This Disney video from 1929, called The Opry House, includes Mickey Mouse performing on stage as both an Arab (with the Muslim star and crescent in the background, 3:30) and a Hasidic Jew (short piece at 4:29) dancing to the old Klezmer-style Mazel Tov tune:
On a quote different note, Teresa on Twitter pointed me to this poignant thread about a Jew who was sent to a Vichy camp before being forced to Auschwitz. He made a cartoon about how the ever optimistic Mickey Mouse would fare in his internment camp in Gurs.
The plot is simple: Mickey is arrested while strolling through Vichy France, and sent to Gurs, where he is detained. His response is bafflement rather than anger.
Yet if Mickey is bemused by the camp, it is likewise unable to get a read on him. In one panel the clerk tries to work out if Mickey is a Jew or a communist - but of course he is neither, unable to be dehumanised because he is already non-human.
At the end of the strip, Mickey decides that whatever Gurs is, it is not for him. And so he erases himself out of the strip altogether. 'And so, because I’m nothing more than a drawing, I rubbed myself out with a stroke of the eraser… and… ta-da…!!!'
(h/t The Jewish Press for The Opry House)
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The Arab world's discrimination against Palestinians continues.
On July 10, Lebanese Labor Minister Kamil Abu Sulaiman launched a campaign to combat "illegal foreign workers" in different parts of Lebanon, including the closure of shops that employ foreign workers illegally and the seizing of companies employing foreign workers without work permits, in order to give priority to local Lebanese workers.
It is meant to be a response to the influx of Syrian refugees into Lebanon who need work, but it disproportionately affects the Palestinians who have lived in Lebanon for decades but are still considered foreign workers who are banned, by law, from many jobs.
Lebanese law prohibits Palestinians from practicing more than 60 professions. In addition, they have to go through extra administrative tasks beyond that in order to obtain work permits.
Palestinian factions protested the government move, saying that they are appreciative to Lebanon's government for opposing the "Deal of the Century" but expressing concern over these new laws that will affect them disproportionately.
According to the 2017 census, the number of Palestinians in Lebanon stands at 174,422 individuals living in 12 camps and 156 communities in different areas of Lebanon. UNRWA says there are over 450,000 "registered Palestine refugees." Which means that conditions in Lebanon are so bad for Palestinians that over 60% of them had no choice but to leave with their families.
Needless to say, Palestinians under "occupation" in the West Bank do not emigrate in such high numbers.
This supposedly friendly Arab country treats Palestinians worse than Israel does by every single metric. Yet the media and supposedly "pro-Palestinian" groups are virtually silent at official Lebanese policy to disenfranchise Palestinians.
Which just proves that the real reason anyone pretends to care about Palestinians is because they hate Israel, not because they give a damn about Palestinian human rights.
Indeed, even the criticisms of Lebanon by Palestinians themselves is muted and attenuated with praise for their supposed - and fictional - support for the Palestinian cause. The only vitriol is for Israel, which seems to care more about their actual human rights than most Arabs do.
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Hamad gave Israel a deadline of one week before Hamas will start a terror spree worldwide targeting Jews.
"If the enemy does not break this siege, and if the understandings are not implemented, we will not allow the Palestinians to enter Gaza," Hamad said in a speech to demonstrators participating in the "return marches" east of Gaza City. "We have a lot of means and methods in our arsenal."
"We are about to explode and the explosion will not be in Gaza, but in the occupied West Bank and abroad as well," Hamad said.
He then said, "We must attack, slaughter and kill every Jew who exists in the world."
Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef sent an open letter to Hamad, saying that his speech was in error.
"My brother, Fathi Hamad (Abu Musab), I understand your anger at the crimes of the occupation against our people, but the language of knives and explosive belts is not the language of politicians, and talk about the killing of Jews is a violation of religious and moral law, and even contrary to what is stated in the Hamas political document."
He is referring to the Hamas manifesto released with much fanfare in 2017 that was more conciliatory to Jews but was falsely reported as a replacement for their charter which indeed calls to kill all Jews.
Yousef's letter continues to say, "O brother, Abu Musab, your hurried enthusiasm [caused you to say things that] will give all pretexts to the occupation to tighten the siege and the practice of further aggression, and will contribute to the abandonment of our people in the Gaza Strip.
Yousef said: "The leadership of Hamas and the head of its political bureau needs to correct the error and explain the situation, because the cost of this speech can be high, and its consequences painful."
Other Palestinians disavowed Hamad's words, saying they do not hate Jews.
Mahmoud al-Zaq, a member of the political bureau of the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, said "This speech can is harmful, which harms our people and turns us from victim to murderer."
Dr. Hossam al-Dajani, a writer and political analyst who is close to Hamas, called Hamad's call to kill the Jews a "strategic mistake and a coup against the Hamas political document."
He said: "This is a serious mistake that Hamas will pay for and should immediately disavow this speech because its repercussions will be serious, especially if a Jew were killed in any foreign capital, the charge would be justified."
"The language of slaughtering in the media is not successful, especially as it is linked to world public opinion which closely links [Hamas] with terrorism and brings the consequent phobia of Islam."
This pushback is rare, as there are antisemitic articles in Arab media all the time. However they rarely reach the level of explicit calls to genocide, and much (but not all) of the criticism centers more on the ramifications of Hamad's words in world public opinion than the immorality of his call to kill all Jews.
UPDATE: Here's the excerpt (sorry, no translation yet:)
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The problem of Muslim anti-Semitism is much bigger than Ilhan Omar. Condemning her, expelling her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, or defeating her in 2020 won’t make the problem go away.
Islamists have understood well how to couple Muslim anti-Semitism with the American left’s vague notion of “social justice.” They have succeeded in couching their agenda in the progressive framework of the oppressed versus the oppressor. Identity politics and victimhood culture also provide Islamists with the vocabulary to deflect their critics with accusations of “Islamophobia,” “white privilege” and “insensitivity.” A perfect illustration was the way Ms. Omar and her allies were able to turn a House resolution condemning her anti-Semitism into a garbled “intersectional” rant in which Muslims emerged as the most vulnerable minority in the league table of victimhood.
As for me, I eventually unlearned my hatred of Jews, Zionists and Israel. As an asylum seeker turned student turned politician in Holland, I was exposed to a complex set of circumstances that led me to question my own prejudices. Perhaps I didn’t stay in the Islamist fold long enough for the indoctrination to stick. Perhaps my falling out with my parents and extended family after I left home led me to a wider reappraisal of my youthful beliefs. Perhaps it was my loss of religious faith.
In any event, I am living proof that one can be born a Somali, raised as an anti-Semite, indoctrinated as an anti-Zionist—and still overcome all this to appreciate the unique culture of Judaism and the extraordinary achievement of the state of Israel. If I can make that leap, so perhaps can Ms. Omar. Yet that is not really the issue at stake. For she and I are only two individuals. The real question is what, if anything, can be done to check the advance of the mass movement that is Muslim anti-Semitism. Absent a world-wide Muslim reformation, followed by an Islamic enlightenment, I am not sure I know. (h/t IsaacStorm)
In my view, here is why we should pay more attention to the special case of Islamist anti-Semitism https://t.co/9VbpH817E6
It was a time when the term "suicide attack" was unknown. It was also a time when everyone assumed that a terrorist attack had to be carried out with a bomb, or a gun, or a knife.
Thirty years ago this month, that assumption was shattered when an unarmed Palestinian terrorist turned an Israeli civilian passenger bus into a weapon. On July 6, 1989, a terrorist named Abdel Hadi Ghneim boarded a bus from Tel Aviv, headed for Jerusalem. As the bus passed a steep ravine alongside the highway, Ghneim attacked the driver, seized the steering wheel and turned it sharply so that the bus went hurtling into the ravine below.
Fourteen passengers were killed, and many others were injured.
The attack was deeply shocking to the Israeli public because two aspects of it were so different from what they were used to.
First, it was clear that the terrorist expected to die. He was willing to give his life just so that he could murder Jews. This was different than typical terrorist attacks, where someone would plant a bomb in an Israeli supermarket and then sneak away, or ambush Israeli traffic with sniper fire and then escape before the army or police arrived.
Second, Ghneim had no weapon. He simply took advantage of circumstances that created an opportunity to murder Jews. A security guard checking bags could not have stopped it. A metal detector would not have made a bit of difference. Any Arab terrorist could board any bus without detection and do something similar.
For American friends of Israel, the attack carried an extra measure of pain because the most severely injured passenger was a well known beloved attorney from Philadelphia. For twelve agonizing days, Rita Levine, 39, hovered between life and death, until, on July 18th, she passed away.
As long as some American and Israeli leaders continue to support the “two-state solution” (TSS) and oppose annexation or incorporation of Area C, the Palestinians (and their supporters) will continue to believe that they will win. This is because the Palestinians present themselves not only as a geographic and demographic entity but, more important, as an ideology: Palestinianism.
This is what the late Robert Wistrich explained in one of his last lectures to the World Jewish Congress. Arab Palestinians cannot and will not abandon their raison d’etre, which is the “liberation of Palestine.” This explains why they “always miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” to resolve the struggle. It is, for them, existential. It’s in the PLO and Hamas charters. It is a fundamental value, and it is the basis of their policy and strategy to defeat and destroy Israel.
The Arabs’ rejection of a Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael, or Palestine, began over a century ago. They opposed the Balfour Declaration (1917) and attacked Jewish communities during the 1920s and ‘30s. They call Israel’s establishment in 1948 the “Nakba” (catastrophe) and engage in terrorism, or as they call it, “resistance.” The conflict is not about boundaries, civil and humanitarian rights, or statehood. A TSS offers no incentive to change their narrative, or their behavior.
Why offering “bargaining chips” doesn’t work
Despite a history of failures, some suggest that offering the Palestinians more concessions if they agree to recognize and accept Israel’s existence. These include giving away parts of Area C of Judea and Samaria and evacuating Jewish communities; giving away parts of eastern Jerusalem; and facilitating formal, official statehood. Rather than serve as inducements to accept Israel, however, these measures only encourage Arab leaders to reject all offers and demand more. This “land-for-peace” slogan conveys the message that Israel is desperate, vulnerable and uncommitted.
The trap of the TSS is that it is entangled with other issues, including: 1) the “right of return” for descendants of former residents of Palestine currently living in UNRWA-sponsored towns and villages in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan; 2) “the occupation” of land and properties claimed by Arab Palestinians; 3) accusations of “stealing Palestinian land”; 4) compensating Arabs who claim dispossession; 5) demanding boundaries based on the UNGA plan in 1947, or reversing the results of the war in 1948-49; 6) abandoning strategic security areas, such as the Jordan Valley; 7) freeing convicted terrorists from Israeli prisons; 8) allowing “pay-to-slay” cash rewards to terrorists and their families; 9) anti-Israel incitement, including BDS and support for terrorism.
This contemporary expression of the oldest hatred didn’t start with Corbyn and it won’t end with him. It has been around for decades and is endemic in progressive circles, not just in Britain but throughout the West.
Support for the Palestinian cause is the signature motif of the left. And that cause is founded upon blood libels, conspiracy theories and other murderous and ancient anti-Jewish tropes.
Mahmoud Abbas, viewed by the western left as a statesman-in-waiting, has a doctorate in Holocaust denial, explicitly venerates the Palestinian Nazi-ally Haj Amin al Husseini who undertook to slaughter every Jew in the Middle East in the event of Hitler’s victory, and uses his media outlets to transmit medieval and Nazi-style demonization of the Jews.
At the end of last year, a preacher said typically on Palestinian Authority TV that the Jews “expose their fangs whenever they get the chance… always fighting, always scheming and always plotting against humanity… ”
So why should Labour Party members who support the Palestinians with their agenda of Holocaust denial, attacks on Judaism and unhinged conspiracy theories about Jewish power now be so shocked that other party members are themselves coming out with Holocaust denial, attacks on Judaism and unhinged conspiracy theories about Jewish power?
This was true of the Labour Party even under leaders such as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who were themselves personally sympathetic to Israel and the Jewish people. But because they also believed in the power of reason, compromise and “peace processes” to resolve all conflict, they blinded themselves to the implacably anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist foundations of the Palestine cause which they also championed as “deserving.”
This is why anti-Zionism has weaponized antisemitism in progressive circles.
The Labour Party may be destroyed altogether by the twin issues of Brexit and antisemitism. The former has the capacity to reshape British politics altogether. The latter threatens to destroy the party because if Labour isn’t a moral project it is nothing.
That applies in turn to the left in general; which is why it is now philosophically bankrupt, repudiating decency, evidence and reason itself while supporting abuses of intellectual, political or religious power and abandoning their victims throughout the Western world.
The programme painted a picture for the general viewer of just how routine and horrific anti-Semitism has become in the Labour party. Izzy Lenga, the international officer of the Jewish Labour Movement, said she’d been subjected to anti-Semitism ‘every single day’, including being told ‘Hitler didn’t go far enough’ and witnessing Holocaust denial in Labour meetings. Another activist, who voted for Corbyn as leader, told Panorama: ‘They might not call me a “dirty Jew” but they’ll call me a “dirty Zionist”, with pride.’
One Jewish interviewee said: ‘We are very frightened of what Corbyn might do because we have seen these behaviours before.’ Another admitted: ‘We feel like we don’t belong here and we have to do far more than anybody else to prove that we do.’ The same member said he’d been called ‘a fucking Jew’ and ‘a Jewish pig’.
MP Louise Ellman spoke about anti-Semitism in her Liverpool Riverside constituency, where one activist had said ‘Zionists are targets and deserve to feel uncomfortable’ while another declared: ‘Every Jew is a Zio-fascist’. Party investigations officer Ben Westerman was sent to Liverpool to assess the problem. At the end of one interview, a party member confronted Westerman, who is Jewish, and demanded: ‘Where are you from?… Are you from Israel?’
The pressure took its toll on the staff. Withers Green was diagnosed with depression and anxiety; Buckingham had a breakdown; Matthews contemplated suicide. Another staffer felt her work had meant nothing when she learned that, as of the Spring, just 15 members had been expelled for anti-Semitism. She and the rest of her former co-workers exuded utter dejection, the ideal mood for watching the programme because, in the end, very little will come of it. Labour’s anti-Semites will continue to be anti-Semitic and their enablers will continue to expect credit for the occasional strongly-worded tweet in rebuke.
What secures Jeremy Corbyn in post is not the anti-Semites in the grassroots but his MPs, who even now are preparing to campaign to put him in Downing Street if the new Prime Minister calls an election. Faced with a choice between the Jews and their latest miserable persecutors, Labour MPs have not only chosen to back the latter — they’ve chosen to be the latter. They are not merely feckless bystanders, they are knowing accomplices. They are this century’s guilty men and women and Panorama viewers glimpsed the horrors in which they are complicit.
The reaction of the Labour party to the Panorama programme reflects the desire of the Corbynista elite to pull up the ideological drawbridge and, in true Leninist fashion, not to cede any concession to their critics.
Following the student protests of the 1960s, a small group on the far left within the Labour party including Jeremy Corbyn perceived a middle ground between the parliamentary socialism of the Labour party and the revolutionary activism of the New Left.
Figures such as Corbyn were therefore happy to work with and appear on platforms with the extra-parliamentary far left. This belief superseded any concern that antisemitic comments might be uttered on these platforms.
The decision in 2013 to allow “supporters” to join Labour facilitated the far left’s entry into the party – to overcome a barrier that they had been trying to traverse for almost a century.
Today the party is being run by past fellow travellers from both the pro-Kremlin wing of the Communist party and the Trotskyist Militant Tendency. As Jon Lansman’s withdrawal from seeking the post of General Secretary of the party last year illustrated, even the Bennites have been sidelined.
The Jewish question is ideologically unimportant for many in Labour’s inner circle today because it has always been regarded historically as a peripheral issue in Marxism-Leninism, an irritating diversion from the long march to achieve a more just society.
Is the UK Becoming Unlivable for Jews?
Jews in Britain are fearing the worst: Jeremy Corbyn taking power. With a documented rise in UK anti-Semitism and Corbyn in the running for prime minister, British Jews may soon begin mass migrating to Israel. Our Ellie Hochenberg has the story.
Repeating that something is a war crime doesn't make it so.
Repeating that something is a war crime doesn't make it so.
Repeating that something is a war crime doesn't make it so.
However, attacking tourist sites over only one disputed area in the world is definitely bias. https://t.co/qYECtUUBHL
At last week's PalExpo, Ilan Pappe said: "The MSM never mentions Gaza but it mentions every detail of antisemitism in the Labour Party. Why does it never mention Gaza? Either it’s too timid, or it’s bought, or it’s ignorant."
Google News mentions
Gaza: 11.5M
Labour Party: 5.5M
Oooh! Can we do a chart of how many people have been killed in world conflicts, and how many reports @HRW dedicates to each one, @KenRoth? https://t.co/XSCuDNHfn2
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Time magazine has once again put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on its cover for its upcoming July 22 edition.
Noting that Netanyahu on July 17 will “surpass David Ben-Gurion, the closest thing Israel has to a founding father, to become the longest-serving Prime Minister in the country’s history,” the interviewer, Brian Bennett, writes that the Jewish state’s future “remains mortgaged to Netanyahu’s approach to power.”
The article is less flattering than the last time Netanyahu was on Time’s cover, in a mostly sympathetic 2012 interview that branded him “King Bibi.”
“Inside the country, many Israelis have been alarmed by Netanyahu’s efforts to remain in power,” Bennett tells his readers. “The moves compound the impression, already articulated by critics, that Israel’s Prime Minister has embraced the same populist authoritarianism rising elsewhere around the world.”
Time has occasionally put Israel on the cover in recent years, usually to criticize it. A September 2010 cover story was headlined, “Why Israel doesn’t care about peace.” An August 2012 edition looked at a battle for control over a Jerusalem neighborhood.
The latest cover story follows a similar line, citing “a growing chorus of critics” who “condemn Netanyahu not for any personal indulgences but for undermining Israeli democracy itself.”
It depicts the upcoming September 17 election as a referendum pitting “the Prime Minister’s self-declared role as Israel’s protector, ‘indispensable Netanyahu,’ against ‘Bibi fatigue,’” in the words of former US ambassador Dan Shapiro.
On and on it goes, the students were treated to tales of Israel’s razing homes, harassing Palestinians, and restricting their freedom of movement. All of it seemingly without the context of the Palestinians’ unending war on Jews.
Finally, Halbfinger relays how students on the trip were turned off by Israel and Zionism: “By dinnertime, two participants said they were reconsidering their belief in a Jewish state.” He quotes one: “I came in here a very ardent Zionist . . . You never know when a Holocaust might happen again. Yet, coming here, I’m starting to doubt whether a two-state solution is possible—and whether Zionism is even worth pursuing anymore.”
This is, of course, the goal of the entire undertaking. It’s not about painting a nuanced picture of the conflict or moving toward peace. It’s about Jews showing other Jews what a terrible and misguided place Israel has become. Increasingly, that’s J Street’s mission. Despite its denials, the group has supported the boycotting of Israel on college campuses and targeted pro-Israel activists. Now, it’s packaging the supposed evils of the Jewish state for students to see up close.
Birthright, for the record, doesn’t ignore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It just operates with an understanding that Israel is more than its efforts to combat terrorism. And those efforts are overwhelmingly noble.
The good news is that J Street has taken only 28 kids on a single trip. Put that against Birthright’s estimated 650,000. It will take a lot of David Halbfingers to make up the difference.
Later, the lens turns to Israel: “While the Israeli government and news media usually say the same things in Hebrew and English, Palestinians and Israeli critics say they also do little to promote the idea of a Palestinian state.”
Then there is the rationalization: “Some explain the overheated language [by Palestinians] as a natural expression of such a long-running conflict, and say that any real education in the language of peace is unlikely to come before negotiators resolve the core issues.”
And again, skepticism of the critics: “Some Israelis struggle with the practice of monitoring the Palestinian news media, acknowledging the importance of knowing what is being said in Arabic, yet disturbed by how its dissemination is exploited by those not eager to see Israel make concessions.”
It would be one thing if this were how the Times reports on critics of both Israel and the Palestinians. But as the J Street story reminds us, the newspaper’s standards are shifty. There is no commentary about J Street and their fellow critics looking to score “propaganda points.” No “arguable” interpretations. No “natural expression” of the conflict. No “exploitation” by anti-Israel extremists. The journalistic skepticism and right of reply that was seemingly important when reporting on Palestinian Media Watch disappears entirely in the report on J Street.
This isn’t impartial, hard-hitting journalism. It’s advocacy for anti-Israel advocates. And despite repeated promises of fairness, the paper can’t seem to avoid such partisan reporting.
Here's some child abuse, courtesy of Hamas, in these advertisements for their military summer which they call the "camps of pioneers of liberation:"
Al-Qassam Brigades promoting their summer camp for young Palestinians. Registration begins Saturday and training begins on the 20th. #Gazapic.twitter.com/aOSabIVz3W
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Thoughtful Jews have speculated about the impact on Judaism’s religious outlook that would be made by man’s successful exploration of space. In a small way the answer began to emerge within hours of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing and exploration by Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Col. Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr.
The word came from Israel where Gen. Shlomo Goren, the Armed Forces’ Chief Chaplain, issued instructions about a change in the prayer for the blessing of the new moon which is said each month. The old blessing was worded: “As I dance before you and cannot touch you, so my enemies will not be able to touch me.” It now reads: “As I dance against you and do not touch you, so others, if they dance against me to harm me, they will not touch me.” The new version of the prayer is actually an old one found in the Talmud in Masechet Soffrim, chapter 20.
I have never seen any Jewish prayer book that uses Rav Goren's changed language of Kiddush Levana.
אחר שסיים הברכה אשר במאמרו יאמר שלוש פעמים: סימן טוב סימן טוב סימן טוב לכל ישראל, ברוך יוצרך ברוך עשך ברוך קונך ברוך בוראך, ורוקד שלוש רקידות כנגדה ואומר שלוש פעמים: כשם שאני רוקד כנגדך ואיני נונע בך כך אם ירקדו אחרים כנגדי לא יגעו בי, תפול עליהם אימתה ופחד וכו' ולמפרע (פי' להיפך כאבן ידמו זרעך וכו) אמן סלה הללוי-ה. ואומר לחבירו שלוש פעמים: שלום! וילך לביתו בלב טוב.
Why do we use language that is apparently not true nowadays, as it is possible to touch the Moon?
I have seen three answers given. Rav Chaim Kanievsky said that it could mean that it is impossible to touch the Moon from Earth. Alternatively, it could mean that we are not permitted by Jewish law to go to the Moon as it is dangerous and we should not put ourselves unnecessarily in danger.
Rav Yitzchak Zilberstein has a different approach, saying that it means that we cannot touch the Moon without special equipment. He brings a proof from a law that if a man divorces his wife conditional on her being able to soar to the sky, the divorce is invalid because it is impossible. But the Midrash does describe elsewhere that Alexander the Great flew on the back of an eagle! The answer must be that when we talk about the impossibility of flight, we mean unaided. That is the meaning of Kiddush Levana.
But I have a more basic question: why do we use the language today of "cannot touch" when the very source for Kiddush Levana in Sofrim uses language of "does not touch?" The questions wouldn't even come up if we used the original language!
The first source I mentioned claims that the Vilna Gaon's prayerbook uses the original terminology, but the one I looked at online did not. I haven't found any other sources for the changed language.
Any ideas?
UPDATE: I've gone through all the online old Siddurim I can find and I see nothing like the Sofrim language.
כשם שאני רוקד כנגדך ואיני נוגע בך כך אם ירקדו אחרים
כנגדי להרע ולהזיק לי לא יוכלו להזיק לי וליגע
לי
This is the only mention I can find that someone should say something different than our nusach - it is Sofrim, plus asking not to be injured.
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Every week's Hamas-organized Gaza demonstrations have a different slogan.
Today's slogan is "No negotiation, no peace, no recognition of the entity."
I wonder if any supposedly "pro-peace" groups will be upset that the people they claim want peace with Israel explicitly say they will never accept any peace under any circumstances.
I'm not expecting a statement from Peace Now condemning the slogan.
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In wake of J-Street's highly publicized "Let My People Know" tour of Israel that included professional anti-Israel activists lying to college students and being praised for it in the New York Times, the Forward has an article about similar, far less public and highly subsidized tours of Israel by Hasbara Fellowships and the Zionist Organization of America.
The article by Scott Boxer, currently an intern at Americans for Peace Now, who attended both tours as a college student, is highly critical and insulting.
Let's compare the language he uses with the examples he brings and see if his characterization of the tours adds up.
Tour leaders policed language and opinions. In ways that could be considered public shaming, they corrected neutral terms like “West Bank” and “settlements,” replacing them with terms in the lexicon sympathetic to the occupation: “Judea and Samaria” and “Jewish communities.”
"Judea and Samaria" and "Jewish communities" are in fact neutral terms - and far more accurate than "West Bank," terminology that didn't exist before Jordan illegally annexed the lands (even the UN used those terms), and "settlements" which now have a pejorative meaning.
As far as public shaming is concerned, Boxer doesn't give any examples, but imagine using the term "Judea and Samaria" in the J-Street trip and see if they would let it go.
Guides and guest speakers spoke of anti-occupation, Zionist organizations like J Street and Americans for Peace Now with derision; they questioned explicitly the Zionist, and even Jewish, identity of supporters of such groups.
The Forward in this very article calls these tours "reprehensible and even dangerous". (And racist, as we will see.) Are strong opinions not allowed, or only one one side? I question the Zionist identity of these groups since they are entirely dedicated to turning Jews against Israel's policies as chosen by the people who live there. (I do not agree with saying that their supporters aren't Jewish, my guess is that in reality the words used were that the groups did not adhere to Jewish values.)
Right-wing, pro-occupation, and even racist content filled most of the presentations we attended. “Make Greater Israel Great Again” was the title of the opening presentation on the ZOA trip, just weeks after the election of Donald Trump.
Right wing and pro-occupation, certainly. The groups make no pretense of being otherwise, and Boxer certainly knew that when he went on the trip. But "racist?" He has not mentioned anything in this paragraph that could be considered that.
The trips included substantial time in settlements as a means of normalizing them and building bonds with their residents.
Why is that bad, but J-Street's bringing students to an illegal building in Susiya where they get served lunch from the family that lives there not considered equally bad?
During meetings with settler leaders in Hebron, both tours featured talks by Rabbi Simcha Hochbaum, who called mass murderer Baruch Goldstein a righteous man.
Rabbi Hochbaum told us that the murderous Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea made Goldstein’s 1994 massacre of 29 Muslims during prayer pale in comparison. I was stunned the first time I heard this. The second time, I confronted him. He insisted that the good Goldstein had done in his 11-year medical career far outweighed the moment in which he gunned down Palestinian Muslims in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque.
While Hochbaum's words reported here could be considered technically accurate, it is wrong in any way to contextualize Goldstein's massacre as anything but pure evil. This is the only part of Boxer's criticism that I agree with.
We didn’t only meet settlers, though. Unlike on Birthright, these tours included meetings with Palestinians in the West Bank, though they were very carefully curated to convey a particular narrative.
Literally every tour of the region, ever, has been "carefully curated to convey a particular narrative." There is only so much time and every group has an agenda, whether they admit it or not. This cartoon I captioned several months ago used the same term when describing the B'Tselem, Break the Silence and J-Street tours of Hebron:
We went to the new Palestinian city of Rawabi, home to luxury apartments and high-end stores, and met with its founder Bashar Masri. The message: How could occupation be bad if one can buy Coach handbags?
Why is a visit to Rawabi considered bad? Why wouldn't J-Street go there if it wanted to show all sides of the story?
We also visited a settler-owned factory near the settlement-city of Ariel and engaged in a discussion with its Palestinian workers, a conversation heavily curated by the factory owner. Surely, occupation is good if it provides jobs for Palestinians, right?
Again, is this a bad thing? Isn't this showing a side of the conflict that rarely gets reported? In short - why would anyone be against speaking with Palestinian workers in a Jewish owned business? I've done it myself and I was able to ask whatever I wanted.
This article assumes that the left-wing narrative is the only one, and therefore anything else is "dangerous." Yet the examples brought show no such thing - on the contrary, they show that the Peace Now types want to limit what Jewish students can see when they visit Israel to only their own "curated" experiences in Susiya, Shuhada Street (never the rest of Hebron,) and elsewhere.
The "right wing" tours are meant to instill a love of Israel. The left-wing tours emphatically do not.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Few thinkers have had so enormous an impact on the humanities as Edward Said, an English professor whose 1978 book Orientalism argued that all Western scholarship of the Middle East—indeed, all European writing about the Islamic world—was inherently suspect, reflecting only stereotypes and fantasies. Accompanying this argument was vituperation against Israel, to which Said dedicated much of his subsequent public life, inspiring multiple generations of academic Israel-haters. William D. Rubinstein examines Said’s distortions and tortured logic:
[I]n films and popular culture, every identifiable group is depicted initially in stereotypical terms: upper-class Englishmen are depicted as plummy-voiced toffs, American army sergeants as martinets, Australians as beer-swilling ockers from the outback. So what? But Said presents only the most negative views of the Islamic world as representative of its depiction in the mainstream West, ignoring any more positive views.
[For instance], the academic and scholarly “orientalists” who wrote about the Islamic world between about 1750 and 1940 were seldom hostile to Islam or to Muslim culture; quite the opposite. Typical was Gottlieb Leitner (1840–99), born in Budapest to Jewish parents who became Protestants. Leitner lived in India and was a renowned linguist. . . . In 1889 he published a pamphlet, Muhammedism, which defended Islam against its critics, and, in the same year, established the Woking Mosque in Surrey, the first mosque in Britain.
Dozens of other scholars and anthropologists throughout the West, normally termed “orientalists,” were highly sympathetic to Islam and its culture. These scholars were ignored in Said’s works, as were modern scholars who studied the politics, economy, and religious culture of the Islamic world in a serious way.
It appears that Said became an ardent supporter of the Palestinian cause and, by extension, of the Islamic world, following the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and the Arabs. At the time, Israel enjoyed the virtually unanimous support of the Western world’s left intelligentsia. . . . Said effectively—and, it seems, deliberately—provided scholarly backing for the reverse of this former consensus, and for whitewashing the culture and lifestyles of the Islamic world.
On June 6, 2019, the Charity Commission for England and Wales released a statement on their investigation into “Viva Palestina,” a charity led by former Member of Parliament and former War on Want General Secretary, George Galloway. The Charity Commission concluded that Viva Palestina “was not properly governed, managed or administered by its trustees – as a result of those failings its reputation, that of the wider charitable sector, and charitable funds donated by the public to the charity were put at risk.”
The Commission paid special attention to Viva Palestina’s failure regarding “the basic requirement to keep receipts and records of income and expenditure and so be able to properly account for charitable funds raised and spent. These basic requirements are all the more important when charitable funds are raised from members of the public and used for humanitarian needs in conflict zones.” Viva Palestina reportedly claimed to have raised over £1 million in 2009 alone.
Viva Palestina’s Material Support for Hamas
In addition to the concerns cited by the Charity Commission, Viva Palestina has had significant contact with leaders of the Hamas terrorist organization, including providing them with cash, vehicles, and other items.
For example, during a March 2009 “aid convoy,” George Galloway met with then Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and directly provided him with three cars and £25,000 in cash. Galloway claimed, “Just in case the British government or the European Union want to face me in any court, let me tell them live on television: I personally am about to break the sanctions on the elected government of Palestine…By Allah, we carried a lot of cash here… But I, now, here, on behalf of myself, my sister Yvonne Ridley…are giving three cars and 25,000 pounds in cash to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh”
This isn’t difficult. The ‘rational left’ lost its soul when it became infected by the very viruses it used to be able to identify. It saw Islamic antisemitism until it became infected with it. So too Soviet antisemitism. Today those people writing these letters to the Guardian support the same ideology as those the Guardian quickly dismissed back in 1953. They started to use these media outlets to push their obsession. This is a map of the increase in mentions of the word ‘Israel’ from 1947-2003:
1966-1967, which includes the six-day war and its aftermath, saw 960 articles. 2002-2003 was to reach 3,402. I can only imagine how bad things are today. To put this in perspective. Israel’s 3,402 came over 24 months. ‘Congo’ did not even make 1,500 articles over the whole five years of the Second Congo War that cost millions of lives. Adding Rwanda to the search terms didn’t make much difference. Israel has become a Guardian obsession.
It becomes even more interesting when we search for ‘anti-Zionism’. Beyond criticism, until the 1990s there were no references to the words in the Guardian archives and a whole year could pass without a single article using it. In 1998 there was one article. Another two in 1999 and 2000. In 2001 that double to four and in 2003 it tripled to thirteen. Since then it has risen to a tsunami.
The only reference in 1998 was to a book from the 1930s. In 1999 the play ‘Perdition‘ was on the theatre pages as it enjoyed a short run at the Gate Theatre. January of 2000 saw David Ceserani used the term when he was critical of Norman Finkelstein. In June, John Fordham wrote a Jazz column about Gilad Atzmon. Then in August 2001, there was a mention in article about the Woodcraft folk, and the complexities of global politics. In September it was another Jazz advert for Gilad Atzmon.
Israel Hayom has an article by Muhammad AlZanati and Muhammad AlBuhaisi, called "Who Speaks for Gazans?", that is most interesting.
Their bio:
Muhammad AlZanati and Muhammad AlBuhaisi are natives of Gaza who have fled to Europe and are members of the Palestinian Opposition Coalition that is under formation.
The article says in part:
Now is the perfect time for the Palestinian populace to stand up and follow new leaders. We propose the creation of a new organization that can provide that leadership: the Palestinian Opposition Coalition.
We, the writers of these lines, are two Gazans who have fled Hamas’ hell to Europe. Both of us are computer geeks with good jobs in the EU. We have made it.
Why would Gazans choose to run an article in an Israeli newspaper? The answer is simple: No one but Israel cares what Gazans think and what Gazans want.
When UN officials open their mouths before the world’s media to speak about Gazans' suffering, they don’t know what they are talking about nor do they know what we are striving for as human beings.
When Arab dictators bleat about our rights and how Israel is allegedly crushing us, they don’t care for us. In fact, those very Arab rulers have played the greater part in creating suffering for Gaza.
When European officials talk about the need to help Gazans, it is, in most cases, a sugarcoating of their deep-seated anti-Semitism.
We will tell you what we Gazans want.
We want Hamas out. We voted for Hamas almost 14 years ago because we had enough of the corrupt Palestinian Authority. Even Christians in Gaza voted for Hamas as the lesser of two evils. Gazans have been historically more liberal and less religious than other Palestinians. This has been known since the British Mandate for Palestine was created.
We thought our lives could improve a little under Hamas. And what did we get? Hamas is more corrupt than the Palestinian Authority thugs. Even worse, Hamas labels anyone who opposes it an "infidel." At least the PLO would not do that.
And Hamas itself is not self-governed. It is common knowledge in Gaza is that Hamas is the Palestine chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan.
...We are Hamas’ biggest victims. The parades you see in support of Hamas are staged. Schoolchildren are threatened: If they don't attend, their parents will be arrested.
Except for the 5,000 people who comprise Hamas' leadership and their children, we Gazans would love to see Israel taking over Gaza again and running it under the Civil Administration, as it did before the Oslo Accords.
We do not want the corrupt Palestinian Authority to take over Gaza again. And as much as we love Egypt and its president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, we don’t want Egyptian rule, either. We want things to return to the days before Oslo.
For those who wonder what our identity and citizenship will be: Most Gazans are educated and well-read. We know Jordan’s regime stands on shaky ground. A change in Jordan would result in an extension of Jordanian citizenship to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and then, we would have peace based on facts and reality on the ground as US President Donald Trump said when he addressed the UN in September of last year. We are willing to hold Jordanian citizenship and connect administratively to Jordan, but that will require a change of the status quo in Jordan first.
This is the truth that could set all of us free.
Everything they say seems almost too good to be true.
It's been my experience that moderate Arabs still want independence - they might hate their leaders, but very few would say they want to be occupied by Israel.
And when two people claim, in an article asking who speaks for Gazans, that they speak for Gazans when they say they'd rather live in pre-Oslo days, we should be skeptical. If that thinking was prevalent, we would have heard about people like these years ago.
There is a small cottage industry with people who claim to speak for Palestinians in terms that are nearly identical to right-wing Zionist talking points. We want to believe this so much that some Zionists are willing to fund them. But invariably they claim to have lots of followers who don't exist.
I hope I'm wrong. I'd love to know that there is a groundswell of Palestinians that Zionists can talk to. But when things like this come out of nowhere, we have to fight the impulse to think that an intractable problem can be easily solved.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Ramallah, July 11 - The longstanding assumption governing human conception of the solar system and beyond must undergo revision, insists a group of West Bank and Gaza scientists who accuse the scientific mainstream of ignoring definitive evidence that they and their people, not the Sun, occupy the center of everything.
Palestinian astronomers convened a press conference today (Thursday) to rail against the scientific establishment for its refusal to recognize mounting evidence against the centuries-old heliocentric model of the solar system, which has the Sun at the center and numerous other bodies in orbit around it. The astronomers pointed to the phenomenon of every progressive cause allying itself with the Palestinian national movement, which they argue indicates that Palestine, or at least Palestinians, occupy the center of the universe, and nothing else can.
"Anyone observing the movement of social justice activity over the last several decades can come to only one conclusion," stated Professor of Astrophysics Inr Shah. "All social justice movement eventually comes to revolve around the Palestinian cause, indicating that the Palestinian cause constitutes the bulk of the mass, and exerts the most gravitational pull. We see this with the Women's March, human rights organizations in general, child welfare groups, and countless other instances. Astronomers who dismiss this evidence have much to explain."
Professor Shah suggested that establishment astronomy feels beholden to Zionists. "Just look at the number of Jews among Nobel Prize winners in the hard sciences," he indicated. "That can't be a coincidence. We know who holds sway and calls the shots in astronomy and related fields. No one will escape with his career intact if he challenges the so-called 'consensus' view of the Sun at the center. We all know who's behind that."
The heliocentric model gained currency in the study of the heavens only in the last five hundred years as a better explanation for the movements of celestial phenomena than the ancient geocentric model with the observer, on Earth, as the center. The old model, argue Palestinian scientists, better reflects the truth of a Palestinian-centered solar system and universe.
"In broad terms the geocentric model should once again be considered correct," noted Bir Zeit University postdoctoral researcher Massieff Iggo. "On the intergalactic scale, or even just in terms of our part of the Milky Way, not much should change in the way we see the universe. But closer to home we'll see some subtle and not-as-subtle shifts in understanding of the moon, nearby planets, and maybe some asteroids, because it's not the center of Earth from which to calculate things, but the center of Palestine. That of course can be tricky, because it shifts from day to day as we and our allies decide on new focuses for the world to revolve around."
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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Sunday, July 14, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
