits University campus on Thursday, April 4, after it was found that she is a soldier.

Ashager Araro, a well-known Israeli-Ethiopian Zionist and reserve soldier of the Israeli Defence Forces left the campus surrounded by private security after supporters of the Palestinian Solidarity Committee (PSC) confronted her about her military role.

PSC and SAUJS supporters found themselves in a heated and tense exchange over Araro as both groups of students converged on the piazza in front of the Chamber of Mines building.

“You guys are letting soldiers on to our campus now, we’ll note this,” said a Palestinian supporter to Jabu Mashinini, senior programme adviser for student governance, in reference to Araro.

Apparently, both the Jewish/Zionist students and the Israel haters had informally agreed that no military personnel would be allowed to participate.

But explicitly supporting terrorist is perfectly fine.

In this video you can see a prominent member of the #BDS movement yelling that he "supports #Hamas"
Tell me one more time how #BDS promotes peace 🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️#noplaceforhate pic.twitter.com/1dxrHnTgaa
— Ashager Araro (@AshagerAraro) April 4, 2019

Look how upset these people are at a proud, black Jewish Zionist woman. This anger in the video has nothing to do with "justice" or supporting Palestinians - it is pure hate that someone who passes all the intersectionality victimhood rules disagrees with them.

Previous years of IAW and Wits had actual violence and antisemitism against the Jewish and pro-Israel students, with no consequences. Showing the flag of Hezbollah, a terror group whose logo features a gun, is perfectly fine.

Here is video from IAW 2017:

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In a recent radio interview, Tunisian actor Walid Nahdi recently accused Jews of having a distinctive body odor.

"When I was young we had Jewish neighbors whose smell I could not bear," he said on RadioMed.

"Jews have a special smell," he added.

"I can not stand sitting next to a Jew .. or a homosexual," Nahdi continued.

The Tunisian Minority Support Association filed a complaint against the actor for his comments against Jews and gays.

Ironically, his Instagram includes these memes:

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04/08 Links Pt2: A Rocket Hit My House. Now BDS Wants Me Out; CAIR Antisemites Fight ‘Anti-Semitism Awareness’ Bill; Guardian editors to Israeli voters: Trust us with your security.

From Ian:

A Rocket Hit My House. Now BDS Wants Me Out.

In January 2009, a long-range missile from Gaza was fired into Israel. This has been a common occurrence ever since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. As a child, I was taught at school to immediately run to a bomb shelter if sirens go off, so I did that.

I was home alone in my room and quickly ran to the shelter we had in our house. It was 9:30 a.m. Normally, I would stay in the shelter and wait for the sirens to stop, as rockets rarely reached my town of Gedera. Unfortunately, this day was different. A mere two seconds after I entered the shelter, I heard a loud boom, and felt my home collapse. After leaving the shelter, I saw the rocket had hit my bedroom and killed my dog Rosie. I was only 12 years old.

The story of my home in Gedera is not unique. It resonates with tens of thousands of Israelis who have been under a constant threat of rockets from Gaza over the past 18 years. According to the Israeli Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma, 40 percent of the children in the Israeli border town of Sderot suffer from PTSD. This is what happens when, at any moment, you could be given only 15 seconds to run for shelter. The rockets often come unprovoked, as we witnessed as recently as two weeks ago: A long-range missile was launched from Gaza and flew over Tel Aviv, hitting the community of Mishmeret and wounding seven Israeli civilians.

But rockets are not the only threat from Gaza. In 2018, hundreds of hectares of Israeli fields were burned in the area surrounding Gaza because of burning kites and explosive balloons released from Gaza. In the poverty-stricken Gaza Strip, where 1.8 million Palestinians are crammed into 140 square miles and unemployment is over 50 percent, Hamas brags about having a tunnel system twice as large as the Viet Cong. Hamas is said to have spent between $30 million and $90 million and used 600,000 tons of concrete to build these tunnels. In 2006, Hamas used the tunnels to kidnap the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. In July 2014, Hamas militants used a tunnel to prepare an ambush in the fields of Kibbutz Nir-Am, but the Israel Defense Forces stopped them.

These examples are not meant to compare suffering with suffering, or military might with military might — a framing the BDS movement relentlessly tries to push. The people of Palestine are suffering, and deserve a chance at a peaceful life with dignity. They need a country, but it doesn’t have to replace our own.

#YouNeverToldMe is our fault. #WeNeverToldYou

Purporting to speak for young American Jews, IfNotNow, and other radical organizations are running the #YouNeverToldMe Campaign, accusing Jewish institutions of not sharing the full story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a Jewish educator, I feel guilty as charged.

As a proponent of this campaign put it on Twitter

“The #YouNeverToldMe campaign was born out of a pattern of realizations that the education we receive about Israel is one-sided and incomplete. @IfNotNowOrg has developed a syllabus that includes Palestinian narratives and an honest look at the Occupation.”

Indeed, we Jewish educators are guilty of not sharing the full story. This is why I decided to launch the #WeNeverToldYou campaign, for Jewish educators and professionals, to help alleviate this crisis.

#WeNeverToldYou that in 1948 just three years after the end of the Holocaust, Palestinians joined a proud campaign that openly declared it wanted a second Holocaust, to annihilate all the Jews between the river and the sea.

The Arch of Titus

The Jewish people have over a 3000 year connection to the land of Israel. The Arch of Titus in Rome, which showcases the Romans expelling the Jews after destroying and looting the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, serves as one of the main pieces of evidence that the Jews have an undeniable long history in Israel.

How many Palestinian Arabs would emigrate if they could?

Times of Israel reports:

Explaining his support for a one-state solution, Feiglin contended that over 90 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and 65% of Palestinians in the West Bank would already prefer to emigrate, making it possible to maintain a Jewish majority in an expanded sovereign Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. (He did not specify a source for the statistics and the Zehut party was not able to provide one either.)

I don't know where he got his numbers from either.

The latest PCPSR poll of Palestinians notes 50% of Gazans and 22% of West Bankers say they want to emigrate, a far cry from Feiglin's assertion. It is possible that he is stretching the interpretation of the answers, because while I don't have the details of any recent surveys, older ones when asked the question had two separate answers "do not seek to emigrate" and "certainly do not see to emigrate," and it is possible that the Zehut party is choosing anyone who didn't say "certainly" as being a potential emigrant.

There is always the question of where they want to emigrate to. In Jordan, one third of citizens want to emigrate themselves, including nearly half with university degrees.

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Most of the kids marching against Israel on college campuses today were not even born in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, meaning they have little to no idea how much their rhetoric and actions are built on nearly 150 years of political tactics honed during the near 150 year "Age of Ideology" that began in the mid-19^th century and ended with the demise of the USSR.

But the behaviors we see among anti-Israel activists today did not emerge from thin air. For just as current Students-for-Justice-in-Palestine types insist that any true liberal must embrace their agenda (the PEP argument noted previously), Marxist ideologues in previous eras scoffed at progressives who "merely" wanted to improve the lives of workers or solve pressing social issues, rather than replace the entire capitalist system through a spasm of revolutionary violence.

And once it turned out that the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" was only ever going to be a dictatorship, the ruthlessness of Soviet action was matched by a ruthlessness of language in which their every crime was denied and every accusation against it buried in a mountain of rhetoric insisting that the Marxist cause by judged solely by its theoretical goal of creating heaven on earth.

In service to the cause, nothing was off limits: not civic society within the USSR and not multi-national institutions outside of it, which is why tyrannies allied with the "movement" were so successful in corrupting virtually every organization dedicated to human rights and international law, turning them from potential moderating influences in an increasingly interconnected world to weapons of war.

Accusing those that created and perpetuated this system of cynicisms would be an error, for the people who split progressive and labor movements for their own ends, who ardently rejected any criticism of their crimes (while perpetually attacking their opponents) were driven by fanaticism that more resembled religious fervor than rational calculation.

The Jews played an unusual set of roles during this Age of Ideologies. While Medieval religious anti-Semitism was still rife when the political terms "Left" and "Right" were first coined (they applied to which side of the king one sat at the National Assembly at the time of the French revolution, BTW), by the time Karl Marx was writing what would become the sacred texts of the Marxist faith, negative reaction to Jews were being cast in economic and political vs. religious terms.

To Marx (a German who had long ago abandoned his own Jewish heritage), the continuation of the Jews for nearly two Millennia after the fall of the Jewish state was a political aberration growing out the need of powerful Christian elites for a class of moneylenders, rent collectors and economic middlemen to do their financial dirty work. This allowed kings and clerics to gather their rents and borrow the cash needed for their lifestyles and wars. And when their own loans came due, they could always sick the mob on these despised Jewish landlords and "loan sharks," and begin the cycle anew with a new set of Jews ready to play the game of politically powerless financial middlemen.

This novel description of Jewish history was fleshed out in Marx's famous essay On the Jewish Question, a work that today seems rife with anti-Semitic stereotypes, portraying Jews as congenial "hucksters" whose One God is actually Mammon. But when he wrote it, Marx had a different agenda in mind. For, according to the theories he was developing, the capitalist system was in the process of replacing the Jewish middlemen of antiquity with a class of capitalist (consisting of people of all faiths) which (according to Marx) meant the economic deformities once managed by a persecuted Jewish minority was now becoming the cornerstone of the modern political system.

Thus his call to free Europe from the Jew was really a call to free society from the "hucksterism" represented originally by the Jews but which now infested all of capitalist society. And what of actual Jews who (like Marx's parents and grandparents) were not simply economic abstractions? As with most human beings, they had a role to play within Marx's developing theoretical framework. In this case, they (meaning the Jews as a distinct people) were meant to disappear once their economic role became irrelevant as man passed into a new post-capitalist era.

To someone like Marx, this proposition was not entirely fanciful. For hadn't many people born into Jewish families (including Marx himself) shed their religious identity once they encountered European enlightenment? And if Marx and others he traveled with were able to successfully toss aside their Jewishness, wasn't that the ultimate solution to "The Jewish Problem" once a classless society freed from capitalism eliminated the need for Jewish middlemen and Jewish "husksterism" (whether practiced by Jews or Christians) entirely?

In one of his last works, From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews and Israel, Robert Wistrich uses "ambivalence" to describe Leftist attitudes towards Jewish questions, given Marx’s predictions of the historic inevitability of Jewish assimilation and disappearance. In theory, this meant outright hostility towards Jews as Jews did not need to play much of a role in the political movements inspired by Marx’s works.

But this also meant that actually defending Jews against the racism being directed against them (especially by purely anti-Semitic political parties emerging in countries Germany and France in the decades following Marx's death) was equally irrelevant to the Marxist-informed Left. This is why you began to see condemnations of anti-Semitism (insults and violence directed at the Jews) balanced by equally vehement condemnations of "philo-Semitism" (attempts to defend Jews from these racist attacks), with arguments that Jews defending their own interests were guilty of parochialism and selfishness echoing to today.

As already noted, Marx's theories about the redemptive power of Jewish assimilation and disappearance were confirmed by his own experience, as well as the experience of other hyper-assimilated Jews attracted to various Socialist movements. But as these "enlightened" Jewish and non-Jewish Socialist began to encounter unassimilated Jews (especially those of Eastern Europe) and as Eastern and even Western Jews began to advocate for distinct Jewish political and even national rights, ambivalence turned to hostility which became more and more virulent as the "inevitable" world revolution never materialized, shaking Communist faith to its core.

Like so many disappointed millennialists, the revolutionary Left had someone to blame and a new cause to believe in (hostility to the Jews and their state) once their original Messiah failed to appear. How this played out will be covered next.

To be continued…

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04/08 Links Pt1: David Singer: Hashemite Rule in Jordan on Collision Course with Trump and Israel; The EU’s Heights of Golan Hypocrisy; Don't Rejoin the Iran Deal, Fix It

From Ian:

David Singer: Hashemite Rule in Jordan on Collision Course with Trump and Israel

The founding Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Charter in 1964 specifically excluded any PLO claim to sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

In the 1967 Six Day War Israel captured Judea and Samaria from Jordan. The PLO – claiming Jordan and Israel to be one indivisible territorial unit – removed its non-claim to sovereignty from the revised 1968 Charter.

In September 1970 the PLO unsuccessfully tried to overthrow Jordan’s Hashemite ruler King Hussein. Israel helped save Hussein.

Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty 1994 (Peace Treaty) – which has withstood many events that could have seen its termination.

That Treaty is again under threat – as Jordan has:

indicated it is not prepared to renew an expired 25-year lease of Jordanian sovereign territory farmed by Israelis and

given the PLO 40% representation on the body charged with administering the Moslem Holy Sites in Jerusalem – breaching the Washington Declaration and the Peace Treaty.

Jordan’s resistance to negotiating with Israel on Trump’s plan could see Trump shelving it and abruptly ending the 2018 five years $1.275 billion America–Jordan Memorandum of Understanding underpinning Jordan’s security and stability.

The PLO – as in 1970 – is waiting in the wings as current ongoing unrest in Jordan is destabilizing continuing Hashemite rule there.

Abdullah might find that spurning Trump and Israel could see him facing the PLO on his own.

Yisrael Medad: TransJordan, 1933

Full Text:
A strong fight for the right of Jews to settle in Transjordania was put up at the last session of the League of Nation’s Mandates Commission, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today, although minutes of the session will not officially appear before September. The fight was conducted mainly by the Dutch representative, D. Van Rees, vice-chairman of the Mandates Commission, who demanded an explanation of the British Government’s opposition to Jewish settlement of Transjordania.

Van Rees emphasized that the mandate does not exclude Jewish immigration in the Transjordan area, and he indicated that the population of Transjordania is in favor of Jewish settlement there. Van Rees pointed out that Transjordania is double the size of Palestine, but has only 300,000 inhabitants at present, while Palestine has 1,000,000.

LAND SALE PROHIBITION

“Besides, why prohibit sale of land there to Jews when the Emir Abdullah of Transjordania desires it?” he asked.

He also pointed out that many Jews living in Palestine at present are not Palestinians, but are still subjects or citizens of countries belonging to the League of Nations. Considering the principle of equality for the citizens or subjects of all countries which are members of the League, it would be impossible to prevent these persons from settling in Transjordania, Van Rees stated.

Evelyn Gordon: How Israel's Electoral System Brings the Country's Fringes Into Its Center

Like Haviv Rettig Gur in “How and Why Israelis Vote,” I, too, think the advantages of Israel’s parliamentary system outweigh its disadvantages, and for essentially the same reason: because it keeps a great many people in the political system who would otherwise remain outside it.

Critics of the system’s plethora of small parties—as Gur notes, no fewer than 43 parties have been vying for Knesset seats in this year’s election—maintain that it should be streamlined and redesigned so that only big parties would be able to enter the Knesset. In that case, the critics argue, people who currently vote for small parties would simply switch their votes to large ones.

No doubt, some voters would do so—but many others would not. There are at least three groups among whom turnout would plummet if niche parties became by definition unelectable: Arabs, Ḥaredim (including some ḥaredi Zionists), and the protest voters who, in every election, propel a new “fad” party into the Knesset. (In 2015, as Gur writes, the fad party was Kulanu. This year, it’s been Moshe Feiglin’s pro-marijuana, libertarian, right-wing Zehut party, which Gur doesn’t discuss although polls have consistently showed it gaining five to seven seats.)

Together, these three groups constitute roughly a third of the country, and all three are to some extent alienated from the mainstream. If they were no longer even participating in elections, that alienation would grow.

Why does this matter? In answering that question, I’ll focus mainly on Ḥaredim and Arabs, the most significant and also the most stable of the three groups (protest voters being by nature amorphous and changeable).

A serious proposal or simply an election ploy? Both @Tamar_hos_bran & @EVKontorovich tell @BeckyCNN that #Netanyahu’s talk about annexing West Bank settlements is about “changing the narrative.” pic.twitter.com/mqc6CdUMjo
— Connect the World (@CNNConnect) April 8, 2019

World Bank and EU partner with Kuwaiti BDS organization

The Kuwait-based Women's Cultural and Social Society (WCSS) has partnered with the EU on various events. One from last month is shown here:

They also meet with world diplomats, like from Australia.

Recently they met with World Bank representatives.

And they have also sponsored BDS events and "Israel Apartheid Week."

The EU promises not to support BDS groups, and have been shown to lie before about that. Add some more groups to the list.

(h/t WC)

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The Temple Mount status quo that never was

Haaretz has an article on a photo exhibition showing pictures of the Temple Mount since the dawn of photography at Jerusalem’s David Citadel Museum. (The article can be seen for free here.)

The article notes:

In the years to come (after 1967) the Temple Mount was photographed by countless Israelis who toured the place. In those years the Waqf didn’t seem to uphold the current so-called “modesty” regulations. Many men and women are seen strolling on the site in shorts, some holding souvenirs or bags after shopping in the Old City.

In the ‘70s the site was used by photographer Mula Eshet as a set for fashion photos for Gottex. In the display, a model wearing a blue dress is photographed on the background of the blue decorations of the Dome of the Rock – a scene hard to envision today.

These details show that the "status quo" of the Temple Mount that is supposedly upheld by the Jordanian Waqf never was. The restrictions on Israelis and Jews visiting the site that exist today, both in terms of clothing and in terms of carrying bags, didn't exist.

One more thing about that 1976 photo of the model.

I have noted on occasion that the Dome of the Rock has throughout the centuries been overrun with weeds, hardly how one would expect a Muslim holy site to be treated. Here's an example from the 1950s:

The Gottex model picture shows that there were weeds pushing through the pavement in the area even as late as 1976.

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Palestinians claim Trump will try to move them to the Sinai

Arab media is abuzz with rumors that the US purchased large parts of the Sinai adjacent to Gaza to move Palestinians to. There's even a map:

There have been rumors like this for years, and former Egyptian president Mubarak claims that Netanyahu asked him to give parts of the Sinai to Palestinians in 2010. He says that he resisted such plans since the 1980s when the Americans suggested relocating Palestinians from Lebanon to the Sinai.

The rumors resurfaced in the past two years in context of the Trump "Deal of the Century."

Now they have come up again. The map shown above was supposedly published by YNet in Israel but I cannot find it; it appears to be a screenshot of a video. According to this map and the rumors, the US would pay Egypt billions to purchase massive amounts of the Sinai which would become attached to Gaza in exchange for Israel annexing parts of the West Bank.

Israeli analysts bring up versions of this idea every so often. Just this week the BESA center published an article noting that Gaza's situation is partly the result of the Israel-Egypt peace plan in 1979:

Gaza could no longer develop westward into the potential open space between Rafah and El-Arish. The Strip was thus closed in the Egyptian direction and deposited on Israel’s doorstep as an urban pressure cooker on the verge of explosion.

The Palestinian media is of course against the idea, because even expanding their territory is anathema if it would help Israel. Some are even arguing that the boundaries of British Mandate Palestine are sacrosanct and must never be changed an inch, as they are burned into the consciousness of all Palestinians.

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