Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, September 04, 2019

Ryan Bellerose: Indigenous Has Nothing to Do with Time and Everything to Do with Connection (Judean Rose)

Ryan Bellerose (photo credit: The Real Jerusalem Streets)

Ryan Bellerose as an advocate for Israel seems an unlikely choice. Now 43, Ryan grew up in Northern Alberta, Canada. He spent half the year living with his dad on the Métis Settlement in Paddle Prairie, and half with his mother in town.

As an adult, Ryan has had an eclectic career trajectory. He operated heavy machinery in the far north, running bulldozers and backhoes; worked in forestry as a guide; fought wildfires, built ice bridges; and served as a GPS GIS consultant. From there he moved into security contracting, and then on to Telecom as a business analyst.

Nope. It’s hard to connect the dots from any of those things to supporting Israel. The only way to really understand Ryan Bellerose on Israel, is to listen to him. On social media, he is blunt, sometimes to the point of rudeness. If you say something he deems stupid, he won’t hold back. He will call you “asshat.” But he will also tell you the truth as he sees it. And I see that as a valuable commodity in a friend.

Ryan is one of the more interesting people I know in the pro-Israel advocacy world. And he is awesome. I present him here to you, warts and all:

Varda Epstein: People like to label. I am pretty sure a lot of people, when they think of you or have to describe you to others, say, at least in their minds, “Ryan is that pro-Israel Native American guy.” You’re Métis. Can you tell us a bit about the Métis people, and your genealogy?

Ryan Bellerose: My people are Métis and Cree. My father is Métis and Cree, his father was Métis, and his Mother was Cree/Métis. Our family traces back to the first Métis families and communities.

Varda Epstein: What is your connection to the politics of your community, the Métis people, and if relevant, to other indigenous peoples?

Ryan Bellerose: My father, Mervin Bellerose, was heavily involved in the indigenous struggle in Canada. He cowrote the Métis Settlements Act of 1989, was the chairman of the Paddle Prairie Métis Settlement Council for several years, and also served as its resource coordinator, which is like being chief.

Merv was also a founding member of the Settlements Appeal Tribunal (MSAT). Having watched him growing up, I realised early on that I would be a terrible politician because I have a low tolerance for BS. I have been asked to run for office, but I think the problem with Indian politics is that they are a familyocracy rather than a meritocracy. I would, of course, make an excellent benevolent dictator, but those jobs are in short supply!

Ryan Bellerose (left) and his father, Mervin Bellerose

Varda Epstein: When did you first become conscious of Israel as more than just a foreign country?

Ryan Bellerose:I have had several “epiphanies” but honestly when I started to make friends with actual Israelis, that’s when I became more motivated to learn about these strange yet familiar people and their customs and ways. When you see people as people and not concepts it changes how you see everything. Jews are kind of mysterious to non-Jews, once I got past that, everything else came easy.

Ryan with a friend.

Varda Epstein: You have made a lot of enemies, even among Jews. Why is that?

Ryan Bellerose: Wow, you aren’t lobbing me any softballs, lol. To be blunt, I think that people don’t like to be reminded of their flaws and inconsistencies, and having someone who is not only willing to have hard conversations, but who is unapologetic about it, scares them.

Jews have become used to non-Jews being ignorant about Jewish history and culture at best, and hostile at worst. Many Jews themselves became complacent about their identity and so having some random Indian who isn’t Jewish, say “It’s important for Jews to BE Jews” can be threatening. After all if someone hasn’t really considered their identity much or spent any effort understanding it, having an outsider tell you how important it is, could be seen as a hostile act.

My father has a saying “ comfort is the enemy of identity” and he used that to explain to me why Métis who lived in the bush, stayed Métis, while many who went to live among the whites, assimilated at the first opportunity. I talk a lot about the importance of identity, and for people who struggle with their own identity, being told how important it is, can be daunting. It’s easier to attack the guy talking about it, than to really dive deep into the subject.

Ryan Bellerose at the Kings Hotel, in Jerusalem (photo credit: The Real Jerusalem Streets)

I am going to say something controversial here, I believe that often antisemitism is rooted in jealousy and a feeling of “why do these people think they are so special?” I believe that the Jews who are upset with me are motivated by something similar: they are upset because a non-Jew not only spent the time and effort learning about Jews and Judaism that they have not, but that he has actually shown some insight that they lack but feel entitled to. They’re thinking:

“What’s so special about this guy?”

I always say “knowledge comes from effort, not osmosis.” This bothers my critics who up until now, always got away with simply saying “I am a Jew therefore I automatically know more about Jews than any non Jew”.

I think those Jews get upset that a non-Jew would even spend the time learning about Jews. I find that Jews who are very strong in their identity, are comfortable with me and the way I speak because they understand it comes from a place of commonality: I am not trying to replace them and I actually listen and apply what I hear.

I spent time listening to and talking to actual Rabbis, and scholars BEFORE forming my opinions. I take that information, filter it through my lens, and share my insights and what I have learned. And one thing I have learned is that there is always more to learn, and that it’s a lot of work but it’s totally worth it, lol.

Ryan at AIPAC with Iris Breidbord Langman

Varda Epstein: Ryan, let’s stipulate: you’re smart. Growing up, were you smarter than the other kids you knew? Were you always this tough and straightforward?

Ryan Bellerose: Haha. I was pretty precocious. Merv (my dad) used to say that if there was a question I hadn’t asked, he never heard it lol.

Growing up, I tended to get in trouble a lot because I was always doing things like building a parachute out of my grandmother’s handmade quilt and some binder twine and other ridiculous things. I was the youngest grandchild on my father’s side for most of my early childhood, but was kind of the ringleader of my older cousins because of my “plans.” I was also really good at talking my way out of trouble when those plans invariably went awry.

Ryan with Roseanne Barr

Varda Epstein: I had always imagined you as a little boy, reading some book about Israel and discovering this indigenous people who got back their land, and that the idea gave you hope.

Ryan Bellerose: I was always pro-Israel because as a kid, out of everything I learned during my Catholic school days, I always liked the Maccabee stories best. I actually pissed off the priest once: they were asking all the kids which story was their favourite in the bible and why, and I said "I like the story of the Maccabees," and then I said, "Because they kicked ass."

Hahahaha. They sent me home.

Merv still laughs about all my arguments with the priest, lol. Father Mercredi just hated me, I think.

Ryan Bellerose has worn many hats, including this helmet, back when he played defensive tackle for the Calgary Wolfpack

Varda Epstein: Ouch. Hated you not just on Mercredi, but on every day of the week?

Ryan Bellerose: Hahahaha. But back then, in my school days, Israel was just an ancient place that I thought was kind of cool, and I always sided with the Jews against the Hellenists and the Romans, lol.

When my dad brought me that book about Entebbe, "Operation Thunderbolt," Israel was still sort of a mythical place to me. But when I started getting to actually know Israelis, suddenly It was like it all came together: this place I had always thought of as somewhat mythical was not just real, but that it was a group of indigenous people who somehow made it happen.

You might say I was interested in historical Israel when I was young, probably 7 or 8, then again in junior high, but it was just after university that I started realising that the struggle of the Jewish people was so similar to my people, and it all started because an anti-Israel asshat invited me into a political discussion group to "educate" me. That’s where I met a terrible person named Greta Berlin and she pissed me off so I started standing up for Israel and wrote my first article in 2013.

Varda Epstein: I don’t know about your first article, but I certainly remember Who’s Indigenous as I believe I did some light editing on that one, and even gave it its title, on Dave Lange’s Israellycool site.

I link to that piece all the time because it’s so damned good. And not because I fixed a few typos or gave it a name. It’s brilliant, Ryan. But why do people think “indigenous” as it relates to people, means the people who were there first? How can we change their minds?

Ryan Bellerose: It’s because they use Wikipedia and YouTube for everything. “Indigenous” in regard to human beings, means your people had a cultural development and a coalescence as a people on an ancestral land. It has nothing to do with time and everything to do with connection. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and when it comes to indigenous status, this truism is even more valid.

Varda Epstein: Can you tell us about your friendship with Ari Fuld?

Ryan Bellerose: I don’t really like talking about Ari. I am not really a sociable person and I don’t make a lot of friends. So losing an actual friend was hard.

Ari was a good man who was underappreciated when he was alive. I don’t think people understood the amount of effort or work that Ari put into the pro-Israel cause. I remember how much it bothered me to see people mocking his strength of purpose and calling him stuff like “zealot” when really all he was doing was defending his people and showing everyone by example, what it means to be a proud, strong Jew who is unapologetic about being Jewish.

Also, the dude was tireless. I mean I am known for being online a lot and all over the place attending pro- and anti-Israel events and filming and confronting asshats, and if anything: Ari was even more busy than I was, lol. This was a guy who walked the walk.

We were kind of sympatico from the start. Neither of us tolerated fools and we could both be blunt, but either of us would do anything for the people we care about. I think if there were more Ari's the world would be a better place. I always say that Ari is still here, because as long as there are people out there fighting for what’s right, Ari will be remembered.

From left to right: Ari Fuld (HY"D), Dr. Nan Greer, cofounder and executive director of Alistar International, and Ryan Bellerose

Varda Epstein: Ryan, how do you see your role within the Jewish community. Do you see yourself as having a role? Wouldn’t your straightforward style tend to rule out your eligibility to serve as an ambassador?

Ryan Bellerose:I think I am a bridge-builder and a supporting character in the story of the Jewish people. I think I am both a teacher and a student, because while I may have changed the outlook of many Jews and helped them see that they are indigenous people, they have changed me and helped me learn a lot about myself and identity in general.

I would be a terrible ambassador because ambassadors are politicians and I am not a politician. A politician tries to compromise and see both sides, and I am an advocate. I see the other side’s arguments but I advocate for MY side. I do not compromise unless it’s absolutely necessary because I’m not here to help the other side: They have their own advocates. So that’s not how I see my role anyway.

I am a friend, an advocate, an educator and a pathfinder. I am teaching non-Jews that Jews are just people who should be treated like you would treat anyone else, and I am teaching Indians that we need to stand with indigenous people based on facts not feelings.

Ryan, with my favorite people, the Hyman family of Efrat (photo courtesy: Leora Hyman)

I am a pathfinder because Jews need someone they trust to be consistent and keep their word, who isn’t gonna cut and run when things get tough. The truth is that Jewish history is very similar to ours insofar as people lying to us, misleading us, and such, so in order for us to have an ambassador, we need to build bridges of trust first. That’s not easy, especially with traumatised people on both sides.

Earlier you asked me why I have so many enemies and honestly I think a large part of it has to do with my consistency. I may evolve, I may change some of my beliefs, but the core of my beliefs never changes or wavers and that scares people. I am not pro-Israel or pro-Jewish out of a religious notion or some love of democracy. I don’t see Israel as a bastion of the west in the Middle East. I genuinely love and respect Jewish people because you are indigenous people, just like me, only unlike me, you overcame massive obstacles to obtain self-determination on your ancestral lands WHILE NEVER LOSING WHO YOU ARE.

You guys have a saying during Passover, Dayenu, and it applies for me here. If you had only ever given us an example of what indigenous people can accomplish, despite all odds?

It would have been enough.

Varda Epstein: Can you describe for us your spiritual outlook, what it was and how it has changed through the years? What changed it?

Ryan Bellerose:I follow traditional Cree spirituality. It’s a pantheistic belief system that my people have always followed. Basically we believe in the Creator of all things, that we are all part of the Creator but we are not the Creator.

I was raised Roman Catholic because that was my mother’s belief system, My father was extremely anti-religion because of his experiences with residential schools. I was pretty religious growing up and I slowly learned more about the issues within the Church and historically and how it treated my people and drifted away. When my fiancée was killed, I left religion entirely.

My first trip to Israel was the push to return to my indigenous beliefs. It took visiting the birthplace of Christianity to understand that I wasn’t meant to be Christian but that there was something deep and important missing from my life.

I advocate cultural resurgence, so I needed to walk the walk. Relearn my language. Learn my own people’s belief system and try harder to decolonise.

Ryan with my friend Michael Behar, in Seattle

Varda Epstein: What is your life goal?

Ryan Bellerose: the short answer? To leave things better than I found them. The detailed answer? To have enough money to be comfortable; start a family and continue my family line; to build bridges between indigenous peoples; and hopefully see the resurgence of my people. I have been blessed to meet a lot of cool and interesting people along the way.

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.

Ever notice that only Zionist trips to Israel are obligated to be "balanced" but not anti-ZIonist trips?

One of the more disingenuous parts of groups like IfNotNow demnding that Zionist organizations like Birthright include an anti-Zionist point of view is that no one - and I mean no one - ever even considers politely requesting so-called "pro-Palestinian" groups include the Zionist narrative in their discussions.

The reason this comes up is a small article in the PLO website. A delegation of students and professors from Glasgow University and from a university in California attended an "educational program on history, the Palestinian cause and Israeli violations against our people and their violation of international law" this summer.

Is anyone demanding that the PLO allow these students and professors to speak to Israelis, let alone Jewish settlers?

The very idea is absurd. Because absolutely no one expects Palestinians to be even-handed, or fair, or unbiased. No one demands that they consider Israeli positions as having any validity, or even that they have the right to be spoken out loud.

Birthright does give students an opportunity to ask about and learn about the Palestinian perspective. Do the anti-Israel tours - whether from the PLO or from Breaking the Silence or International Solidarity Movement - allow similar opportunities in their tours?

We all know the answer. According to these so-called progressives, Zionist groups must include an anti-Zionist narrative and anti-Zionist groups must also teach an anti-Zionist narrative. Pro-Zionist voices must be shut down or drowned out, because only one side has any legitimacy according to these people who congratulate themselves on how open-minded they are - in one direction.

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09/04 Links Pt1: Trump Writes off West Bank and Gaza as Separate Country; EU Funding of Illegal Palestinian Settlement in Area C; Any Way You Slice it, Hezbollah Had a Very Bad Month

From Ian:

David Singer: Trump Writes off West Bank and Gaza as Separate Country

Kerry frankly admitted that America’s decision to abstain on United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 on 23 December 2016:
“was about preserving the two-state solution. That’s what we were standing up for: Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state, living side by side in peace and security with its neighbors. That’s what we are trying to preserve for our sake and for theirs.”

Kerry was consumed by his own ignorance and arrogance when proclaiming:
“Today, there are a number – there are a similar number of Jews and Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. They have a choice. They can choose to live together in one state, or they can separate into two states. But here is a fundamental reality: if the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic – it cannot be both – and it won’t ever really be at peace. Moreover, the Palestinians will never fully realize their vast potential in a homeland of their own with a one-state solution.”

It obviously did not dawn on Kerry that there was another alternative to his “one state or two states” mantra: the division of the West Bank and Gaza between Israel, Jordan and Egypt in direct face to face negotiations to complete the allocation of sovereignty in former Palestine between Arabs and Jews first contemplated by the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Conference and the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, and the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

Obama and Kerry’s treacherous act of abstaining on Resolution 2334 was swiftly repudiated by the House passing H -Res 11 by 342 votes to 80 on 5 January 2017.

The PLO has committed political hara-kiri since – refusing to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s yet-to-be-released peace plan – vacating the field to other Arab states including Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to fill the negotiating void.

The State Department’s recently re-designed website sends a clear message to Arab states wanting to end the Jewish-Arab conflict to come to the negotiating table.

PMW: Is the PA trying to ignite a new terror campaign?

Is the PA trying to ignite a new terror campaign? In anticipation of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit to Hebron and the Cave of the Patriarchs today, the PA Ministry of Religious Affairs has threatened "religious war."

The ministry compared Netanyahu's visit to the visit of then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount in 2000, which then PA Chairman Arafat exploited to ignite the PA's 5-year terror campaign - the Intifada. Over a period of 5 years, more than 1,100 Israelis were murdered in terror attacks that included numerous suicide bombings:
"The Ministry of Religious Affairs emphasized in a statement it published yesterday that Netanyahu's visit constitutes a grave escalation and a blow to the Muslims' sensibilities, and that it will drag the region into a religious war whose consequences will be grave. It reminds us of [Israeli Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon's visit in Jerusalem (i.e., to the Temple Mount) in 2000, which ignited the Al-Aqsa Intifada."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 4, 2019]

The PA ministry also encouraged violence and confrontations:
"The ministry called on our people to defend the Ibrahim Mosque and prevent all of the plans to take it over and remove the Muslims from it. He called on the international community to help and stop the Israeli actions, out of fear that the entire area will go up in flames."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 4, 2019]

PMW: Terror umbrella group thwarts US organized conferences in Ramallah

While the cancellation of at least two events planned by the US embassy and scheduled to be held in Ramallah is significant, the fact that the organization taking credit for thwarting the events is the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces should possibly raise alarm.

During the September 2000 - 2005 terror war initiated by the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces functioned as the umbrella organization for coordination between many different terrorist groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Recently, one of the founders of Hamas, Hassan Yousef, elaborated on how Hamas terror activities during the terror war were coordinated with the PA under and directed by Yasser Arafat, and the active role played by the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces.

Hamas founder Hassan Yousef: “We were in contact with Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (Hamas founder and leader), regular daily contact with Sheikh Yassin’s office. And for your information, at the time my office was the [Hamas] Movement’s gateway to the PA. Yasser Arafat was here in Ramallah, and did not leave, to the point that everything that the [Hamas] movement wanted I would convey [to Arafat], and we would sit and reach understandings, and discuss and talk among ourselves. For instance, Yasser Arafat would say to us: ‘At this stage we want to calm things,’ and we would calm them. There was mutual agreement. [Arafat would say]: ‘This time we want to move together and encourage things’ - and there were mutual understandings. The national relations were at the highest level at that time...”

Yasser Arafat coordinated Hamas and PA terror, says Hamas founder Hassan Yousef

IMPACT-se has been looking at Palestinian textbooks for years, and this year they find the same sort of incitement and antisemitism they have in the past. It encourages second graders to sacrifice themselves for Palestine in poetry, it makes terrorists into heroes, it uses slingshots against Israeli soldiers as physics examples and counts numbers of "martyrs" in math lessons.

But this school year the texts are more notable for what they omit.

In previous years, the textbooks at least mentioned the previous peace agreements and conferences between Israel and the PLO - the Oslo Accords, Wye River Agreement, Annapolis Conference of 2007 and so forth.

They are all erased.

Jordan's peace treaty with Israel - erased.

The textbooks have also removed examples of Jewish history in the land that were in previous editions:

 Recognition and acknowledgement of Israel and its establishment in 1948.
 Yasser Arafat’s call for a new era of coexistence, peace, and non-violence.
 Negotiations with Israel as the ultimate goal to live side-by-side in peace and security.
 The name "Israel" on two maps of a history textbook for eleventh grade.
 Meetings between Israelis and PLO leading to peace negotiations.
 Jewish historical presence and connection to Jerusalem as the Jews’ capital for that period.
 Ancient Jewish kingdoms in Palestine such as "The Jews' David's Kingdom," "the Northern
Kingdom of Israel," "the Kingdom of Judea."
 A map titled "Palestine in the Reign of Prophet David" with an accompanying passage about
the "Children of Israel."
 The Jewish revolt of Bar Kokhba in Jerusalem.

All erased.

Jewish history is whitewashed and eliminated from the curriculum.

These aren't textbooks - they are propaganda and incitement.

As IMPACT-se writes, "The two-state solution and peace and coexistence with Israel are not options to be advocated within textbooks. There is no hint at even a possibility of solving the conflict with Israel peacefully. "

IMPACT-se also notes:

In addition, the text of Yasser Arafat’s letter of mutual recognition to Yizhak Rabin is presented with what appears to be intentional deletions. Arafat announced that the signing of the Declaration of Principles was an "historic event opening a new era of coexistence in peace and stability, an era without violence," and proclaimed the PLO's commitment to "assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance." Both appeared in the previous curriculum. Instead, violent struggle for the liberation of Palestine in its entirety is propagated. Jews and Israel are delegitimized and demonized to such a degree that one cannot perceive either as partners for peaceful coexistence.

Even Arafat's pretense of wanting peace and ending terror against Israel is gone.

Everyone who blames Israel for the lack of peace in the region studiously ignores how the PLO has been methodically raising generations not for peace but for war and terror. This is why there is no peace, period.

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Haaretz published an article by Muhammad Shehada, a "writer and civil society activist from the Gaza Strip and a student of Development Studies at Lund University, Sweden. He was the PR officer for the Gaza office of the Euro-Med Monitor for Human Rights."

Shehada is very upset at how the Arab world is embracing Israel, and he is trying to tell everyone that cooperation between Israel and Arab states will be a disaster for the world.

There was something unprecedented about the latest escalation between Israel and Hezbollah - and it's got nothing to do with firepower.

For the first time in the Israeli-Arab conflict, significant Arab officials (and mouthpieces for Arab regimes) openly and unabashedly took Israel’s side over their fellow Arabs, while others fell silent
.
Bahrain’s Foreign Minister attacked Lebanon's government for "standing by, watching battles taking place on its borders," the UAE foreign minister said - in a dig at Hezbollah - "The decision to make war, peace or stability should be the decision of the state," Saudi regime loyalists cheered and applauded Israel’s attack on "the ugly face of Iran," and the crown prince of Gulf Likudnik trolls, Mohammed Saud, declared: "Netanyahu knows what to do against Hezbollah."

Not long ago, such full-throated support for Israel from states and their subjects who don’t even officially recognize Israel would have been astonishing. Not long ago it was the expectation that any even tentative references to Israel had to be justified by - at least - paying lip service to the Palestinian cause, or the peace process.

One word has changed it all: Iran.

So far, so good. Who could be against peace, whether de facto or de jure, between Israel and the Arab world?

Palestinians, that's who.

Shehada explains how peace is a bad thing because it is "humiliating."

This [normalization] paradigm embraces the humiliating, defeatist path of normalizing relations with Israel regardless of, and untethered from, any progress on the Palestinian front, because: Iran.
...
What a victory for Benjamin Netanyahu: he can present himself as the pioneer who broke the normalization game and exposed its fragility, while offering a vision of another new Middle East which doesn’t require any practical or ideological retreat vis-a-vis the Palestinians.

Along the way, he accumulates domestic political capital by framing himself as a King who can twist Arab leaders’ arms, humiliating - if not forcing - them into submission.

Indeed, it’s a common belief in the Arab world that Netanyahu deliberately humiliates Arab officials engaged in normalization, whether this is grounded in fact or not.

Is there a better example of how the honor/shame dynamic is an enemy of finding a win-win solution?

Notice how Shahada ignores the other benefits of relations with Israel - cooperation in intelligence, science, technology, education. He places it in terms only of opposing Iran - and yet, even on that factor alone, Arab nations are still acting in their self-interest in allying with Israel, a fact that Gazans like Shehada want to disappear.

And they’re ignoring the depth of Arab popular solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Netanyahu himself has admitted that the biggest threat to normalization is grassroots Arab opposition: "The greatest obstacle to the expansion of peace today is not found in the leaders of the countries around us. The obstacle is public opinion on the Arab street," he declared at the event marking the 40th anniversary of Sadat’s Knesset speech.

Yet Egypt and Jordan, which are the most antisemitic states in the world, maintain that peace because it is in their self-interest. It would be wonderful if Israel was accepted completely, but Arab antisemitism (not solidarity with Palestinians, whom they really don't care about) is what prevents it. Still, who will argue that Israel's peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan are a bad thing?

Only Palestinians.

Normalization without any progress on Palestine is a trap: covert cooperation is fine, but public acts have to be kept occasional, and contained, for fear of a potentially destabilizing public outcry.

Actually, the number of articles in Gulf Arab media openly touting cooperation with Israel are increasing. Most Arabs will never embrace Jews in positions of power in the Middle East but they will accept a strong Jewish state, the way they accept a strong Christian West.

For any peace process, the implications are severe. Israeli-Arab normalization has always been one of the last bargaining chips Palestinians retained in peace negotiations. Losing that leverage leaves Palestinians cornered, isolated and in despair, increasing the possibility of an explosion of chaos in the occupied territories.

So, in the end, Shehada falls back on the oldest trope in the Palestinian arsenal: If we don't get what we want we will start to kill people.

This article proves the opposite of what it tries to prove: that the main obstacle to peace is Palestinian rejectionism, not Israeli actions. Israel can co-exist with Arabs in the Middle East, but Palestinians have rejected all peace offers because their real goal is the destruction of Israel in stages, and Israel will never accept that.

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In response to the news that Benjamin Netanayahu will visit the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron today, Palestinian Chief Justice Mahmoud al-Habbash stated that "the infringement of the Palestinian territories and Islamic holy sites for electoral contests is a crime and a violation of the Palestinian rights in the land and holy sites, and a flagrant violation of international laws and resolutions of international legitimacy, especially resolutions of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization "UNESCO", which confirmed more than once that the city of Hebron and the Ibrahimi Mosque It is a pure Islamic heritage and there is no right for non-Muslims in it like the Temple Mount and the Old City of Jerusalem."

Is that what UNESCO said?

In 2017, UNESCO declared the old city of Hebron to be a "Palestinian heritage site." But its description of the Cave of the Patriarchs does not say that it was an Islamic holy site alone:

The main monument of the town is the centrally sited Al Haram Al-Ibrahimi Mosque/The Tomb of the Patriarchs. Elements of the current building date back to long before the Mamluk Period, as do its religious associations and the reasons why it is revered by Christians, Jews and Muslims alike. The mosque is said to host the remains of God’s prophet Abraham/ Ibrahim, his wife Sara, their sons Isaac and Jacob and their wives Rebecca and Leah, as well as Jacob’s son Joseph. (?)
There is reference in the Book of Genesis to Abraham purchasing the field for the tomb. The sanctity of the tomb site was known from as early as the Herodian Period, (1st century BCE) when a monumental enclosure was built around the sacred Cave of Machpelah, whose location is now lost. This enclosure of massive, finely dressed stone blocks still frames the mosque and within it are structures that reflect later Fatimid, Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods. The great covered prayer hall was constructed in 12th century out of the remains of the Crusaders 11th century Romanesque church which in turn arose from the ruins of a 7th century mosque.

Habbash is lying - UNESCO never declared Hebron or the Tomb of the Patriarchs to be "Islamic," let alone exclusively Islamic. It recognizes that that main frame of the site was built in Herodian times, under Jewish self-rule. It also recognizes that it was a holy Jewish (and Christian) site way before Islam.

UNESCO simply declared it Palestinian based on the world believing that it is part of a mythical nation that never existed. But it never said a word about it being exclusively Muslim.

Given that under international law, people have the right to visit their holy sites, Palestinians are lying when they try to ban Jews from worship in sites that were holy 2000 years before Mohammed ever soiled his first diaper.

I also will note that already in 2009, when "Palestine" first bid to join UNESCO, they made it clear that the primary purpose of them joining that organization was to ban Jews from holy sites.

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Palestinian Islamists want to start a new intifada over Netanyahu visiting Hebron Wednesday

JPost reports:

Expectations are high for a dramatic announcement on Wednesday, when Benjamin Netanyahu will make Israeli history by becoming the first prime minister to deliver a public address in Hebron. The event is a state ceremony at the Tomb of the Patriarchs marking 90 years since Arab rioters killed 67 Jews in the biblical city, thereby decimating the ancient Jewish community.

No Israeli prime minister has ever attended or spoken at such a ceremony in Hebron, and few have ever visited the city.

IMEMC describes the news this way:

A group of fanatic illegal Israeli colonialist settlers installed, Tuesday, a large tent in Tal Romeida Palestinian neighborhood in Hebron city, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, to welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who intends to conduct a provocative visit to the city, Wednesday.

Palestine Today has the Waqf's reaction:

The Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs warned of the serious repercussions in the occupied city of Hebron after Israeli settlers erected large tents in the Tel Rumeida area in preparation for receiving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday under the pretext of participating in official rituals to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Buraq Revolution.

The Ministry of Endowments pointed out that Netanyahu's visit and what is happening in the occupied city of Hebron is a reminder of Ariel Sharon's visit to Jerusalem in 2000, which ignited the Al-Aqsa Intifada, stressing that the visit is a serious escalation and prejudice to the feelings of Muslims, and dragging the region to a religious war that will have great consequences.

When they say that an Israeli peacefully visiting a Jewish holy place is going to ignite a religious war, they mean they want to ignite a religious war. Appealing to religious sensibilities is the most effective way they have to rouse Palestinians to attack.

I'm happy any time an Israeli leader visits Hebron, but I wish it didn't feel like an election stunt.

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09/03 Links Pt2: Daily Mail distributes a million maps listing Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital; Paul Robeson’s Unapologetic Stalinism and the Fate of Soviet Jewry; AOC pans Israel’s ‘inhumane policies,’ insists she isn’t anti-Semitic

From Ian:

Daily Mail distributes a million maps listing Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital

The 975,000 thousand or so British news consumers who purchased the Sunday, Sept. 1st print edition of the Daily Mail (The Mail on Sunday) gotta nice freebie: a “giant, glossy” map of the world featuring “essential geographical facts“.

Here’s a promotion of their special offer on Twitter, noting that the map is “just in time for going back to school”.

However, they got one “essential geographical fact” wrong, as you can see here in this close-up of the Middle East section of the map.

Elsewhere on the map, it makes clear that the square icons (which you see next to Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, and Amman) represent the capitals. So, the maps from the Daily Mail delivered “just in time for school” contain a blatant factual inaccuracy about Israel.

Despite the fact that we’ve posted countless times on this issue, and contacted editors to remind them that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, usually resulting in corrections, this mistake continues to crop up periodically. Though we contacted Daily Mail editors to ask for a prominent editor’s note acknowledging the error, in light of the fact that the claim was made in an actual paper map that nearly one million Britons received (and not merely online), the damage can’t really be undone.

✏️Today's crossword clue: The Holy Land (9)

Surely the answer is Israel? Unless, you are doing the crossword in today's @theage and @smh newspapers, where the Holy Land is apparently Palestine. pic.twitter.com/lD3D0lBtab
— AIJAC (@AIJAC_Update) September 3, 2019

Paul Robeson’s Unapologetic Stalinism and the Fate of Soviet Jewry

Besides being a gifted singer and actor and a tireless and eloquent advocate for the civil rights of African Americans during the Jim Crow era, Paul Robeson was also a committed Communist of the Stalinist variety. Even after the Soviet purges began in the 1930s, and as he became aware that all was not well in the workers’ paradise, Robeson continued to defend the regime in public and to toe the party line. His interactions with leading Soviet Jewish figures—he was deeply connected with Jewish circles and often performed Hebrew and Yiddish songs—illustrate much about his attitudes. Describing these relationships in a longer discussion of Robeson’s Communism, Ron Radosh writes:

Despite Robeson’s constant cheerleading [for the USSR], he was privately dismayed by Soviet repression of the Jews. During his 1949 Soviet concert tour, Robeson asked to meet his friends [the Yiddish poet] Itzik Feffer and [the great Yiddish actor] Solomon Mikhoels, . . . whom he had first met in 1943 when Stalin sent them to tour the United States on behalf of the “Jewish Anti-Fascist League.” Little did Robeson know that Mikhoels had since been murdered on Stalin’s orders, on January 13, 1948, in what was disguised as a hit-and-run car crash. Feffer, meanwhile, was being held at the infamous Lubyanka prison in Moscow, having been arrested by the NKVD in December 1948.

The authorities made [Feffer] presentable for the occasion and brought him to meet Robeson in his hotel room. Feffer signaled that the room was bugged, and that they should only make pleasantries but communicate with hand gestures and written notes. Feffer told Robeson about the growing anti-Semitism, and the prominent Jewish cultural figures who were under arrest. Then Feffer put his hand across his throat, indicating that he expected that his days would be short. He was shot to death a few years later.

Robeson was shaken, and to his credit told the audience at his concert in Moscow that night that he was friends with Feffer and Mikhoels and had just met with Feffer. He then sang in Yiddish the Warsaw Ghetto resistance song written by Hersh Glick, a Jewish poet and fighter, Zog Nit Keynmol. It was indeed a bold gesture. By singing this song and mentioning his friendship with Feffer, he signaled his disapproval without having to say anything publicly against Stalin.

Yet when Robeson returned to the United States, he told the waiting press that he had seen Feffer in Russia and saw no traces of anti-Semitism there. . . . Robeson’s denial of Soviet anti-Semitism was the one always [cited] by American defenders of the Stalinist regime.

BBC must apologise for featuring Ash Sarkar, defender of Warsaw Ghetto vandal, as “expert” in programme on “Rise of the Nazis”

The BBC has included a pro-Corbyn political activist who has made deeply problematic comments on antisemitism as a “historian and expert” on Nazism as part of a new multi-part documentary.

Ash Sarkar, a contributing editor of Novara Media, did not substantially contribute to the first episode of BBC Two’s Rise of the Nazis, produced by production company 72 Films, however the introduction to the programme signalled that she will feature in later episodes.

Ms Sarkar has defended the vandalism of the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto and claimed that the International Definition of Antisemitism is merely a front to silence criticism of Israel.

In 2010, activist Ewa Jasiewicz sprayed political “Free Gaza and Palestine” on the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto, the largest and most well-known of the ghettos designated by the Nazis in German-controlled territory, from which hundreds of thousands of Jews were sent to death camps or killed by shooting and another hundred thousand died of starvation and courageous revolt. Essentially a mass grave, the Warsaw Ghetto serves as a salient symbol of the Holocaust for all and evokes sensitivity and strong emotion on the part of Jews in particular.

Palestinian girls pose in front of Dalal Mughabi Center named after a mass murderer

For the past two years, the PA's official Wafa news agency has had a regular weekly feature where it says it "monitors incitement and racism in the Israeli media." This is their response to groups like MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch that expose hate and antisemitism in Palestinian and Arabic media.

The results are often comical.

This week, it is claiming that a column by Yoram Ettinger in Israel Hayom is racist and inciting hate. According to its own translation, here is what Ettinger says:

Journalist Yoram Ettinger, in an article published in the Israel Hayom newspaper, said: "Palestinian terrorists are, above all, graduates of the Palestinian education system in nurseries, schools and mosques. This body is governed by the PLO, which refines the opinion of Palestinian society." The Palestinian Authority hides these principles and actions behind the mask of gentle and friendly rhetoric, to delude Israel and the Western world to believe that they support peace and coexistence, but hate education on the one hand, and coexistence for peace, on the other, are contradictions that refute the approach that claims that a Palestinian state is part of the solution to the conflict. "

Is there anything the least but incorrect in this?

However, when the PLO is looking for "incitement" they are doing it through the lens of their own honor/shame dynamic.

The Israeli monitor groups are looking through the lens of honesty. They mean to expose the hate that the Palestinians still say to each other in Arabic.

To the PLO, exposing its own hate is considered "incitement" because these are things that should remain hidden - they are shameful, and the exposure itself is considered hate and incitement!

The PLO is complaining not that the Israeli media is wrong, but that it is showing the truth that they want to remain hidden. Under honor/shame, such exposures do not prompt them to examine their own actions but to lash out at the people who expose them. Self-reflection and the desire to improve themselves have a low priority when the first and often only instinct is to hide their indefensible actions from the rest of the world.

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The Daily Jang of Pakistan reported this last week; it was expanded by a Saudi Arabian blog:

In a recent interview, the defense analyst and former three-star general, Lieutenant General (r) Ghulam Mustafa, shared what has been more than interesting. According to him Pakistan’s Shaheen-III missile has the capability of destroying Israel’s Tel Aviv in mere 12 minutes.

He said that the Shaheen III is 18 times faster than the speed of sound. He also declared that the enemies are well aware of it and they were afraid on 27^th of February that Shaheen III would be launched at them. The Indian media had itself broke this news.

On 27^th February two Indian Airforce jets were shot down by Pakistan. The Indian army was planning an intrusion in Pakistan which they failed. Mustafa also claimed that the United States (US), had this rightful fear that Pakistan would attack Tel Aviv as well.

This was the reason to why it handed over its Air-3 missile to Israel on 28^th of February. He also believes that the Pulwama attack was a pre-planned one and was actually planned by “India’s premier intelligence agency and Israel” in which the US played a vital role.

To make things clear, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has issued a statement allowing Mustafa and 25 other retired officers of the armed forces to appear in media as defense analysts. However, whatever they say are their opinions and are not attributable to the institution.

Sure sounds like a threat to me.

(h/t Tomer Ilan)

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09/03 Links Pt1: Israel Has Become A Five-Front War; The True Story of an Iranian Sportsman's Fight for Life; Iran refuses to cooperate with UN nuclear agency investigation

From Ian:

Israel Has Become A Five-Front War

On the morning of Aug. 23, an Israeli teenager was killed by a terrorist bomb in Samaria. That night, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed an armed Palestinian trying to cross the Gaza border.

The next day, Israel’s Air Force bombed Syria to sabotage a planned Iranian attack of armed drones. That day, three rockets were fired from Gaza; Israeli drones reportedly exploded above Beirut; an explosive device was found and neutralized near a settlement.

On Aug. 26, the IDF concluded that Hezbollah planned an attack on its forces in the Galilee; Hezbollah’s leader made direct threats; opposition leader Benny Gantz was invited to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office for a security briefing; Iraqi leaders declared reported Israeli raids in Iraq an act of war. In the meantime Iran and the United States toyed with the idea of direct negotiations for a new Iran deal.

On Aug. 27, Netanyahu advised Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to “calm down”; Britain’s Times newspaper reported that Israel’s attack in Lebanon targeted machinery for precision-guided missiles; Just before midnight, an explosion killed two in Gaza.

And that was in less than a week.

Should we say this is war?

Consider this: There are attacks, counterattacks, maneuvers and threats. Israel is active on five fronts: the West Bank, where violence is contained and yet the situation is volatile; Gaza, where violence threatens to erupt daily; Syria, where Iranian forces keep trying to form a base against Israel that Israel won’t allow; Lebanon, where pro-Iranian forces feel compelled to act in response to Israeli actions; and Iraq, where Israel reportedly operates as part of the war against Iranian expansion.

Palestinian religious leader calls Jews in Jerusalem 'colonialist cancer'

Prominent Palestinian religious leader denounced "Jewish attacks" against Palestinian religious symbols in Jerusalem and referred to the Jewish presence in the land of Israel as a "colonialist cancer," NGO Palestinian Media Watch said on Monday.

According to a report by the Palestinian Authority official daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, as quoted by PMW, the Supreme Fatwa Council, led by Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, "Warned of the danger of attacks against the religious and national symbols in occupied Jerusalem, and held the occupation government fully responsible for these violations."

"The council expressed its rejection of all types of settlements and emphasized that the Palestinian people will not stand idly by in the face of this colonialist cancer," the report added.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is the Palestinian Authority's highest religious leader. Hussein, a former imam of the Al Aqsa mosque, was appointed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas in 2006.

Hussein is not new to controversial statements and incitement. Shortly after his appointment, he called suicide bombing: "legitimate as long as it plays a role in the [Palestinian] resistance."

In 2012, he quoted an ancient Islamic text encouraging Muslims to kill Jews while speaking at a ceremony broadcasted by the PA TV.

In 2015, Hussein denied that there had ever been a Jewish holy site on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

German cleric accused of pro-Hamas writings appointed interim J'lem provost

Germany’s Protestant Church said on Monday it is sticking with its appointment of an accused anti-Israel cleric who has allegedly written in a Hamas style to serve as the interim provost for the landmark Redeemer's Church.

Last year, the virulently anti-Israel cleric Rainer Stuhlmann wrote in a German Protestant Church document on the 70th anniversary of the re-founding of Israel that the creation of the State of Israel was for the Palestinians a “reason for mourning” because Israel engaged in “expulsion, destruction, coercion and injustice.“

Stuhlmann continued his alleged tirade against Israel, stating: “In recent years, military superiority has led Israel to brutally enforce its interests against Palestine. With an aggressive settlement policy, facts are created that narrow the scope of Palestine more and more.”

Last year, the editor-in-chief of the Westdeutsche Zeitung, Uli Tückmantel, wrote that Stuhlmann’s writing is, “one-sided finger-pointing against Israel in the propaganda style of Fatah and Hamas.”

When asked by The Jerusalem Post if he is anti-Israel or antisemitic, Stuhlmann, who is presently in Jerusalem, wrote by email: “I have been a friend of Israel for decades. For decades I have been engaged in the fight against all forms of antisemitism, including antisemitism related to Israel.”

AJ+ Is Al Jazeera

There’s a social media site whose glitzy videos populate your newsfeed. Its content overflows with typical leftist tropes. No, it’s not CNN or MSNBC. You should know what it is and the nefarious people backing it. Raheem Kassam, author of No Go Zones, explains why, when you come across these videos, you should swipe left.

Israel Did Nothing To Create Hezbollah -- But Arafat Did (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

With its recent clash with Israel, Hezbollah is again in the news. But for all of the attention Hezbollah gets, there are still elements of its history that remain ignored -- or just misrepresented.

Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies has written extensively about Hezbollah as well as Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Israel. Recently, Iran announced sanctions against the think tank itself.

In his article, The Secret History of Hezbollah, Badran writes that while the Hezbollah mythology claims that the group was founded in 1982, in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, as a resistance group to the Israeli invasion that year -- the truth is:

Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran have been joined at the hip from the very beginning, even before the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Because Hezbollah's origins are directly tied to the origins of Iran's Islamic Revolution, the terrorist group's own beginnings go back to the rivalry between Iranian revolutionary factions that opposed the shah of Iran. The conflicts between these factions played themselves out not only in Iran, but among their followers in Lebanon as well.

Why Lebanon?

In Arafat and the Ayatollahs, Badran traces the relationship between the Iranian revolutionary factions and the PLO back to the late 1960s, when Arafat rose to power. After the shah's crackdown in 1963, Iranian opposition groups adopted guerrilla tactics against the shah and by the end of that decade made contact with the PLO in Qatar, as well as Iraq -- where Khomeini had been living since 1965. Iranian guerrilla organizations looked for training and made their way to PLO camps in Jordan and South Yemen.

But during the early to mid 1970s, Lebanon was especially valuable as a training ground for these groups because of its weak government and lack of control:

Even before Lebanon’s own system collapsed, and the country plunged into civil war, fueled in part by Palestinian weapons and ambitions, the country had become a training ground for revolutionaries from all over the world, and a magnet for cadres of the main Iranian revolutionary factions, from Marxists to theocrats and everything in between.

Iranian revolutionary activists gravitated to Lebanon -- not because of any interest in the fact that Lebanon bordered Israel, but because of the weakness of the Lebanese government. At the time, Lebanon was home to the PLO too, which had been kicked out of Jordan in 1970 following 'Black September'. The PLO was free to run their military training camps. Those camps made it possible for the anti-shah groups to get military training and weapons, contact other revolutionary groups, form alliances, and establish networks to support their fight against the Iranian regime.

Another plus for these Iranian factions, was Lebanon’s large Shiite population, which included the influential Iranian cleric Musa al-Sadr, who helped many of the Iranian opposition groups. Down the road, the networks of both Sadr and the PLO would continue to be helpful after the Iranian revolution, during the power struggle between Iran’s revolutionary factions that followed. Also among the Iranian groups operating in Lebanon at the time was the Liberation Movement of Iran (LMI). One of its leading figures was Mostafa Chamran, who together with the LMI worked closely with Sadr.

Sadr relied on the PLO for training his Amal militia -- but again, not for the purpose of fighting Israel. Instead, with the onset of the Lebanese civil war, Sadr wanted to protect his and the Shiite community’s interests from the other Lebanese factions.

In fact, both Sadr and Chamran were ambivalent about the Palestinians and the divide between Sadr and the PLO widened further:

o In 1976, Sadr supported Syria’s entry into Lebanon, which the PLO opposed
o At the same time, Palestinian attacks on Israel from the south of Lebanon endangered the Shiite villagers which worried both Sadr and Chamran.

Meanwhile, the other main faction of Iranian revolutionaries operating in Lebanon consisted of the followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. That group maintained close relations with the PLO, while mistrusting Sadr and the LMI. This is the faction would go on to become part of the Islamic Republic party after the Iranian revolution. Many of them also became top commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

According to PLO operative Anis Naccache, who coordinated with the Iranian revolutionaries, Khomeini's group fear of a coup following their victory, led to the creation of the IRGC, for which he took personal credit, claiming he was approached specifically to draft the plan to form what became the main pillar of the Khomeinist regime.

According to Badran:

The formation of the IRGC may well be the greatest single contribution that the PLO made to the Iranian revolution.

One of those associated with this Khomeinist faction was Hojjatoleslam Ali Akbar Mohtashami, a student of Khomeini who would play a critical role in the emergence of Hezbollah. Another important figure, Mohammad Saleh Hosseini, played a key role in forming Hezbollah and was a founding member of the IRGC. Hosseini and the Khomeini's followers recruited young Shiites who were pro-Khomeini who became the nucleus of Hezbollah. The most famous of these was Imad Mughniyeh, who went on to become the group’s military commander and the mastermind of many of Hezbollah’s most notorious operations, such as the Marine barracks bombing in 1983.

The tensions between the Sadr and Khomeini camps in Lebanon played out back in Iran after the revolution. And then in August 1978, Sadr disappeared during a trip to Libya.

After Sadr’s disappearance, events accelerated. The shah was forced to leave Iran in January 1979, leaving the way open for Khomeini to return to Iran a few weeks later in triumph. Soon after, the Islamic Republic party was formed, bringing together Khomeini’s followers and the founding of the Islamic Republic. They began calling themselves Hezbollah, to distinguish themselves from their rivals, the LMI and allied factions.

By the summer of 1981, the Islamic Republic party finished taking sole control of the government, and called themselves “the Hezbollahi government.”

Mohammad Saleh Hosseini was assassinated in Beirut in April 1981, but by then the assets that he and the top IRGC leadership had been cultivating in Lebanon since the mid-70s were consolidated. Mughniyeh was summoned to Iran to discuss providing training for Hezbollah and in 1982, an Iranian delegation arrived in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

Badran writes:

In the conventional narrative of Hezbollah’s origins, it is the arrival of this contingent, the work it did there, and the men it trained that is typically said to signal the organization’s birth. However, by the time Dehghan, Mohtashami, and Mughniyeh engineered the October 1983 attack that killed 241 American servicemen, the Khomeinists had already been active in Lebanon for over a decade. [emphasis added]

In effect, just as Khomeini and his followers took over control of the revolution in Iran, they did the same thing where it had all began, in Lebanon:

And now it was all coming full circle as Iran’s triumphant Islamic Republicans, Hezbollah, spawned their namesake in Lebanon.

Arafat must have been thrilled.

His support for Khomeini and for Hizbollah seemed to bode well for the terrorist's influence with Iran. In fact, when he arrived in Tehran on February 17, 1979, he was the first “foreign leader” to be invited to visit Iran -- just days after the victory of the revolution.

Arafat and Khomeini, 1979

Arafat tried to exploit his new-found friendship, but just like he did in Jordan, Arafat soon made himself unwelcome.

o Arafat tried to mediate the US Embassy hostage crisis, but his interference angered Khomeini, and made him suspicious.
o The Iraq-Iran war only made things worse. Arafat could not afford to side with Iran against Iraq and risk losing the support of the Arab world that funded the PLO. He tried to mediate, but Khomeini refused to even see him.

In the end, Arafat's plans backfired:

By forging ties with the Khomeinists, Arafat unwittingly helped to achieve the very opposite of his dream. Iran has turned the Palestinian factions into its proxies, and the PLO has been relegated to the regional sidelines.

And Hamas, at least, seems to have made its peace with that.

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The head of the Department of History and Archaeology at the Islamic University of Gaza, Dr. Ghassan Weshah, has stated that there is no evidence whatsoever of any Jewish presence in the region, ever.

The fact that the Quran itself admits that Jews lived there seems not to bother him.

Weshah says that there is no evidence that there was any building under the Temple Mount, and as evidence he mentions that the Marwani Mosque in the southeast corner, which was built after excavations in the area known as "Solomon's Stables," did not see any evidence of a structure. Of course, the Temple Mount Sifting Project has been going through the many tons of dirt illegally dug out to create that mosque and has found many artifacts of Jewish life in the area.

The most outrageous claim from this academic - who has published a couple of papers about archaeology in Muslim periods in Gaza - is this one:

He pointed out that no matter how the Zionists tried to falsify some of the artifacts and claim that they prove their presence in Palestine, the largest and most famous museums in the world discovered the falsification by the occupation of these pieces and refused to exhibit any artifact coming from the occupation state to display in international museums because they are forged.

This statement alone should be enough to stop any academic journal from ever publishing anything from this fraud.

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Israel's National Library blog has a very interesting story about the passenger of the Marine Carp USNS:

The USNS Marine Carp was originally built for the purpose of transporting military forces to Europe and back. Following the conclusion of World War II, the vessel was repurposed as a passenger ship and set on a regular, commercial route. She embarked out of New York, crossed the Atlantic, and docked in Athens, Beirut, Haifa, and Alexandria. At the end of the route, she returned to New York via Italy. During the post-war period, the Marine Carp transported many American Jews to the Land of Israel in order to volunteer on kibbutzim, attend youth gatherings, or simply immigrate to the Land of Israel legally (if they were able to make it past the border checkpoints successfully). The ship set out from New York every five weeks. On May 4th, 1948, Marine Carp embarked on its regular route. There were many Jewish travelers aboard, including Jews from the Land of Israel studying or living in the United States who were answering a general enlistment call put out by the Hebrew Yishuv which was already fighting for its life in the War of Independence.

When the ship reached Beirut, a stop on its regular route, 400 Lebanese soldiers were waiting for the passengers at port. The Lebanese authorities did not want to allow Jewish men of military age to continue on to Israel. Indeed, 69 passengers, all Jewish men between the ages of 18 and 50, were forcibly removed from the ship. Among the detainees were 41 American citizens, 23 fresh Israeli citizens, 3 Canadians, and 2 others.

The ship’s crew tried to resist, but their efforts were in vain. Daniel Doron, another passenger (and a great-grandson of Zerah Barnett, co-founder of the city of Petah Tikva). testified:

“Most of the ship’s crew were black. We made friends with them. We would sing with them, drink with them and eat with them. They refused to leave Beirut. They said, ‘We are not leaving, not moving the ship. We are not leaving Beirut without the Israelis.’ It was only when the ambassador convinced them that the incident would be resolved within a week that they agreed to continue on their way.”

The detainees were taken by truck to the city of Baalbek, where they were held in an abandoned French military camp.

The detainees were taken by truck to the city of Baalbek, where they were held in an abandoned French military camp. Daniel Doron reflected on the drive to the camp:

“We drove all night. We departed at 10 o’clock or 12 o’clock at night. That was the most dangerous part because the trucks – Lebanese military trucks – were in bad shape. The brakes did not work very well. They bounced up and down, you know…”

Some of the passengers complained about how the U.S. was handling their detention, and even accused the U.S. consulate in Beirut of anti-Semitism. The United States condemned the refusal of the Lebanese to release the detainees, causing a minor diplomatic incident between the two countries.

So, what was the catalyst that eventually led to the liberation of the captive Jews? What finally contributed to stepping up U.S. efforts to end the affair? The official answer has never been revealed.

According to testimony from Daniel Doron, a family member was able to speak to then-US President Harry Truman about the issue. Truman was, apparently, able to find a solution to the crisis over the course of the two weeks that followed the meeting.

“Truman said, ‘What?!’ Then he told him the story. Truman fumed and went to the red phone. He picked it up, and the head of covert services was on the other end. He said, ‘Listen, my friend, either you free these people within two weeks or you can look for another job.’”

The American detainees refused to accept the release that had been arranged for them without their Israeli counterparts. Lebanese attempts to separate the populations had failed. Finally, on June 30th, almost a month and a half after the incident, the Lebanese agreed to release all of the detainees. They were sent back to New York, but many of them were unable to obtain a visa and were forced to stay on Ellis Island. From there, they again departed with the Marine Carp. Some of the passengers, anxious to return to Israel, had not waited to arrive on American shores. They chose to hop off the ship at other ports and found creative ways to get back to Israel.

Some details are filled in by a passenger on the ship, Elihu King, including the antisemitism of the US Consul in Beirut:

The Marine Carp was a semi-converted Liberty ship, and accommodation was frugal. The women were bunked six to a cabin, two tiers of three bunks. The men slept in huge bays with racks of pipemetal framed steel spring bunks five high. By tacit understanding or something, we Jewish men, about 75 of us, were given one bay to ourselves though it was not full. Some were Israelis going home. A few were from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere, off to fight in Palestine. There were some old religious Jews. About 24 of us were native born US citizens fully covered with passports, visas, and blue jeans. Oded Bourla was the designated commander of us Americans including 5 of the women in the "first class" cabins.

The Atlantic was very rough and most of us on board were badly sea sick. I avoided being sick by sleeping on deck and never going below until I got my sea legs. There were some deck chairs lashed to a rail on a hatch cover and that was my place for the first three days and nights.

While cruising through a now calm Mediterranean we got the news on the ship's radio that the STATE OF ISRAEL had been declared. Somehow the Arab passengers on the "Marine Carp" disappeared, maybe they moved away from where we were. Us Jews gathered in the dining hall and roared out our joy and pride. We sang "Hatikvah" and a thousand other anthems and songs, danced the hora until we dropped, cried, laughed, and carried on. The fears and doubts were kept inside, for that evening.

The crew joined us. Their union was Communist led and they were radicals all, and they were very much on our side.

...

The captain of the "Marine Carp" (we later learned) was concerned about the well being of his Jewish passengers when the ship called in at Beirut on its way to Haifa. It was an American ship and so we were unlikely to be bothered, but still...... He contacted the US Consul General in Beirut by radiotelephone and asked for instructions. The story I heard, from good sources, is that the Consul told him that there would be no trouble, he was to bring the ship in.

At 5 in the morning we pulled into the harbor at Beirut and tied up alongside a pier. The US Consul was there to greet us. So were about 400 Lebanese Marines, in tight uniforms of blue wool - must have been awfully hot for them, when the sun came out fully. The Marines came up the gangplank and set up machine gun posts in the main corridors. An announcement was made on the loudspeakers: all Jewish passengers were to assemble in the main lounge.

We didn't do that. We bunched up in little groups throughout the ship talking and trying to work out what to do. My group crowded around Oded Bourla in the shower room next to our sleeping bay. Some of the wild ones said we should fight. Two of them had pistols. We gabbled like a bunch of geese. There were an awful lot of the Lebanese. Then another announcement on the PA system: if the Jewish men would come along and be "interned" in Lebanon, the Jewish women would be allowed to continue their voyage to Haifa unmolested. The women were under Lebanese guard while we decided. This was clearly a serious threat. Most of the women were wives of husbands on the ship; couples had been separated because of the barracks-like sleeping arrangements.

We decided to submit. The Israelis among us were fearful but they led in that decision. Us Americans felt confident we'd be repatriated in a few days at most.

The two guns were stripped down to small parts and hidden on (in, actually) the bodies of a number of the men, as was ammunition. Somebody had a compass. Each took from his bags what he thought best. And so we slowly shambled up to the main lounge. The US Consul was there, and he collected the passports of the US citizens (and, it transpired, turned them over to the Lebanese commander). Some of us passed notes to the crew, for our families. In glum, defeated dribs and drabs we went down the gangplank and climbed onto Lebanese Army trucks. The Lebanese left behind some old, sick men, but 69 of us were taken away. The Jewish women waved and called to us as the trucks drove away from the pier.

The trucks drove through the city of Beirut and out through its suburbs. Through small towns and valleys and villages we drove, until the pressure on my bladder became extreme and I pissed off the rear of my truck after getting sign-langauge permission from the Marines who guarded us. After what seemed like about four hours, the last parts climbing high into the cool hills, we arrived at Baalbek. We were taken to what had once been a French Foreign Legion barracks, a handsome building with large rooms opening out onto a long balcony on the second floor. At the head of the stairs, a washroom with a water tap, a pissing trough, and an Arab squat latrine.

In the three large barracks rooms were piles of boards of nice, soft pine. Three of these for a sleeping pallet and a thin blanket, a tin bowl and a spoon - these were issued to each of us. The guards turned out to be Palestinians, refugees. The Lebanese themselves acted frightened of us, very nervous. Some of the Palestinians were allright, some were sadistic bastards.

We were given a meal: a small cube of goats' milk cheese, a radish, a green onion, two pitas (the large flat kind, not the pocket kind). We could get water from the tap. That's what we got every day for our three meals though sometimes we each got a large spoonful of beans in tomato sauce for dinner instead of the cheese. I weighed 150 lbs when I got there, and 110 lbs when we got out six weeks later.

And so to bed, worried and fearful about what tomorrow would bring.

The morning brought the US Consul, all the way from Beirut. We all gathered together to meet with him. He told us that were a real nuisance, that the Lebanese were treating us very well, and that the families of the Americans were working for our release. He heard our requests for medicine for the two of us who were down with severe measles, and agreed to get us what we needed, we could give him the money now.

We had elected some leaders from among us, and they mentioned that the last time an American citizen had been taken by force from a ship (not even a US flag ship, at that) the US Navy had a cruiser in the harbor the next day and the citizen was released under the threat of our guns. The Consul assured us that there was no danger of that happening now. The Consul showed a marked distaste for Jews; of course he was accredited to an Arab state, so that would explain it.

(It was not until the 1960s when I subpoenaed my files from the US State Department in connection with my citizenship case that I felt the reality of the discrimination. The important document about me started out thus: "This obstreperous member of a despised race.......". The US Consul in Beirut had endorsed it thus: "Right!"). So much for the Consul. When we read in the local French language newspaper that he had been on the podium at an anti Israel rally at the American University of Beirut and had seen fit to stay there while a resolution calling for our (the US prisoners) death was passed by acclamation, we were not really surprised.)

The next big event for us was the Selection. (That term refers to the procedure in the concentration camps in Europe, where those who were to be killed that day were separated from the rest). We had contacts with some of the guards, who would bring us news and stuff for money, so we were prepared. The camp commander showed up with a specially big and tough retinue of guards, and called us all together. He had all our passports before him, and told us that the Israelis would be taken to a different location. We had discussed this possibility and it seemed to us that this would enable the Lebanese to kill the Israelis without risking the consequences of killing citizens of the USA or Canada. So the night before we had all - Americans, Canadians, the two with Argentinian passports, and the Israelis (who had British passports) - shaved our heads so we would not be easily identified from our passport photographs.

The first man was called forward and asked his name. "Yisrael ben Yisrael", he said, "Israel son of Israel". And so said the second shaven-headed man, and the third, and the Selection was called off.

After we'd been there for a month, and our families' efforts to get the US State Department to move on our case seemed to be stuck despite the best efforts of then-Congressman Jacob Javits of New York, we started to plan an escape. We had some Israelis among us who knew the topography pretty well, and they worked out a route to Israel (though we had no idea where the actual front line might be). We had the weapons we'd smuggled in, and accepted the fact that we would have casualties. We were tired now from poor nourishment, and dispirited from being prisoners, but we felt we had to do it.

Just as we were getting ourselves ready, storing food at the expense of eating it and so on, we got some hints that we might be released. Then the US Consul came to visit. The Lebanese offered to release us and let us go back to the USA, providing we would each swear never to attempt to go to Israel. That included the Israelis. We agreed. An oath under duress is okay.

Then we waited some more.

One morning, the Lebanese Army trucks came grinding into the courtyard. We needed no further notice, put our belongings into our pockets and lined up with the weakest and sick ones at the head of the line....just in case. But no, they took us all. Huddled together in heaps at the bottom of the truck, we were too weak to sit upright and too scared that it might not be for real to sing or joke around. But yes, they took us to the pier, and there was the same "Marine Carp", this time on its way back to the USA on another round trip.

Weakly, still very fearful that the ordeal was not really over, we climbed up the gangplank. Crew members helped us on board and down to the sleeping bay and up onto the bunks. Later they gave us a festive meal of turkey and all the trimmings, ice cream, the lot. We gorged ourselves and soon returned the goodies, which our shrunken and tender tummies refused to hold.

The ship now carried many refugees from the war zone, Americans going home, many of them Jews. I met some politicals who told me with great excitement that they had a message for us from Haganah!!! Special arrangements had been made, they said, and the ship would make an unscheduled call at Palermo where Haganah awaited us and would take us off and on to Israel! Huzzah!

As they say in Israel, "Lo dubim v'lo yaar", "No bears and no forest".

Yes, we did pull in at Palermo. But nobody, it seemed, awaited us. Of those who decided to make a break for it anyway, some bought their crew papers from crew members, some went over the side and swam ashore. Three of us, lacking in funds or anyway experience or imagination, pried fillings out of our teeth and went to the captain and begged to see a dentist. The captain agreed, and called an escort of eighteen Carabinieri to take us to the dentist. Foiled!

The three of us, scrawny young Dave from Montreal, hulking Big Joe ("Gonna kill me a thousand Ayrabs!") from New York, and scrawny young me. We were taken in a truck to the center of town. Off we got and went upstairs to the dentist's office leaving two Carabinieri to guard the downstairs entrance. Once inside, Joe offered to go first. Dave and I sat in the waiting room, with two Carabinieri guarding the door and the rest sitting around in the room with us.

What the hell, I thought, what the hell. I can't get out of this. But I can give it a try, and then won't be so ashamed when they drag me back to the ship. I had stuffed my pockets with packs of American cigarettes before I left the ship, primo currency in Europe in those days. I stood up, walked briskly to the door, handed a pack of cigarettes to each of the guards, said "Vino, vino" with great brio, and walked out. To my surprise, nobody stopped me. (Why did I say "Vino"? Well, I couldn't think of anything else, that's why). I walked briskly down the stairs. The guards at the street door barred my way with their carbines. I handed them each a pack of cigarettes and said my magic "Vino" at them. They seemed confused but did not stop me. I marched down the main street of Palermo with calm and confidence until after a minute I heard them yelling and their pounding feet behind me so I picked mine up and ran like hell.

I ducked into a shop, a pharmacy, and the woman behind the counter, quickly seeing that I was running from the police, grabbed my arm and pulled me down to a crouch behind a counter where I couldn't be seen from the street. After a minute the chase seemed to have passed me by so I got up, said "Grazie" to the woman, and walked out of the shop.

Turns out that all the Carabinieri ran down the street after me, so Dave Sidorsky, finding himself all alone in the waiting room, stuck his head into the dentist's office and told Joe Nagdimon and then he walked out and down the stairs and out the front door and away. Nagdimon chose to stay and be taken back to the ship.

There were over twenty of us who got off the ship in Palermo, but ten went back to the ship before it sailed. The rest of us were rounded up into a cheap restaurant by street urchins who seemed to understand what was going on. We had a meal, and decided to look for Jews to help us. In Palermo there were none left so we took a train up to Naples where we found some but they wanted nothing to do with us because the police were after us and sent us up to the Jewish Agency in Rome where we finally found people to take care of us.

After some more adventures in a DP camp near Rome, I was assigned to lead a bunch of sturdy young Bulgarian Jews on their way to Israel in a chartered airplane. This was about 9 July.

Later trips of the Marine Carp avoided stopping in Beirut and Alexandria as a result of this incident.

(h/t Irene)

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09/02 Links Pt2: One Holocaust descendant's fight for justice: 'They stole not just our land, but my family's history; Judo chief threatened to kick Iran out of Olympics if Israel snubbed — report

From Ian:

One Holocaust descendant's fight for justice: 'They stole not just our land, but my family's history'

Melbourne doctor Ann Drillich, the daughter of Polish Holocaust survivors, is a rare kind of Jew who owns a Catholic church. The brick structure, Our Lady of the Scapular, stands on Drillich’s ancestral property in the medieval town of Tarnów, near Kraków. Her late mother, Blanka Drillich née Goldman, inherited the land at the end of the second world war. Aged 18, Blanka was the sole living heir to the Goldman estate, all others perished in the town’s ghetto: she found her mother shot dead in her bed.

But Drillich has never been inside her church.

“I tried to enter it once,” she recalls. “It was locked.”

The reason: in 1987, with the help of a trusted friend of the Drillichs, the Catholic church in Poland effectively stole the land and built the house of worship on the site. The Drillichs didn’t know. Ann Drillich only learned of the theft in 2010 when, as heir, she ordered a public records search about her family’s estate.

“At first it took a while to settle in, the shock of the betrayal,” she says. “And the idea that behind the injustice is a church.

“My mother’s family was one of the most prominent in town. It was like they had stolen not just our land, but my family’s history.”

And so after the shock settled, she sued.

“How could I not?” she asks.

So began an expensive, traumatic and escalating battle that pitched this meticulous woman with a scientific sensibility against a powerful religious institution.

The church appealed. Stalled. Obstructed. Counter-sued. The Polish courts, meanwhile, delivered justice to Drillich, again and again. And yet again, in a final ruling in 2016 when three district court judges found the church had acted in “bad faith” when it acquired the “abandoned” land. (h/t Yerushalimey)

Rockland County GOP plotted 'anti-Semitic' ad months ago: sources

Numerous Rockland County Republican elected officials in February previewed the controversial video put out by the party that critics have branded as anti-Semitic for warning of a “takeover” by the Hasidic Jewish community, The Post has learned.

The early look at the digital attack ad — some six months before its public release — shows that the targeting of the ultra-orthodox community was a well-thought-out, deliberate strategy, sources said.

No one in the room objected to it, a GOP source who attended the February meeting told The Post.

“The video was introduced by Lawrence Garvey [the county GOP leader] and played in front of a room of 20-35 people. The entire video was played with Ed Day [the Rockland County executive] there,” the source said.

“We were told we are raising money for the county legislators’ races and unveiling a strategy and we saw the video then. I thought it was a bad strategy,” the source said.

But the source didn’t raise an objection at the time.

New York State Republicans Remove Video That Roils Local Jewish Community

In a tweet, the Republican Jewish Coalition wrote, “This video is absolutely despicable. It is pure anti-Semitism … . The Rockland County Republican Party is an embarrassment and has no place associating itself with our party.”

Dov Hikind, a former Democratic New York state assemblyman from Brooklyn, tweeted that the video is a “shocking & brazen display of antisemitism! [sic]The Republican Party of Rockland Cty [sic] has the audacity to put out this vile trash that amounts to ‘the Jews are taking over’ with ‘Jewish money and power’!”

Following the criticism, the video was removed from the Rockland County Republican Party’s Facebook page, although others have downloaded it, and it can still be found online.

Despite the backlash, Rockland County Republicans insist their message must be heard. Lawrence Garvey, the county’s Republican chairman, claimed the issue is not a religious one, but a matter of “right and wrong.”

“For those not living in Rockland, it is harder to see a real and unique problem that exists here. The people of Rockland have become desperate for attention to the problems facing our communities and many live every day with the threat of losing their homes and neighborhoods,” he wrote in a statement. “Anyone who dares speak up about overdevelopment, corruption or education is immediately labeled as anti-Semitic without any concern for facts or without any idea of the true issues at hand.”

Fellow Republican, Rockland County Executive Ed Day, said in a statement, “While the content of the video is factual, the tone and undercurrent is unacceptable. … I have a great deal of respect for our Jewish neighbors and want them to know that as their county executive, I will always stand up against hatred. That said, the concerns raised about overdevelopment are accurate, well-grounded and desperately need to be addressed, but must be done in a way free of rhetoric and rancor.”