Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

09/18 Links Pt2: Iran suspended from world judo federation over Israel boycott policy; UK Labour schedules anti-Semitism conference for Shabbat; One year later - Ari Fuld's brother recalls lost hero

From Ian:

Iran suspended from world judo federation over Israel boycott policy

Iran has been suspended from international judo competitions because of its policy of boycotting bouts with Israeli athletes.

Less than a month after Iranian athlete Saeid Mollaei walked off his national team in protest of the boycott policy, the International Judo Federation (IJF) said Wednesday that Iran was suspended ahead of a full hearing.

The Iranian judo star said he was afraid to return home after exposing and criticizing his government’s pressure on him to deliberately lose his semifinal bout in last month’s World Championships in Tokyo so as not to risk facing Israel’s Sagi Muki, the eventual winner, in the Tokyo final.

“Following what happened during the last World Judo Championships Tokyo 2019, the International Judo Federation pronounces against the Iran Judo Federation a protective suspension from all competitions, administrative and social activities organized or authorized by International Judo Federation and its Unions,” the IJF said in a statement on its website.

“The Commission has a strong reason to believe that the Iran Judo Federation will continue or repeatedly engage in misconduct or commit any other offence against the legitimate interests, principles or objectives of the IJF,” the statement said.

Iran’s judo federation is accused of discriminating against Israeli athletes and breaking rules over manipulating competition results.

The suspension went into force immediately, and is subject to an appeal that can be filed by the Iranian federation within 21 days.

UK Labour Party denounced over anti-Semitism conference scheduled for Shabbat

The British Labour Party’s latest attempt to shake long-standing allegations of anti-Jewish bias drew harsh criticism this week after it emerged that a planned meeting to discuss the issue was scheduled to be held on a Saturday, the Jewish day of rest.

On Tuesday, the Jewish Labour Movement issued a harsh statement condemning the party for effectively sidelining Jews from the debate, which will focus on streamlining the process of expelling members found guilty of anti-Semitism.

In a statement posted on Twitter, the JLM called the choice of date for the meeting an “institutional failing” and decried the party leadership’s “complete failure in both judgement and commitment to tackle anti-Semitism.”

“We have learnt tonight from press reports that the Party wishes to make sweeping changes to the disciplinary rules on anti-Semitism, without consulting us, its only Jewish affiliate, or any communal organization. To add insult to injury, they will debate these changes at conference on the Jewish Sabbath, when religiously observant Jewish Labor delegates will be silenced, unable to participate in the debate.”

The Jewish community “has zero confidence” that the measures being debated will solve the anti-Semitism crisis, the statement continued, accusing party leaders of “engaging in anti-Semitism or turning a blind eye to it.”

“It will simply streamline the process of letting anti-Semites off the hook.”

Gil Troy: American Jews should learn from Australia’s Zionist ‘Kanga-Jews’

Last month, I had a delightfully anachronistic experience. I met representatives of seven youth movements, from Right to Left. These smart, idealistic, passionately committed twentysomethings proudly call themselves “Zionist.”

That Friday night I sang and danced-in the Shabbat with dozens of students from one Jewish high school. Most are “nonreligious” – many drove there. Nevertheless, they welcomed the Sabbath Queen with a hassidic-level nuclear-powered intensity. They do this weekly, voluntarily, joyously!

Welcome to Australia, where I recently completed a 29-speech, 11-day, three-city tour with the Zionist Federation of Australia. It’s truly “down under,” charmingly upside down.

Unlike their American cousins, most Australian Jews attend Jewish day school, join youth movements, visit Israel – repeatedly – and cherish their Jewish traditions.

Ninety-two percent have visited Israel. In America it’s barely 50%, having doubled thanks to Birthright. In Australia, 33% intermarry, twice as many as did 20 years ago, but half the American rate. And, unlike many Americans, most Australian Jews still consider intermarriage a threat to the communal future, not an “opportunity.”

Many Australian students are “out” as Zionists. Considering themselves Jews “first,” they are proudly nationalist. Similarly, most communal leaders are passionate Zionists. They’re often to the community’s “Right,” religiously, politically. They’re modern Maccabees, not Social Justice Warriors in rabbinic robes. In America, many non-Orthodox rabbis and community leaders lead the charge against Israel, wasting precious Torah-teaching time sermonizing against Netanyahu, politicizing the relationship, then wondering why so many Jews seem fed up with Israel – and Judaism.

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

I just finished Bari Weiss’ book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism. I suggest that you read it.

Not because I agree with everything in it, especially her answers to the question implied by its title. Be proud of being Jewish, she says, stay liberal, don’t hide your Jewishness, don’t let the Linda Sarsours push you around, live your life according to Jewish principles (by which she seems to mean the ones you learn about in a Reform synagogue, not the traditional mitzvot) and more. Even “support Israel.” All good things, but – with the exception of an injunction to take measures to protect the security of Jewish institutions – not much that you can use when they are banging at your door in the middle of the night.

I also think that she goes a bit far when she asserts that Donald Trump “trashed – gleefully and shamelessly – the unwritten rules of our society that have kept American Jews and, therefore, America safe.” His legacy is “a culture demolished, smashed, twisted beyond recognition,” according to Weiss.

No. A great deal has gone wrong in America in the last few decades, but there are plenty of villains to go around, including Trump’s recent predecessors and the over-the-top insanity of the Left’s reaction to Trump. If the culture is smashed, Trump is one of the fragments, not the one who smashed it.

And although Weiss’ historical chapters, including her analysis of the three directions from which Jews are being bombarded today – the Right, the Left, and “Radical Islam” (I think her editor stuck in the word “radical”) – are well written and very informative, they are also not why I am recommending the book.

I want people to read this book because there is no way you can do so and still maintain that there is no runaway antisemitism problem in North America. There is no way you can maintain that Jews in the last remaining safe diaspora stronghold will continue to be safe, and not just from a few heavily armed neo-Nazi wackos. If she does one thing exceptionally well in this book, it is to accurately convey the extent of the phenomenon. The neo-Nazis, the intersectional leftists smugly categorizing Jews as exploiters with no rights, the Farrakhanists on New York subways, the imams preaching about killing Jews – there are more of them every day.

Weiss talks a lot about Europe, where everyday life for Jews is rapidly becoming more difficult and dangerous, mostly because of the influx of Muslim migrants from places where, as she points out, Jew-hatred is normative. In other words, it’s part of almost everybody’s repertoire of common knowledge. Is the Pope Catholic? Does the bear defecate in the woods? Are the Jews a subhuman race descended from apes and pigs? Ask anyone in Iraq. In Somalia, when you stub your toe you curse the Jews. Muslim migrants from places like that do not leave their antisemitism at the airport along with any prohibited invasive plants.

Should French Jews proudly wear their kipot? She doesn’t know if, in their place, she would. But Europe provides a clue as to why her solutions won’t work in the US. France has the third largest population of Jews in the world (about half a million), after Israel and the US. But they comprise only about 0.7% of the French population. If the non-Jewish population and the government can’t protect them, then it doesn’t matter how proud they are of their Jewishness, how liberal they are, or how “out” they are about being Jewish. And many French Jews have already decided to either move to “safe” neighborhoods in large cities – you could call them ghettos – or to abandon careers or sell businesses and leave the country.

In the UK, there are fewer than 300,000 Jews, about 0.44% of the population. Weiss notes that a recent poll had some 40% of British Jews saying they would “seriously consider emigrating” if the antisemitic – there’s no arguing this point – Jeremy Corbyn were to become Prime Minister. They, too, are making the same calculation.

The US and Canada have larger percentages of Jews – 1.8% and 1.1% respectively. But that is still minuscule in comparison to the non-Jewish majority. If they lose the support of that majority, then their position becomes untenable. And as Corbyn has shown, shockingly, it is even possible for a major political party in a democratic country to take a turn toward antisemitism.

Weiss’ point of view is that of a liberal Jew living in the US, and why she wants to “fight anti-Semitism” is to try to bring back the golden age of American Jewry, which she sees as slipping away. She would like to reverse some of the trends, but – revealingly – she wants to do it by changing the Jews. As Kenneth Levin has pointed out in his book The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege, that can’t work. It isn’t up to the Jews. Antisemitism is irrational and the antisemites will hate them regardless of how they behave. And when you are less than 2% of the population (and getting smaller), you don’t have the leverage to move the country, despite what antisemites may believe about Jewish power.

I would like to look at the problem from a broader perspective: what do we need to do to preserve the Jewish people in the face of its enemies?

The first thing I notice is that much of the diaspora is already lost. There are almost no Jews left anywhere in the Muslim world, and Hitler and Stalin put an end to the Jews of the former Russian Empire and Central Europe. There is no future for Jews in France. The UK is on the cusp of a similar fate, dependent on the political whim of the 99.56% of the population that is not Jewish. Even if Corbyn is not elected, conditions for Jews in the UK are almost certain to be worse in the future than they are now.

That leaves the US and Canada. Perhaps, as Weiss suggests, if the Jews could be more unified they could resist antisemitic trends and personalities better. Perhaps; although it seems to me that the Jewish communities are just as polarized as the society as a whole. If – just for example – the left wing of the Democratic party in the US were to “Corbynize” the party, there would be little that the tiny minority of Jews could do.

Weiss wants to fight antisemitism by being honest, liberal, proud, and enlightened. All those qualities are useless against enemies that are precisely the opposite in all respects, and that is the case with antisemites. There is only one way to deter your enemies, and that is to be more powerful than them – and to demonstrate this whenever the occasion arises.

This can’t happen within a country where Jews are a tiny minority, but it may be possible on the world stage. Israel, as Weiss notes, has a powerful army and nuclear weapons. It also has less visible assets, like a very high level of technical competence. Israel is the heart and soul of the Jewish people, and the way to preserve the people and its culture, is for Israel to survive and thrive. Insofar as it does, it can be a place of refuge for the inhabitants of those diaspora communities that may not.

I don’t think that Weiss has the answers for North American Jews. But maybe her description of exactly how bad the situation is, and how it is likely to get worse, will impel some of them to think seriously about aliyah.

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09/18 Links Pt1: An Israeli Groundhog Day; With 90% of vote officially counted, Blue and White edging out Likud 32-31; Netanyahu and Trump Hatch Plan for a Jordan Exclave in West Bank

From Ian:

An Israeli Groundhog Day - analysis

It’s clear that a unity government is the only option to avoid another dreadful third round, but that would necessitate some major changes. Either Blue and White’s Benny Gantz reneges on his promise to voters to not sit in a coalition with Benjamin Netanyahu, or the Likud puts in process a motion to replace Netanyahu as leader. Neither of those is likely, even though President Reuven Rivlin could appeal to Gantz’s national pride and attempt to convince him to join a national-unity government out of obligation to the country.

Also improbable is the option of Liberman going back on his word to his constituents to not sit in a government with non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox parties, in order to join a right-wing coalition with the Likud, Yamina and the religious parties. That would be an even bigger jump than Gantz would have to make.

Both the Right and Left predictably spun the results for their own means, with the Likud touting the Right’s bigger bloc and the Left proclaiming “the end of the Netanyahu era.”

However, a declaration like that when dealing with Netanyahu is always premature. Given his legal woes and the groundswell of opinion that a change is needed for Israel’s leadership, the fact that Blue and White was unable to strike a clear-cut victory could also be seen as a considerable failure of its lackluster campaign.

The day after the election, all sides seemed to be digging into their well-worn trenches of “I’ll only join X if Y happens.” Even though, during the campaign, every candidate insisted that there was no way there would be a third round of voting, all indications point to another stalemate in the weeks ahead, as Rivlin attempts to convince the sides to compromise.

If he fails, it looks like we’ll be waking up to Groundhog Day again real soon.

JPost Editorial: After the vote

Whether Benjamin Netanyahu or Benny Gantz ends up forming the next coalition is immaterial. What is important is to realize that it’s time for the country to come together, and for our politicians to understand their place in history. They are not here just for the power and influence that comes with their roles, but to work on behalf of us, the people. They are supposed to work to improve our quality of life, to ensure that we are safe, and that the gap between those who have and those who do not closes and doesn’t widen.

A 61-member coalition should never be the goal. A razor-thin majority is never good for a country. Instead, the ideal should be 70 or 80, where fewer parties have the ability to pull out and bring down the government. This is not hard to achieve. Everyone has to compromise a little bit, and everyone can. Just think how many times it has been done over the 34 governments of Israel’s history. Can Israel’s politicians find a way to work together?

Putting aside the results, Israelis have to move forward today and pick up the pieces. First, our political leaders must ensure that there is not another stalemate, and that the country does not again go to an unnecessary third election. The country must come first, even it means that some parties will be forced to go back on some of their campaign promises of “I won’t sit with him” or “I won’t countenance them.”

It’s time for the parties to put the betterment of the country ahead of their own narrow interests.

And it’s time for the nation to heal. After two dirty elections during which entire sectors of society – the ultra-Orthodox and Arabs to name two – were delegitimized by candidates and political parties, we need to try to find a way to come back together, to stand on common ground and build a future that ensures no Israeli feels disenfranchised. That is the work that the next government must set out for itself. Failure is unacceptable.

With 90% of vote officially counted, Blue and White edging out Likud 32-31

With 89.8 percent of votes having been counted by the Central Elections Committee, Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party on Wednesday was projected to secure 32 seats in the Knesset, edging ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, which stood at 31 seats.

In the official count, the Gantz-led center-left-Arab bloc has a slight advantage over the Netanyahu-led right-religious bloc with 56 seats versus 55. In the middle are the nine seats of Yisrael Beytenu, whose leader, MK Avigdor Liberman, has vowed to force Likud and Blue and White into a unity government.

The Joint List, an alliance of mostly Arab parties, stands at third with 13 seats, followed by the ultra-Orthodox Shas and Yisrael Beytenu, both with nine seats.

Bringing up the rear are the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism (8), the nationalist alliance Yamina (7), center-left Labor-Gesher (6) and the leftist Democratic Camp (5).

The tally was announced at noon and was not final, with votes from Arab population centers expected to be finished shortly, followed by counts of the votes cast by soldiers, diplomats and patients in Israeli hospitals, among others.

The figures indicated that the deadlock from the previous elections on April 9 would continue. Netanyahu’s difficult situation was compounded by the fact that the right-wing bloc bled votes to Liberman.

Apparent Kingmaker Lieberman Says ‘Emergency Situation’ Requires Unity Government With Likud, Blue and White

Leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party Avigdor Lieberman, who according to exit polls will play the kingmaker in the coalition negotiations following Israel’s Tuesday elections, said that he would accept only one outcome — a national unity government.

The exit polls show that Lieberman’s secular-nationalist party has won 8-10 seats in the next Knesset, with the right-wing Likud and centrist Blue and White parties essentially tied at around 30 seats and the right-religious and center-left blocs hovering around 55 seats, giving neither side a working majority without him.

Lieberman addressed his supporters Tuesday night and appeared to flex his muscles, saying, “There is only one option: a broad liberal government made up of the Likud, Blue and White and Yisrael Beiteinu.”

“We have always said that a unity government is possible only in an emergency situation, and I say to every citizen that is watching us now on television — the situation, security-wise and economically, is an emergency situation,” Lieberman said.

Lieberman called on President Reuven Rivlin not to wait for the final results to name someone to undertake coalition negotiations, saying the president should “invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz to an informal conversation as early as Friday.”

“The state needs a broad government,” Lieberman asserted, “even a unity government without us is preferable to dealing with endless negotiations.”

Israel, he said, did not need “a government fighting for its survival from week to week.”

Al Quds al Arabi, a UK-based pan-Arab newspaper, attacks Yad Vashem - and denies any connection between Israel and Judaism as it does so.

All museums of the world, with various kinds and themes, aim to protect the cultural identity of the country or city to which it belongs, with works of art, whether in the form of pictures such as the National Film Archives, films depicted about the country or city, or through paintings or artifacts. ...The exception is the Holocaust Museum in occupied Jerusalem, or "Yad Vashem". It chronicles the birth of a European racism that we have nothing to do with it as Orientals. In the minds of visitors to their alleged museum, the Holocaust took place in Palestine and not in Europe.

In other words, Israel has no right to build a Holocaust museum because the bulk of the event happened in Europe, and has nothing to do with the Jewish state.

That's not all:

The exploitation of the idea of the Holocaust by Zionism is to obtain financial compensation from Europe and America, in addition to facilitating immigration to Israel before declaring a Jewish state at the time to compensate the Holocaust. ...

Readers of Al Quds learn that there was nothing special about the Holocaust - the number of Jews killed might not be accurate, and Nazis killed Poles and gays and the handicapped and Russians.

The article then goes on to quote a Nazi in a war crimes trial as saying that racism is a staple of Western thought, and Nazi persecution of Jews is therefore no big deal. Al Quds goes on to then say that the idea of Jews as a chosen people is an outgrowth of this Western racism, and is used to justify massacres of Palestinians.

In fact, the article says that the museum doesn't mention the "holocaust" of Israel against the indigenous Canaanites of the land.

Of course, everything is ultimately about Palestinians.

(h/t YK on correction on newspaper)

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Saeb Erekat's Twitter profile pic works hard to erase Jews from Jerusalem

Here is the banner picture on PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat's Twitter account:

It shows a church and the iconic Dome of the Rock - but nothing Jewish.

It turns out that to take a shot like this, avoiding any Jewish historical sites, is not easy.

The church is the Church of Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives, of course, is a graveyard for tens of thousands of Jews, and Erekat would not want the world to see that.

The two domes are half a kilometer away from each other. It is difficult to frame a photo where they are comparable in size - it must have been taken from a great distance behind the church. Here's how big the Dome is from a Google Streetview shot from next to the church.

To be sure, some professional photographers have managed to get similar shots, because it is dramatic to juxtapose the two domes. But Erakat didn't choose his photo for its aesthetic qualities - he has specifically looked for and chosen a shot that makes Jerusalem look Arab Christian and Arab Muslim, with the deliberate aim of erasing Jerusalem's Jewish character altogether.

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The peace loving fools

Last week I tweeted:

Hey, @jstreetdotorg and @peacenowisrael:

You claim, with great confidence, that if only there was a Palestinian state, then things would be much more peaceful in Israel..

What do you base that assumption on? What evidence is there are the result wouldn't be the opposite?
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) September 12, 2019

Peace Now responded:

2ss would save our democracy by avoiding undemocratic 1-state rule first and foremost. And a peace with deterrence would has worked in both cases where we made peace with Arab neighbors. There are different circumstances, but then there are more aggressive security measures.
— Peace Now (@peacenowisrael) September 12, 2019

I find it interesting that Peace Now does not choose to use "peace" as its primary reason for a two state solution, but an appeal to democracy - "first and foremost." Maybe it should change its name to Democracy Now - oh, wait, that's already taken.

Of course, Israeli leftists said that Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and from Areas A and B would not hurt security either because Israel could use deterrence - but new Gaza wars every few years indicates that deterrence is not all it is cracked up to be.

Assuming "if Israel does X, then then Arabs will do Y" is a fallacy.

The other major difference between Palestinians and Egypt/Jordan is that those two countries do not have (serious) territorial claims on all of Israel but the Palestinians do. As I recently pointed out, most Palestinians want the conflict to keep going even after a "peace" agreement that still allows Israel to exist.

I responded to Peace Now, "So your vision of democracy is worth the potential deaths of thousands of people?"

It turns out that Dennis Prager described the Peace Now/J-Street mentality perfectly in his column last week:

The problem with communists and with leftists who don’t consider themselves communists is not that none of them mean well. It’s that they lack wisdom. There are wise and foolish liberals, wise and foolish conservatives; but all leftists are fools. Every one of the Democrats running for president is a fool. This is not, however, a description of their totality as a human being. Fools may be personally kind and generous, may be loyal friends and devoted spouses, and of course, they may be well-intentioned. But in terms of making the world worse, there is little difference between a well-meaning fool and an evil human being. Tens of millions of well-intentioned Westerners supported Stalin. The Westerners who supplied Stalin the secrets to the atom bomb were not motivated by evil. They were simply fools. But few evil people did as much to hurt the world as they did.

They are fools partly because they believe good intentions are all that matter. Therefore, they never ask perhaps the most important moral question one can ask: What will happen if my policy is enacted? Leftist supporters of communism never asked.
...
On every issue in which the left differs from conservatives (and often from liberals), they are fools. They push for a Palestinian state although even Israelis on the left know this would mean a Hamas-Hezbollah state on the Israeli border. But they know they mean well.

They want peace! How can that be bad? But it can be, because they do not think through the potential downsides of what they call "peace." They pretend that their desired outcome is the only possible outcome, and if they are wrong, oh well - there are no consequences to them personally.

This is why they are fools.

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Arabic media describes "mitzvah tantz" video - "Jew ties his wife up like a lamb at wedding"

Many Chassidim have the custom of the "mitzvah tantz" at a wedding:

The mitzvah tantz (mitzvah-dance) is the Hasidic custom of the men dancing with the bride on her wedding night, after the wedding feast. The bride stands perfectly still, holding one end of a long sash while rabbis, the groom’s father, her own father or her grandfather holds the other end and dances with her.

A video of a mitzvah tantz has been popping up in Arab social media, and the person who tweeted it said that the groom was tying the bride up, which is not in the least what was happening.

رابط زوجته بحبل مثل النعجه
مراسم زواج يهودي .. لكم الحكم!!
لو كان هذا الفيديو للمسلمين بنفس الهيئة ..لامتلأ الفضاء نباحاً وعويلاً
#صباح_الخير pic.twitter.com/DCikQJncTz
— منصور العواجي (@mansour_alawaji) September 15, 2019

Admittedly, in this mitzvah tantz the father or rabbi is a bit too enthusiastic and not realizing that she has to spin around to avoid being indeed tied up. Circling the bride that many times in a mitzvah tantz seems unusual.

The tweeter said that if a Muslim would do that to his bride at his wedding, the world would be howling.

Well, yeah, if a groom tied up his wife it would look pretty bad!

Naturally, Arabic media picked up on the false story.

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09/17 Links Pt2: The Women’s March Finally Dumped Linda Sarsour - And Replaced Her With Someone Worse; Florida Dem Accuses Israel of Bulldozing Palestinians in Their Homes; US pressed European lawmakers to oppose BDS

From Ian:

Siraj Hashmi: The Women’s March Finally Dumped Linda Sarsour - And Replaced Her With Someone Worse

On Monday, the Women’s March made a shocking announcement: it had cut ties with three of its four founders––Linda Sarsour, Bob Bland, and Tamika Mallory. Sarsour and Mallory had become controversial figures due to allegations of anti-Semitism, including a cozy relationship with rabid anti-Semite and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Monday’s announcement should have been a turning point for a movement that has been tainted by the recurring strain of anti-Semitism. Instead, in a move both remarkable and disheartening, the Women’s March has managed to find yet another anti-Semitic Muslim woman to serve on its board.

Consider Zahra Billoo, an attorney and the executive director of the San Francisco chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations. Billoo’s hateful and anti-Semitic tweets, particularly in relation to Israel, were brought back into focus when she was “promoted” to board member within the Women’s March.

In a June 2012 tweet, Billoo wrote, “Apartheid Israel kills children as a hobby.”

In February 2015, Billoo responded to the Obama administration program to counter radical Islamic terrorism in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack by writing, “DHS and FBI should launch CVE [Countering Violent Extremism] programs targeting Israel supporters because Zionism is a very real threat to our national security.”

Billoo also made direct comparisons between the Jewish State of Israel and the terrorist Islamic State, posting on Twitter, “Who has killed, tortured, and imprisoned more people: Apartheid Israel or ISIS?”

She disparaged Zionists and even accused the FBI of recruiting for the Islamic State, writing, “I’m more afraid of racist Zionists who support Apartheid Israel than the mentally ill young people the #FBI recruits to join ISIS. #CVE.”

Unfortunately, Billoo’s racist tweets do not stand alone. They seem to reflect the views of most prominent Muslims in America on the Left.

BDS Co-Founder Omar Barghouti to Speak at Labour Party Conference Festival

Palestinian activist and co-founder of the BDS movement Omar Barghouti will speak on a panel at an event taking place alongside the British Labour Party Conference.

Barghouti plans to discuss “British state and non-state actors” using “a variety of methods to suppress the democratic mobilizing of those working for progressive causes” on Sept. 24 at “The World Transformed,” an annual four-day political festival running beside the Labour Party Conference.

The Labour Party Conference is not officially associated with the festival, though Labour Party members, including leader Jeremy Corbyn, have made appearances there in recent years.

A spokesman for the festival defended Barghouti’s involvement on the panel, saying, “Omar Barghouti is one of a number of internationally recognized human-rights defenders we have at this year’s festival, which features a range of distinguished speakers representing struggles from across the Global South. Mr. Barghouti has spoken extensively at universities, festivals and events around the world to defend the rights of the Palestinian people as recognized by international laws.”

Barghouti co-founded the BDS movement in 2005, and two years later, the Palestinian BDS National Committee, which has links to the US-designated terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Florida Dem Accuses Israel of Bulldozing Palestinians in Their Homes

A Democratic Florida congressional candidate has accused Israel of systematically eradicating Palestinian homes with civilians still inside them, an out-of-context claim that is routinely used by Israel’s detractors to inaccurately paint the Jewish state as committing acts of ethnic cleansing.

Christine Olivo, a self-described "humanitarian" who is running for Congress in Florida’s 24th district, made the claim Monday on Twitter while expressing frustration that anti-Israel activism is perceived by many in the mainstream of politics as anti-Semitic in nature.

"Everyone thinks that if you side with the Palestinians then you’re anti-Semitic. WTF [What the Fuck]!" Olivo wrote in response to an article about the upcoming Israeli elections that was tweeted by a cofounder of the virulently anti-Israel organization IfNotNow, which has accused sitting members of Congress of "dual-loyalty" to Israel.

"We can't turn a blind eye to the suffering that they're enduring at the hands of people that have endured great suffering themselves," Olivo wrote. "THEIR HOUSES ARE BEING BULLDOZED WITH THEM IN IT!"

Olivo's claim, which was offered without evidence, is often deployed by Israel's critics to falsely accuse the Jewish state of carrying out the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in disputed territories.

Verbal attacks on Zionist Jews on campus increases dramatically in 2018 (new AMCHA report)

The AMCHA Initiative just released their report on antisemitic and anti-Zionist activity on college campuses, and things are getting worse.

Excerpts:

o Classical antisemitic harassment decreased by 42% from 205 in 2017 to 118 in 2018.
o Israel-related harassment increased by 70% from 71 in 2017 to 121 in 2018.
o Antisemitic acts involving the singling out of Jewish and pro-Israel students and groups for personal vilification more than doubled, with a tripling of expression falsely implying these students or groups are linked to “white supremacy.”
o Antisemitic acts involving the unfair treatment of Jewish and pro-Israel students or attempts to exclude them from campus activities more than doubled, with expression calling for the total boycott or exclusion of Zionist students or expression from campus life nearly tripling.

The number of incidents of academic BDS promotion or attempted implementation involving individual faculty or academic departments nearly quadrupled.
o The number of events sponsored by academic departments that contained the demonization or delegitimization of Israel increased by 85%.
o The number of departmentally-sponsored events at which one or more speakers advocated for or condoned violence against Israel or Israel’s elimination nearly tripled.

Expression of BDS supporters acknowledging that the goal of BDS is to bring about or facilitate the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state increased dramatically, with one incident reported in 2017 and 32 incidents in 2018.

Being a Zionist Jew on campus in 2019 is like going into battle. It shouldn't be that way.

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US Rep @BettyMcCollum04 doesn't care about tens of thousands of American kids who are locked up - only a few Palestinian kids

US Representative Betty McCollum tweets:

My bill, HR 2407, prohibits U.S. military aid from being used to detain, abuse, & torture Palestinian children living under Israeli military occupation. Children should never be mistreated, caged, or tortured with our tax dollars – anywhere. https://t.co/CmjNhgv5va
— Rep. Betty McCollum (@BettyMcCollum04) September 16, 2019

First of all, McCollum's bill is a lie. Israel doesn't torture kids, despite the anti-Israel NGOs who claim otherwise.

US military aid to Israel is for weapons systems and missile defense, not on prisons.

But the real hypocrisy is that McCollum is pretending to care about children and our tax dollars. In fact, the only children that she seems to actually care about are those whom she can use as political pawns against Donald Trump or Israel.

Israel currently holds some 210 children, 27 between 14-16 and only 1 under 14, according to B'Tselem.

Let's compare that to the number of children locked up in the US in both youth detention facilities and adult prisons:

That's over 53,000 children locked up in the US, today.

4,600 kids are in in adult prisons, where they are far more likely to be sexually abused than adults are.

There are 500 kids 12 or under who are locked up!

These children are incarcerated with US tax dollars, whether on the state or federal level. (Yes, there are children in federal prisons as well.)

Yet somehow, McCollum's interest in children and tax dollars evaporates when the children are in her own back yard.

Cloaking her hate of Israel is the mantle of morality, Betty McCollum shows what a hypocrite she is. There is no love of children in her bill - only hate for the Jewish state.

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09/17 Links Pt1: Area C: ‘Occupation’ or annexation; What It Will Take to Prevent Iran from Starting a War; The PA’s latest educational curriculum is a strategic move toward hate

From Ian:

Area C: ‘Occupation’ or annexation

Ironically, withdrawal of Israeli control would condemn Arab Palestinians to Hamas control and promote violent power struggles between warring Muslim factions. This chaotic situation would enable other countries and Islamic militants in the region to join the conflict and would likely destabilize the entire region. In addition, it would further Syrian aspirations to recover the Golan Heights, and encourage Islamic militants – such as ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah – to continue attacking Israel.

This scenario is the danger of the “two-state-solution” (TSS). The TSS would not resolve any Arab and Palestinian objections to Israel’s existence as declared in the PLO Covenant and Hamas Charter; it would neither change their fundamental narrative of the Nakba, and the “Right-of-Return” for Arab “refugees,” nor their demand that Israel return to the UN-proposed plan of 1947. The TSS means, therefore, ending Israel’s existence.

On the other hand, declaring Israeli sovereignty over Area C – annexation – would confirm and protect the right of Jews to live in their homeland and it would promote a constructive, productive future for all residents of the area. It would eliminate the “military occupation” by the IDF/COGAT. It would allow Israel’s security forces to apprehend terrorists in PA towns and cities. It would strengthen Israel’s security and would enable Arabs in the area to live in peace and enjoy economic and social benefits.

Opposing annexation, however, does not and will not prevent Israel’s enemies from denouncing “the occupation” and engaging in anti-Israel activities. And, the issue of “settlements” continues to fracture Israeli society and diminish our national cohesion. It’s a “lose-lose” strategy.

Although Israeli leftists oppose annexation, they offer no reasonable or practical alternative. Moreover, they are oblivious to the consequences of not annexing Area C. Opposing the implementation of civilian Israeli authority (annexation) and continuing the “military occupation” of Area C, therefore, serves no one; it makes no sense.

Israeli leftists have a responsibility and obligation to explain how their plan would work. Refusing to do so means that they are not serious and don’t care about the damage they cause. Do they stand with Israel and Zionism, or not? Are they with us, or against us (meaning the vast majority of Jews in Israel)? Jewish communities in Area C are facts of life. Abandoning them is not an option. The choice, therefore, is simple: Annexation or “Occupation” – sovereignty or self-defeat.

Noah Rothman: What It Will Take to Prevent Iran from Starting a War

So, if the response to Iranian aggression is not unconditional diplomatic re-engagement, what should it be? The Trump administration remains committed to an admirable and arguably successful effort to use financial and diplomatic tools to destabilize the Iranian regime from within. But that commitment forecloses on retaliatory strikes on Iranian targets. Such a course would provide the regime with the opportunity to rally the public against the United States, shifting the nation’s focus away from the regime’s failures and toward an exogenous threat.

The White House’s reluctance to undermine that strategy and the president’s desire to avoid “disproportionate” loss of life or collateral destruction is commendable but flawed. The Iranian regime is not interested in proportionality. Its interests lie in fomenting conflict in the region, breaking the resolve of America’s European allies to maintain a united front, and ultimately relieving the economic pressure on the regime.

The timing of this latest attack affords the Trump administration an opportunity to turn the tables against the Iranian regime. As the world’s leaders gather in New York City ahead of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Trump administration should use that platform to make the case against the Iranian regime. It should reveal the intelligence its officials claim to have proving why Iran was behind this act of war. It should expand upon its theory of the case: That Iran’s provocations are part of a deliberate effort to destabilize the region, sow tension within the Western alliance, and divide and conquer. It should compel the civilized nations of the world to deploy naval assets to the region to deter further acts of Iranian piracy, which have not abated even in the wake of the strikes in Abqaiq. And finally, the Trump administration should reserve the right to use incommensurate retaliatory force against Iranian regime targets with or without the support of its allies.

The Trump administration should do all these things, but it won’t. Iran will continue to test its freedom of action until it miscalculates and ignites an international incident that necessitates an immediate military response to reestablish what the Trump administration confessed broke down long ago: deterrence. We can only hope that the damage that will be done and the lives that will be lost in that event will be minimal. But there can be no question that, on the present course, it is coming. (h/t IsaacStorm)

US to Attempt ‘George Costanza Doctrine’ in the Middle East (satire)

Noting that every action the US has taken in the Middle East for roughly seven decades has been wrong, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has adopted the ‘George Costanza Doctrine’ of doing the opposite of policymakers’ instincts.

“Every decision we have made – who to bomb, where to invade, who to ally with – has gone disastrously wrong,” Pompeo explained. “We counted on the Shah of Iran to stay in power, we threw our weight behind the Oslo Peace Process, we invaded Iraq, we bombed Libya, we stayed out of Syria – and nothing has worked out since oil was discovered in the Arabian Peninsula.”

Pompeo continued, “If our instincts are always wrong, then the best way to achieve our desired outcomes may be to do the opposite of what we think is correct.”

So far, the new approach has led to some policy successes. When Israel revealed plans for a new round of settlement construction, the US announced its support and added that it would soon be building settlements for American Zionist Christians in the Jerusalem suburbs. President Trump then announced that he would respond to the humanitarian crisis in Syria by opening the door for an influx of Syrian refugees and by banning non-Muslims from immigrating into the US.

And when a caravan of Middle Eastern men in Humvees were spotted near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the military decided against taking them out with a Predator drone. This move also paid off – though the men turned out to be terrorists, they soon blew themselves up when an explosive device planned to be used in a suicide bombing exploded prematurely.

“Crooked Hillary and Obama the Communist Kenyan never thought of this opposite stuff!” Trump considered tweeting, before thinking better of it and logging off Twitter.

Why is Bernie Sanders such a magnet for antisemites? (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

One thing you can say about Bernie Sanders: He sure does have some unexpected friends and admirers.

Bernie Sanders and Farrakhan

Farrakhan was very clear in 2016 that he was not supporting Bernie Sanders.
You won't find him supporting Sanders for president now either.

And yet in 2016 Farrakhan went out of his way not to attack him as one of those "Satanic Jews".
According to Farrakhan, Bernie Sanders is one of those "decent" Jews:

"I have to say this about Mr. Sanders: he's a Jew, not a so-called Jew. He's trying to be decent..."

Bernie Sanders and Sharpton

'Nuff said.

Bernie Sanders and Ilhan Omar

Earlier this year, Omar attacked AIPAC and accused her Jewish fellow Congressmen of dual loyalty:

Bernie Sanders wasted no time. During a conference call hosted by James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, Sanders confirmed that he had talked to Omar that night to give her his support.

Of course, it did not take long for Omar to again accuse Jews of dual loyalty:

But that did not dissuade Sanders. In June, Teen Vogue had a piece on how Bernie Sanders Teamed Up With Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal on a Plan to Cancel All Student Loan Debt

Bernie Sanders and James Zogby

In Lovable Bernie Whacks Israel, Charles Krauthammer wrote in 2016 that

two of Sanders' appointments to the 15-member platform committee are so stunning. Professor Cornel West not only has called the Israeli prime minister a war criminal, but openly supports the BDS movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions), the most important attempt in the world to ostracize and delegitimize Israel.

West is joined on the committee by the longtime pro-Palestinian activist James Zogby. Together, reported The New York Times, they "vowed to upend what they see as the party's lopsided support of Israel." [emphasis added]

Actually, lopsided would an apt description of Zogby's defense of Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorists.

In 2006, Zogby defended Hezbollah's use of human shield's:

Zogby: I've said from the beginning that [Hezbollah's] behavior was reckless and provocative. But Israel bears the responsibility. It's like saying what Mort is saying and what those who want to make that case is saying, the girl who wore the short skirt deserved to get raped--

James Taranto commented:

Zogby's claim that Hezbollah bears no responsibility for civilian casualties is outrageous, and his likening of Hezbollah to a rape victim is scandalously so.

Elder of Ziyon quotes this example and gives another, one of Zogby defending Yasir Arafat. In an interview with Paula Zahn on CNN:

ZAHN: Mr. Zogby, how much responsibility do you think Yasser Arafat should bear for the ongoing troubles in the Middle East?

ZOGBY: Well, listen, it's -- we live in a kind of an "Alice in Wonderland" world here, where Ariel Sharon is the man of peace and Arafat becomes the obstacle to peace. We've lionized one and demonized the other, and I simply don't think this picture is accurate. The man has flaws...

Imagine a world where Ariel Sharon removes every last Israeli from Gaza and gives it, along with the infrastructure intact, to Hamas while Arafat rejects Clinton's attempt to forge a peace deal -- this is the "Wonderland" Zogby inhabits. Arafat did not have flaws -- he was responsible for the deaths of unarmed civilians because they were Jews.

Bernie Sanders and Cornel West

Krauthammer writes about Cornel West:

West doesn't even pretend, as do some left-wing "peace" groups, to be opposing Israeli policy in order to save it from itself. He makes the simpler case that occupation is unconscionable oppression and that until Israel abandons it, Israel deserves to be treated like apartheid South Africa -- anathematized, cut off, made to bleed morally and economically.

Like Zogby, Cornel West, a BDS proponent, also makes excuses for Palestinian terrorism, writing that the actions of Hamas “pale in the face of the US-supported Israeli slaughter of innocent civilians.” West once accused President Obama of being “most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want.”

Of course, Bernie Sanders is different.

Bernie Sanders and Linda Sarsour

Last weekend, Sanders made Sarsour his surrogate, allowing her to campaign on his behalf, creating a unique situation considering, as The Jerusalem Post put it, "that Sanders is Jewish and Sarsour is known as an anti-Israel, antisemitic activist."

Actually, what does he have to lose?
The Democrats have the Jewish vote anyway.

With Sarsour -- as with Simone Zimmerman before her -- Sanders can tap into the energy of progressives with minimal cost to a Jewish base which sided with Hillary anyway during the last election and is unlikely to flock to him this time around either. A poll in May showed Biden getting 47% of the Jewish vote among registered Democratic voters, compared to 11% for Sanders and Pete Buttigieg is doing better than either of them in terms of Jewish contributions.

Now we find out that 2 months ago, Sarsour -- along with Bob Bland and Tamika Mallory -- left the Woman's March.

This has been misinterpreted by some as a setback for Sarsour, and by extension, for Sanders:

If you check the article at The Hill, all it says is:

Women’s March has cut ties with three board members who were accused of anti-Semitism and has created a new, diverse board of 16 members

It does not actually say the reason for cutting ties was because of their antisemtism. The article in the Washington Post that The Hill refers to is more expansive on why Bland, Mallory and Sarsour left:

The Women’s March is replacing three inaugural board members who have been dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism, infighting and financial mismanagement.

That article also ties the issue of antisemitism not to Sarsour but to Mallory, who is a big supporter of Farrakhan.

Seth Mandel, editor of the Washington Examiner, was more on-target -- both Women's March in general and Sarsour in particular win:

Whether Sanders will benefit by this arrangement is an open question.

But Sarsour definitely has.

Bernie Sanders and Zahra Billoo

Among those who will be replacing Sarsour is Zahra Billoo, a civil rights lawyer and the executive director of CAIR-SFBA.

She is also an antisemite.

As indicated by tweet

After tweet:

Check out Petra Marquardt-Bigman and Ryan Saavedra for many more such tweets.

And Billoo's hatred extends beyond just hatred of the state of Israel:

California imam Ahmed Billoo recently called for the mass extermination of Jews. Apparently impatient at the border-security protocols at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, he posted a prayer to Twitter with the hashtag "Zionists": "Oh God, reduce their numbers, exterminate them, and don't leave a single one alive."

Ahmed Billoo's sister is Zahra Billoo, director of the San Francisco branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). She is also an important figure in the Women's March movement, and has appeared alongside her brother at Women's March events.

...[Zahra Billoo] was curiously unwilling to offer any criticism when it came to her brother advocating mass-murder. On the contrary, Zahra Billoo made a heartfelt post to her brother on Facebook a mere few hours after he prayed for the extermination of Jews, apparently in relation to another public stand he had taken: "My brother makes me proud often, but there's a special kind of appreciation I have when he does this - puts his privilege to good use, asserting his rights, speaking out against border harassment, and thereby making it at least somewhat easier for those who are afraid or unable." [emphasis added]

And sure enough, Billoo is also a big fan of -- Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders is a convenient shield for antisemites.

He is Jewish -- but does not advertise that fact.
Sanders rarely talks about it publicly.

He may support Israel, but he adopts the progressive narrative about the extent of Gazan casualties during war between Israel and Hamas, as well as the narrative that makes armed Gazan rioters trying to break through into Israel as nothing more than peaceful protestors.

Sanders is also on-board when it comes to condemning and leveraging aid in order to push Israel (and only Israel) to "make peace".

He boils the conflict down to the simplest terms:

Israel has a right to exist in security, and at the same time the Palestinians have a state of their own.

Who could argue with that?

To be fair, journalist Ron Kampeas finds Bernie Sanders to be typical of Jewish Americans:

Maybe Kampeas is right, and Sanders it typical.
But Sanders does come across as shy about his being a Jews and more defensive than most when it comes to Israel.

More to the point, I don't know if we can be so sanguine about this "norm" of Jewish American.
What really is so Jewish about being progressive?

Daniel Gordis writes that

most American Jews, having lost a sense of peoplehood and then a commitment to religion or Torah, have recently assumed an identity that is focused on little but politics. Yet as a form of politics, Judaism has, so far, found little to say that is uniquely Jewish.

Gordis concludes the thought rather darkly:

And if we have nothing unique to say, does it really matter if American Jews do not survive?

I would suggest that if we Jews in America cannot identify as Jews and feel unique as Jews, then there are those out there who will be only too happy to define our Jewish identity for their own purposes.

And the names of some of those people are on this page.

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Al Resalah has an interview with Bassam Abu Sharif, political advisor to late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

According to Abu Sharif, the Oslo Accords was an "ambush" to Palestinian dreams and, despite being warned, Arafat only realized this in January 1997, when the Hebron Agreement was signed.

"From that time he started preparing to resist the occupation, and that is why they murdered him with poison – because he decided to resist, " Abu Sharif charged.

Abu Sharif said that that Arafat renounced the Oslo agreement from the time that he discovered the supposed deception, and he "decided to complete the path of struggle through a number of popular waves, be it the (Western Wall) Tunnel riots or the Second Intifada."

The Western Wall Tunnel Riots were in September 1996, months before the Hebron Agreement, so the timing here is a bit off. Nevertheless, here is an Arafat aide that says that Arafat planned the Second Intifada at the height of the Oslo "peace" process, and three years before the Camp David summit.

There is far more independent evidence that Arafat was behind the Second Intifada. Hamas admits openly that Arafat instructed them to start attacking Jews. Arafat's wife Suha says that he warned her to leave Palestine after Camp David's failure because he planned to start an intifada.

Even if Abu Sharif is making this entire story up, it shows that Palestinian leadership is proud of violence and killing Jews.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Syrian site illustrates article on "Protocols" with 1930 cartoon of Jew squeezing blood out of the world

Syrian website Geiroon has an article about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which completely believes the myth.

Somehow the article manages to avoid saying the word "Jews" as is describes how “Some elements of the Zionist conspiracy throw the seeds of controversy and riots in all countries, through secret societies: political, religious, artistic and sports, Masonic forums, clubs of various activity, associations of every color, as well as the transfer of states from tolerance to political and religious extremism, pornography, chaos, impossibility of justice and the principles of equality."

Throughout the article the word "Jews" is replaced with "Zionists" as if the Protocols was written about Israel.

But the illustration for the article reveals the sham of simply replacing the word "Jew" with "Zionist" to avoid the charge of antisemitism:

It comes from a Spanish edition of the Protocols from 1930:

Nah, nothing antisemitic about that.

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