Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, June 07, 2019

No, Israel is Not Responsible for Police Brutality in the US (Tomer Ilan)

By Tomer Ilan

Haters constantly attempt to slander Israel as a “white-supremacist” state. Using lies and distortions, they are trying to convince African-Americans that Israel hates blacks and that they should hate Israel.

Unfortunately, the lies seem to be working. In a recent poll, only 46% of black Americans viewed Israel as “ally” or “friendly”, compared to 67% percent of whites.

One of the accusations leveled at Israel, is that Israel is responsible for police brutality against blacks in America, because Israel has trained U.S. police forces in “brutal tactics” it uses against Palestinians. For instance, a black movement has recently attacked the Congressional Black Caucus for their support of Israel, citing the same accusation.

But is it true? Is there any evidence linking Police brutality in the US with Israeli Police?

One of the first people to make this accusation is an Israeli BDS activist who included it in a lecture he gave in Denver in 2014 [starting at 38:15]. Somehow linking it to a conversation he had with a Maryland cop about Israel, he goes as far as telling the American crowd “You guys are next in line. The next one who will die out of brutality of the police, will be one of your sons or your daughters, in a protest, because they are training together. Your Police training with our Army.”

JVP launched a campaign around the accusation and it constantly appears in left-leaning media outlets like The Intercept and Truthout and even made it into Teen Vogue.

In 2018, two US Police departments caved to anti-Israel hate groups’ pressure and cancelled their training in Israel.

All those articles follow the same line. They assume Israel is “brutal” and then comes the “proof”:

“A) US Police have trained in Israel.

B) There’s a problem of Police Brutality in the US.

B) must be caused by A)”

Of course, this is a classic logical fallacy. There’s no proof nor evidence showing a cause-and-effect relationship between training in Israel and Police brutality in the US.

Police brutality in the United States started long before the training program in Israel was launched about 20 years ago. In fact, a commission to investigate police tactics was established in the 1920’s (long before Israel was even founded) and brutality grew worse in the 1960’s.

Serious research into the problem by experts and human rights groups points to other reasons for police brutality, unrelated to Israel.

One report blames the post-9/11 "War on Terror" which has created a “climate of impunity for law enforcement officers, and contributed to the erosion of what few accountability mechanisms exist for civilian control over law enforcement agencies. As a result, police brutality and abuse persist unabated and undeterred across the country." Nothing to do with Israel, which isn’t even mentioned in the report.

Another report cites U.S. wars abroad and the soldier-to-police officer transition that has become common, bringing veterans of foreign wars home to patrol mostly poor and working-class communities of color. Again, Israel is not mentioned.

The ADL has clarified that in the training session, US officers meet both Israeli and Palestinian law enforcement officers. Yet I’ve never seen anyone accusing Palestinian police of brutality in the US. There’s no evidence to date that any participant in their program has used what they learned in Israel to promote racial or religious profiling, police misconduct, or discrimination. But who cares about evidence?

The claim that Israeli training is causing brutality in America is totally illogical. Israel is being used here as a scapegoat by haters.

As correctly articulated by another writer, this blaming of Jews for murder of innocents, literally blaming Israel for causing the murder of American “sons and daughters”, even though the Jews had nothing to do with them, is a classic trope of antisemitism.

Yes, this is one more medieval-style blood libel, where Jews became the scapegoats for problems that were not of their making.

Fortunately, not everyone falls for these Jew-hating tropes. A statement published by The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives rebuke these accusations and reiterates support for the training program. The new Congressional Black-Jewish Caucus could be another good sign.

(I had demolished the idea that Israel is responsible for US police brutality from another angle in 2015 - EoZ)

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Tweets of the Week (that I didn't blog about)

Here are the most interesting tweets from me this week that I did not blog yet:

Let me get this straight: Those who peacefully and quietly tour Judaism's holiest spot are fanatics,but the people screaming at them and throwing chairs are not? https://t.co/5B3V85TGpp
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) June 2, 2019

What year was Jerusalem Palestine's capital again? I can't seem to find if it happened in the last century, last millennium or in prehistoric times.

I mean you are a holy man, and you wouldn't lie, right? Just like you wouldn't lie about a fatwa against nuclear weapons.... https://t.co/I70nucWND3
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) May 31, 2019

The head of a human rights organization supports the creation of a Palestinian state that he admits would not have freedom of press, expression and belief?

Time to retire, Ken. Your hate for Israel forces you to abandon human rights - your very job.https://t.co/bW3MC92wqw
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) June 3, 2019

As news of the D-Day invasion reached the Jews of Palestine, the Chief Rabbinate added extra Psalms to daily prayers for success of the Allies.

I don't know whether the Muslims in Palestine did the same.

(story 6/8/44 Palestine Post) pic.twitter.com/9UOpldEKTD
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) June 6, 2019

And graphics:

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Ruth in Boaz's Field by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld

A few years ago, on Shavuot, I attended a talk by Rabbi David Fohrman who put together a theory that the Eishet Chayil poem (Mishlei/Proverbs 31:10-31), sung every Friday night and seemingly about the ideal wife, was really written by King Solomon about his great great grandmother Ruth (whose story is read on Shavuot.)

I couldn't take notes (duh) but it was a very impressive talk, going line by line of Eishet Chayil and showing how they apply far more to Ruth than to regular Jewish women.

It is a good subject to research if you are looking for topics to study Shavuot night (or day.)

To get the ball rolling, here are some parallels noted separately by Dr. Yael Ziegler at Virtual Beit Midrash:

Over the course of the narrative, Ruth is accorded various appellations, including: Moavite, shifkha, ama, woman, and daughter-in-law. Perhaps her most memorable designation is “eshet chayil,” a woman of valor. Ruth is the only character in the Tanakh termed as such, and this accolade seems to be reserved for a truly ideal woman. The term chayil suggests Ruth’s strength, integrity, loyalty, honesty, leadership, and efficiency.[1]

Although Boaz couches this appellation as the opinion of the people in the gate, it is Boaz who calls Ruth a woman of valor. It is therefore of particular significance that this description mirrors the one used about Boaz himself in Ruth 2:1.[2] This equates Ruth with Boaz, suggesting that her behavior sets her on par with the venerable Judean leader. It also hints at their compatibility, and the possibility of creating a marriage between equals. The description of Ruth as a woman of valor recalls the eshet chayil of Mishlei 31.[3] The description of the ideal wife in that chapter conveys an image of an industrious, kind, noble, dignified woman, whose praise is sung by her husband and children. The image of the eshetchayil in Mishlei 31 coheres well with Ruth’s persona.[4] Ruth’s industriousness, indicated by her willingness to work in the fields from the morning (Ruth 2:7) until the evening (Ruth 2:17), corresponds to the predominant description of the hardworking eshet chayil (Mishlei 31:13-16, 18-19, 27). Ruth’s generosity toward the embittered and impoverished Naomi evokes the eshet chayil’s generosity toward the poor (Mishlei 31:20). Ruth’s chessed generally mirrors the eshet chayil, whose chessed is upon her tongue (Mishlei 31:26). Ruth brings good to both Naomi (Ruth4:15) and Boaz (Ruth 3:10), just as the eshet chayil brings good to her husband (Mishlei 31:12).[5]The poem’s minimization of beauty (“Grace is false and beauty is vain.” Mishlei 31:30) is also intriguing, given our observation that the Megilla never offers any physical description of Ruth herself. The description of the eshet chayil who gets up while it is still night (“va-takom be-od layla,” Mishlei 31:15) recalls Ruth arising (va-takom) before it is light enough to recognize someone (Ruth 3:14). Key words in our narrative (lechem, na’arot, and sadeh) appear in the poem in Mishlei as well, thereby creating an associative connection. Boaz’s name is actually hinted to in the poem (“chagera be-oz motneha”), a wordplay which seems to be noted by a midrash.[6] Ruth’s general outward dignity and wise speech likewise evoke the description of the eshet chayil (Mishlei 31:21-22, 25-26). Significantly, the climax of the poem is that this ideal woman will be rewarded and praised for her acts in the gates (Mishlei 31:31), corresponding closely to Boaz’s words about the people of the gate (Ruth 3:11). Moreover, the assembly which gathers in the gate in chapter four blesses and praises Ruth (Ruth 4:11-12). A midrash recognizes the general connection, offering one interpretation of the poem of Mishlei 31 as a reference to Ruth: "Many women have done valor, but you surpass them all." This is Ruth the Moabite, who entered under the wings of God. "Grace is false and beauty is vain." [This refers to Ruth,] who left her mother and father and her wealth and went with her mother-in-law and accepted all of the commandments…Therefore, the poem [concludes], "Extol her for the fruit of her hand and let her works praise her in the gates." (Midrash Mishlei 31:29-30) Indeed, if Ruth is the ultimate eshet chayil, she can anticipate several salient rewards. Apart from the admiring praise of her husband and children (Mishlei 31:28) – which, after all, is the goal of Megillat Ruth – Ruth will have the honor of a husband who is “known in the gates, as he sits with the elders of the land” (Mishlei 31:32). This description certainly evokes Boaz (Ruth4:1-2), who, in calling Ruth an eshet chayil, offers himself (or his like) to serve as a fitting partner for this woman of exemplary character.

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I cannot find this story in Israeli media yet. From Al-Manar, apparently from AFP::

US officials have handed over a former Palestinian presidential candidate and university professor to Israel after keeping him 11 years in prison on charges of racketeering and collecting funds for the Hamas resistance movement.

The Council on International Relations – Palestine, in a statement released on Thursday, denounced American authorities for extraditing Abdelhalim al-Ashqar to ‘Israel’, stressing that US officials bear full responsibility for the fate of Ashqar, who is now in the hands of the “criminal” Tel Aviv regime.

He was discharged from his teaching position at Washington University in August 2004. He was subsequently arrested, charged with racketeering and illegally collecting funds for Hamas, and put under house arrest.

Ashqar nominated himself as an independent presidential candidate in the January 9, 2005, Palestinian election. He was one of the 10 contenders seeking to succeed Yasser Arafat, who died on November 11, 2004 as head of the Palestinian Authority.

In November 2007, he was sentenced to 135 months in prison.

Given how Hamas condemned the extradition, it is tacitly admitting that he was is a Hamas activist:

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Thursday condemned the United States for handing over a former Palestinian business professor in the U.S. to Israel after serving his sentence.

"The U.S. administration's decision to hand over the Palestinian professor, Abdel Halim al-Ashqar, is strongly condemned and it is a violation of international norms and laws," Haniyeh said in a press statement.

He added that he ordered the political relations department of Hamas to "make contacts with brotherly and friendly Arab and Islamic countries to work on hosting him instead of handing him over to the Israeli occupation."

Al-Ashqar, originally from the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem, was a former associate professor of business at Howard University in Washington DC. He was also a former candidate who ran in the last Palestinian presidential elections held in 2005.

Haniyeh hailed al-Ashqar as "one of the most recognized national figures in terms of science, belonging to his homeland and his cause, and the Palestinian people are proud of him."

He also called on international institutions and human rights groups to intervene to release al-Ashqar and secure his life.

Israeli official sources did not make comment on the event.

According to the Investigative Project on Terrorism, in 1993 Ashqar incorporated the al-Aqsa Educational Fund (AAEF) at the University of Mississippi which raised funds for Hamas. Ashqar was a Research Associate at the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), which was founded in 1989 by the head of the Hamas Political Bureau, Mousa Abu Marzook. Prior to moving to the United States, al-Ashqar had served as head of Public Relations at the Islamic University in Gaza for a period of about eight years. The university was co-founded by Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

The IPT's documents indicate that Ashqar was merely one of many Hamas activists raising money in the US.

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.@IsraelinArabic is a great Twitter account

Israel in Arabic a Twitter account is run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to communicate with the Arab world.

It will show things like this scene of Muslims worshiping in Ben Gurion Airport, pointing out how pluralistic Israel is.

Or this video to translate Arabic words associated with Eid al Fitr (Ramadan, Iftar, family, month) to Hebrew:

تعلم العبرية في ظل أجواء عيد الفطر المبارك. كل عام وكل المسلمين في أنحاء العالم بخير #هذا_العيد #عيد_مبارك pic.twitter.com/kos8r8Y3Lr
— إسرائيل بالعربية (@IsraelArabic) June 5, 2019

Or this video showing the Jerusalem municipality clearing out a garbage dump adjacent to the Old City walls to build a park that would serve all residents of the city.

قام عمال بلدية أورشليم القدس بإخلاء محطة النفايات بجانب أسوار البلدة القديمة لتقيم متنزها فخما لصالح جميع الأهالي والزوار، في إطار مشروع بتكلفة عشرات ملايين الشواكل! بلدية القدس تخدم سكانها جميعا! pic.twitter.com/gFzRJSvdrE
— إسرائيل بالعربية (@IsraelArabic) June 5, 2019

The comments are usually angry, but many of the Arab followers appreciate the account.

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06/06 Links: Six Decades After Robert F. Kennedy Was Assassinated, His Legacy Is Attacked… By Democrats; De Blasio says anti-Semitism is strictly a ‘right-wing movement’

From Ian:

(Internet problems, so just one set of links today, blame the Russians.)

Six Decades After Robert F. Kennedy Was Assassinated, His Legacy Is Attacked… By Democrats

It’s possible to assassinate a great man twice — once while he lives, once when what he stood for is trampled upon. Fifty-one years ago today, in Los Angeles, hours after he won the California presidential primary, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a Jerusalem-born Christian Arab who had three motivations: hatred of Israel, hatred of Jews, and hatred of Senator Kennedy, who was a good friend of both.

In what seemed like an attempt to destroy a piece of RFK’s legacy 51 years after his death, the California Democratic Party’s State Convention Resolutions Committee considered six vicious resolutions that were overtly anti-Israel and some antisemitic. It rejected them only after a protracted, headline-grabbing debate.

One resolution accused Israel of genocidal “settler colonialism.” Another urged California’s elected officials not to visit Israel unless they spent equal time visiting “Palestinian villages.” A third demanded the Palestinian “right of return” to Israel, which would be a death warrant for the Jewish state. Two more urged return of the Golan Heights to war criminal and mass-murderer Bashar Assad. The last resolution brazenly linked Israel with the murder of 11 Jewish worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue last October. Jewish state legislator David Mandel alleged that the “Israeli government, along with some of its US backers … welcomed support from Christian fundamentalist and ultra-right groups in the United States and abroad, dangerously ignoring their deeply rooted antisemitism while aligning with their virulent Islamophobia.”

The moving force behind this sickening verbiage was the Arab American Caucus of the California Democratic Party, whose chairman Iyad Afalqa a few months ago demonized Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Facebook, labeling him a “shmuck,” a “traitor,” and a member of the “fascist Israel lobby.” Mandel said the set of resolutions were a “team effort,” praising colleagues Chris Yatooma, Kari Khoury, Yassar Dahbour, Murad Sarama, and Afalqa.

Mandel’s resolutions parallel other overtly antisemitic and anti-Israel actions by Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. What better way to slander the multi-ethnic Jewish state than to compare it with Apartheid South Africa and accuse American Jewish leaders of aligning themselves with American “white supremacy.” No greater libel can be imagined in the wake of the Pittsburgh and Poway synagogue murders.

Caroline Glick: Mark Levin and the New York Times' 120-year War Against the Jews

In his newest book, Unfreedom of the Press, Mark Levin demonstrates how the media in the United States have used their power not to provide the news but to shape political agendas to advance their progressive ideology.

Levin’s main contention in Unfreedom is that as presently constituted, the so-called mainstream media, which views itself as an activist media – that is, a partisan and ideological actor in public affairs in the United States rather than a neutral observer and recorder of events.

Given the progressive, activist media’s effective control over the public discourse in the U.S., today it acts not as the guarantor of freedom of expression, but as the most powerful bar to freedom of expression in America.

By determining what is “racist” and what is not racist, what is “politically correct” and what is unacceptable politically and culturally, the media do not serve as a vehicle for informing the public about the issues of the day and the state of the country and the world. Rather, they serve as indoctrination nodes, instructing the public what they can say and what they cannot say; what they can think, and what they cannot think; who can be accepted as legitimate and who must be ostracized and shamed as illegitimate.

One of the most significant chapters in Levin’s book appears at first glance to be out of place in his overall narrative. Most of the book is a discussion of the historical development of the media starting from the revolutionary period and continuing through the present day. He demonstrates how, beginning in the late 19th century, the media began presenting themselves not as partisans and champions of specific political factions and causes, but as objective observers whose function is to inform the public of current events. Their self-declared objectivity, however, was never entirely real. Indeed, it was deliberately dishonest. Because it was in this period that the media began to accept the terms of the progressive movement — which viewed the media, with its self-professed objectivity, as a central tool for advancing the movement’s radical agendas.

Understanding the Real Origin of that New York Times Cartoon

The outrage the Times’ cartoon produced was appropriate, but interpretations of what had happened fell short. Was the cartoon truly a lineal descendant of the anti-Semitic propaganda published in Der Stürmer, as some reflexively opined? To stop there was to accept the possibility that the offices of the New York Times’ international edition are packed with white supremacists. Even if a single production editor was responsible for the incident, as the paper asserted, the publisher’s decision to put the entire staff through sensitivity training to address “unconscious biases” would suggest that senior management was worried others in the company might be similarly infected. Yet the idea that the Times is infested with neo-Nazis seems patently silly.

What makes more sense is the possibility that the cartoon made it into print because the paper’s staff—whether singular or plural—saw it as “a political issue and not religious,” in the words of António Moreira Antunes, the artist who drew it. Like the slogan on the Soviet May Day parade installation, the face of the Israeli prime minister must have signaled to the New York Times staff that the cartoon was about Israel and therefore political—anti-Zionist perhaps, but not anti-Semitic.

Yet the conventional wisdom on the left that anti-Zionism is easily distinguishable from anti-Semitism has run into some obvious practical difficulties in recent months as the Women’s March, the U.K. Labour Party, Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, Marc Lamont Hill, and AJ+ Arabic, Al Jazeera’s popular online platform, have all shown an inability to distinguish between what they consider to be anti-Zionist political positions and overt anti-Semitism.

So if anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are not the same, why is the left doing such a poor job of distinguishing between the two? How is it that the side of the political spectrum that makes anti-racism one of the central tenets of its platform repeatedly stumbles into espousing such vile hatred?

The left would be less confused if it were able to soften temporarily its ahistorical, ideologically driven focus on the right as the sole source of anti-Semitism and devote some time to studying its own rich history of the same. In particular, it should look at the Cold War-era Soviet Union, which for decades not only practiced politically weaponized anti-Zionism but also exported it abroad. Many of the core tropes that animate the anti-Zionist left today are carbon copies of ideas that the KGB and the Department of Propaganda’s ideologues developed, weaponized, and popularized with particular intensity in the wake of the Six-Day War. It is there, not among the Nazi oeuvre, that the direct precursors to the New York Times cartoon and similar such efforts, in which the European press has been awash for the past two decades, are to be found.

Israeli Pundits Lament Lack Of Hipster Coffee Shops In Which To Overhear Statements That Confirm Their Biases (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Tel Aviv, June 6 - Journalists from some of the major media outlets in the country expressed frustration and disappointment today at the relative paucity of retail hot beverage establishments catering to a young, woke crowd where they can sit and eavesdrop on conversations that dovetail with the journalists' pre-existing worldview, and then present those remarks as illuminating or groundbreaking.

Reporters and columnists for Haaretz, Channel Ten, Kann radio, Galei Tzahal, and several other news operations came together this week to discuss Israel's shortage of hipster coffee shops, venues that elsewhere appear to function as a breeding-ground for overheard statements that either cast those who differ ideologically from the journalists in a negative light, or purport to indicate a shift in popular perceptions that heralds the onset of a newfound appreciation for the rightness and virtue of the journalists' own Weltanschauüng.

"We have lots and lots of coffee shops, and lots and lots of hipsters," acknowledged Rogel Alpher of Haaretz. "We even have lots of hispters who frequent coffee shops. What we don't seem to have - and this is obviously a result of the far-right demagoguery of Netanyahu and his minions - is a critical mass of hipsters in coffee shops upon whom we can rely to supply us with quotable, indicative remarks that confirm what we, in our superior wisdom, already know but must find a condescending way to convey to our readers."

"Twenty years ago coffee shops were barely a thing in Israel," observed Ilana Dayan, a television presenter. "We always had some people who fit the description 'hipster' though. I guess things didn't develop the same way in Israel as elsewhere, and that's a shame, because I'd love to be able to sit in a coffee shop booth within earshot of some hipsters and record the bits and pieces of what they say, with an eye toward doing a whole segment on how things are going to hell in a handbasket as indicated by snippets of overheard hipster conversations. Or maybe just tweet about it."

Not all the journalists present agreed that the lack of hipster coffee shops in Israel poses an insurmountable problem. "Come on, guys," urged Gideon Levy. "Since when do you need to actually overhear someone saying something in a coffee shop to make it true? Heck, since when do something have to even be true for us to claim it's true? It's like none of you have ever read a single word I've written."

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Land for peace doesn't have a great track record

While Israel's peace agreement with Egypt has remained pretty solid, major parts of the Sinai that Israel withdrew from have since become strongholds for ISIS-associated Islamist terror groups.

The parts of Lebanon that Israel withdrew from in 2000 were immediately taken over by the Islamist terror group Hezbollah.

The Gaza Strip, which Israel withdrew from for peace in 2005, was soon taken over by the Islamist terror group Hamas.

There is a pattern here, and it isn't "land for peace." It is "land for terrorists."

But everyone "knows" that the only path for peace is for Israel to do the exact same thing, again. The supposedly peaceful Palestinian Authority, which couldn't hold onto Gaza, is going to be strong enough to stop Hamas - which defeated it in the last elections.

Mahmoud Abbas, the man of peace, is the leader of Fatah that still has armed terror groups he promised to dismantle years ago, under the umbrella Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Here they are in Gaza this week:

Not to mention that Abbas prioritizes paying terrorists over taking care of his own people.

The people who believe in Oslo-style peace are like cult members who discard all critical thinking skills to remain members. They worship the word "peace" while disconnecting it from its actual meaning. Previous failures are ignored or redirected into blaming Israel for Palestinian refusal to compromise or accept peace plans.

Even an intifada wasn't enough to wake up the world.

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Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian business owners are meeting and cooperating - and upsetting Palestinian leaders

Al Resalah quotes a story in Makor Rishon about a recent initiative between Israeli and Palestinian businesspeople.

While Palestinians are boycotting the Israeli approach of economic peace at the Bahrain workshop, there is another place where economic cooperation between the two sides is taking place.

The work was taking place through the Joint Chamber of Commerce in the West Bank, which is managed by Avi Sherman of the Ariel settlement and Ashraf al-Jabari of Hebron, who are conducting joint US-sponsored commercial deals.

Jabari is the only Palestinian businessman who has accepted the US invitation to attend the Bahrain summit. He claimed that other Palestinian businessmen will come to the summit and he will not be alone in it.

Jabari said, "The Bahrain summit is not part of the American peace plan, so the king of Bahrain informed me, and I trust him. We are facing an economic event only. If there are any political implications, I will not participate in it," he said.

"A US call was made to the joint Palestinian-Israeli Chamber of Commerce, and it is preferable for Palestinian businessmen and traders to participate in the Bahrain summit," Sherman said.

Jabari, a 45-year-old Palestinian businessman, founded last month a new political party preparing to run in the upcoming Palestinian elections, if they actually happen, and does not hide his desire to be close to Israel. His name is present in all initiatives between Palestinians and settlers, although he and a number of his comrades recently received threats from Fatah.

Three months ago, the Palestinian-Israeli Chamber of Commerce organized a two-day conference at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, attended by prominent Palestinian businessmen, US delegates and heads of settlement communities.

Saleh Abu Mayla, a businessman who participated in the conference, said he owned a factory to produce military boots for IDF soldiers, and he sees no reason to remove the Jews from the city of Hebron.

Khaldoun al-Husseini from Shu'fat in Jerusalem and a member of the Chamber of Commerce had breakfast with Senator Johnston at Beit Ja'abari in Hebron. Participants included the chairman of the Shomron settlement Yossi Dagan.

He has a factory in Ramallah and his distributors are deployed in most of the West Bank cities of Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah. There are more than 250 Palestinian businessmen with membership in the joint Palestinian-Israeli Chamber of Commerce, along with the same number of Israelis, he said.

The meeting in February between Jews - many from Judea and Samaria - and Palestinian businessmen did not receive very much coverage, in line with the media taking their cues from Palestinian officials in what should and shouldn't be covered. However, hundreds of Arab and Jewish business owners participated.

Here's a video about that conference, including interviews with some Arab attendees:

And much more detail as to the goals of the Chamber of Commerce in this press conference from February:

The real scandal isn't that the two groups are cooperating, but the opposition to initiatives like this both from Palestinian leaders and Westerners who pretend to care about Palestinian welfare.

To their mind, Jews in Judea and Samaria are so uniquely evil that even talking to them is a betrayal and somehow antithetical to peace.

Too many people have forgotten what the word "peace" means, thinking that it means "Oslo."

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The DC Dyke March this Friday says:

Dyke Marches are community-driven, grassroots, and meant to bring together all who identify as dykes through marching as an act of visibility and protest. It is non-Pride affiliated, with no corporate sponsors, permits, or cops - our goal is to encourage activism within our community and center trans people, queers, lesbians, and other dyke identities who are oft-marginalized by the mainstream LGBTQ movement.

Please bring signs, noise makers, banners, money to donate - this march is not a parade, but a public act of protest & celebration of the diversity of our dyke community.

Invite all the dykes you know! This is an INCLUSIVE space for ALL who identify as dykes. Hatred of any kind will not be tolerated.

But A Wider Bridge reports:

Through inquiries, Dyke March leadership indicated that Israeli flags and related national symbols are not welcome. When pressed about the need to create an inclusive environment for all queer women––including the many Jewish Dykes who wish to carry Jewish pride flags, representing both pieces of their inherent identities, and including the many Jewish and non-Jewish Dykes who consider Israel to be the rightful homeland of the Jewish people––organizers declared via Facebook that ‘participants [may] not bring pro-Israel paraphernalia’ including Israeli flags and pride flags with the Star of David on them. When pressed on flags and national symbols from other countries, it became clear Israel had been singled out.

This policy is reminiscent of the controversy surrounding the Chicago Dyke March two years ago, in which three marchers with a Jewish pride flag were asked to leave.

There's a lot of pushback on its Facebook page.

The Dyke March has no problem with Muslims, as it advertised an Iftar dinner for Muslims for Progressive Values last week. But it seems to have a problem with Jews.

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How to win back the squandered gift of 1967 (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Recently I watched a short (10 minutes), very powerful video about Israel’s victory in the Six Days War. The film suggests that the victory was literally miraculous. It may well have been so, although miracles like the destruction of the enemy air forces or the capture of the Old City only happen when divine intervention is combined with careful preparation, struggle, and sacrifice by humans.

The film made me enormously proud of the accomplishments of the Jewish people, state, and army. And while I don’t believe in direct divine intervention in human affairs, this victory – along with the survival of the Jewish people since biblical times – made me wonder if I could be wrong about that.

So what’s the problem?

It seems to me that we have taken the gift that was given to us by Hashem and the IDF and little by little, through ignorance and weakness of will, squandered it.

The Sinai peninsula, conquered in 1967, is back in Egyptian hands. Yes, I know that we gained “peace” in return, but a better description of that peace would be that the US bribed the Egyptians to leave us alone with billions in aid, including military aid that translated into weapons that could only have been useful against us. Today Egypt has a government that sees its advantage in maintaining the cold peace; but if the Muslim Brotherhood that came to power for a short time (2012-13) with the help of Barack Obama had been more competent, we would be facing hostility no less bitter than in the days of Nasser. For this, we gave up natural resources including oil, but more important, the one thing that Israel lacks above all else, and the one lack that is most difficult to compensate for with high-tech cleverness: strategic depth.

The Gaza Strip, too, has reverted to Arab control. It is now to all intents and purposes a sovereign state, under control of Hamas, which bitterly oppresses the Arab population and uses it as a human shield in a permanent war of attrition against Israel. This came about as a result of Israel’s voluntary, unilateral abandonment of its settlements and military installations there. Gaza serves as a base for Hamas’ military activities and an excuse for international condemnation of Israel, which from time to time must defend herself against rocket attacks, incendiary and explosive devices carried by kites and balloons, and attempted incursions by terrorists, either over the border fence or by way of tunnels.

And the holiest spot in the world for the Jewish people? The very day after the conquest of the Old City, Moshe Dayan ordered the Israeli flag removed from the Dome of the Rock and gave administrative control of the Temple Mount to the Arab waqf. A “status quo” was created, in which Muslims and Jews would both be able to visit their sacred sites. However, in practice, Jewish rights were eroded little by little. Today, Jews can visit only at restricted times, can enter through just one gate, are forbidden to pray, carry objects (even water bottles), or even use water faucets dedicated to Muslim hand-washing. They are often exposed to harassment from hostile Muslims. There are few limitations on Muslims, and Arab children sometimes play football on the Mount, despite a court order forbidding it. The waqf has built several mosques on and under the Mount, and in the process destroyed or lost irreplaceable archaeologically valuable artifacts. Agreements call for archaeological supervision of construction work, but this requirement is ignored by the waqf.

As far as the rest of Judea and Samaria is concerned, the “international community,” in mortal fear of PLO terrorism and the Arab oil weapon, has been pushing and shoving at Israel ever since the 1967 war to abandon the territories that she liberated from Jordanian occupation. But it took Israel’s own Shimon Peres, in pursuit of a chimerical “New Middle East,” to stupidly bring our worst enemy, Yasser Arafat, back from exile where his organization was growing old and feeble, and allow him to establish his terrorist base in the biblical heartland of the Jewish state. We even gave him money and guns! We paid a steep price for this fashla during the Second Intifada, and we continue to pay today when Jews are murdered at random by the generation of young people raised under the educational system of Arafat and his successor, the porcine Mahmoud Abbas.

Although we can’t blame anyone but ourselves for the Oslo Accords – even US President Clinton was taken by surprise – the hostile European Union has made use of Oslo to advance its objective of forcing Israel out of the territories. In the guise of “humanitarian” aid to the Palestinian Authority, the EU today ignores Israeli zoning and building regulations and constructs public buildings to create facts on the ground in areas that, according to Oslo, are under Israeli control.

How did we allow all this to happen?

There are multiple reasons. One is that we don’t know how to negotiate. We like to think, “we are strong, we can afford to give up (whatever) in the interest of peace. The other side will appreciate our generosity.” Wrong. Whatever we give up, the Arabs take, and then ask for more. They don’t understand “generosity” – they see weakness. The negotiating process is like a ratchet: it can go in one direction – toward the Arabs – but can’t go in the other.

Another reason, often noted, is that we assume that everyone else is like us. We want peace, so Palestinian Arabs must want peace. We care about security, economic development, a good life for our children. They, on the other hand, want to get rid of us; it doesn’t matter if they would have a better life if they cooperate with us. We want an independent nation-state, but they are strongly loyal to their clans. We look for win-win solutions, but it is always more important to them to hurt Jews than to help Arabs.

Finally, the Arabs are always ready to use the “heckler’s veto,” or more correctly in this case, the “terrorist’s veto:” give us what we want or there will be no peace. What Israeli politician wants to be accused of being responsible for the unrest that follows standing up for ourselves?

What can we do differently? Unfortunately, we need to become less generous. We need to become tougher. We need to set limits, and stick to them. The EU is funding illegal construction in Judea and Samaria? Demolish it. Start with Khan al Ahmar, which even Israel’s left-leaning Supreme Court agrees must go, and which PM Netanyahu promised to remove months ago. We need to take back what we have given up, little by little, and strike hard against the “terrorist’s veto.” We are not going to get the Sinai back – and at this stage, I doubt that we want it. But the situation in and around Gaza can and must change radically. There must be a price paid for incendiary balloons, a price so high that they won’t want to pay it more than once.

The same goes for the Temple Mount. A bit at a time, the way we lost it, we must get it back. Of course there will be a reaction (i.e., a riot). But the reactions happen because the Arabs know they can get away with them. They know we will always back down, as we did with the metal detectors at the gates. They know we are afraid of confrontation, so they just push harder.

It’s a long process, and it will be painful. The Arabs are in the habit of winning; it will be hard to get them used to losing. But there are no win-win solutions for the Middle East. In this neighborhood, all the games are zero-sum.

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