With elections coming up, I
have been feeling my own pulse, examining what I do and don’t believe. It seems
a good time, in general, to dig deep and clarify our thoughts about our fundamental beliefs. What
sort of government do I want? How far to the right does my ideology go?
Because, yes. My beliefs are to
the right of the spectrum on Israel. Always have been.
But just how far right they go, is always
a question for me.
I’m going to pick a few topics
here to illustrate what I mean:
Mosque arson. Am I for it?
I’m not. But if someone says, “Well, I am,” I begin to consider why mosque arson might be okay. Even
though my knee-jerk feeling is that mosque arson is ABSOLUTELY UNEQUIVOCALLY NOT
OKAY.
Why would it be okay to torch
all the mosques in Israel? Because the Land of Israel is Jewish land, and Islam
is not our religion. For us, hosting the house of worship of another religion
on our land could conceivably be considered a kind of
defilement of the Holy Land. Certainly an unwelcome intrusion.
Okay. But look: now they are already here, the mosques. We were not able to prevent that eventuality. Sadly. Tragically. And since this is the situation in which we find ourselves, we have to ask, “Is it a mitzvah to burn them down?”
The answer will likely depend upon whom you ask. But I believe that a rabbi with a good and peaceful bent will
say that it is not necessary, and certainly not a
mitzvah. That it is better now that
the mosques are here, that we do not destroy them, as this will only ruffle feelings
and people could get hurt.
If, on the other hand, a structure might be moved to a more appropriate place, might we not be able to assist in this endeavor? That would be a worthy goal moving forward. Especially in regard to the Temple Mount.
Separation of synagogue and state. If you were to ask me how
far right I am on the question of Israel being run according to Jewish halacha, the answer would be pretty darned far. I believe the halacha,
Jewish law, to be the best possible government for the Land of Israel. Except that I also believe it's possible to
blend the current system of government as we have it, with the halacha,into a harmonious whole.
It has to be that way.
Otherwise, we will have chaos. And I am definitely not for chaos.
Transfer. I completely understand the concept. We have a declared enemy on our territory, acting out violently against us. But transfer implies an agreement with other countries. Do we have that now? Someone has to want them.
Also, there has always been some level of coexistence. I think those who demonstrate loyalty to the State
of Israel should be allowed to stay. I also think it's a complicated subject. How do they do this so we believe them? I would need them to acknowledge that they live in a Jewish State.
None of this precludes our respecting their rights.
But anyway, perhaps far right is a bad term. Maybe it comes down to shades or gradations along the scale of right.
Or maybe it comes down to the mature and the immature right.
Because I don’t believe in taking the
law into my own hands and hot-dogging it. I’m no cowboy.
I am aware that many will
disagree with me. Some will think I am horrible for the things I have written
here. They will say I am exclusionary, a racist.Others will think my views fall way short of what the Torah wants from us. They want a revolution.
They all want what they want. But the thing is, I know what is right for me.
And I also know right from
right.
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PM Netanyahu promised a dramatic announcement Tuesday night. It was about as dramatic as he could have made it, given that he is a caretaker PM who does not have a coalition, and that it is one week before the election. I brought my dinner into the living room to eat while watching him on the TV. It was probably unnecessary. There is very little that he could actually do at this point, no matter how much he wanted to.
Netanyahu noted that the long-awaited Trump plan would be released shortly after the election, and that this was a historic opportunity to take action that – thanks to his close relationship with President Trump – would receive the sanction of the US. He promised that if elected he would apply sovereignty (ribonut) to all Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria as soon as Trump’s plan was released. He promised that immediately after the election, without waiting for the American plan, he would apply Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea area. He displayed a detailed map of the area that would be included. This would finally establish, he said, the eastern border of the State of Israel, and would ensure that Judea and Samaria would not become a terrorist stronghold like Gaza. Here is Netanyahu’s map:
On the right you can see a list of the Jewish communities that would be included. There are also several Arab towns that will remain under PA control, including Jericho (the orange area in the center).
Netanyahu mentioned that the presence of the IDF in all of the Jordan Valley is absolutely essential for the defense of the country. He is not the first to have said this. In fact, his words “the entire Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of the term” echo a similar statement by Yitzhak Rabin in his last speech to the Knesset before he was murdered.
Although the Left likes to present Rabin as the martyred champion of its policy of withdrawal, Rabin was extremely suspicious of the Oslo accords that he was unable to avoid signing, and envisioned a final agreement that would create a Palestinian entity that was less than a sovereign state, and which occupied less than the entire area of Judea and Samaria. In particular, he wanted to keep the Jordan valley. A glance at a relief map of Israel – I have one on my wall – shows why:
The heights here are exaggerated, but the difference in elevation between the valley floor and the mountains surrounding it is between 1000-2000 meters. The importance of Netanyahu’s and Rabin’s stress on the “broadest meaning of the term” is that it includes both the valley floor and the rising western slope. Any attack on Israel from the east would have to cross this formidable natural barrier; and if an enemy were able to dominate the western ridge, the heavily populated areas of the country would be at its mercy. The topography is similar to that of the Golan Heights, but the Jordan Valley is even more critical strategically.
Netanyahu mentioned the US President and his close relationship with him at least five times (I stopped counting), and while this is apparently good politics in Israel where most people – both on the Right and the Left – are in awe of the power of the US, it has several worrying aspects. For one thing, the transformation of Israel into a partisan issue that was encouraged by the Obama Administration has become even more apparent as it is fed by the polarized domestic American politics surrounding Trump. The more Netanyahu associates himself with Trump, the more Trump’s enemies become our enemies. And when they ultimately gain power, they will attempt to reverse Trump’s policies, including – especially – his pro-Israel ones. In May, Bernie Sanders even indicated that he would consider moving the American Embassy back to Tel Aviv “if it would help bring peace” (he seems to have since backtracked).
Another concern is that Netanyahu seems to be building on an assumption of continued administration support. There is a degree of instability in US policy, as is indicated by the surprise departures of Trump’s special envoy Jason D. Greenblatt, who was to be the key negotiator of the “deal of the century,” and National Security Advisor John Bolton. Bolton was more hawkish on such North Korea, Iran, and Afghanistan than Trump, and while as of this writing we don’t know what particular disagreement prompted Trump to fire him, it could be related to the rumors that Trump will meet with Iranian President Rouhani. While no US President has been as consistently pro-Israel as Trump, there is no guarantee that this will continue.
Although it is an election promise, nevertheless the statement that he will bring about the extension of sovereignty to all the communities in Judea and Samaria is a significant one. Critics on the right point out that he did not promise to apply sovereignty to the land as he did to the Golan Heights and as he intends to do to the Jordan Valley, but only to the communities. This is an interesting application of the concept of sovereignty, which may have important consequences.
Next Tuesday’s election is too close to call at this point. There are, like last time, parties that are flirting with the 3.25% threshold of votes needed to enter the Knesset; like last time, Netanyahu’s Likud and its center-left opposition are running neck and neck; and also like last time, Avigdor Lieberman will hold the balance of power in coalition negotiations.
One thing that is clear, however, is this: one failed round of coalition negotiations and rerun of the election in a year is all the Israeli people will stand for. Either they will come up with a government this time, or the people will rise in revolt (and I will join them). There is a huge amount of frustration that has built up against politicians who seem to be unable to deal with the rising cost of living – especially housing – the endless drip of terrorism, the arson balloons and rockets from Gaza, the continued presence of African migrants in Tel Aviv, questions of religion and state, army service for Haredim, and countless other issues. It doesn’t help that many Knesset members, who are well paid, are accused of or even already indicted for corruption (one of Netanyahu’s opponents accused him of trying to create a “government of suspects,” a memshelet chashudim).
I’m still not entirely sure whom I will vote for, although I am leaning toward Yamina, the right-wing coalition led by Ayelet Shaked. I don’t like to decide things earlier than necessary. I never know what might happen to change my mind. So I won’t be certain until I am standing there and reaching for that little slip of paper, the great instrument of democracy.
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Hamas, which seeks to annihilate Israel, certainly was none too pleased with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement Tuesday evening that if re-elected, he would apply Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea in coordination with the United States.
Hamas has good reason not to like what Netanyahu said. It even made sense that Gaza’s terror regime tried to harm Netanyahu politically by launching a volley of missiles at Ashdod while Netanyahu was giving a speech in the city. (Netanyahu’s political rivals on the Left and Right were quick to take Hamas’ bait and use Hamas’ aggression as a means to score political points against Netanyahu.)
Hamas was right to hate what Netanyahu said because Netanyahu’s statement Tuesday evening was a strategic blow to the hundred-year-old Palestinian war against the Jewish state.
What did Netanyahu do in that statement? Most media commentary claimed his statement wasn’t substantive. It was just another political promise from a desperate politician who is looking with increasing panic at unflattering polls.
But that assessment obscures more than it reveals. Netanyahu may be concerned about his polling numbers. But his statement Tuesday was not a display of political desperation but of diplomatic triumph. Netanyahu’s statement made clear that he enjoys a cooperative relationship with US President Donald Trump that has no parallel in the history of Israel-US relations.
The Jordan Valley lies in Area C of the West Bank where, under the Oslo Accords, Israel retains full civilian and military control. According to the Israel Democracy Institute, 48% of Jewish Israelis support extending sovereignty over the Jordan Valley with U.S. support, with 28% opposed.
Prof. Eugene Kontorovich, director of international law at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, said, "The Prime Minister's announcement is fully in line with Israel's international legal rights. Because these territories were part of the British Mandate, Israel has as much legal right to them as to Tel Aviv." Kontorovich said such a move should not be seen as annexation because the territory currently does not belong to a foreign country and annexation means the taking of the territory of a foreign country.
"Israel waited for more than 50 years to regularize the status of these territories, giving the Palestinians opportunity after opportunity to make a peace deal that would have given them a sovereign state. The Palestinians refused time after time, rejecting initiatives under presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump. Israel has now decided that the people in these areas cannot be held in limbo forever; Israelis should not pay the price for Palestinian intransigence."
Likud voters – buoyed by the post-April statements detailed in 1, 2 and 3 below – will most likely vote again – whilst Blue and White and Yisrael Beiteinu voters – unhappy with their leaders’ post-April statements detailed in 4 and 5 below – are more likely to stay home.
Any increase in general voter turnout this time beyond 67.97 per cent would defy the diplomatic downturn – but should still see parties on the Right securing more of those new votes than parties on the Left. Statements made since April by Trump’s Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, President Trump himself, Likud’s Netanyahu, Yisrael Beiteinu’s Lieberman and Blue and White’s Gantz support this conclusion.
1. Ambassador Friedman indicated that some degree of annexation of the West Bank would be legitimate.
“Under certain circumstances, I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank”
More new voters – conscious of their own families’ personal safety – would vote Right – than those opposing any annexation – who would vote Left.
2. Trump endorsed Netanyahu as “a great guy”
3. Netanyahu – speaking in Elkana – located in Samaria – pledged: “With God’s help we will extend Jewish sovereignty to all the settlements as part of the (biblical) Land of Israel, as part of the State of Israel. “This is our land…”We will build another Elkana and another Elkana and another Elkana. We will not uproot anyone here”
In a first-ever public address from Hebron by a sitting Israeli prime minister – Netanyahu vowed: “To cite the late Menachem Begin and the late Yigal Allon: ‘Hebron will not be devoid of Jews.’ It will not be Judenrein [ed: i.e. Jew-free]. And I say on the 90th anniversary of the disturbances [ed: when 67 Jews were murdered] – we are not foreigners in Hebron, we will stay here forever.”
These patriotic declarations should attract more Right-supportive than Left-opposing new voters.
Richardson became a professor of international affairs and wrote a few papers on the Palestine refugee situation in the early 1950s. He was no Zionist and he was truly concerned over the plight of refugees of Palestine
To Richardson, as to most of the people at the time who wanted to find solution to the refugee problem, it was obvious that the Arab countries were at fault for no solution and that it was their responsibility to help resettle the Arabs of Palestine in their states. In fact, it would be beneficial to them to integrate this population.
This is how you can tell the difference between people who are pro-Palestinian and those who are just anti-Israel. People who really care about Palestinians would insist that Arab states make them into citizens, especially those that have been "guests" for generations. People who truly care about Palestinians want to end their statelessness and their suffering in camps.
People who are anti-Israel insist on "return,' and are angry when Palestinian Arabs themselves say they want to become citizens in Lebanon, Gulf states or the West. They are the ones who insist on supporting UNRWA to keep the issue alive - and Palestinians in limbo - until a fantasy time when Israel is destroyed. They want to see millions more refugees.
Sometimes you need to look at the past to understand the present.
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Mondoweiss has an article by Sarah Doyel where she describes the horror of how Israelis are proud that Israel is a vegan-friendly country:
Israel is using veganism as a calculated facade to justify its military’s program of terror, gloss over its occupation of Palestine, and appropriate regional culture and traditions that predate Israel by hundreds if not thousands of years.
Doyel quickly establishes that she is not just a vegan, but she is an activist for whom veganism is an all-or-nothing proposition, and anyone who disagrees is a hypocrite, as she castigates Ben and Jerry's:
Put simply, veganwashing is the act of using veganism to create positive image associations or appear more compassionate than one actually is. A classic example is Ben & Jerry’s line of non-dairy ice creams, which they use to brand the company as vegan-friendly without ever actually decreasing their contribution to animal exploitation.
Keep in mind that PETA supports the Ben and Jerry's vegan ice creams. VegNews is happy to support Ben and Jerry's.
For normal vegans, having more choices of what to eat is something to celebrate. For crazy people, unless Ben and Jerry destroys its entire business model, it is evil.
Doyel uses this same logic against Israel and Israelis in ways that show that her real agenda has nothing to do with morality.
For example, she is upset that Tel Avivians - not Israel, but Jews who live in Tel Aviv - are proud to call their city "the vegan capital of the world." Apparently, pride in one's city is immoral when the city happens to be Israeli. I can't wait for the Mondowiss article on "beach-washing."
While she claims that she is only going after official representatives of Israel in her criticism, but she has a curious definition of them:
I am also sure that there are many vegan Israelis who are committed to ending the occupation of Palestine, which is why I deliberately focused on veganwashing as propagated by the Israeli government, corporations, and public figures such as bloggers and business owners, rather than private citizens of Israel.
This is of course a lie. The Independent article she links to quotes anonymous residents of Tel Aviv as calling the city the "vegan capital of the world." By definition, they are private citizens and have absolutely nothing to do with the government.
Doyel's fake morality is really revealed in this paragraph:
Restaurants in my current home of Washington, DC engage in this kind of cultural appropriation all the time, which might be slightly less disturbing to me if they weren’t so successful as a result. When fellow District residents find out that I’m vegan, Israeli-owned restaurants Shouk and Little Sesame are two of the top five restaurants people tend to ask if I’ve visited. These spots quickly became favorites among vegans and non-vegans alike who don’t realize just how problematic it is to eat at a place that calls its cooking “modern Israeli street food” (Shouk). News also just broke that the NYC-based “Tel Aviv-style” falafel chain Taïm will be opening its first location in DC this fall.
Yes, a proud vegan is against anyone visiting American vegan restaurants based only on where the owners were born.
This is hatemasquerading as morality.
Calling falafel "modern Israeli street food" is completely accurate and not offensive to anyone who already isn't looking to be offended. It was never Arab street food. It was never as popular in any Arab country as it has been in Israel. No one is claiming that Israel invented it (although falafel in pita is, to my understanding, a purely Israeli invention - which is what made it street food to begin with.) There is a difference between "Tel Aviv-style falafel" and traditional Arab falafel - is it immoral to market that fact?
No - it is immoral to call to boycott a business based on its accurate description of its product simply because it includes the word "Israeli" or "Tel Aviv" in its marketing literature. It is immoral to boycott a business based on where the owners were born.
There is an excellent kosher Turkish restaurant I enjoy going to. Should I boycott it because I am against Turkey's policies? If I claim to do that, everyone would know that my real agenda has nothing to do with politics or morality.
And everyone knows that Sarah Doyel, by refusing to enter vegan restaurants that happen to be owned by Israeli Jews, is not acting out of morality - no matter how much she claims that she is so sensitive to moral issues that force her to become a vegan to begin with.
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Palestinian Arabic media are filled with stories about Netanyahu going to a rocket shelter in Ashdod yesterday during his press conference as the Red Alert sirens went off.
It seems likely that the rocket fire was calculated to do exactly this - disrupt the press conference and make headlines worldwide.
It was exactly the same logic that a two-year old child who cannot quite communicate her feelings uses when making a temper tantrum.
Palestinianism is being sidetracked by the world. Over the past few years more and more people - especially Arabs - have realized that the old formula of "linkage" that said that the Palestinian issue must be solved before anything else could happen in the Middle East was not only wrong but counterproductive. Arab states have other concerns; Syria showed that hundreds of thousands of people could be killed in the region without any link to Palestinianism, and the more that Israel conceded to Palestinians, the more intransigent they became.
Palestinians, sensing the change in direction, switched strategies to tie their cause not with the larger Middle East but with "progressive" causes. This new linkage has had some success in far-Left circles where antisemitism-disguised-as-anti-Zionism is an attractive option but it also results in a hijacking of many liberal agendas by anti-Israel activists, and this is also making many people sick of the Palestine cause. BDS is losing far more battles than it is winning, academic groups are treating pro-Palestinian issues like kryptonite as they see how places like the American Studies Association has only suffered after adopting anti-Israel policies.
Palestinians, who were so used to being able to push their agenda on cable news networks and major newspaper op-eds at will, now are seeing that the world is putting their issues in a more proper perspective. Compared to the real problems of people living in the region, Palestinians don't have it that bad, and giving them so much oxygen has suffocated far more important causes for a long time.
But the anti-Israel, pro-terror activists are frustrated at this change in focus. They are like spoiled children who are suddenly forced to share their toys with others. They keep trying to come up with more and more absurd excuses to own the agenda (like accusing Israel of "veganwashing.")
This mentality is shared between anti-Israel activists and Palestinian terrorists. They aren't the center of attention anymore and they must stage a temper tantrum to regain the spotlight. A parent can't ignore their child screaming in the middle of the market, can they?
Palestinians are proud that Gaza rockets are powerful enough to force an Israeli prime minister to react, just as toddlers are happy to get attention from their parents by screaming that they want a chocolate bar.
The difference is that up until now, the world has been patiently hoping that the Palestinian toddlers will grow up. In the years since Oslo, real toddlers have indeed grown up, started companies and had children of their own - but Palestinians and their fans have stayed exactly where they were.
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A former Palestinian Arab terrorist who was ordered to be deported by Canada's federal government is a guest speaker at an upcoming University of Toronto student event.
In response, Hasbara Fellowships Canada, which empowers student leaders to become advocates for Israel, is urging the university to intervene and prevent his participation in the event.
Issam Al-Yamani is a self-admitted former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is a recognized terror group in Canada.
Despite the Immigration and Refugee Board ordering his deportation in 2005 for his terror associations, he remains in Canada. A 2007 federal court decision confirms that he admitted to being a member of the PFLP.
In 2014, Mr. Al-Yamani gave a speech in downtown Toronto that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) interpreted as inciting violence. The CBSA then issued a report stating that he is a "danger to the security of Canada.” A CBSA report also claims that two PFLP members tasked with bombing an airplane “confessed to placing the bomb on instructions from Al-Yamani.”
According to a Global News investigation on Mr. Al-Yamani published in March of 2018, the Government of Canada has been "trying to deport him" for the past 26 years.
Despite lip service offered by senior French officials, Jew hatred still runs rampant in France and the main threat is solidly contained in the Muslim migrant community.
This the French have not addressed with any conviction. Until they do, French Jews will continue to enjoy the protection of Israel.
It should be beholden on the French to have Polanski’s movie screened on their own soil at the Cannes Film Festival.
In a sense, Israel is the Dreyfus of today. The Jewish state is constantly accused of criminal charges that Israel did not commit.
The accusers cover up for the crimes of others, those they support and welcome into their societies. They shower these criminals with money, honors, invitations to join their austere organizations. They do not question their evil intent. Their Esterhazy must be protected lest their finger pointing at the collective Jew be considered as something that dare not speak its name.
And so it is the Middle East Jew, that imposter, that must continue to be condemned while the Palestinian Esterhazy is allowed to literally get away with murder and treachery against the whole notion of justice and peace.
Ian Austin MP, who resigned from Labour in protest at antisemitism within the Party earlier this year, delivered a passionate indictment of the Labour leadership in a speech in Parliament yesterday, branding Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party’s leadership “extremists”.
Standing amongst Labour MPs on the opposition benches, Mr Austin said: “I left the Labour party to shine a spotlight on the disgrace it’s become under his [Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s] leadership…I regard myself as proper, decent traditional Labour, not like the extremists who have taken over this Party and are dragging it into the mud…These are people [Mr Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, John McDonnell] who spent their entire time in politics working with [and] defending all sorts of extremists, and in some cases terrorists and antisemites…They always back the wrong side, whether it’s the IRA, Hamas and Hizballah, whom they describe as ‘friends’.”
As Labour MPs heckled him and told him to stop sitting with them, Mr Austin continued: “No previous Labour leadership would have allowed a Party with a proud history of fighting racial prejudice to have been poisoned by racism, which is what’s happened under these people — racism against Jewish people, to the extent that members have been arrested on suspicion of racial hatred, that the Party itself has become the first in history to be investigated under equalities laws by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. These people, and the people around them, are a million miles away from the traditional, mainstream, decent politics of the Labour Party. They have poisoned what was once a great party with extremism. They cannot be trusted with the institutions that underpin our democracy. They are completely unfit to lead the Labour Party, let alone our country.”
Mr Austin was joined by another former Labour MP, Ivan Lewis, who also resigned the Labour Party whip over antisemitism. Mr Lewis added his condemnation of Mr Corbyn, saying: “He does not have the leadership skills required at a time of so many challenges facing our country, and his leadership has led to the party of anti-racism and equality becoming the party of institutionalised antisemitism, so much so that a majority of Jews in this country feel that they would not be safe in the event of his becoming Prime Minister.”
The Egyptian state security prosecutor's office has again extended the detention of activist Ramy Shaath, the son of a former Palestinian foreign minister, on suspicion of having terrorist ties, an accusation his family denies.
Shaath was arrested July 5 at his Cairo home after prosecutors added him to a list of previously arrested suspects that includes journalists, businessmen, politicians and former members of the Egyptian parliament, and involves 19 companies. All the suspects are accused of being members of and funding the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt considers a terrorist group.
Palestine Today has a similar story of am 81-year old Hamas member and his son who were arrested in Saudi Arabia:
A Hamas leader and his son in were arrested in Saudi Arabia for several months without any justification, as part of a campaign against many Palestinians living in the kingdom.
Mohammed Saleh al-Khodari (Abu Hani) and his son Hani, who have been living in Jeddah for nearly three decades. were detained. Hamas considers the arrest of al-Khodari and his son a strange and reprehensible step, especially since he was responsible for managing the relationship with Saudi Arabia for two decades.
These are very prominent Palestinians being arrested. The days of Arabs reflexively supporting Palestinians are long gone.
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The Arab Liberation Army was set up by the Arab League in late 1947 specifically to fight the Jews in Palestine, before the British Mandate expired. It was staffed with volunteers.
Its first attack inside the boundaries of the Mandate was in January, 1948.
Given that its name was the Arab Liberation Army, one might think that the primary goal of the army was to set up an Arab state in liberated Palestine.
But its logo showed that the purpose was not to build a political entity - but to destroy one.
How much more obvious does it need to be?
Here is an armored vehicle used by the ALA that was captured by the Haganah, which has the logo:
Remember, this is before the State of Israel and its flag. While Zionist did use the Star of David, this representation of the dagger through the Star cannot be interpreted as anything but pure antisemitism.
Since then, nothing has changed, but it is not politically correct to point that out.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that if he is re-elected, he will express Israeli sovereignty over all the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, starting with the Jordan Valley.
Netanyahu said the steps would be taken in coordination with the administration of US President Donald Trump. He revealed that Trump intends to announce his Middle East peace plan the day after the September 17 election.
“This is an historic opportunity that we may not have again,” Netanyahu said in his statement that he delivered at Ramat Gan’s Kfar Hamaccabiah Hotel.
Pointing to a map of the Jordan Valley, he said Israel could carry out the plan without annexing a single Palestinian and while ensuring that Palestinians maintain complete freedom of movement.
He warned that if he did not win the election, Blue and White leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid would not take such steps and would not be able to handle the Trump administration’s plan.
But both Gantz and Lapid have said in the past that they envision keeping the Jordan Valley forever.
Fatah, like all terror promoting organizations, needs a platform to turn its unknown terrorists into heroes and role models to emulate. Fatah has chosen Facebook as its prime tool, and through its Facebook page instantaneously promotes terror to its 224,000 Facebook followers.
PMW again demands that Facebook immediately close down Fatah’s official page before more innocent lives are lost to murderers who are inspired and drawn to terror by Fatah’s Facebook page.
In January 2019, Palestinian Media Watch sent a copy to Facebook officials of our comprehensive report on Fatah’s Facebook page documenting Fatah’s use of its official Facebook page to promote terror and glorify terrorists throughout 2018. PMW director Itamar Marcus spoke with the Director of Facebook’s Global Counterterrorism Policy Team, Brian Fishman, and described how Fatah’s use of Facebook for its terror promotion was both life threatening and in violation of Facebook's Community Standards.
Tragically, in spite of the clear documentation, Facebook has chosen to knowingly let Fatah continue.
Below is PMW's new report on Fatah’s use of Facebook from January to June 2019, which shows that Facebook still constitutes a central part of Fatah’s terror promotion mechanism. Facebook’s willingness to ignore all the evidence and keep the page open makes Facebook a willing and active partner in Fatah’s terror promotion. Whereas in 2018 Facebook was an unwitting accomplice in Fatah's terror promotion, in 2109, Facebook is a partner by choice.
Fatah says this 17-year old suicide bomber is “Magnificent” and is using @facebook to publicize its terror mission. Demand Facebook stop partnering with Palestinian terror promotion & close Fatah’s terror page. #CloseFatahFB
They were angered by a video she posted on social media of herself with the man she was soon to be engaged to. Her brother claimed she dishonored the family by showing the two of them together before they were married. The father called on the brother to beat Israa, and while trying to escape, Israa Ghrayeb fell from the second floor of their home, suffering serious spinal injuries. Then, while she was at the hospital, Ghrayeb was apparently attacked a second time and died.
The family claimed she died of a heart attack.
Another honor killing.
But this one was different.
The death of a young Palestinian woman in the West Bank has sparked widespread outrage across the Middle East amid accusations that it is nothing but another case of so-called honor killing.
The suspicious circumstances of 21-year-old Israa Ghareeb’s death in Bethlehem have also drawn attention to a practice increasingly seen as a stain on the conscience of Middle East societies.
...Soon afterwards, #WeAreAllIsraa began to trend on Arabic Twitter, with more than 50,000 tweets displaying the hashtag.
This anger is not only against the Palestinian government -- it is also against Jordan.
There has never been a sovereign Palestinian state in what is now referred to as the "West Bank". Before Israel recaptured it in the Six Day War of 1967, the area was under Jordanian rule after it claimed it as its own during the 1948 War, the validity of which was recognized only by Great Britain and Pakistan.
The law that allows Palestinian men to kill female members of their family with relative impunity originates from Jordan.
Mohammad Abequa, a U.S. citizen born in Jordan, confessed Wednesday in an Amman courtroom that he strangled his estranged wife in her New Jersey apartment in July. Abequa, 46, said he killed his 40-year-old Turkish-born wife, Nihal, to protect his honor, an argument accepted by Jordanian courts as a reason for a reduced sentence. He is charged with murdering his wife, whose body was found July 4 in the apartment in the community of Parsippany Troy-Hills, as well as kidnapping his children, Lisa, 6, and Sami, 3. Abequa brought the children to Jordan after his wife's death. In what was seen as an effort to get a reduced sentence, Abequa told a crowded courtroom that he lost his temper when his wife told him that the man leaving her house as he arrived was her boyfriend. 'I asked her who the man was, and she told me it was her boyfriend and showed me a new tattoo on her thigh that he gave her,' Abequa said. [emphasis added]
At the time, the article contended that though Abequa could face the death penalty in Jordan if he was found guilty of murder, he might be able to avoid execution if he could convince the court that it was an 'honor killing.'
But judicial sources doubted Abequa would receive a reduced sentence because the highly publicized case has been the focus of U.S. interest and personal attention from Jordan's King Hussein.
It was troubling enough to the victim's family that Mohammad Abequa, who murdered his wife in New Jersey in 1994 and fled to Jordan with their two young children, was sentenced to only 15 years by a Jordanian court.
But then yesterday came the news that the confessed killer had been pardoned for his crime after serving five years in prison, and had been set free.
So how to begin to deal with this tragic injustice embedded in Jordanian law?
“We discovered that (Jordan) had taken this article from the Syrian penal code, which was taken from the French penal code,” Hassan explained. “So the basis for it was France: French law, not Islamic, nor Arabic.”
She noted: “Of course, France had abolished this article, and honor crimes were never again a problem the French legal system had to face.”
I realized how damaging colonization has been.
I felt a surprising sense of pain — but also hope — at this revelation. It made me realize just how damaging colonization has been for the Middle East.
Let's put aside the irony of the long history of the colonization by the Islamic expansionism that itself reached as far as France.
Is there a basis for Jordan blaming France?
Then how to explain how widespread honor killing is within the Arab world?
The Arab News article quoted above provides the following chart
Is the influence of France really that widespread?
Are these honor killings just another manifestation of the kind of abuse found the world over?
Are honor killings just another form of domestic violence?
Phyllis Chesler, an American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emerita of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island, takes a closer look at the distinction between honor killings and domestic violence, noting that
The frequent argument made by Muslim advocacy organizations that honor killings have nothing to do with Islam and that it is discriminatory to differentiate between honor killings and domestic violence is wrong.
She demonstrates that there are differences, and that honor killings are in fact to an alarming degree an Islamic phenomenon. One key difference between domestic violence and Islamic honor killings is that unlike honor killers who tend not to be condemned by Muslim society
the batterer-murderer is seen as a criminal; no one defends him as a hero. Such men are often viewed as sociopaths, mentally ill, or evil.
Committed mainly by Muslims against Muslim girls/young adult women.
Committed by men of all faiths usually against adult women.
Committed mainly by fathers against their teenage daughters and daughters in their early twenties. Wives and older-age daughters may also be victims, but to a lesser extent.
Committed by an adult male spouse against an adult female spouse or intimate partner.
Carefully planned. Death threats are often used as a means of control.
The murder is often unplanned and spontaneous.
The planning and execution involve multiple family members and can include mothers, sisters, brothers, male cousins, uncles, grandfathers, etc. If the girl escapes, the extended family will continue to search for her to kill her.
The murder is carried out by one man with no family complicity.
The reason given for the honor killing is that the girl or young woman has "dishonored" the family.
The batterer-murderer does not claim any family concept of "honor." The reasons may range from a poorly cooked meal to suspected infidelity to the woman's trying to protect the children from his abuse or turning to the authorities for help.
At least half the time, the killings are carried out with barbaric ferocity. The female victim is often raped, burned alive, stoned or beaten to death, cut at the throat, decapitated, stabbed numerous times, suffocated slowly, etc.
While some men do beat a spouse to death, they often simply shoot or stab them.
The extended family and community valorize the honor killing. They do not condemn the perpetrators in the name of Islam. Mainly, honor killings are seen as normative.
The batterer-murderer is seen as a criminal; no one defends him as a hero. Such men are often viewed as sociopaths, mentally ill, or evil.
The murderer(s) do not show remorse. Instead, they experience themselves as "victims," defending themselves from the girl's actions and trying to restore their lost family honor.
Sometimes, remorse or regret is exhibited.
The difference is more than between the Arab world and the West. There is also a distinction between Islam and other religions:
Families that kill for honor will threaten girls and women if they refuse to cover their hair, their faces, or their bodies or act as their family's domestic servant; wear makeup or Western clothing; choose friends from another religion; date; seek to obtain an advanced education; refuse an arranged marriage; seek a divorce from a violent husband; marry against their parents' wishes; or behave in ways that are considered too independent, which might mean anything from driving a car to spending time or living away from home or family. Fundamentalists of many religions may expect their women to meet some but not all of these expectations. But when women refuse to do so, Jews, Christians, and Buddhists are far more likely to shun rather than murder them. Muslims, however, do kill for honor, as do, to a lesser extent, Hindus and Sikhs.
A year later, in an article describing a study that she did on Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings, Chesler dug deeper. She did a study of honor killings, analyzing 172 incidents and 230 honor-killing victims where 100 of the victims were murdered in the West and 130 additional victims were murdered in the Muslim world.
Her findings reflected the Arab News graph in how widespread honor killings are in the Muslim world.
The perpetrators and victims lived in 29 countries or territories: Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, France, Gaza Strip, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and the West Bank.
The conclusion:
In this study, worldwide, 91 percent of perpetrators were Muslims. In North America, most killers (84 percent) were Muslims, with only a few Sikhs and even fewer Hindus perpetrating honor killings; in Europe, Muslims comprised an even larger majority at 96 percent while Sikhs were a tiny percentage. In Muslim countries, obviously almost all the perpetrators were Muslims. With only two exceptions, the victims were all members of the same religious group as their murderers.
You cannot pin this all on France.
Here is the Jordanian law in Article 340 again, this time with revisions made in 2010:
Now the law specifies that the killing has to be done "immediately," apparently to allow for this to be a crime of passion as opposed to being premeditated.
Also, in the spirit of evenhandedness, the woman is allowed to kill her husband as well, but without mentioning other relatives as is allowed to the man.
But the point of all this is not about nitpicking.
This is about dealing with the problem of honor killing by addressing the problem itself. Treating honor killings as just another manifestation of domestic abuse just avoids the issue and fails to understand this for what it is. That is why these public grassroots protests are an important step towards attacking the problem. There is more to be done than just applying a bandage to the existing law.
Now there are signs that people are beginning to realize that.
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.
One argument made by people on the Left - especially since Bari Weiss' book on antisemitism was released - is that there is no comparison between left wing "anti-Zionism" and right-wing antisemitism, because only the right-wing antisemites are violent.
The most insidious lie that @bariweiss tells us is that legal right wing antisemitism which has literally *killed* American Jews is *less dangerous* because “everyone agrees about it.”
I don't think Weiss says that at all, but this is a typical take - right wing antisemites have guns and have shown that they will kill Jews, while left-wingers only protest.
It is true that left-wing antisemites in America are not physically dangerous at this time. That is America, today. Many Palestinian terror groups that have killed many Jews over the years are are left-wing groups like the PFLP and DFLP, so the Left is not inoculated against antisemitic violence. we have also seen left-wing argument supporting Palestinian terror.
But is actual violence the only metric that matters? If Jews cannot feel comfortable walking though college campuses (or British subways) without being berated because they are presumed to be anti-Palestinian, is that not an issue that should be brought up? When Jews in college dorms are singled out for fake "eviction notices," is that not antsemitism?
Yes, right-wing antisemitism is dangerous. It is also, thankfully, rare. Most Jews walking on the street are not going to run into a violent right-wing antisemite. (Far more likely they would be attacked by a person of color, at least in New York.)
But left-wing antisemitism, disguised as anti-Zionism, is all over the place. They have rallies and demonstrations and "Israel Apartheid Week" displays all over. Jews do not feel comfortable expressing their views because of the intimidation and threats that the BDSers and friends use to shut down any pro-Israel speech.
To say that violent antisemitism is the only threat worth bothering to mention is like saying that women shouldn't complain about a work environment where men sneer at them and make jokes about their bodies - because they aren't actually getting raped.
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.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs keeps track of deaths and injuries of Israelis and Palestinians in a biweekly report.
It shows that the number of Israelis injured in Palestinian terror attacks is significantly up this year compared to last, and the year still has over three months to go. (There were five injuries during the reporting period.)
Notice also the flip in where the attacks occur: in 2017, over 90% were in the territories, while this year some 75% of the injuries from terror attacks are within the Green Line.
Similarly, the number of those killed this year according to OCHA have been mostly within the Green Line as opposed to recent years:
The main reason for the increase in deaths and injuries within the Green Line is the barrage of 700 rockets shot in May from Gaza.
These statistics do not include IDF soldiers stabbed, run over and shot.
(h/t Irene)
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.
The double standards of the world are quite obvious when one compares what would be a career-ending gaffe by any Western politician to what mainstream, respected and "moderate" Palestinian politicians say all the time.
As we've seen, Bassam al-Sayeh was involved in the murder of a rabbi and his wife, in front of their children. (And Israel provided him with excellent medical care.)
This murderous subhuman is indeed a hero to Palestinians.
Erekat is supposedly a "moderate." He goes on TV often. He writes op-eds for major newspapers.
Yet no reporter calls him on his direct and explicit support for terror as seen here. No diplomat condemns his statements of support for a murderer.
An Israeli politician who would publicly praise a murderer would be vilified worldwide. He or she would be barred from entering most Western countries.
The baseline for how Palestinians are expected to act are slightly above that of animals. And they live up to their expectations.
Yet the desire of finding a "moderate" lover of terrorists is so great that someone like Saeb Erekat and Hanan Ashrawi can say and support the most disgusting, sickening positions and not worry a bit about any repercussions - the media and world politicians need them to prove the narrative that both sides are equally moral and equally guilty.
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.
The decisive factor in next week’s election — and the reason for Benjamin Netanyahu’s durability — is a repressed memory.
When trying to understand Israel’s election on Sept. 17, the second in the space of six months, you can easily get lost in the details — corruption charges, coalition wrangling, bickering between left and right. But the best explainer might be a small film that you’re unlikely to see about something that people here prefer not to discuss.
The opening scene of “Born in Jerusalem and Still Alive,” which just won the prize for best first feature at the Jerusalem Film Festival, catches the main character grimacing as he overhears a glib tour guide. When she describes downtown Jerusalem to her group as “beautiful,” the “center of night life and food for the young generation,” Ronen, an earnest man in his late 30s, interrupts.
“Don’t believe her,” he tells the tourists in Hebrew-accented English. “You see this market? Fifteen years ago it was a war zone. Next to my high school there was a terror attack. Next to the university there was a terror attack. First time I made sex — terror attack.” One of the tourists sidles over, interested. “Yes,” Ronen tells her, “we had to stop.”
No single episode has shaped Israel’s population and politics like the wave of suicide bombings perpetrated by Palestinians in the first years of the 21st century. Much of what you see here in 2019 is the aftermath of that time, and every election since has been held in its shadow. The attacks, which killed hundreds of Israeli civilians, ended hopes for a negotiated peace and destroyed the left, which was in power when the wave began. Any sympathy that the Israeli majority had toward Palestinians evaporated.
More than any other single development, that period explains the durability of Benjamin Netanyahu, which outsiders sometimes struggle to understand. Simply put, in the decade before Mr. Netanyahu came to power in 2009, the fear of death accompanied us in public places. There was a chance your child could be blown up on the bus home from school. In the decade since, that has ceased to be the case. Next to that fact, all other issues pale. Whatever credit the prime minister really deserves for the change, for many voters it’s a good enough reason to keep him in power on Sept. 17. (h/t Yerushalimey)
MK Ayman Odeh, Head of the Arab Joint List on official PA TV: "Bringing down this government together with Benjamin Netanyahu is a great [Palestinian] national goal." What do you think? https://t.co/mzhQ5QZ4Mcpic.twitter.com/EAvFFYBJbW
In order to be welcomed as a Jew in a growing number of progressive groups, you have to disavow a list of things that grows longer every day. Whereas once it was enough to criticize Israeli government policy, specifically its treatment of Palestinians, now Israel’s very existence must be denounced. Whereas once it was enough to forswear the Jewish Defense League, now the very idea of Jewish power must be abjured. Whereas once Jewish success had to be explained, now it has to be apologized for. Whereas once only Israel’s government was demonized, now it is the Jewish movement for self-determination itself.
This bargain, which is really an ultimatum, explains so much.
It is why Jewish leaders of the Women’s March were subjected to anti-Semitic attacks and exclusion by the movement’s other leaders.
It is why at the University of Virginia, Jewish student activists were barred from a minority-student coalition to fight white supremacy.
It is why Manny’s, a popular café and event space in San Francisco, is being regularly protested. Its owner – a gay, progressive Mizrahi Jew – is, according to the protesters, “a Zionist and a gentrifier.”
And just as those on the far right have an out when accused of anti-Semitism – we like Jews just fine so long as they self-deport to Israel and keep our country unsullied – those on the far left have an out as well. We like Jews just fine, they say, as long as they shed their stubborn particularism and adhere, without fail, to our ever-shifting ideas of justice and equality. Jews are welcome so long as they undertake a kind of secular conversion by disavowing many or most of the things that actually make them Jewish. Whereas Jews once had to convert to Christianity, now they have to renounce Jewish power and convert to anti-Zionism.
Of course, Judaism has always been uncool, going back to its origins as the planet’s only monotheism, featuring a bossy and unsexy invisible God. Uncoolness is pretty much Judaism’s brand, which is why cool people find it so threatening—and why Jews who are willing to become cool are absolutely necessary to Hanukkah-style anti-Semitism’s success. In the days of Antiochus, this type of anti-Semitism needed those boys who voluntarily underwent painful genital surgery to prove that Jews weren’t the problem—just the barbarity of Jewish law. During the Soviet era, it needed proud internationalists to prove that Jews weren’t the problem, just the repulsive chauvinism of Jewish national identity—including what we now call Zionism.
The Soviets actually went one better. In 1918, they created an entire branch of their government solely for cool Jews, whose paid job was to persecute the uncool ones. This was called the Yevsektsiya, or the Jewish Sections of the Communist Party, and in their brief and bloody lifespan, one finds the origins of today’s supposedly novel concept: Jews who are of course not anti-Semitic (how could they be? they’re Jews!), but simply anti-Zionist. In the course of not being anti-Semitic and being simply anti-Zionist, the Yevsektsiya managed to persecute, imprison, torture, and murder thousands of Jews, until their leaders were themselves purged.
Yevsektsiya-style anti-Semitism, or Hannukah-style anti-Semitism, always promises Jews a kind of nobility, offering them the opportunity to cleanse themselves of whatever the people around them happen to find revolting. The Jewish traits designated as repulsive vary by country and time period, but they invariably contradict the specific values that the surrounding culture has embraced as “universal.”
The reason for this is clear: There is actually nothing “universal” about those particular values, except the insecurity of the societies hoping to enforce them. Not everyone feels it is critical to a well-lived life to play sports in the nude; not everyone believes that Jesus is the son of God; not everyone agrees that authoritarian central planning is the solution to the world’s ills; not everyone thinks that denouncing one’s ties to an ancestral homeland is a sign of virtue. Jewish particularity exposes the arrogance of a society’s self-righteous leaders along with their profound insecurity, their deep fear of any suggestion that there are other ways to be. Those insecure leaders then enlist the help of Jews by promising them a merit badge of universal righteousness. Thanks to Judaism’s inherent uncoolness, there will never be a shortage of Jews willing to comply.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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