Informed sources told Tasnim that Amano is thought to have been “eliminated” by the Israeli regime so that the UN nuclear agency could have a new chief.
The late Japanese secretary general of the IAEA was reportedly standing against the US and Israeli “heavy pressures to open a false case against Iran on the nuclear issue,” the sources said.
Amano reportedly died of cancer.
While the story is absurd, there is only one country that eve threatened Amano's life - and that country was Iran.
Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano didn’t disclose secrets of its recent agreement with Iran to the US Congress for the fear of its aftermaths, an Iranian spokesman said Monday.
"In a letter to Yukiya Amano, we underlined that if the secrets of the agreement (roadmap of cooperation between Iran and the IAEA) are revealed, we will lose our trust in the Agency; and despite the US Congress's pressures, he didn’t give any information to them," Spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz Kamalvandi said in a meeting with the Iranian lawmakers in Tehran on Monday.
Kamalvandi said revealing the secrets of the roadmap wouldn't have been good for him either.
The original article had been quoted at the time with Kamalvandi saying more explicitly, "Had he done so, he himself would have been harmed."
Iran has literally bragged that it has threatened the lives of IAEA officials if the secret side deals were revealed. Those deals were later revealed to include allowing Iran to self-inspect some facilities and additional exemptions that allowed Iran to be in compliance on Implementation Day, January 16, 2016, which therefore allowed Iran to get $100 billion in sanctions relief - and a $400 million ransm for American hostages.
(h/t Martin)
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In 1948, the then-aborning state of Israel enjoyed political support from almost the entire global left—including, crucially, the Kremlin. Even when, soon thereafter, Moscow reverted to its traditional anti-Zionist position, bringing along with it those in its Communist orbit, the rest of the non- and anti-Communist left continued to see the Jewish state in a friendly light.
Over the decades, however, that warmth faded as well. A series of landmark events—Israel’s overwhelming victory in the 1967 Six-Day War; the emergence in its aftermath of the “revolutionary” PLO; the rightward shift of Israeli politics with the ascension of the Likud in the late 1970s; Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the first and second Palestinian intifadas; recurrent clashes between Israel and Hamas once Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005—each seemed to peel away another layer of sympathy for Israel on the left and to accrete another layer of hostility.
Today, the transition is almost complete. Most of the left, including the liberal left, joins in shrill criticism of Israel or even outright opposition to its existence.
Now comes Susie Linfield, a professor in the journalism department at New York University and a writer deeply embedded in the left, with her book The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky. A beautifully written and penetrating exploration of the evolution I’ve just sketched, replete with devastating aperçus, it begins with this anecdote:
I am at a dinner party with my partner and his friends, who are mostly left-wing intellectuals . . . . [T]he name of a well-known journalist . . . comes up. “Oh, he’s a Zionist!” one person says disparagingly, and the others dutifully shake their heads in condescension and dismay. . . . I debate the pros and cons of disturbing this amicable gathering, and then I say, with a slight gulp, “Well, so am I.” A frozen, stunned silence ensues . . . . ; no one addresses or looks at me, though they shoot pitying glances at my partner.
In her book, Linfield attempts no chronological account of the turn away from Israel. Rather, she offers portraits of eight influential intellectuals—Hannah Arendt, Arthur Koestler, Maxime Rodinson, Isaac Deutscher, Albert Memmi, Fred Halliday, I.F. Stone, and Noam Chomsky—together with close readings of their writings about Zionism, the Jews, and the Jewish state.
The terminology used by the United Nations that Israel is “illegally occupying Palestinian Land” has angered Israelis for a long time. The Israelis do not believe that the land is “Palestinian,” that they are “occupying it” or that living in and controlling such land is “illegal.”
The Trump Administration agrees with this approach.
The 2016 Republican platform discussed Israel in several sections, including the B.D.S. (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement which it labeled antisemitic, in prioritizing the security needs of allies like Israel over foes, and in moving the U.S. embassy to Israel’s capital city, Jerusalem. It also clearly mentioned Israel’s control over disputed land:
“We reject the false notion that Israel is an occupier”
The logic behind such attitude has been voiced by Israel and Israeli advocates for a long time, although it gets no air in the left-wing media. In short:
- International law in 1920 and 1922 specifically called for Jews to reestablish their homeland throughout Palestine, covering all of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River;
- The “Green Line” or “1967 border,” is no border at all, but simply the armistice lines of 1949 which were deliberately and specifically not called borders but temporary lines too be negotiated for final settlement;
- Jordan illegally evicted all the Jews from the area between the Green Line and the Jordan River (an area which later became known as the “West Bank”) and annexed the land in a move which was not recognized by almost the entire world;
- Jordan broke the Jordanian-Israeli Armistice Agreement by attacking Israel in June 1967;
- Israel took the “West Bank” in a defensive war, which makes the situation completely distinct from laws regarding taking land in an offensive war, especially when such land was not part of a sovereign nation, and was designated to be part of the acquiring country in any event
In summary, Israel took the “West Bank” back from a country which had illegally evicted all Jews, illegally annexed the land and illegally attacked it (the “Three Illegal Actions”).
A look at developments in the Middle East over the past decades gives the clear impression that the region is becoming “cleansed” of minorities, especially the Christians who have inhabited it for millennia. The process is reminiscent of what happened to the Jews of the Arab countries, who had to flee their homes amid pogroms and persecutions they suffered throughout the 20th century, especially after the establishment of the State of Israel and its victories over its Arab enemies.
It was in Morocco, where several thousand Jews have remained, that the first massacre of Jews in the 20th century occurred — in Fez, on April 17, 1912, after Sultan Mulai Abd al-Hafid signed a treaty that turned Morocco into a French protectorate. For the people of the country, this handing of the reins of authority to a Christian ruler was an act of betrayal. Unable to attack French people, the Arab mob opted to attack Jews and their properties. Fifty-one Jews were murdered, and many homes were looted.
On August 3, 1934, a Jewish tailor in the Algerian town of Constantine cursed Muslims and insulted Islam while drunk. The result: pogroms against the local Jews that killed 25 and wounded 38.
In June 1941, the Farhoud broke out in Baghdad. About 200 Jews were murdered and thousands wounded by their Arab neighbors. Jewish property was looted and many homes were set ablaze.
Four years later, on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, large numbers of Arabs took out their frustration with Nazi Germany’s defeat by perpetrating pogroms in several Arab countries. In Egypt, 10 Jews were killed and about 350 were wounded during Muslim Brotherhood riots. Synagogues, the Jewish hospital, and old-age homes were burned and more than 100 Jewish shops were ransacked. In Libya, some 140 Jews were murdered, synagogues were burned, and homes were looted.
Last week, hundreds of religious leaders and activists descended on Washington for the Trump administration’s second annual ministerial gathering on international religious freedom. Yazidis, Shi’ite Muslims, evangelical Christians, Ahmadiyya Muslims, Persian Jews — the parade of humanity was simply stunning, and the conference touched on almost every aspect of religious discrimination, persecution and genocide.
As rich as these sessions were, however, they left one critical issue unaddressed: the right to pilgrimage, particularly for Christians residing in Muslim-majority countries.
Pilgrimage is an essential, if overlooked, dimension of international religious freedom — and it isn’t unique to followers of Jesus. More than 2 million Muslims visited Mecca in 2017, and more than 20 million Shi’ites visited Karbala, Iraq, for the Arba’een pilgrimage that same year. This free movement of peoples ought to be commended, and defended, at a time of heightened sectarian tension around the region.
But adherents of all faiths should be disturbed that most Mideast Christians are still deprived of the right to pray at the place where Jesus Christ was buried and rose again, according to their belief, due to political factors beyond their control.
The problem is Israel — or rather, that most Arab and Muslim countries consider Israel to be an illegitimate enemy state. Citizens who have even the slightest contact with it or its people are frequently punished under any number of formal bans and boycotts.
Recently, the Department of Preventive Health in Gaza City launched a campaign to test the swimming pools in public and private chalets to ensure that they comply with health and safety standards.
The head of department Mohammed Al-Ashi said that the campaign is being carried out around about 50 chalets within the city.
He explained that special equipment will be installed for each chalet, which will monitor the water quality, the chlorination system used in the swimming pools, and compliance with the technical safety conditions such as non slip flooring around the swimming pool to prevent slipping and a first aid box available at the chalet.
It looks like this came as a response to an investigative report from Palestine Today where it was revealed that many chalet owners are not properly chlorinating their water in the pools.
This is clearly a humanitarian crisis. I'm surprised the UN hasn't weighed in yet.
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In the The Jewish Times, March 26, 1909 Young Turk Dr. Riza Tewfik called himself a Zionist and said, "Palestine belongs to the Jews more than to us Musselmen (Muslims), we came to rule over this land many centuries after you had possessed it."
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The political order services it in turn. Bassil is not the only official Lebanese visitor to Washington in recent days. Last week, a delegation led by Ali Bazzi, an MP for the Amal party, was in town to discuss the US sanctioning of two Hezbollah lawmakers, which Bazzi called a threat to democracy.
Bazzi also compared Hezbollah to George Washington, saying: “George Washington fought the British occupation for the sake of freedom and independence, and also in my country there are people who resisted and are resisting occupation and terrorism.”
In April, a US official told an Emirati paper on background, “Hezbollah and Amal are one.” Regardless, Lebanese ministers who came to Washington at the time were reassured that Amal’s chief, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, would not be targeted with sanctions.
This is now a pattern. Lebanese delegates – both those allied with, and nominally opposed to, Hezbollah – all come to Washington and condemn any US action against Hezbollah, lobby to water down sanctions, and make the case for going soft on Lebanon, all while asking for continued aid even as they regularly collaborate with Hezbollah. The Lebanese government, in other words, is Hezbollah’s diplomatic and collections arm.
Washington’s long-standing policy that distinguishes between Hezbollah and the Lebanese state is sorely misguided. As Bassil’s relationship with Hezbollah exhibits, this distinction is a false one. An investment in Lebanon’s “state institutions” is an investment in the Hezbollah state.
On Monday, the United Nations Security Council held a discussion on the "Situation in the Middle East," with Israel participating. Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, revealed intelligence information about Iran's involvement in Hezbollah's buildup in Lebanon, with help from Syria, a direct violation of UN Resolution 1701.
"In the years 2018-2019, Israel found that dual-use items are smuggled into Lebanon to advance Hezbollah’s rocket and missile capabilities," Ambassador Danon revealed to the Council. "Iran and the Quds Force have begun to advance the exploitation of the civilian maritime channels, and specifically the Port of Beirut. The Port of Beirut has become the Port of Hezbollah."
According to Danon, Iran and Hezbollah were aided by Syrian agents who purchased the equipment from foreign civilian companies and transferred the equipment to Lebanon. These agents misled the companies when they officially unloaded the equipment at the Port of Beirut, but eventually succeeded in reaching Hezbollah's missile production facilities. Danon then asked the members: "Are you absolutely sure your companies are not the ones selling dual-use equipment to the hands of Hezbollah? Are you sure your citizens know the end-users of these dual-use items?"
A Lebanese citizen suspected of being an undercover Hezbollah agent was recently arrested at Entebbe International Airport by Ugandan intelligence agencies with the cooperation of the Mossad.
A report published by The Kampala Post on Tuesday said that Lebanese national Hussein Mahmoud Yassine was arrested on July 7 while boarding a flight to Lebanon via Addis Ababa. He had arrived at Entebbe International Airport from Tanzania earlier that day.
According to the report, the Mossad informed its Ugandan counterparts about Yassine due to the close intelligence relationship between the two countries. An anonymous intelligence source told The Kampala Post that Yassine was recruited to the terrorist group by a senior Hezbollah official called Ali Wahib Hussein, known as Abu Jihad.
Yassine, who is suspected of working for the Hezbollah foreign liaison unit and has lived and worked in Uganda since 2010, was reportedly tracked for months before his arrest.
According to the intelligence source, Hezbollah instructed Yassine to identify potential US and Israeli targets for terrorist attacks in Uganda; to recruit other Lebanese nationals for Hezbollah; and to attempt to recruit Muslim Ugandans to act as Hezbollah intelligence agents.
The source also revealed that Yassine had already identified at least 100 Lebanese citizens living in the country for potential recruitment, including some working with telecommunications provider Africell.
I reported in March that I was surprised and honored to have been part of a minyan, a prayer quorum, while visiting the Temple Mount.
For over five minutes, we prayed quietly and even answered Amen to a public Kaddish. The Waqf guards watched but did not interfere.
This has been happening more and more lately. The Jews, when circling the mount (we don't go to the middle of it for fear of walking on the actual site of the central part of the Holy Temples without proper purification) will typically pause directly east of the Dome of the Rock and pray.
It happened on Sunday during the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, which commemorates the breaching of the walls around Jerusalem by the Romans:
This appears to be a different group on Sunday, with an Arab making a video of the Jews from fairly close up:
This is all amazing. Quietly, Jews are finally being allowed their human rights to pray on their holiest spot.
It looks like these are usually happening during the afternoon tours of the Temple Mount.
More people should take advantage of this.
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Last week The Forward, quite predictably, published an op-ed by Jesse Steshenko where he claimed that the J-Street trip to Israel caused him to stop being a Zionist.
As I noted when the New York Times quoted him making that same claim, Steshenko had called Israel an "apartheid state" already in 2016, also saying that Israel had been occupying "Palestinian territory" for over 60 years - meaning that all of Israel is "occupied territory."While he claims in this article that he was a left-wing Zionist in the mold of Meretz, it is quite impossible to be a Zionist and then say that all of Israel is an illegal entity.
The Forward, of course, didn't bother to fact check Steshenko.
But as odd as it is to have someone claim to be a Zionist while saying that Israel is an illegal apartheid state, one of the commenters to his article is perhaps even odder.
This Sheldon Ranz is saying that he is a "Democratic Zionist" of Social Democrats USA, part of the "Palestinian-led" BDS movement.
Ranz is saying that Zionists can be proud BDS members!
No such possibility exists on the BDS Movement website. But indeed the Social Democrats USA claim to be Zionist while supporting BDS which is explicitly anti-Zionist.
The BDS Movement site lists lots of organizations that support BDS, but all of them are explicitly anti-Zionist. It doesn't include SDUSA as one of its partners. But SDUSA says it follows the boycotts of BDSM.
Leftist Jews have a remarkable capability for willful blindness.
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Stingray Music is one of the companies that provide curated music of many genres that they make available to cable TV services (usually in those high four-digit channels.)
Normally W/O means "without" so it sounds like this station specifically avoids playing Israeli music.
Stingray Muslc itself cannot be considered anti-Israel; they have a few Israeli stations.
And I cannot find any other station with the W/O formulation.
I emailed Stingray but received no response.
So - what gives?
(h/t Jonathan)
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Palestinians attacked Saudi journalist @mohsaud08 and kicked him out of Al-Aqsa Mosque, calling him "trash, traitor Zionist". Mohammad is a part of Arab journalists delegation visiting Israel this week. pic.twitter.com/abojmM6c6x
— Suleiman Maswadeh סולימאן מסוודה (@SuleimanMas1) July 22, 2019
— Suleiman Maswadeh סולימאן מסוודה (@SuleimanMas1) July 22, 2019
Disgusting welcome to this #Saudi blogger on #HaremAlSharif#AlAqsa A devout #Muslim, coming to pray at a historical mosque, spat on because he accepted an official invitation from #Israel. "Peace ☮️ will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us" (G.M). pic.twitter.com/gtSbuOnmd7
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To talk more effectively about the Holocaust, we need to think better about it, and that starts with the recognition that analogy is at the core of how people understand themselves and the world around them. They see one thing, and it reminds them of something else. They consider similarity and difference. Holding something apart from analogy entirely is a recipe for its irrelevance. Analogical thinking is a Jewish mode of thought, as well. The Maccabees, Queen Esther, the Exodus; all of these travel from antiquity into the present on analogical wings.
However, those who argue that Auschwitz is beyond comparison are correct to warn that analogy is always in danger of sliding into appropriation. Analogy intelligently done is alert to difference as well as similarity and requires the agility to temper the rush to comparison with the sober acknowledgment that there are distinctions that make a difference. Properly executed analogy is attuned not only to slogans and symbols, but to processes and complexity. It is a powerful tool because it is a limited one.
Holocaust appropriation is kidnapping. It is taking another’s pain whole cloth and importing it into a context where it generates more heat than light. It is necessarily shallow, because appropriators are more interested in surfaces than depth and detail. Unlike analogy, which does the hard work of comparison and contrast, appropriation does the easy task of proclaiming sameness. Being ethically sound and intellectually honest demands line drawing, not self-serving erasure. Appropriation picks favorites, obscuring the pain of some to highlight the suffering of others. Its memory is necessarily short and selective. There are those still living who looked “Angel of Death” Josef Mengele in the eye.
The onus must always be on those who invoke the Holocaust to do so justly. There are many kinds of injustice, and the burden of proof lies squarely on those who decide that Jewish suffering is the most apt prism through which to view a current issue. The better part of wisdom likely lies in declining to pursue such analogies, and when they are deployed, wielding them cautiously. Never Again, yes – but not Always and Everywhere. Ocasio-Cortez, use my people’s tragedy to inspire you to pursue justice. But never forget that when you speak, six million are listening.
Shuhada Street is a half-mile long road in the Palestinian city of Hebron in the West Bank. It was once the thriving market center of the city, frequented by Palestinians and Israelis daily. Today, it is a virtual ghost town, largely shut down by the Israeli military for security reasons. It has become central to the Palestinian narrative and the symbol of an alleged Israeli apartheid employed by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against the State of Israel.
Why Shuhada Street was closed, how the commercial center of Hebron has moved less than a mile from the now abandoned Shuhada Street and become a thriving market district seldom if ever visited by outsiders, and a place where Jews (not just Israelis, but Jews from any country) are banned is a story seldom told in full. It represents the true story of “apartheid” in Hebron. I visited the city last week and expose the myth of Shuhada Street for the first time here.
The Jewish connection to Hebron dates back almost 4,000 years to when Abraham, the father of Judaism, came to the Land of Israel and settled in the city. Abraham purchased a plot of land, known as the Cave of the Patriarchs, as a burial plot. The site is considered to be the final resting place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Jewish religion. It is also said that King David was anointed king in Hebron, and that Hebron was the first capital of Israel until it was moved to Jerusalem.
As a result of this historic significance, Jews have prayed in Hebron since biblical times, and with a few interruptions have lived there continuously. Hebron is considered to be the second holiest city for Jews after Jerusalem.
Hebron has a long and complicated history, having been conquered by many invading peoples, including the Babylonians, Romans, Byzantines, Muslim Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans, Mamelukes, and the British. Following the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, Hebron was captured and occupied by the Jordanian Arab Legion. During the Jordanian occupation, which lasted for 20 years, until 1967, Jews were not permitted to live in the city, nor to visit or pray at the Jewish holy sites in the city. No one complained of “apartheid.”
The manuscript was written between 1675 and 1685, and includes text in Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
Throughout the manuscript we can clearly see several instances in which Newton uses Hebrew script. For example, he analyzes the use of the Hebrew root רצף (rezef) and its modifications רצפה and רצפת (rizpah, rizpat), which can mean "sequence", "floor" or "flooring". The Aramaic words תא חזי (ta hezi) and תא שמע (ta shema) also appear in Hebrew script. These Talmudic phrases mean "come and see" and "come and hear", respectively. All of the Hebrew script appears alongside Latin translations and explanations.
In the left column, near the top of the page, we can see a Hebrew biblical verse, complete with vowel notations: Baruch shem kvod malchuto l’olam va’ed ("Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever"). According to Midrash, when Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, he heard the angels speak this verse to God.
Also in the left column of the page, we see commentaries from a Spanish Jesuit on the descriptions of the Temple that appear in the Book of Ezekiel.
To Newton, The Temple held significance for three main reasons. First, Newton saw the Jewish Temple as a model of the universe. He believed that the Temple in Jerusalem, and the courtyard surrounding it, was a model of the heliocentric solar system, with the raised altar (located in the center) representing the sun. Second, Newton's interest in the architecture of the temple was fueled by his belief that the Temple would serve as the "site of revelation" for the apocalypse. In addition, he believed that the Temple would be rebuilt in Jerusalem (with even greater magnificence than the original) at the onset of the Millennial Kingdom - that is, Christ’s reign on earth.
It dawned on me that all of Israel’s friends and defenders
have been wasting our time over the last several decades.
Instead of writing thoughtful essays that provide facts and perspectives
while making the case for the Jewish state, or organizing talks, educational
programs or other campaigns that present arguments in favor of our cause or
against our foes, we could all have spent that time doing something much
simpler, so simple that it requires almost no thought.
So what could we have been doing, rather than bombarding the
world with longwinded explanations based on facts and logic?
The answer is simplicity itself, and so easy to
implement. For all it would involve
would be to never use the term Palestine or Palestinian without first prefixing
it with the string of pejoratives titling this piece.
We would not have to be mindless robots uttering the same
phrase over and over again. Certainly
whenever we find ourselves in debate, we would make sure the words “racist,
sexist, homophobic, reactionary, totalitarian” precede the use of any reference
to Palestine, Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas (and maybe
their friends and allies throughout the Middle East). But we could get creative with the ways we
slip those words into the discussion over and over and over again. For instance:
Comparative: Yes, there is a difference between the
racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary, totalitarian, corrupt Palestinian
authority and the racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary, totalitarian,
religious fanatics in Hamas. But the two
have important things in common: they’re both racist, sexist, homophobic,
reactionary totalitarians.
Generous: You
are free to support all the racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary,
totalitarian political movements you like, including the racist, sexist,
homophobic, reactionary, totalitarian Palestinian movement. Just don’t also demand to be considered
progressive, much less tell us you get to decide who is anti-racist and who
isn’t.
Voltairian: I will fight to the death for your right
to scream your support for the racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary,
totalitarian Palestinian movement, and any other racists, sexists, homophobes,
reactionaries and totalitarians you like.
That is your right, just as it is my right to point out your choice to
give racism, sexism, homophobia, and reactionary totalitarians your
full-throated support.
Nostalgic: In my era, progressive politics meant
being against racism, sexism, homophobia, reaction and totalitarianism, so
forgive me if I choose to cling to those principles and fight against the evils
you have decided to embrace.
And on and on (so long as on and on means fusing our five
mantras to any mention of Israel’s enemies and their supporters).
Needless to say, actual political discourse, compromise or
the search for peace would have to be abandoned if this were our strategy. For the purpose of making the name
“Palestinian” synonymous with the worst sins of modernity is to reduce others
to objects of disgust and loathing, with no concern over the consequences.
This is, in fact, the strategy Israel’s enemies have
embraced for decades with their “Israel = Apartheid” smear, one they unleash in
every discussion, regardless of the topic under consideration. So the strategy outlined above is the most
straightforward way to fight fire with fire.
Now we would have to be willing to keep this up for not just
a few weeks or months, but for years and decades and we would have to put great
effort into getting others to follow our lead, or condemn them for their own
refusal to fight against racism, sexism, etc.
In short, we would have to be just as (if not more) ready and willing to
poison politics in order to try to get our rivals to be perceived as utterly
beyond the moral pale.
If both sides started playing the same game, victory would
go to those who could shout the loudest, ignore critics more thoroughly, and be
ready to shut down voices not willing to adhere to our vocabulary (by any means
necessary).
Perhaps it is our general wussiness that keeps us on the
course of dialog, discussion, argument, persuasion and compromise, rather than
jumping into the sewer with those who have made it their life’s work to see the
world’s one Jewish state dismantled.
Although given the state of Israel and the Jewish world – vulnerable
though it might be – versus the hell on earth Israel’s enemies have constructed
for themselves, perhaps hanging on to our humanity is a wise strategic, as well
as a moral choice.
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The UK Labour Party has published a manifesto on what is and what isn't antisemitic in a very late attempt to stem the PR damage from the hundreds of examples of antisemitism that have been documented from its members, as well as the coverups and excuses for that hatred.
Of course it is too little, too late, but the actual contents are fairly good. It even refers to the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
Here is part of how it deals with Zionism:
[O]pposition to the Israeli government must never use antisemitic ideas, such as attributing its injustices to Jewish identity, demanding that Jews in Britain or elsewhere answer for its conduct, or comparing Israel to the Nazis. Many Jews view calls for Israel to cease to exist as calls for expulsion or genocide. Arguing for one state with rights for all Israelis and Palestinians is not antisemitic, but calling for the removal of Jews from the region is. Anti-Zionism is not in itself antisemitic and some Jews are not Zionists. Labour is a political home for Zionists and anti-Zionists. Neither Zionism nor anti-Zionism is in itself racism.
I want to concentrate on the bolded section.
In theory, it should be possible to have a single state where everyone has equal rights. In that case, it shouldn't be antisemitic to advocate such a solution.
In reality, both the people who advocate a binational state and those who oppose it know the truth: it is merely a stage to ultimately make Jews into second class citizens, as they were in Muslim majority countries for centuries.
It would be very democratic of course - voting that mosques must be higher than synagogues, and that Jews cannot visit their holy sites that Muslims also claim, and soon enough that Jews must wear special clothing - and worse.
I gave lots of other reasons why a binational state is just a smokescreen for putting the Jews in their proper place as dhimmis, subject to attack from their woke Arab attackers, here.
In other words, saying that pushing a binational state is not antisemitic is like saying the Germans who built gas chambers weren't doing anything wrong since they merely made a building.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu interviewed by Boaz Bismuth and Amnon Lord
Asked about how he views the period since he first became prime minister in 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu said, "We discovered that we can leverage the basic characteristics of this people into exceptional strength in economics, defense and security, and diplomacy. We've proved that it is possible to turn Israel from a small country in a corner of the Middle East into a central world power."
"It's obvious that the lack of stability here [in the Middle East] is the result of the struggle between the Dark Ages and modernism - between the tyranny of radical Islam and the forces of freedom. That's the most important battle. That is what is destabilizing everything."
"Standing up to the fundamentalist Islam that wants to take over first the Middle East and then the entire world [is important]. If there's one element that is stabilizing the Middle East and fighting radical Islam here, it's Israel."
"[I told Russian President Vladimir Putin] that I would have to take action in Syria, that I wasn't willing to allow Iran to bring its army to our borders. They [Iran] announce their intention of annihilating us. 'What would you do?' I asked him. I told him that I was sure he would do the same as me."
"The [2015] nuclear deal...wasn't conditional on any change in [Iran's] behavior. The argument was that if Iran received millions as a result of the sanctions being lifted, it would become a moderate state. Today, we can judge....Right now, their policy is to quietly pursue nuclear weapons while also conquering the Middle East with the money that the eased sanctions sent flooding into Iran's coffers."
"You need to increase power, not maintain it. My outlook is built on bolstering our strengths. Without strength, we won't survive. The weak don't survive. A strong people forges alliances. So from the first moment, the main question about Israel's existence was whether we would be able to develop the strengths to not only confront our enemies but also be accepted by the rest of the world. The simple fact is that what makes the world accept you is, first and foremost, your strength."
In recent years, the White House has not concerned itself with the Arab world’s relationship with Israel or with curbing the actions of specific Arab nations regarding topics such as human rights or the funding of terror. But Washington has certainly factored in the collective contempt and desire among Sunni nations to reign in Iran’s mullahs and has used this to its advantage.
“Iran is an existential issue for the Arab states; the Palestinians are not,” said Eugene Kontorovich, professor at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School and director of its Center for International Law in the Middle East.
“Sunni Arab states need all the allies they can get against Iran, and Israel is one of them,” Kontorovich said. “Thus, they are no longer interested in a diplomatic solution that might endanger Israel's security.”
“The Trump administration has won vast amounts of goodwill in the (Persian) Gulf by canceling the JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal,) and this is one auxiliary consequence,” Kontorovich said.
It appears Sunni states have two major goals for their own interests: to keep terrorism out of their borders, thus ensuring the survival of the current leadership; and to curb the growing influence of Iran’s Shiite hegemonic agenda.
Peace between the Israelis and Palestinians – leading to a more cohesive, secure and thriving region – would help promote the Sunni states’ goals while cutting off a crucial nucleus of business for Iran’s regime.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met Monday with a delegation from the Palestinian terror group Hamas and held talks with its deputy chief, Saleh al-Arouri, who is heading the delegation.
Khamenei told the Hamas officials that supporting the Palestinians “is an ideological and religious matter” and strongly condemned the Mideast peace plan pushed by US President Donald Trump’s administration, which he said the Palestinians have “precision missiles” to resist.
“The dangerous conspiracy of the ‘Deal of the Century’ is aimed at destroying the Palestinian identity among the Palestinian public and youth,” an English statement on his website quoted him as saying.
“Confronting the Deal of the Century requires promotional, cultural, and intellectual efforts and the other method is to make the Palestinians feel advancement. Today Palestinians are equipped with precision missiles rather than stones and this means the feeling of advancement,” Khamenei added.
He also said “the return of this holy land [Israel] to the World of Islam is not a strange and unattainable matter” and called Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s goal of praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount “an absolutely practical and achievable aspiration for us.”
Al-Arouri told the Iranian leader that “we believe that based on the divine promise, Qods, and Palestine will be freed from the tyranny of the Zionists,” according to the statement from Khamenei’s office.
Saleh al-Arouri, deputy head of the Hamas "political bureau" and his accompanying delegation, met with Khamanei and posed for a photo op.
Hamas declared that they fully support Iran in its conflict with America, as one would expect from a terror organization. Arouri said that any attack by the US on Iran will be tantamount to an attack on Hamas. (Which makes the other Hamas statement of having sleeper cells around the world suddenly seem more important than the news media thought.)
In a letter delivered to Khamanei from Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas, he said that the the "deal of the century" is a serious plot is to eliminate Palestinian identity between the Palestinian people and youth, where this main idea must be confronted and not allow the elimination of Palestinian identity for money.
If Palestinian identity is that fragile, then maybe it isn't worth fighting for. Then again, if there was no Israel there would be no Palestinian identity to begin with. It only exists for one reason.
Unfortunately, Hamas and Iran aren't the only parties who are dead set against a US-backed deal to find a way towards peace. They are joined by Mahmoud Abbas, the EU and the Democratic Party.
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Standing on a balcony at the New Imperial Hotel, overlooking Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City, 75-year-old Walid Dajani last week declared a one-man war on Jewish settlers.
Because obviously Jews have no right to Jerusalem.
According to Dajani, the settlers – who seek to create a Jewish majority throughout the Old City which, along with East Jerusalem, was annexed by Israel in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 – are enacting “the rape of Jaffa Gate”.
Because obviously Jews have no right to Jerusalem.
Archbishop Theodosius Attulah, spokesperson for the Greek Orthodox church, criticised the supreme court decision, saying the sale was fraudulent. “The Christian properties have been a target for 70 years, but this is the most dangerous so far. It is aimed at marginalising Palestinian influence and weakening the Christian presence in the Old City. It will not be tolerated.
“Jerusalem is sacred to the three monotheistic religions, the purpose of the move is to transform the city into a place of hatred and struggle,” he said.
Because while the Archbishop might believe that Jerusalem is holy to Jews, they aren't allowed to buy land there. Buying land is a manifestation of hate, calling the buyers "rapists" is apparently Christian love.
The showdown is the culmination of a lengthy court wrangle dating back to a suspect secret sale of Greek Orthodox-owned properties to settlers, authorised by a now deposed Greek Patriarchate.
It is "now deposed" because it legally sold land to Jews!
The Greek Orthodox church, the largest private landowner in Israel and the occupied territories, has often sold property in East Jerusalem to Jewish settlers who deploy dubious means to secure deals.
Since the Arabs are bigots who threaten to kill anyone who sells land to Jews, yes, Jews who want to buy land have to jump through hoops. But to the Guardian, Jews have no rights, so - how dare they work so hard to get around Arab antisemitism
The New Imperial Hotel was sold behind Dajani’s back, despite the fact that he is a protected tenant, and the $1.8m deal for the three properties was signed by a Greek official who has since disappeared.
I am unaware of how a buyer of a property needs permission from the renters. But The Guardian believes this is true - at least when Jews are the buyers.
Dajani fears representatives of the settlers will seek entry to the hotel any day. He has been watching his security cameras and monitoring suspicious activity on hotel booking websites. He says he has learned that hotel “clients” linked to the settler group had taken rooms in the hotel through Booking.com and were already inside the property. He has closed the rooftop restaurant to prevent incursions from adjoining buildings.
Because illegal squatters have more rights than Jews who pay top dollar for the property.
Even so, looking across from the Imperial’s roof to the Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the city’s other sacred sites, Dajani’s shoulders slumped a little. “We have to do the impossible,” he said. “When I look at the walls opposite, I see them cry, asking: ‘Where are the people who love Jerusalem?
Perhaps they are the ones who risk millions of dollars to buy property there when the Supreme Court often rules against them. Perhaps they are the ones who get chased and stabbed by Arabs in the Old City. Perhaps they are the ones who pray - multiple times a day for Jerusalem to be restored fully to their control - when the entire world believes otherwise.
(h/t Yosef)
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Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
