Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, May 16, 2019

05/16 Links Pt1: Madonna confirmed at last for Eurovision performance in Tel Aviv; U.S. to UN: You yourself rejected withdrawal to ’67 lines; ‘Nakba Day’ Simply Infantilizes Arab Aggression

From Ian:

Madonna confirmed at last for Eurovision performance in Tel Aviv

Madonna’s producers said in April the star would perform at the contest in Tel Aviv, which was designated the host city after Israeli singer Netta Barzilai won in Portugal last year.

Her participation brought a flurry of protest from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which has for years been pushing for investors and artists to shun Israel over its policies toward the Palestinians, among other critiques.

“I’ll never stop playing music to suit someone’s political agenda nor will I stop speaking out against violations of human rights wherever in the world they may be,” Madonna said, in a statement carried by US media Tuesday.

She brings with her an entourage of 135 people, including the rapper KoVu, 40 backing singers, 25 dancers and a team of technicians, according to reports citing the Israeli-Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams, said to be footing a large part of the bill for her performance.

Twenty-six out of an original 41 contestants will battle for first place in the three-and-a-half-hour live broadcast, which kicks off Saturday at 9 p.m. Israel time.

Madonna will perform in the interval.

Shalva band readies for guest gig after nixing Eurovision bid over Shabbat

The Shalva Band, which dropped its widely supported bid to represent Israel at Eurovision after organizers refused to budge on the group’s request not to perform on Shabbat, rehearsed Wednesday for a performance as guest artists at the song contest’s semifinals on Thursday evening.

“We are very excited to get on stage with smiles on our faces,” band member Yair Pomberg told Channel 12 news. “We are going to do the best possible job we can.”

His bandmate, Yosef Ovadia, told a press conference that the group has wide-ranging support ahead of their performance.

“I think that what we are going to do here at the second semifinal of the contest — I feel that the people of Israel and the people of the world are with us,” Ovadia said.

The band — made up of musicians with disabilities, some of whom are observant Jews — was named as a finalist on the reality TV show “Rising Star,” which determines Israel’s entry for the annual song contest taking place this week in Tel Aviv.

The group quit the show over the prospect of being forced to break the Jewish day of rest if selected as the winner.

Will Ferrell, Rachel McAdams filming Eurovision movie in Tel Aviv

The 2019 Eurovision in Tel Aviv is undeniably star-studded. But on the sidelines of the show are two more world-famous celebrities: Rachel McAdams and Will Ferrell.

The duo are in town to shoot an upcoming Netflix film about – you guessed it – the Eurovision. Ferrell is the brains behind the movie, titled Eurovision, and it is being directed by David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers).

In addition to Ferrell, McAdams is appearing in the film, and even took a photo with Eurovision co-host Assi Azar on the sidelines of the contest this week.

Unlike most Americans, Ferrell is a fan of the European singing extravaganza, as he was introduced to it by his Swedish-born wife, Viveca Paulin. Ferrell was also in attendance at the Eurovision last year in Lisbon, Portugal, where Israel’s Netta Barzilai took home the top prize. Netflix announced the Eurovision satire film last summer, and Dobkin and McAdams signed on earlier this year.

PMW: Fatah calls to boycott Eurovision, adopts BDS campaign

Israel is hosting this year's Eurovision song contest, and millions across the world are watching the semi-finals this week, before the grand final on Saturday. Angry that Israel is hosting one of Europe's most important cultural celebrations, Abbas' Fatah Movement has been calling for a boycott of the event. Knowing the world's sensitivity to images of dead children, Fatah presented the libelous cartoon above of a microphone made of a rifle, and with bullets and a Palestinian child shot dead, lying in a pool of blood, as if the child had been intentionally murdered by Israel, under the hashtag #BoycottEurovision2019.

Similarly, the official Palestinian Authority daily printed this cartoon of the word "Eurovision" with a Palestinian boy being hung from a treble clef that replaces the "v" in "Eurovision."

However, it is Hamas that bears full responsibility for the civilian deaths and murdered children in the Gaza Strip because it places its missile launchers in residential areas, and proudly boasts of using civilians as human shields, as documented several times by Palestinian Media Watch.

BDS-campaigners have also called on pop star Madonna not to perform at Eurovision in Tel Aviv. Madonna is scheduled to sing during the finals on Saturday. Joining the BDS-call, Fatah posted several images under the hashtag #MadonnaDontGo, among them:

Blast from the Past: Israel's First Eurovision Win

Israel's first win of Eurovision came in 1978, followed up by another victory in 1979. Izhar Cohen, who won it for Israel the first time, remember it quite well. Our Tracy Alexander has the story.

Egyptian news site Masr al-Arabia published an obligatory article for the anniversary of Israel not being destroyed, blaming Israel for all ills, but it starts off with a startling statement for the Arab world:

The Palestinian cause is on the brink of total collapse, against the background of the deteriorating situation that faces the Arab countries at the same time as the 71st anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba.

These include the divided Arab street, the war in Yemen and the division in Libya, the famine in Gaza and split with the West Bank, massacres and genocide in Syria and the siege of Qatar by four Gulf countries, and protests in Sudan.

In other words, since there are far more important and existential issues that Arab countries have to deal with, the eighth decade of the Palestinian issue really doesn't rate very high any more.

The implication that the existence of these other issues endangers the "Palestinian cause" is a tacit admission that the Palestinian issue is really not so dire, despite decades of insistence that it is the key to solving all Middle East problems - the "linkage" idea that stubbornly remains in Western circles because of Arab diplomats repeating it like a mantra every time they met officials in the West.

Since the Palestinian issue is not inherently as big a deal as the other issues facing the Arab world, the lack of publicity is what is causing it to be on the "brink of collapse." Simply put, no one really cares anymore and putting resources into a failed cause diverts attention and money from actual crises.

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Amnesty International has created, as far as I can tell, four special websites under its Amnesty.org domain.

One of them is about Syrian prisons.

The other three are dedicated to bashing Israel - the Gaza Platform which I have extensively debunked, "Black Friday" about IDF reaction to the kidnapping of soldiers in the 2014 war, and now the latest, on "Nakba."

Amnesty's obsession with Israel is unabated.

The new Nakba site, released yesterday, is professional, but very uneven.

It has three sections, on Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon and West Bank/Gaza. Nothing about Palestinians in Syria, where thousands have been killed in recent years; nothing about how they live in Gulf states.

The Jordan and Lebanon sections mostly accurately portray how they are mistreated in those countries, and it notes that while the majority of Jordanian Palestinians are citizens, the ones from Gaza are not and have severe restrictions. It even lightly suggests (but doesn't demand) that they should be naturalized.

But the Lebanon section says no such thing. If Lebanon doesn't want them to be citizens and keep them all in crowded, dirty camps forever, that's fine.

The Gaza/West Bank section is completely different and much more extensive - but it only talks about one topic, Israel's use of tear gas and how terrible that supposedly is. It looks like that was meant to be the main report but at the last minute Amnesty decided that tear gas isn't really the biggest human rights issue to dedicate an entire website to so they expanded it to "Nakba".

Yet Amnesty continues to push the false idea that the Right of Return exists. I wrote a long Twitter thread last night debunking that idea:

______________________________

Amnesty doesn't understand international law.

#UNResolution194 does NOT provide a "right to return" for a number of reasons.

First of all, it is not international law. It is a General Assembly resolution. That's sort of basic.

Secondly, the word "right" was deliberately excluded from the resolution - because there is no such right.

It only says "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so..."

If it was a "right" it would apply whether they want to live in peace with Israel or not.

And, of course, most of them are not interested in living at peace in a Jewish state, which they reject. (In fact, the Arab states rejected Resolution 194 altogether, making it ironic that they now claim that it is the basis for "return.")

In 1950, the UN Conciliation Commission interpreted the words "to their homes" to mean their actual houses, not their "homeland." Which implies that if the homes don't exist anymore, then the OTHER parts of 194 should apply- the parts Amnesty ignores.

The other parts say "the Conciliation Commission [should] facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation." Meaning that according to 194, Arab states should also do their parts to resettle Pals.

Why does everyone emphasize the supposed obligations of Israel under this resolution, but ignore the obligations of the Arabs? If 194 is so sacrosanct, then ALL of it is operative, not just "return."

Yet the Arab obligations to resettle Palestinian Arabs are never mentioned.

This selective interpretation of 194, where it is given huge importance when it supposedly gives Israel obligations but the other sections are ignored, shows that there is a political dimension to those who claim it provides a "right to return."

Of course, 194 does not say that the descendants of 1948 refugees maintain the supposed right to return. The idea is absurd, yet @Amnesty claims that it exists. They go so far beyond the (non-binding) resolution to make themselves look like fools.

If Amnesty's interpretation was correct, then every human being can claim the legal right to "return" to the land of any of their ancestors going back to prehistoric times. For free.

It is insane, yet this is what Amnesty is claiming.

Taking the broader picture, even if Israel was responsible for the displacement of 600,000 Palestinians in 1948, who is responsible for them being stateless and miserable for seven decades since? Shouldn't a human rights organization try to help people, today?

The Convention on the Rights of the Child states "The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality...."

Why doesn't Amnesty insist that Pals born in Arab countries be citizens? Isn't that what human rights organizations are supposed to do? Try to end statelessness and provide protection for children when they are born?

Yet Amnesty and @HRW have an "Israeli exception" to this idea, as with so many other human rights concepts.

Similarly, the UN Human Rights Commission says "States shall introduce safeguards to prevent statelessness by granting their nationality to persons who would otherwise be stateless and are ...born in their territory..."

For some reason, no NGO tells Arabs to do this.

So we have an incredible irony here: Human rights NGOs, and the UN Human Rights Commission, are actively working AGAINST providing basic human rights to Palestinians who have been in Arab countries since 1948.

All while pretending that they support Palestinians.

There was never a poll done of Palestinian Arabs asking if they would like to become citizens of their host countries in the Arab world (including Gulf states.) They were never given a choice. Their self declared leaders, and the Arab leaders, insisted they would prefer not.

This was a cynical attempt to use them as pawns to hurt Israel. They insisted on "return" - the Palestinian leaders to sound strong, the Arab leaders to get rid of them.

The UN, Amnesty and HRW are going along with this cynical plan from the 1950s and insisting that Palestinians remain in stateless limbo forever, or until Israel agrees to commit suicide.

By not using their influence to pressure Arab countries, they are complicit in Pal misery.

The lack of insistence by NGOs on Arab nations finally taking on the responsibility for their Palestinian refugees - which every nation does, which even Arabs did for Syrian and Iraqi refugees - damns them. They cannot credibly claim to care about human rights.

There is no reason that a population should be considered, and treated as, "refugees" for 71 years. If return isn't an option - and it isn't, unless Israel wants to commit suicide - any real human rights NGO would go to plan B, or plan C.

Instead they parrot 1950s Arab leaders. the ones who admitted that they were using the refugees in order to eventually destroy Israel.

Amnesty's "Nakba" website is only the latest example of using the language of human rights to LIMIT the human rights of Palestinians to be citizens of their host countries.

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Palestinian textbooks are worse than ever

The EU has stated that it will undertake a study to research incitement to violence in Palestinian textbooks:

It can be confirmed that an academic study on Palestinian school text books is planned. Necessary funds have been reserved in the 2019 budget.

The study shall be carried out by an independent and internationally recognised research institute. Terms of Reference for the study are currently being prepared with a view to identifying possible incitement to hatred and violence and any possible lack of compliance with Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) standards of peace and tolerance in education.

The study shall provide for a comprehensive analysis of the current Palestinian text books. The work on the study is indicatively scheduled to start in spring 2019.

Last month, IMPACT-SE released a damning report showing lots of specific examples of incitement in the newest crop of textbooks, released over the past three years in the PA.

Here are some:

Fourth grade math, counting "martyrs":

Fifth grade Arabic:

Dalal al-Mughrabi, the perpetrator of the 1978 Coastal Road massacre is celebrated. A hijab-style kufiyah is added to her portrait, presumably for nationalistic and Islamic effect. Fifth graders are invited to follow in her footsteps and sacrifice their lives.

Seventh grade science:

Newton's Second Law: During the first Palestinian uprising, Palestinian youths used slingshots to confront the soldiers of the Zionist Occupation and defend themselves from their treacherous bullets. • What is the relationship between the elongation of the slingshot's rubber and the tensile strength affecting it? • What are the forces that influence the stone after its release from the slingshot?

Third grade Arabic poetry:

We sing and remember: The Land of the Generous I vow I shall sacrifice my blood, to saturate the land of the generous and will eliminate the usurper from my country, and will annihilate the remnants of the foreigners. Oh the land of Al-Aqsa and the Haram, oh cradle of chivalry and generosity Patient, be patient as victory is ours, dawn is emerging from the oppression.

First grade language:

Giving one's life [fida'], sacrifice, fight, jihad, and struggle are the most important meanings of life, especially for a people suffering from the scourge of occupation, of siege, repression, harassment, demolition, and arrest; [all] for freedom, the establishment of the state and self-determination.

Seventh grade social studies falsely says "Zionists" set the Al Aqsa fire in 1969:

Fifth grade Islamic education:

Children are taught an anti-Semitic myth that the Jews attempted to kill the Prophet Muhammad. This is largely rejected in mainstream Islam and it doesn’t appear in the Quran. Jews are referred to as "enemies of Islam."

Also fifth grade Islamic education:

Same book again, children are told to color a Palestinian flag dripping with blood:

The liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque is the duty of the Islamic Ummah. Banner: I am a Muslim; I sacrifice for the liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque

Seventh grade Islamic education:

A Muslim woman sat next to a Jewish goldsmith in the Banu Qaynuqa market. The goldsmith tied the edge of her garment to her back without her noticing. When she got up, she revealed her genitalia. The Jew then laughed at her, she screamed, and a Muslim man jumped on the goldsmith and killed him. The Jews then attacked the Muslim and killed him.

And this lovely example, #100 in the report:

Will the EU whitewash these examples to continue funding? We'll see.

These textbooks are used by UNRWA as well.

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What’s in the Future for European Jews? (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

If American Jews are going to have it tough in the future, things look worse for Europeans.

The recent attempted murder of a Jewish woman in Sweden, apparently committed by a Muslim man “known to the police” and possibly motivated by antisemitism, brings up yet again the question of whether Jews are safe in Europe.

They aren’t – but neither are non-Jewish native Europeans.

For Jews, it isn’t a problem. They have a country, whether they like it or not. It is here waiting for them. Europeans, on the other hand, are stuck where they are, especially if they want to preserve their historic cultures. There are too many of them to go to America or Australia, even if they wanted to.

The massive migration of people from non-European cultures, especially Muslims, into Europe, threatens to overwhelm the native cultures. Some may think that these natives deserve what they are getting, considering their history of colonialism and genocide, but nevertheless there is great value in what has been accomplished by the West over the centuries since the Middle Ages, and it would be a pity to see it become like the countries of the Middle East and Africa, with their kleptocratic identity politics and general barbarism.

This position is anathema to most educated Westerners, who tend to believe that treating everyone equally is a fundamental moral value. They believe that the migrant from Somalia should have exactly the same rights and receive the same treatment as the native Swede or Briton, sometimes even receiving extra benefits to compensate for a lower socioeconomic starting point.

Looking at the situation from the standpoint of an individual, it is hard to disagree. Nothing justifies discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or national origin (I am deliberately leaving out ‘race’ because I see this concept as cognitively meaningless and emotionally loaded). But it’s different to consider the impact of a mass of individuals from a different, and possibly inferior (yes, I said that) culture.

As an example, there are cultures where rape is rare, and there are cultures in which it is commonplace. If you introduce a large number of individuals from the latter kind of culture into the former, you will have a problem. This is not an abstract example. There has been a marked increase in the number of rapes in Sweden correlated with the growth of the migrant population (although precise numbers are hard to come by because so many are not reported and the conviction rate is so low).

Crime, especially sexual crime, gets people’s attention, but there are many other aspects of non-European migrant groups that are as problematic or more, such as a political culture of identity politics and corruption. Add to this the prevalence of radical Islamism, which advocates the replacement of democratic regimes with shari’a-based theocracies. Islamist organizations and individuals frequently commit terrorist acts, which makes the impact of a culture clash greater.

It is a fundamental principle of Islamic shari’a that Muslims have more legal rights than non-Muslims. Some Muslims believe that this gives them the “right” to victimize non-Muslims, increasing friction between groups of Muslim migrants and native Europeans.

There are also highly violent and less violent cultures. Here in Israel we are very familiar with the hyper-violent Palestinian Arab culture, which often expresses itself by random stabbings of Jews or honor killings of Palestinian women.

Some people dogmatically insist that it is a moral axiom that no culture is superior to any other. I suspect that the reason they say this is that they are conflating this with the legitimate principle that no individual can be prejudged to be superior to any other individual. When one considers a large group of individuals, however, statistical considerations make it possible to draw conclusions – not about particular individuals, but about the group as a whole.

Saying this would get me banned or shouted down at many Western universities. And I haven’t even brought up the possibility – no, the certainty – that some “cultural” properties are actually genetic.

One of my favorite examples is the fact that statistically speaking, Kenyans are good long-distance runners. Whether or not there are social factors involved, it’s certainly true that to a great extent they are born that way. We know that a great deal of human nature and abilities is genetically determined. Why shouldn’t groups of people that share a gene pool have similar behavioral characteristics?

Immigration into Europe is slowing since it peaked at about 1 million in 2015. But due to the low birth rates of native Europeans (the overall rate in the EU is 1.6, far below the replacement rate of 2.1), it may be too late to do anything to prevent the collapse of native European societies, and their transformation into something more like the culture of the migrants. And if it is going to be bad for the natives, it will be even worse for the Jews.

I would advise European Jews to make aliyah. Not only because you’re likely to be physically more secure than in Sweden or the UK or France – you could still be stabbed to death here by a terrorist or blown up by a rocket from Hamas or Hezbollah – but because here you can be spiritually secure. Unlike in Europe, you don’t have to feel the existential anxiety of living where you do not belong and are not wanted. This might be part of the reason the Jewish birthrate in Israel is about twice as high as that in Europe.

Israel is not close to a perfect society, but it’s yours, even if it doesn’t seem so welcoming once you get here. The fact that there is a state belonging to the Jewish people, dedicated to the ingathering of the exiles, where every Jewish person has an irrevocable right to live, is nothing less than miraculous.

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05/15 Links Pt2: Benny Morris: Rashida Tlaib Has Her History Wrong; Seth Meyers, Useful Idiot; UK Labour's Emily Thornberry says Jerusalem should 'be run by international body'

From Ian:

Benny Morris: Rashida Tlaib Has Her History Wrong

The historical reality was quite different from what Rep. Rashida Tlaib described as Palestinians creating a safe haven for Jews. The Palestinians indirectly, and in some ways directly, aided in the destruction of European Jewry. After Hitler's accession to power in Germany in 1933, German and then Eastern European Jews sought escape and safe havens. In 1935, Jewish immigration to British Mandatory Palestine peaked at 62,000.

From 1933 onward, Palestine's Arabs - led by the cleric Muhammad Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem - mounted a strident campaign to pressure the British to bar all Jews from entering the country. In 1936 they launched an anti-British and anti-Zionist rebellion that lasted three years. Moreover, anti-Jewish violence, which claimed the lives of hundreds of Jews and wounded many more, itself served to deter would-be emigrants from seeking to move to Palestine. British entry certificates for Jews to Palestine declined to 15,000 in 1938. Those who couldn't get in were left stranded and almost all died in the Holocaust.

Husseini fled to Berlin, where he was given a villa and a generous monthly salary. During the war, he helped recruit Muslims from the Balkans for the German army and the SS, and in radio broadcasts exhorted Middle Eastern and North African Arabs to launch jihad against the British and "kill the Jews." Subsequently, Husseini settled in Cairo and in 1947 helped launch the first Palestinian and pan-Arab war against the Zionist enterprise.

The Zionist-Palestinian struggle is not akin to the black-American struggle against white discrimination. Most Palestinians still hope for Israel's disappearance and to take over all of Palestine.

Sorry, Rashida Tlaib: Israel was not a consolation prize for Jews after the Holocaust

Recent assertions made by Rep. Rashida Tlaib regarding the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel have no foundation in the historical record.

In this imagined version of history, after the Holocaust, the Jews were awarded a consolation prize — the establishment of Israel — at the expense of those already living there.

Asserting that Israel’s creation was a direct response to the Holocaust overlooks the ancient and ceaseless connection of the Jewish people to Israel, as well as the modern Zionist enterprise that returned an exiled and oppressed people to their ancestral home. It also ignores the existence of a vibrant pre-World War II Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine, whose population was severely circumscribed because of the virulent opposition by local Arabs to the very idea of Jews returning to the Land of Israel.

Throughout Europe following the Nazi rise to power, a great many Zionists were deeply frustrated by the quotas set for aliyah by the British, and they later became victims of the Holocaust, having never had the opportunity to realize their dreams of reaching the Land of Israel. It is impossible to even begin to divine what their contribution could have been to Israel, the Jewish people and to the world.

Tlaib’s framing also disregards the British government’s prewar proposal to partition Mandatory Palestine, which was designed to reconcile the competing desires of Jews for a Jewish state in their historic homeland and the desire of Arabs for Palestine to be completely Arab. This plan, which never came to fruition, was painfully accepted by the Jewish leadership and categorically rejected by the Arabs. One could argue that had that partition been accepted, it might have set the stage for the earlier establishment of a State of Israel and thus may have actually provided a haven for Jews who were facing the Nazi onslaught. But it was not, and so it didn’t.

The false notion that the Palestinians are “paying for the Holocaust” presumes that the world granted the Jews a state primarily because it felt overriding guilt and sympathy. Serious scholars concur that politics, not morality, motivated support for the Jewish state’s creation – guilt and sympathy at most played a minor role in the establishment of the State of Israel, if at all.

Seth Meyers, Useful Idiot

In any event, a simpering Meyers insinuated, as he did with Omar, that these obnoxious statements are really just suffering from a contextual problems. By throwing out a softball “what did you really mean” query, Meyers intimates to his audience, who are probably largely ignorant of the broader debate, that Tlaib has been being victimized. And really, that’s what this is all about.

In his interview with McCain, Meyers lectured “The View” host on how she needed to be more “careful” about her language when criticizing a Muslim woman like Omar, who has repeated contended that American Jews are money-driven shills for a foreign power. But Tlaib, a person “calmed” by the Holocaust, needn’t be cautioned about her rhetoric, apparently? That is weird.

Instead, Meyers let Tlaib mock people who comprehend history far better than she does, without any pushback. “I got a text message from a friend who’s like, ‘Hey, next time, you know, really clarify,” she told Meyers. “Maybe talk like a fourth grader because maybe the racist idiots would understand you better.’”

Meyers isn’t alone, of course. In the past two days, The Washington Post, for example, has run four articles defending Tlaib without once being able to muster the strength to write a single line about how her central thesis is rubbish. A string of scholars have noted that Tlaib is making things up or, at best, deeply ignorant. Even CNN was forced to acknowledge that she was defending Nazi collaborators.

Meyers, on the other hand, once again acted as a PR rep. Now I just wonder if he knows that Valerie Plame is looking for a publicist.

We’re like a week away from Seth Meyers hosting Mahmoud Abbas on his show pic.twitter.com/r4krGNi4kf
— Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) May 14, 2019

“We are taking disciplinary steps with the production editor who selected the cartoon for publication,” publisher A.G. Sulzberger said in a note sent to staff, according to CNN reporters posting excerpts Wednesday on Twitter.

“We are updating our unconscious bias training” to include “direct focus on antisemitism,” the note said.

The New York Times said that the editor who had chosen to publish an anti-Semitic cartoon in the Opinion pages of its international edition would be disciplined and that it had canceled the contract with the syndicate that provided the cartoon. https://t.co/xJRMnnf1I8
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 2, 2019

Dear New York Times,

No. Disciplinary action and bias training are not nearly enough. You need to fire this editor’s raggedy butt.

If you do not fire him, he, or the next editor who thinks about publishing antisemitic content, will know that they are free to do so. They will also know that the New York Times—a paper of record that represents and influences American sentiment—has no real problem with Jew-hatred.

Signed,

Unheard Jew

Cardinal Blase Cupich apologized to “my Jewish brothers and sisters” in a lengthy statement issued Friday, the night after Minister Louis Farrakhan “smeared the Jewish people” at Fr. Michael Pfleger’s St. Sabina Church.

Cupich laid the blame at Pfleger’s feet, saying the South Side priest did not consult Cupich before inviting the controversial leader of the Chicago-based Nation of Islam into his church.

“Minister Farrakhan could have taken the opportunity to deliver a unifying message of God’s love for all his children,” Cupich’s statement read. “Instead, he repeatedly smeared the Jewish people, using a combination of thinly veiled discriminatory rhetoric and outright slander.”

Cupich, leader of the Archdiocese of Chicago, made no mention of possible disciplinary action against Pfleger; he did “encourage” Pfleger to visit the Illinois Holocaust Museum “to meet with their leadership and dialogue with survivors.”

Dear Cardinal Cupich,

No. Your apology to my people is garbage. You need to send Pfleger to some nowhere, poverty-stricken parish in a third-world country, or better yet, have him laicized.

If you do not do so, he, or the next priest who thinks about inviting Farrakhan to speak, will be reassured that they are free to do so. They will also know that the Catholic Church you represent, which is led by the Pope—considered infallible by all Catholics—has no real problem with Jew-hatred.

Signed,

Unheard Jew

A motorist contacted YWN, saying he was on 57th Street and Park Avenue at 6:00PM Tuesday evening, trying to get into the Queens Midtown Tunnel. Due to traffic, the driver was unable to get out of the lane he was in, and attempted to make a turn. At that point, the Agent walked over to the vehicle, took a look at the Orthodox Jewish driver and his passenger, and told them “you can’t make a right turn, you stupid Jew”.

NYPD: "There is no room for intolerance in the NYPD, or anywhere. Transportation Investigations Unit is reviewing this incident."

There is no room for intolerance in the NYPD, or anywhere. Transportation Investigations Unit is reviewing this incident.
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) May 9, 2019

Dear New York Police Department,

No. A “review” of this “incident” will not suffice. There’s video. An admission. The entire world knows he did this.

You need to fire this cop. To make him an example.

If you do not do so, he, or the next member of “New York’s finest” who thinks about hurling antisemitic insults at a Jew, will be reassured that they are free to do so. They will also know that the NYPD—sworn to protect all the people of New York, including Jewish people—has no real problem with Jew-hatred.

Signed,

Unheard Jew

After debates and delays over the wording of the text, the House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a resolution that broadly condemned hate.

The resolution – which was crafted after freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota, made comments critical of Israel that detractors said played to anti-Semitic tropes – passed 407 to 23.

All Democrats voted in favor of the resolution, including Omar. Republicans were the only to oppose it, with one member voting as present.

The resolution was broadened from its original version, which focused solely on denouncing anti-Semitism, to condemning other forms of bigotry against minorities.

Dear Democrats,

No. Just no. Your watered-down resolution doesn’t fool us. Crafted with input from Omar herself, your resolution is actually harmful. It tells Americans that antisemitism is nothing special—that it is no different from any other hatred. This, at a time when antisemitism is not only rising in America, but exploding. (Unlike other forms of hatred.)

What you need to do: remove Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Since you have not done so, Omar is free to weigh in on American policy regarding Israel, a country she said has "hypnotized the world."

You have given Omar and the way too many other antisemites within your ranks—for instance Rashida "calming feeling when I think of the Holocaust" Tlaib—the freedom to hate Jews not only as representatives of the Democratic Party, but as representatives of America itself.

Jew-haters like Omar and Tlaib know that the Democratic Party will not censure them for antisemitic comments. On the contrary, the Democratic party will stand by them, which is the same as supporting their hate. This is what the Democratic Party has done by issuing a resolution which lumps Jew-hatred together with all other forms of prejudice. It's what the Democratic Party has done by giving Omar a voice on America's policy toward Israel in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The thing is, it’s not just that you don’t have a problem with Jew-hatred. It’s that your party—the party of tolerance—has come to not only tolerate antisemitism, but promote it, too.

Signed,

Unheard Jew

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Hundreds Dead After Article About Song Contest Fails To Mention Palestinians (PreOccupied Territory)

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Tel Aviv, May 15 - Tragedy struck the Middle East today when a careless reporter omitted the geopolitical context of an annual entertainment event, resulting in the violent killings of 300 in the ensuing riots.

A British Broadcasting Corporation article on Wednesday covering the Eurovision song contest taking place in Israel's commercial and cultural hub on the Mediterranean, Tel Aviv, neglected to include a sentence, paragraph, or digression to invoke Palestinian grievances against the Jewish State. The omission sparked violent protests and an earthquake, and scientists fear a plague may also result.

Palestinians recalled the scene with horror. "It was the Nakba all over again," recounted an eyewitness in the Gaza Strip. "I feel thrice dispossessed: of my land, of my heritage, and of the international attention I've been getting for whining about not getting everything I demand and killing all the Jews between the River and the Sea."

BBC representatives apologized for the oversight and vowed an investigation as well as procedures to ensure no such omission occurs again. "We have deviated from our core journalistic mission if we do not cast every event in light of Palestinian suffering," lamented Senior Editor Edward Norwich. "This holds true for articles about cuisine, theater, international trade, technology, and economics, so it goes without question that this article should have at the very least included mention of protests, BDS, of restrictions on Palestinian movement, something, anything to prevent the reader from getting the wrong idea that the Palestinian issue must dominate human consciousness. We failed here, and we must address that."

Eurovision's official position eschews politics. Under Eurovision rules, Israel is hosting the event after its contestant Netta Barzilai won last year's competition. Despite calls by several entertainment figures to boycott this year's Eurovision because of its location, it has already generated unprecedented participation, leaving the political context on the margins. Reporters must therefore go out of their way to include political angles in their stories, which has not proved challenging to date, but has become awkward as audience sensibilities clash with those of the news media establishment.

"We're trying to inform people of the right way to think and feel," explained Norwich's colleague John Glubb. "But that's becoming more and more difficult. I mean, it's always been difficult, with Jewish control of the media, which of course does not include the BBC, except that I guess it would have to, considering our reach and our importance in shaping narratives. Anyway, what was I saying again? It's a tragedy, is all, and we can't let this happen again."

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05/15 Links Pt1: The Gaza Conundrum Israel has many options, none good; Flawed BBC Documentary Proves Israeli Narrative Right; International Law Backs The Trump Golan Policy

From Ian:

The Gaza Conundrum Israel has many options, none good

The IDF’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) currently facilitates the entry of thousands of truckloads of goods to enter the Gaza Strip every day, even as a military blockade remains in place to block dual-use materials and sophisticated weaponry from the Gaza Strip. In other words, Israel has two policies. One is to isolate Hamas, and the other is to allow services to be rendered to the Gazan people.

Israel, for the sake of calm, has even engaged with the Turks and the Qataris, despite both countries’ avowed anti-Zionism and support for Hamas. It has permitted them to provide funds and other assistance to the coastal enclave. Gaza’s suffering continues, however, because Hamas continues to divert funds for commando tunnels, rockets, and other tools of war. And under Hamas rule, there is not much political space to challenge these policies. Anti-Israel sentiment is the only permissible form of protest. This has only served to further radicalize a population that has for years been fed a steady diet of hate.

The Israelis since 2007, along with the Egyptians since 2013, have endeavored to reshape the political landscape in Gaza. This is the first and best choice from Israel’s perspective. But so far, they have failed. The viable alternatives to Hamas are the sclerotic Palestinian Authority, radical Salafi groups, and Iran-backed PIJ. There could be others, such as the supporters of Mohammed Dahlan, the former Gaza strongman who went into exile in the UAE after the Hamas military takeover in 2007. But we know little about Dahlan’s ability to organize politically, or whether Gaza would reject his transplanted leadership after so many years away, like an artificial heart.

The obvious alternative to all of this is re-occupation. This would be deeply unpopular in Israel. It’s unthinkable to many. Of course, the Israelis controlled Gaza from 1967 until 2005. The Israelis never coordinated their departure with Palestinian counterparts, and it looked as if they were pulling out under fire from Hamas rockets and other attacks. This perception contributed in part to the Hamas electoral victory in 2006. That election led to the political standoff that gave way to the civil war in which Hamas overtook the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Fourteen years after the Gaza withdrawal, the rockets are still falling. Twelve years after Hamas took power, the group remains entrenched. Eight years after the deployment of Iron Dome, the Israelis are arguably safer, but they are back where they’ve always been: on the Gaza border, mulling their next move.

TWO MILLION DOLLARS TO MURDER MY DAD. I made this video to ask the Palestinian leadership a simple question: Why are you paying millions of dollars to the terrorist who murdered my dad? Can’t you find a better use for that money? Share to help keep my father's memory alive. pic.twitter.com/QYEC0U4KKh
— Micah Lakin Avni (@micah_avni) May 15, 2019

Noah Rothman: Who Really Wants a War in the Middle East?

According to the intelligence that prompted this latest buildup of U.S. forces in the region, the only party that wants a conflict is the Iranian regime. Tehran’s objective “is to prod the United States into a miscalculation or overreaction,” the Times reported. American officials are reportedly aware that Iran’s objective is to force the U.S. to execute a limited strike on Iranian targets while avoiding an all-out ground campaign the regime would not survive, thereby whipping up anti-American sentiment and increases internal political cohesion now strained by economic hardship.

You don’t have to take the White House’s word for it. On Monday, the White House got the casus belli it is supposedly spoiling for. According to the U.S. assessment, Iran or its proxy forces were responsible for an assault on two Saudi oil tankers, a United Arab Emirates tanker, and a Norwegian-flagged vessel anchored in UAE waters. A team of Iranian-linked saboteurs allegedly used explosives to blow large holes in the hulls of these ships below the waterline, taking them out of commission and causing global oil prices to spike by 2 percent. The threat to international commerce and global maritime navigation posed by this attack is more than enough to justify a retaliatory response, but the Trump administration’s reaction has been restrained.

Those who accuse the Trump administration of engineering a military confrontation with Iran are asking you to ignore your own eyes and ears in service to their conspiracy theory. No president would disregard an imminent threat to U.S. interests and personnel. The attack on four ships in the UAE suggests that threat is real and urgent. It more than justifies the White House’s efforts to deter further provocations of the sort the West would have no choice but to respond to with proportionate force.

If there is to be war, it would mean the end of the administration’s efforts to undermine the Iranian regime from within—a prospect administration officials are telling anyone willing to listen that they want to avoid. It must be a source of frustration that so few of their critics seem to care. They much prefer a simpler narrative in which the tyrannical and terroristic Iranian regime is the victim—all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

JCPA: The Real Catastrophe for the Palestinians

By all measurements, the situation of the Palestinians in the West Bank, and definitely in Israel, is much better than in any Arab country.

The essential fact is that there are Arab Knesset members. The Israeli Knesset is the only parliament in the world where there is a conspicuous and proud representation of Palestinian parliamentarians. They do not have such representation in Jordan or even in Ramallah or Gaza. Only beneath a picture of Theodore Herzl and the Israeli flag in the Israeli parliament can Palestinian parliamentarians speak and act freely – some Israelis complain too freely – and even in defiance.

Secondly, Israel is the only country in the Middle East that absorbed refugees fully. It is not well known, but there are Palestinian refugees from the villages that were abandoned during the war, who were absorbed into other towns and villages in Israel. Israel has given them full citizenship, and they are citizens with equal rights who can vote for the Knesset. Jordan also granted Palestinians citizenship, but not complete. There is no statistical data on this, but most Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin are not allowed to vote for the Jordanian parliament, which is far from representative of the true numbers of Palestinians among the population.

Finally, in these times, a real Nakba is taking place, but not in Israel.

Rashida Tlaib isn't the first to claim Israel exists because of the Holocaust (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

In his post Top Democrats’ defense of Rashida Tlaib’s Holocaust inversion and revisionism is unforgivable, Prof. William Jacobson succinctly sums up on Legal Insurrection the inversion and revisionism of Rashida Tlaib's latest claims:

Tlaib statement contains two themes: First, the Palestinians are the true victims of the Holocaust because it forced the Jewish survivors on them causing loss of land, property and lives; and Two, Palestinians helped create a safe haven for the Jews at much personal and national sacrifice.

Prof. Jacobson points out that Tlaib's first claim is an inversion because it neglects the fact that 6 million Jews were murdered, with Jewish communities throughout Europe being wiped out, yet Tlaib claims it is the Palestinians, who supported the Nazis, who are supposed to be the victims.

Tlaib's second claim is straight out false, trying to erase the history of the Arabs of the British Mandate who boycotted, slaughtered and discriminated against the Jews, doing everything in their power to prevent Jews from finding a safe haven.

But Tlaib is not the first US politician to distort the history of the Holocaust and its connection with the re-establishment of Israel.

And how one sees Israel is affected by how one understands her history.

Barack Obama

On May 12, 2008 in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, presidential candidate Obama explained why he thought the Jewish claim to Israel was just:

Jeff Goldberg: Do you think that justice is still on Israel’s side?

Obama: I think that the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience. I know that that there are those who would argue that in some ways America has become a safe refuge for the Jewish people, but if you’ve gone through the Holocaust, then that does not offer the same sense of confidence and security as the idea that the Jewish people can take care of themselves no matter what happens. That makes it a fundamentally just idea. [emphasis added]

Obama. Official White House Photo
by Pete Souza. Public Domain

With these words, Obama reduced over three thousand years of Jewish history, and indigenous Jewish ties to the land, to an issue of refuge from antisemitism after the Holocaust.

But what happens if you ignore those ties and that history and instead see Israel as nothing more than a piece of land intended to serve as a safe refuge?

Land can then be cavalierly, arbitrarily and ultimately surgically removed and taken away -- with assurances and guarantees for the safety and security of Israel.

A year later, on June 4, 2009, President Obama made his famous trip to Cairo, and during his speech, he said:

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. [emphasis added]

Obama reiterates to the Arab world that the Holocaust is the justification for Israel's existence.
Not Jewish history
Not Jewish indigenous ties
Not Jewish culture, literature and language

However, it seems somebody finally clued Obama in, to the fact that Jews living in Israel is not a modern phenomenon that started after the Holocaust.

In his remarks to the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2010, Obama said:

Israel is a sovereign state, and the historic homeland of the Jewish people. It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States. And efforts to threaten or kill Israelis will do nothing to help the Palestinian people. The slaughter of innocent Israelis is not resistance -- it’s injustice. And make no mistake: The courage of a man like President Abbas, who stands up for his people in front of the world under very difficult circumstances, is far greater than those who fire rockets at innocent women and children.[emphasis added]

Aside from his warning about delegitimizing Israel, Obama's remarks are a vast improvement on his previous remarks about the history of Jews and Israel.

Not that this new formulation signaled any change in actual US policy. The key to peace continued to be framed as a question of land. Throughout his 2 terms in office, Obama continued to pressure Israel to make unilateral concessions. He and Kerry pushed the idea of a 2 state solution based on the green line with minimal land exchanges. At the end of his term, he left Israel with a goodbye present in the form of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, on which the US abstained, that Israeli settlements were a "flagrant violation" of international law that had "no legal validity".

Jeremy Corbyn

Corbyn is similar to Obama in his narrow, short-sighted view of Jewish history in Israel, but manages to be even more removed from reality:

I was brought up at school being told, um, that Israel was founded on a piece of empty space, and that they managed to make the desert bloom, and they built things when there was nothing there before. Anybody that studies the history of the region would know, at the end of the Second World War – 1945 to 1948 period – Palestine had media, had industry, had education, had universities, had a relatively high standard of living for the whole region, and was a coherent society and a coherent state. It was a denigration of that which enabled Western opinion to be, um, put together in support of Israel. [emphasis added]

Jeremy Corbyn. YouTube screengrab

Elder of Ziyon points out the enormity of Corbyn's distorted claim:

Palestine on the eve of Israel's independence was effectively a state, all right - a Jewish state. It was Jewish money, Jewish creativity, Jewish brains and Jewish sweat that built nearly all the institutions of Palestine that Corbyn is praising here.

Putting aside the ancient history of Israel, which Corbyn does not even refer to, he believes that the modern history of Israel begins after World War II, making the infrastructure and everything that went into developing the land into the product and work of the Arabs.

It is not clear that Corbyn is even aware of an issue of refuge from the Holocaust. Corbyn ignores everything Jewish about the land and describes the Jews as not only foreigners, but as interlopers who did nothing to develop the land.

This twisted view informs everything he says about Israel and intends to do if and when he has the chance.

Joe Biden

It may not be clear if Biden, who now leads in polls in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, sees Israel the same way as Obama and Corbyn, but as a Senator, Biden did make the mistake of forgetting that Israel has the self-reliance and pride that comes with a 3,000-year old connection to the land. We will likely be reminded over the next year and a half about this story of the confrontation between Biden and Menachem Begin:

When hearing the name Biden, we always think of the famous exchange between Biden and Prime Minister Begin. As Moshe Zak recounted in a March 13, 1992, piece in the Jerusalem Post:

In a conversation with Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, after a sharp confrontation in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the subject of the settlements, Begin defined himself as "a proud Jew who does not tremble with fear" when speaking with foreign statesmen.

During that committee hearing, at the height of the Lebanon War, Sen. John Biden (Delaware) had attacked Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria and threatened that if Israel did not immediately cease this activity, the US would have to cut economic aid to Israel.

When the senator raised his voice and banged twice on the table with his fist, Begin commented to him: "This desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don't threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think that because the US lends us money it is entitled to impose on us what we must do? We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three thousand years of culture are behind me, and you will not frighten me with threats. Take note: we do not want a single soldier of yours to die for us."

After the meeting, Sen. Moynihan approached Begin and praised him for his cutting reply. To which Begin answered with thanks, defining his stand against threats.

Joe Biden. Public Domain

It should be noted that My Right Word has the source for this, with a link to the official record of Israel's Foreign Ministry and quotes from two articles in The New York Times that confirm what happened.

Albert Einstein

Describing Israel as a refuge does not, in and of itself, denigrate the country or its ties between the Jewish State and the Jewish People.

In 1955, Albert Einstein was scheduled to make a televised address on behalf of Israel on Yom Ha'atzmaut. Unfortunately, he died 8 days before he was able to make that address. However, a rough draft of the speech exists.

In it, he starts off:

This is the seventh anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel.

The establishment of this State was internationally approved and recognised largely for the purpose of rescuing the remnant of the Jewish people from unspeakable horrors of persecution and oppression.” [emphasis added]

Einstein too, as a survivor of WWII, saw the re-establishment of the state of Israel as a bulwark against antisemitism and the Jew-hatred he had seen -- though he also recognized that "another purpose was to provide conditions in which the spiritual and cultural life of a Hebrew society could find free expression."

His overriding concern for the safety of Jews led him to consider it "a bitter paradox to find that a State which was destined to be a shelter for a martyred people is itself threatened by grave dangers to its own security."

But there is more to Einstein's connection to Israel and Zionism than the issue of security.

Ten years ago, Adam Kirsch wrote an article explaining how Einstein was Relatively Speaking, A Zionist

Albert Einstein with Zionist leaders Ben-Zion Mossinson, Chaim Weizmann, and Menachem Ussishkin, arriving in New York in 1921. (Library of Congress, Bain Collection)

Einstein was opposed to the creation of a Jewish state.

First of all, he feared that a breakout of war between the Jews in then-Palestine and the Arabs would lead to a second holocaust.

More than that, Einstein was opposed to the idea of a Jewish state in and of itself because of what a state embodied.

Kirsch writes that on the one hand, Einstein wrote in 1927 that

the importance of all this Zionist work lies in precisely the effect that it will have on those Jews who will not themselves live in Palestine...the Jews will acquire that happiness in feeling themselves at ease, that sense of being self-sufficient, which a common ideal cannot fail to evoke...I believe that the existence of a Jewish cultural center will strengthen the moral and political position of the Jews all over the world, by virtue of the very fact that there will be in existence a kind of embodiment of the interests of the whole Jewish people.

Einstein focused on the purely secular ideal of self-sufficiency and peace of mind. He saw the benefit of "a Jewish cultural center," but as a boost for the position of Jews in the world.

He saw the benefit to Jews but not to the Jewish People as a Nation -- he supported the goal of boosting individual Jewish identity as opposed to creating a Jewish state.

Kirsch suggests that Einstein's view came from a German-Jewish intellectual commitment to the idea of universalism as a response to antisemitism. Einstein knew little of Judaism, but saw in it an expression of "liberal Jewish values."

He quotes from a piece Einstein published in Collier's in 1938 where he wrote:

The bond that has united the Jews for thousands of years and that unites them today is, above all, the democratic ideal of social justice, coupled with the ideal of mutual aid and tolerance among all men.

Einstein's view of Jews and cultural Zionism led him to make in 1938, just 10 days before Kristallnacht the unknowingly ironic statement that:

We are a minority everywhere and have no violent means of defense at our disposal to protect our community against our numerous enemies and opponents—fortunately. [emphasis added]

He saw politics and nationalism as the problem and not as a solution, and on that basis was opposed to the idea of a Jewish State.

Thus in 1946, in testimony before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, Einstein suggested that the cause of tension was not any actual antagonism between Jews and Arabs, but rather should be blamed instead on British policy -- and if the British would abandon the Mandate, the problem would resolve itself.

Similarly, regarding Jews in European DP camps who were denied access to then-Palestine because of British policy, Einstein was asked: “What would you do if the Arabs refused to consent to bringing these refugees to Palestine?” He actually responded: "That would never be the case if there were no politics."

Einstein saw politics, nationalism -- and the power that comes with it -- as the problem. And the Holocaust did nothing to change his opinion. It reinforced it.

Kirsch concludes about Einstein that "his reservations about Israel were voiced from the standpoint of his unquestionable commitment to Zionism."

Einstein's opposition to a Jewish State does not change that.

-----

But that key component, the recognition of the indigenous connection of Jews with Israel -- a connection whose recognition just 100 years ago made the Balfour Declaration and subsequent events possible -- that recognition is fading and can no longer be taken for granted.

The fact that members of Congress like Tlaib and Omar can get away with anti-Jewish and anti-Israel statements with impunity is a sign of the dangerous times we now live in when bipartisan support for Israel is becoming a thing of the past right before our eyes.

It is a dangerous time for both Jews and for Israel, regardless of the pro-Israel policies of the current president.

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