Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, May 17, 2019

05/17 Links Pt1: FM against UNRWA: 'We'll keep telling the truth'; April is first month in over a year with no Israelis killed, wounded in attacks; J Street poll: Most Democrats haven’t heard of BDS

From Ian:

Foreign Ministry against UNRWA: 'We'll keep telling the truth'

Even as the winds of war seem to have temporarily subsided in Gaza, Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees continue to butt heads over the agency’s conduct during the most recent round of violence between Israel and Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza.

Tensions began when UNRWA’s Commissioner General Matthias Schmale on May 4, intimated on Twitter that Israeli airstrikes were hindering UNRWA sponsored events to “celebrate children and their sports and fun activities.”

“Surrealistic #Gaza day: went to 2 marvelous @UNRWA events to celebrate children & their sports and fun activities & then to honor sanitation laborers followed by good working lunch with colleagues; in parallel sounds of bombs all day & we seem yet again close to war. Madness!” Schmale tweeted.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon, angry at Schmale’s one-sided depiction of events, responded to Schmale on Twitter: “The terrorists shooting the rockets are all probably @UNRWA graduates. You must be really proud of them.”

In response, Schmale emphasized he was against the firing of rockets at Israel.

“I unequivocally don’t support shooting rockets. And your unsubstantiated & defamatory claim is unworthy of a government spokesman. The children I meet in our schools all the time are no terrorists; they are peace-loving kids hungry to learn & to live a dignified life!”

This the the new generation of Palestinians raised in UNRWA schools. Dismantle UNRWA now! pic.twitter.com/qcilUmGAwi
— Pierre-REHOV (@PRehov) May 17, 2019

What Are Palestinian Children Reading in Their Textbooks?

The EU is investigating the problematic Palestinian textbooks that are being used to teach 1.3 million Palestinian children. CEO of the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education speaks, Marcus Sheff speaks with Nurit Ben and Calev Ben-David about the recent findings from this report.

Israeli ambassador's 'Bible speech' at U.N. goes viral

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon's speech several weeks ago has taken on a new life on social media and YouTube as translations into different languages have propelled the "biblical speech" well beyond the walls of the United Nations building.

Wearing a kippah and reading from the Bible, Danon defended Israel's right to the land of Israel.

Since then, translations into Spanish, Polish, French, Portuguese and Turkish have swept the internet. Last week, on Israel's Independence Day, CNN brought Danon on to discuss the speech where he reiterated the Jewish state's historical and moral claims to the country that many local Arab residents would like to see as Palestine.

A Palestinian media outlet published a lengthy editorial decrying the speech.

”From the book of Genesis; to the Jewish exodus from Egypt; to receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai; to the gates of Canaan; and to the realization of God’s covenant in the Holy Land of Israel; the Bible paints a consistent picture. The entire history of our people, and our connection to Eretz Yisrael, begins right here,” Danon stated at the UN Security council in New York.

He continued referencing the Balfour Declaration of 1971, the League of Nations mandate of 1922, and the United Nations charter of 1945 as all legitimizing Israel's right to self-determination.

"The speech has resonated thanks to the strength of the truth. Its success has been welcome news as we conveyed to the world the strength of the eternal connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel," Danon stated about the speech going viral.

Shalva's Eurovision performance

Since the YouTube version is not available in certain countries like the US...

Here's their story:

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The Palestinian Arab media today are missing something that was in every Friday for over a year: reports on the weekly Gaza "Great Return March."

There are no protests today.

If they were popular protests, then people would come anyway, wouldn't they?

All this proves is that Hamas is behind the protests. They provide the logistics, the transportation, probably the tires to burn. They position who approaches the fence and who stays behind.

A terror group is behind every aspect of the "popular, peaceful" protests.

Arutz-7 reports:

Hamas has ordered Palestinian demonstrators in the Gaza Strip who regularly participate in the weekly March of Return protests to stay home this Friday, according to a report on Army Radio on Friday morning.

Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amos Gilad, former head of the Defense Ministry's security-policy headquarters said on Army Radio that "Hamas is quieting the demonstrators so that Eurovision will pass calmly."

Channel 13 News reported on Friday that according to Palestinian media sources, the weekly protest has been canceled due to the current heatwave in Israel as well as the daily Ramadan fast.

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Is Israel guilty of the most attacks on health workers and facilities? An NGO report deceptively claims it is. (UPDATE)

Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch tweeted about a new study of attacks on health care in different countries in 2018, and he highlights a statistic to make it sound like Israel is far worse than other countries:

The chart says:

This is so misleading as to qualify to being a lie.

The report uses open sources, meaning that it can only report on attacks that it sees news or NGO reports about. Anomalies about the Israel/Palestinian territories incidents compared to the rest of the world are apparent but how many reporters will dig into them?

Most of the injuries to health care workers in the territories are from tear gas. Tear gas is not even mentioned for any of the other countries in the report. The reason is obvious - tear gas is a non lethal weapon when used properly, and Israel employs non-lethal methods when it can. Syrian or Yemeni attackers deliberately use lethal methods.

Again digging into the report, even the 40 NGOs that authored it admit that their statistics - so prominently displayed in full page charts - are woefully inaccurate.

The report dataset suffers from the typical limitations of datasets that are largely built from open sources, including reporting and selection bias. First, the available information is likely to be underreported. Selection bias in open source means that not all events are reported and that events in more remote areas or those affecting less well-connected population groups are less likely to be reported.

...In countries and territories with good internet connectivity, higher levels of English, and preexisting contacts with human rights groups and research bodies, local health professionals are likely better placed to report events in vetted formats that can be considered a trusted source.

Because Israel has more reporters and NGO workers per square kilometer, by far, than any other place on Earth, every minor report of incidents get reported and amplified. No such minor events - damage from ricocheting rubber bullets, for example - would even be reported in any other place.

A Syrian barrel bomb and an Israeli tear gas canister are counted exactly the same, as an "attack." That is a perversion of statistics.

Not to mention that there are lots of ambulances pre-staged at riot locations, so there are more "health sites" in trouble areas to begin with in the territories, and more likely to be affected by Israeli riot suppression.

Beyond that, the PA and Hamas have Ministries of Health that routinely lie, their governments are oriented to slanting or making up statistics to make Israel look bad.

The charts comparing countries are literally worthless.

But the NGOs in this report, knowing that their comparative information is worthless, still choose to highlight that - because they want to make Israel look worse than every other nation on the planet.

UPDATE: More absurdities in this chart:

In most countries, the number of health workers injured is less than the number killed. In Gaza/West Bank, on the other hand, there are nearly 200 times more injuries than deaths.

All this shows is that in other countries, most attacks on health workers are not even reported unless they result in death. But when Israel can be blamed, tear gas inhalation - something that is a temporary debilitation - is considered an "injury."

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05/16 Links Pt2: Phyllis Chesler: 'High-minded culture' is now rife with antisemitism; Skyrocketing Attacks On NYC Jews Ignored Because Of Race; US Dems Follow UK Labour Down The Anti-Semitism Rat Hole

From Ian:

Prof. Phyllis Chesler: 'High-minded culture' is now rife with antisemitism

People say that it is usually calm before a storm but I feel uneasy, unbalanced, uprooted, and set adrift in a dangerously familiar sea.

An American rabbi put it this way: “I never thought it could happen here. The Pittsburgh shooting made me angry. The San Diego shooting made me afraid.”

Wherever I turn, Israel and the Jews are being falsely accused, defamed, and attacked. Some of us cover the campuses, others cover the media, the internet, national and international politics, the Islamic world, and increasingly, the local attacks on American Jews who are visibly Jewish.

Tragically, those American Jews who are not, have not sprung to the defense of the haredi Jews who are being thrown to the ground and pummeled by young men, usually men of color; or shot down on the Sabbath while at prayer by white supremacists.

As for myself? I cover what high-minded literary types as well as feminists have to say. Doing so never fails to break my heart or strengthen my resolve. Jew hatred has, octopus-like, permeated every nook and cranny of what was formerly considered “high” culture.

Skyrocketing Attacks On NYC Jews Ignored Because Of Race

Imagine that members of a religious minority were being frequently physically assaulted in America’s largest city at alarming rates. Imagine if members of that minority were being cold-cocked or spit on randomly for doing nothing more than being who they are and dressing how they dress. Imagine what a powerful and important story this would be to our country, how mobilized the media and government would be to stop it. But what if I told you that this is happening in New York City right now, and nobody seems to care very much? How can this be? I’ll explain it.

Orthodox Jews in New York City, specifically in Brooklyn, have experienced alarming rates of physical assault over the past year. The New York Police Department says that hate crimes in the city are up 67 percent this year. Of those, a whopping 80 percent have been anti-Semitic hate crimes. Just this week an Orthodox Jew just walking down the street was attacked from behind, punched in the head by an attacker who then ran away. In another incident this week, an Orthodox Jew was attacked by a group of men, one of whom shouted “You (expletive) Jew.”

This is an all too familiar story in Brooklyn these days, and there is a reason it isn’t being treated as a crisis by our media or government. That reason is that many if not most of the assailants are black or Hispanic men. In an article in The New York Times last October that was careful to point out, although without much evidence, that people of all descriptions are committing acts of anti-Semitism, Ginia Bellafante writes (emphasis mine), “In fact, it is the varied backgrounds of people who commit hate crimes in the city that make combating and talking about anti-Semitism in New York much harder.”

We should be clear about what this means. It means that if these assaults were being committed by white men in hoods or MAGA hats, it would not be “hard to talk about.” It would be a clear-cut case of bigotry that needs to be fought with every tool in our arsenal. Instead, journalists are wringing their hands about intersectionality, and careful not to indulge the narrative that these physical attacks are coming from blacks and Hispanics in bordering neighborhoods, even though that narrative is absolutely true. (h/t Failexa)

Long Before the Holocaust, Palestinian Antisemitism Spilled into the Arab World

The Jewish world is justifiably in an uproar about comments made over the weekend by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). In an act of monumental chutzpah, Tlaib has made the claim that the Palestinians helped create “a safe haven” for Jews fleeing the Holocaust — a thought, she said, that gave her a “kind of calming feeling.”

Scholars and journalists have rebutted her revisionism by drawing attention to the pivotal role that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, played in the Holocaust and persecution of Jews — to the Arab-Nazi alliance he spearheaded, and to the antisemitic propaganda he broadcast during the four years he enjoyed Hitler’s hospitality in Berlin. They have pointed out that the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs were Nazi sympathizers; that the Arabs pressured the British to curtail Jewish immigration into Palestine that could have saved millions of lives; and that the Arab leadership led an antisemitic campaign within Palestine as early as the 1920s.

But few critics of Tlaib’s words have observed that the mufti, as well as other Syrian and Palestinian nationalists, began to sow the seeds of virulent antisemitism outside Palestine as early as the 1920s. The result was the mass displacement of 850,000 Jews from the Arab world, most of whom resettled in Israel after 1948. Does this forced exodus, directly attributable to Arab antisemitism, also give Tlaib a “calming feeling”?

Wherever the mufti went in the Arab world, persecution and mayhem against the local Jews followed. In 1921, Yemenite Jews in the Yishuv claimed it was due to Palestinian Arab pressure that the decree forcing Jewish orphans in Yemen to convert to Islam was reinstated. This, they said, had come about after a Palestinian Arab delegation had visited Yemen to demand that the Imam stop all immigration to Palestine. The Orphans’ Decree, argues scholar S.D. Goiten, was the single most important reason Jews were desperate to flee Yemen.

Beresheet's crash site photographed. (Bad pun warning)

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera took a photo of the crash site of the Israeli satellite Beresheet.

It appears to have crashed from a low angle, leaving a trail.

Here is a before and after satellite image:

That mark will remain on the Moon as a memorial forever, meaning it is.....

זכר למעשה בראשית

(rimshot)

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Rashida Tlaib, speaking at a Detroit rally in 2014, tells her audience that "We are Americans, too."

That "too" means that she, and they, identify primarily as Palestinian and only secondarily as Americans.

This seems problematic for a member of Congress.

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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)

Our weekly column from the humor site 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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