Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, October 19, 2019

10/19 Links: Hillel Neuer: Another UN blow to human rights; Does Angela Merkel Deserve a Prize for Zionism?; Sacha Baron Cohen makes Nazi analogy to slam Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook policy

From Ian:

Hillel Neuer: Another UN blow to human rights

In 1946, in the aftermath of the horrors of World War II, Eleanor Roosevelt founded the UN Commission on Human Rights, to reaffirm the principles of human dignity. That her dream has turned into a recurring nightmare was confirmed on Thursday when some of the world’s worst regimes were once again elected to the 47-nation UN body, renamed in 2006 under a failed bid at reform, as the Human Rights Council.

Who are the UN’s new world judges on human rights?

Absurdly, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro is one.

Though the council’s rules stipulate that members must “uphold the highest standards” of human rights, the UN General Assembly chose the narco-criminal regime from Caracas.

Despite promises of a socialist paradise, President Maduro has devastated his country, starved his own people and crushed pro-democracy dissidents.

The government’s repression includes targeting opposition leaders like Leopoldo López, who was thrown into prison for three years and is still under house arrest. According to the NGO Foro Penal, as of April 2019 there were more than 900 political prisoners across Venezuela.

Maduro’s failed policies have produced political instability, hunger, poverty and soaring crime rates. Millions are ill and dying for lack of food, medicine and basic necessities. Four million have fled. Electing Maduro to the council was obscene.

Second, the world body elected Libya, another failed state, where armed groups execute and torture civilians with almost complete impunity. Captured African migrants are bought and sold on open slave markets.

Third, although anti-racism is supposedly the defining credo of the UN, the General Assembly elected the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, where an estimated 500,000 people live in slavery.

Does Angela Merkel Deserve a Prize for Zionism?

German Interior Ministry statistics claim that 90% of the anti-Semitic hate crimes reported in Germany in 2018 were committed by "far right" persons. The EU's Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), however, found that only 13% of the attacks were attributed to those with a "right-wing political view."

Germany provides millions of euros annually to organizations that promote anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) and "lawfare" campaigns, anti-Zionism, antisemitism, and violence, according to NGO Monitor.

"Why is Merkel being awarded the Theodor Herzl Award? Because her representative at the United Nations abstains in anti-Israel resolutions — and thereby de facto supports them? The same official who equates Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with Israel's demolition of the homes of Palestinian terrorists? For not relocating the German embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as the United States did, and also warning other countries against taking such a step? For all this, she gets the Theodor Herzl Award?" — Henryk Broder, German Political Commentator, Die Achse des Guten.

"And that is just the beginning. There is a great possibility that thanks to today's politics Germany will become Judenrein [free of Jews]. Wir schaffen das (We can do it)." — Dr. Rafael Korenzecher, Publisher, Jüdische Rundschau.

Special Representative Hook: While the United States was still in the JCPOA, Iran expanded its ballistic missile activities to partners across the region, including Hizballah, helping them produce a greater number of rockets & missiles. This arsenal is then used to target Israel. pic.twitter.com/96JkpEH8Gf
— Department of State (@StateDept) October 18, 2019

'Israel doesn't need any outsider to tell it what to do'

Martin Weiss has served as Austria's ambassador to Israel for exactly four years. His name might sound Jewish and his lively, relaxed nature is a good fit for the Israeli pace of life, but in two weeks, Weiss will depart the Austrian Embassy in Tel Aviv for the Austrian Embassy in Washington, DC. That demonstrates his status, but also the importance of Israel in Austrian diplomacy.

Indeed, in Weiss' time as ambassador – and with his help – Israel and Austria have enjoyed their closest ties in history. Given the loaded history between the Jewish and Austrian peoples, ("Let's admit it, there were mostly 'downs,'" he says with characteristic frankness) – the increasing closeness of the last few years is not something to be taken for granted.

Austria is not only the birthplace of Adolf Hitler but also elected a Jewish chancellor who hated Israel, Bruno Kreisky; knowingly elected as president former Wehrmacht officer Kurt Waldheim; saw huge support for long-time Freedom Party of Austria Chairman Jörg Haider, widely considered to have been a Nazi sympathizer; and was one of the last countries to acknowledge the part it played in the mass murder of its Jewish citizens during the Holocaust.

Only in the past few years have we seen signs that the Austrian leadership is truly able to address the country's past honestly and seriously. In a speech two years ago at a conference of the American Jewish Committee in Jerusalem, former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said things that had never been uttered by his predecessors: "Many Austrians supported the system which killed over 6 million Jews from all over Europe and beyond. Among them, 60,000 fellow Austrian Jewish citizens in Austria alone. It took Austria a long time to be honest about its past. I have to admit that there were many people in Austria who did nothing to fight the Nazi regime. Far too many actively supported these horrors and even were perpetrators."

Kurz strengthened Austria's ties with Israel in general and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular. This was due in part to Weiss, who is a close associate. Now that Weiss' time as ambassador to Israel is up, he sat down with Israel Hayom for a special interview.

10/18 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: From Congress to classrooms: Reframing the Israel narrative; Jonathan S. Tobin: When Israel’s haters endorse a Jewish candidate; Why Eisenhower deleted the Jews

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: From Congress to classrooms: Reframing the Israel narrative

Those who consider themselves to be centrists because they back a “two-state solution” may not grasp the full extent of the big lie about Israel because they themselves have swallowed it, at least in part.

For fundamental to this benign-sounding rubric is a lethal misreading of the problem to which it is the purported solution. It assumes that this is a conflict over the parceling out of land between two sides with a legitimate claim to that land.

Not so. This is an Arab war of extermination against the State of Israel. The only proper response to such a war is to defeat it. A state of Palestine that was instead created for those still bent on Israel’s destruction would merely hand them the means to achieve their unconscionable aim.

Reconceptualizing this existential war as a conflict over territory creates a false moral equivalence between the actual Arab aggressors and their actual Israeli victims. As a consequence, Israel’s refusal to accept what would be terms of surrender to those still aiming to destroy it has been transformed into a stance of unforgivable belligerency.

This, in turn, has facilitated the whole narrative of colonialist dispossession, illegality, occupation, aggression, abuses of human rights and all the rest of the crimes so falsely laid at Israel’s door, in addition to the anti-Jewish venom that inevitably bubbles up to the surface in that particular sewer.

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the path to the resurgence of anti-Semitism in the West – now so brazenly paraded by the hard-left – has been laid by the so-called centrist advocates of the “two-state solution.”

That’s why this resurgence would not be stopped by the disappearance from the political scene of either Jeremy Corbyn or “the Squad” of U.S. congresswomen. It will not be stopped by better pro-Israel advocacy on campus. It will not even be stopped by removing certain education materials from British or American schools, desirable or necessary as all such developments are in themselves.

This poisonous tide will only begin to be turned if those who think themselves to be custodians of the center-ground realize the extent to which they too have drunk the Middle Eastern Kool-Aid.

Jonathan S. Tobin: When Israel’s haters endorse a Jewish candidate

It’s not clear whether the Squad, let alone Sarsour and Amer, can help Sanders keep up with Warren, who seems to have eclipsed the fading Joe Biden as the Democratic frontrunner. But she may not be radical or anti-Israel enough for AOC and her friends, as well as the likes of Sarsour.

But more important than the fate of his candidacy is the way that these anti-Semitic Israel-haters are using Sanders to legitimize their positions and further advance their efforts to ensure that support for BDS is a mainstream, rather than a marginal, force within the Democratic Party. Indeed, we should expect that Omar and Sarsour will trot out their endorsements of Sanders in the future as fake proof that they are not anti-Semites, despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary.

Right now, most Democrats are transfixed by the competition among their presidential candidates and their debates over how big they want government to be, as well as how much they will allow radical identity politics to dominate public discourse. Yet the steady advances made by peddlers of intersectional myths that demonize Israel, such as Tlaib, in mainstreaming their noxious ideology is a story that’s not getting enough attention.

The failure of the other Democratic candidates to call Sanders to account for his embrace of anti-Semites is discouraging. But in a party where Omar and Tlaib are treated as heroines and victims of right-wing smears rather than purveyors of hate, that isn’t realistic. Indeed, Warren’s efforts to snatch Tlaib’s endorsement away from Sanders indicates that despite the support of most of their congressional caucus and a plurality of their voters for Israel, the future of radical anti-Semites in the Democratic is all too bright.

Michael Medved: ‘I Will Make of You a Great Nation’

Starting in 1881, some 2.5 million desperate, destitute eastern European Jews washed up on American shores to connect an ancient text to a young nation’s sense of its own special destiny. For the implacably confident citizens of the surging United States, these exotic newcomers provided new perspective on three mystical Genesis verses that had resonated with their forebears since the earliest days of British settlement.

“Go for yourself from your land, from your relatives, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you,” God commands Abraham (still called Abram at that point in the text). The Almighty reassures the puzzled patriarch by pledging a world- changing outcome to this directed journey into the unknown: “And I will make of you a great nation; I will bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.”

The Pilgrims and Puritans prayed for similar benedictions and connected their own “errand into the wilderness” with Abraham’s fateful mission to build a new, godly life in a promised land he hadn’t even seen. Proudly identifying themselves as “New Testament Hebrews,” they also cherished the biblical idea that the other tribes of earth would one day earn reward or punishment based on their treatment of the new nation God had decreed into existence. “I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse,” the Lord assures Abraham and, by implication, his descendants, far into the future. “And all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you” (Genesis 12:1–3).

With this formulation in mind, many of the radical Protestant doers and dreamers who ultimately planted a new civilization in North America embraced the notion that their cosmic purpose involved the protection of the children of Abraham—an idea they expressed in sermons and scholarly treatises long before any actual Jews turned up in their struggling New World outposts.

In 1648, for instance, a member of Parliament named Sir Edward Nicholas wrote an influential pamphlet that blamed England’s present problems on “the strict and cruel laws now in force against the most honorable nation of the world, the nation of the Jews, a people chosen by God.” This startling new attitude and Sir Edward’s bold description of the Jews as “our brethren” represented a striking departure from the well-established medieval view that they constituted “the spawn of Satan” and were worthy of torture, genocide, and expulsion.

Saudi girls go crazy for K-pop (videos)

The concert by BTS in a stadium in Riyadh last week brought thousands of screaming Saudi women - fully covered.

As this video shows, that didn't stop them from dancing.

It is sort of amazing.

pic.twitter.com/LA0dsnsdYa
— TURKI ALALSHIKH (@Turki_alalshikh) October 11, 2019

There has naturally been a backlash from both staunch Muslims and from human rights activists against the group playing in the kingdom, but it is nice to see Saudi women stepping out, even if only a little.

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10/18 Links Pt1: Pompeo to ‘Post’: Israel has right to act in Syria, U.S. will stop Iran; The Recent Deterioration in Syria May Break Israel’s Political Deadlock; Poll: 3/4 of Iranians Against Ending Nuclear Enrichment

From Ian:

Trump Envoy Kushner to Visit Israel at End of Month to Assess Possibility of Unveiling Long-Awaited Peace Plan

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner will visit Israel at the end of the month in preparation for unveiling the administration’s “deal of the century” plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The Israeli news site Walla reported that Kushner will likely meet with both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his top rival, Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz, to assess the political situation in Israel, which is currently in flux as neither Netanyahu nor Gantz appears currently able to form a government following September’s Knesset elections.

If it takes place, this would be Kushner’s first meeting with Gantz. The Trump administration, which is widely perceived as staunchly pro-Netanyahu, avoided meeting Gantz until just after the September vote, when US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman did so for the first time.

Trump had planned to reveal his peace plan in January, but held off due to pending Israeli elections in April, which proved inconclusive, prompting another delay until a second round of elections. These also resulted in no clear winner, forcing the administration to postpone the release of the plan again until a governing coalition could be formed, a possibility that looks remote at the moment.

Pompeo to ‘Post’: Israel has right to act in Syria, U.S. will stop Iran

Despite the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, Israel retains operational freedom to defend itself and America remains committed to closely watching the Iraqi-Syrian border to help prevent the transfer of Iranian arms into the country, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told The Jerusalem Post on Friday in an exclusive interview.

“Our administration’s been very clear,” he said. “Israel has the fundamental right to engage in activity that ensures the security of its people. It’s at the very core of what nation states not only have the right to do but an obligation to do.”

Regarding the Iraqi-Syrian border, which Israeli intelligence believes is used by Iran to smuggle weapons into Syria and Hezbollah, Pompeo said that American forces would continue to watch the area closely.

“The president has committed to continuing that activity that the US has been engaged in now for a couple of years and is aimed at countering ISIS and providing us situational awareness in the region,” he said. “We know this is a corner where Iran has attempted to move weapon systems across into Syria, into Lebanon, that threatens Israel and we are going to do everything we can to make sure we have the capacity to identify those so that we can collectively respond appropriately.”

Pompeo spoke to the Post in Jerusalem shortly after completing a two-hour meeting Friday morning with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad chief Yossi Cohen. He was accompanied to the meeting by US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and James Jeffrey, the US special envoy on Syria. Pompeo arrived in Israel a day after meeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who agreed to a five-day ceasefire to allow Kurdish forces to evacuate the border region.

Israeli politicians and defense officials have raised concerns that the US pullout from Syria will strengthen Iran. Pompeo dismissed that possibility and said that the administration remained committed – like it has been – to stopping Iran and preventing it from obtaining nuclear weapons. He said that all options were on the table in the event that Iran broke out toward a bomb.

The Recent Deterioration in Syria May Break Israel’s Political Deadlock

If Benjamin Netanyahu fails to form a governing coalition by October 24, President Reuven Rivlin will have to choose between granting him a two-week extension or, more likely, giving Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party a chance to form a coalition. As of last week, coalition negotiations had stalled, but in the past few days several parties began making conciliatory gestures. Vivian Bercovici explains why:

[T]he deliverance from the present national stasis may have come in the form of White House chaos. Donald Trump’s recent decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria has plunged the region into a new round of volatility and chaos. . . . Trump’s erratic conduct seems to have jolted Israeli leadership into a more wakeful state of mind, and catalyzed discussions around the possibility of a unity coalition being formed imminently.

The jarringly abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria and the ensuing mayhem present a critical security challenge to Israel. Suddenly, . . . we heard grudging rumblings: that Blue and White will sit with Likud under Netanyahu’s leadership and “hold its nose”; that the ultra-Orthodox parties are even grumbling along the same lines and may sit with Blue and White and Avigdor Liberman’s [right wing, but staunchly secularist] Yisrael Beytenu.

There are now reports of further discussion to cobble together a quick governing coalition in order that the country may function, primarily because of the increasingly volatile and deteriorating regional security situation. The “compromise” being discussed is that there will be no legislation considered on matters of religion and state, in effect putting on ice, for the meantime, the root of the ongoing political impasse. However, . . . Benny Gantz dismissed the buzz as meaningless chatter.

Events in Syria and the region nonetheless may [still] stave off the surreal possibility of a third election in one year. The state needs a functioning government, and that imperative is more fundamental and important than any leader or party.

Netanyahu: Gantz planning government with backing of ‘dangerous’ Arab parties

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday charged that Blue and White leader Benny Gantz intends to form a minority government with outside support from the mostly Arab Joint List alliance, warning such a move would endanger Israel’s security.

Netanyahu, who is nearing the end of a period given to him to try, so far unsuccessfully, and form a government, appears to be returning to his election campaign stance of appearing to demonize the Arab parties and tar Gantz as a leftist.

In a post on his Facebook page, Netanyahu said that Gantz had rejected his offers for a unity government and charged that he, together with Blue and White number two Yair Lapid and Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman, had refused to rule out the minority government option.

“Establishing a minority government that relies on the Joint List is an anti-Zionist act that endangers our security,” Netanyahu wrote, accusing Joint List leaders Ayman Odeh and Ahmad Tibi of supporting Palestinian terror and Hezbollah.
Members of the Joint List Ayman Odeh, left, and Ahmad Tibi consult with President Reuven Rivlin on who should form the the next government, at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, on September 22, 2019. (Menahem Kahana/Pool via AP)

Netanyahu also accused Lapid and Liberman of “holding Gantz hostage” to their personal ambitions.

Liberman reacted to the post, saying it was a sign of Netanyahu’s “desperation,” and accused the prime minister of hypocrisy, saying he had a long history of cooperating with Arab parties.

Palestinian asylum seekers in Europe are not fleeing Israel - they are fleeing Hamas

Haaretz has an article on how many Gazans are seeking asylum in Belgium.

Even though the UN considers many of them to be "Palestine refugees" under the UNRWA definition, that isn't enough to actually gain asylum anywhere in the world, because asylum is for real refugees who have a real fear of persecution in their home country - which does not apply to Arabs in Israel or in the territories.

Not from Israel, at least.

The Palestinian refugees seeking asylum in Belgium (and all of Europe) are not seeking protection from Israel - but from Hamas.

Adel Atieh, the deputy head of the Palestinian mission to the European Union, points out that eleven years ago, there were only 3,000 Palestinians in Belgium. Today, however, Atieh estimates that that there are around 10,000 Palestinian asylum seekers living there, with as many as 98 percent of them hailing from the Strip.

“Based on the argument that there are human rights violations under Hamas and that their security is under threat by the Hamas militia, Palestinians from the Strip traditionally had much higher chances to get asylum in Belgium than Palestinians from the West Bank,” says Atieh. “A lot of them came after the 2008-2009 and the 2014 wars,” he adds.

We have noted that the only Palestinians who seek asylum worldwide are claiming persecution from Hamas in the past.

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Israel's Kan network has an expose on how the Palestinian Authority is endangering their citizens' lives by forbidding their people to be treated in Israeli hospitals - but they allow their own relatives to go.

Earlier this year, Mahmoud Abbas claimed that the PA was paying Israeli hospitals too much to treat Palestinians, and that the Israeli hospitals were charging too much for their treatment. This charge was repeated earlier this week when Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Shtayyeh said this to Physicians for Human Rights.

In fact, Palestinians would be charged about 30% less than Israelis for similar procedures.

The hospital decision happened at the same time that Israel started to withhold tax revenues that were going to pay terrorists, so Abbas' decision in the end was petty and vindictive - and caused Palestinians to accept sub-par treatments.

The PA says it can send patients to Egypt and Jordan, and they are cheaper, but they simply aren't as good. Just last week a woman went to Jordan for treatment and returned in a coffin.

A few years ago, an Arab-Israeli doctor who worked at a hospital in Ramallah convinced some of his Jewish colleagues to participate in complex surgery. The surgery took about ten hours and was a success. But the hospital manager was furious. "How could you bring in Israelis (Jews), this is normalization, it is not allowed," he raged. The Arab-Israeli doctor never did it again.

But for relatives of Palestinian Authority leaders, Israeli hospitals are available - and the PA pays for them!

Mahmoud Abbas stayed in a Palestinian hospital, but brought in an Israeli doctor. His wife went to Israel for treatment. So did Jibril Rajoub.

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When Arabs used the Temple Mount as a base for terror operations

As Arab media daily publish stories about how Jews are "desecrating" the Temple Mount by existing, let's look back at a couple of stories from The Palestine Post in 1938:

July 31:

October 18:

This editorial from January 1939 shows how the Muslim terrorists used the Temple Mount as a base of operations:

The idea that the Muslim world would be upset at the real desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque by the Palestinian Arabs of the 1930s was, of course, a fantasy.

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10/17 Link Pt2: Does American Jewry’s Future Include Officers Guarding Us In Riot Gear?; No separating anti-Zionist agitation from Jew-hatred; Sanders, Klobuchar, Castro, Bennet and Buttigieg to Attend J Street Conference

From Ian:

Does American Jewry’s Future Include Officers Guarding Us In Riot Gear?

Passing on religious rituals was something I remember looking forward to before I became a mother. Little did I know that the Jewish High Holidays in 2019 would hardly resemble the holidays of my childhood.

Growing up in the 1980s and ‘90s, anyone could walk into my suburban New York synagogue for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. Sure, adults were supposed to have tickets, but there was no bouncer by the door. We had two local police officers who stood out on the street directing traffic for those two holidays, but that was explained by my synagogue’s location atop a hill; drivers climbing that hill couldn’t see the larger-than-usual stream of pedestrians from afar.

After 9/11, the synagogue I attended in D.C. added year-round security. Whenever I arrived from work for Friday evening services, I faced a security guard and a bag check.

The level of security at synagogues, Jewish schools, and Jewish community centers has only increased since then. Some of these buildings have video camera buzzer systems, security guards, or police officers. This is all to protect American Jews while we pray, socialize, and educate our children. In the wake of attacks in Pittsburgh and Poway, California, that trend is unlikely to reverse itself.

The Heroes in Halle

Since well before the Halle attack, the resounding call of Jewish leaders has been that the time for words against anti-Semitism has passed and that what is needed now in Germany is action.

The Halle synagogue used to have a visible police presence. But a year ago, rather than heed the warnings of Jewish community leaders who were witnessing the resurgence of German anti-Semitism, the authorities in Halle discontinued police protection. Max Privorozki, the head of the Jewish community in Halle, said he had asked in vain for police protection for Jewish holidays and complained about the complete lack of police patrols. Holger Stahlknecht, the state interior minister of Saxony-Anhalt, all but called him a liar and, despite what seemed like obvious failures, defended his police forces.

The German government provided no police protection, funding for security guards, or other means of physical defense for the Halle synagogue. According to the police chronology, the first police officers arrived eight minutes after they received the emergency call, which was four minutes after the terrorist had already left the synagogue.

In Halle the Jews were left to save themselves.

For this they relied on the synagogue’s security system, donated by the Jewish Agency for Israel, with funding from the Helmsley Charitable Trust. Those security cameras made it possible for the Jews inside to make quick informed decisions to shelter in place and barricade the doors. The frustrated terrorist, unable to open the door, wondered aloud, “maybe they will come outside.” Thanks to the security system, there was no chance of that. Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog was not exaggerating when he said, “That donation saved lives.”

BBC Arabic describes Halle shooting as attack on kebab shop and does not mention attempted synagogue massacre

A report on the Halle synagogue attack on the BBC Arabic website fails to mention antisemitism or Jews, stating simply that “some German news outlets say it happened near a synagogue but this cannot be confirmed.”

This was despite the fact that the motivations of the attacker and the target — a synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar — were entirely clear and indeed could in fact easily be confirmed from the livestream video that the attacker himself posted online.

The article reports that two people were killed in a gunfire incident and that the assailant fired in the direction of a kebab shop, noting that he “also threw a bomb on a cemetery”, rather than explaining that the cemetery was in the synagogue compound, which was the gunman’s primary target.

The perpetrator has since confirmed that he was motivated by antisemitism and indeed had published an antisemitic manifesto prior to the attack. The incident comes at a time of growing antisemitism in Germany.

Campaign Against Antisemitism is disgusted that the BBC could run such a misleading story on a sensitive topic, but this is also not wholly surprising in view of the history of strained relations between the Corporation and the Jewish community.

It’s often be helpful to boil down debates over Israel, the Middle East and anti-Semitism to their logical core in order to best understand the actual arguments being made (or dodged).

For example, discussion of who gets to determine whether someone’s behavior is anti-Semitic is based on this general argument, widely accepted in most circles:

Premise 1: Minority groups are victims of discrimination and bigotry

Premise 2: Victims of discrimination and bigotry best understand when it is directed against them

Conclusion: Minority groups best understand when discrimination and bigotry is directed against them

Note that this is a valid argument, in that accepting the premises requires you to accept the conclusion (the definition of logical validity).

One of the useful results of distilling an argument (especially one written originally in more lengthy or complex prose) into a structured, valid argument is that it requires you to write premises in a way that exposes their strengths and weaknesses. This is important because, to be any good, an argument must be both valid and sound with soundness defined as having premises that are either true or something a reasonable person would accept as highly likely to be true.

In the case of the valid two-premise argument above, the first premise is a statement of fact, and the second one also seems like something most people would agree is reasonable, so this argument is both valid and sound. But looks what happens if we add one more premise to the argument:

Premise 1: Minority groups are victims of discrimination and bigotry

Premise 2: Victims of discrimination and bigotry best understand when it is directed against them

Premise 3: Jews are a minority group

Conclusion: Jews best understand when bigotry and discrimination [i.e., anti-Semitism] is directed against them

This too is a valid argument and the new premise we just added is also a statement of fact, as strong or stronger than Premise 1 that appears in both versions of the argument.

Yet those who say that Jews use accusations of anti-Semitism as a smoke screen to cover up the crimes of the Jewish state must reject this three-premise argument in order to claim that Jews are not allowed to determine when anti-Semitism is and is not taking place.

One way to do this is to reject our new premise that says that Jews are a minority, which is the reasoning behind attempts to portray Jews as “white,” a status that would eliminate them from the category of “minority group.” As just noted, however, it is a fact that Jews ARE a minority and, as history shows, a minority that has been victimized by bigotry and discrimination, up to and including attempted genocide.

In light of this, moving Jews into the “white” column requires a separate argument that might run something like:

Premise 1: Many Jews, especially in America, enjoy wide success

Premise 2: Any group in which members enjoy wide success is not a discriminated-against minority

Conclusion: Jews are not a discriminated-against minority

This argument is also valid, but notice that one could easily substitute other minority groups in premise one to justify eliminating them from the role of victims of bigotry. Reactionaries who claim every accusation of racism is a form of “race hustling,” for example, would justify their claim based on a version of this argument that swaps out Jews with another minority group. Yet it is doubtful anyone embracing this argument when applied to Jews would welcome a version that follows the same principle but applies it to other minorities.

This isolates the fact that Jews are being singled out as a special case (a form of argumentation called “special pleading”) best distilled into this final version of our (really their) argument:

Premise 1: Minority groups are victims of discrimination and bigotry

Premise 2: Victims of discrimination bigotry best understand when it is directed against them

Premise 3: Jews are a minority group

Premise 4: Jews, and only Jews, cannot be trusted when it comes to determining discrimination and bigotry directed against them

Conclusion: Minority groups, except for Jews, best understand when bigotry and discrimination is directed against them

Notice that in this special pleading, our new Premise 4, which is designed to eliminate Jews – and Jews alone – from the category of minorities allowed to determine when they are targets of bigotry, is itself a textbook example of anti-Jewish bigotry (i.e., anti-Semitism).

So one argument for claiming Jews, and Jews alone, cannot identify bigotry directed against them would leave every minority group defenseless, while the other requires actually embracing bigotry. Perhaps this is why those advocating this and other self-serving anti-Israel positions spend so much time shrieking, accusing and threatening since, in their heart of hearts, they know they have no argument.

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The latest illegal settler structures

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency shows a "settler"building yet another illegal Jewish structure:

Of course, this is a sukkah, the temporary hut that Jews use during the current holiday.

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10/17 Link Pt1: The Dream Palace of the Americans - Why Ceding Land Will Not Bring Peace; Trump’s Middle East moves show why Israeli deterrence is crucial

From Ian:

The Dream Palace of the Americans - Why Ceding Land Will Not Bring Peace

The Trump administration’s Middle East policies have been roundly attacked by the U.S. foreign policy establishment. There are various lines of criticism, including ones concerning its approaches to Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, but the administration’s gravest sin is generally held to be its support for Israel. By moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, blessing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, and other gestures, the Trump team is said to have overturned half a century of settled U.S. policy, abandoned the Palestinians, and killed the two-state solution.

These are serious charges. But on close inspection, they turn out to say more about the hysteria of the prosecutors than the guilt of the defendant. Some of President Donald Trump’s policies are new, some are not, and it is too early to see much impact. So why all the hue and cry? Because the administration openly insists on playing power politics rather than trying to move the world beyond them. Trump’s real crime is challenging people’s illusions—and that is an unforgivable offense.

THE ROAD TO 242
Israel’s conflict with the Arabs has long functioned as a screen onto which outsiders project their own psychodramas. Actual Middle East politics, meanwhile, churns on relentlessly, following the same laws of political physics as politics everywhere else: the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.

The United States entered the regional geopolitical game in earnest during World War II, drawn in by the strategic importance of the oil recently discovered under the Arabian Desert and elsewhere. With postwar power came regional responsibility, however, and Washington eventually had to decide how to deal with the messy residue of the British mandate for Palestine.

Dore Gold: American Withdrawal and the Future of Israeli Security

America's withdrawal from the Middle East validates the long-standing Israeli view that it must not rely on external guarantees, but rather do what's necessary to defend itself, by itself. This applies especially to the discussion over Israel's retention of the Jordan Valley.

Israel captured the valley and the rest of the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. UN Security Council Resolution 242 did not insist upon a full Israeli withdrawal to the old armistice lines. Britain's Ambassador to the UN at the time, Lord Caradon, who helped draft 242, commented on PBS: "We all knew - the boundaries of '67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers."

Immediately after the Six-Day War, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon, who in 1948 had served as the commander of the pre-state Palmach strike force, became the architect of a string of mostly agricultural settlements in the Jordan Valley and along the hills that dominate it. Today, nearly 30 Israeli communities are situated in this area. Allon's map became known as the Allon Plan.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are structured around mostly reserve units. To match the quantitative superiority of its neighbors, Israel has to mobilize its reserve forces, which requires up to 48 hours. The terrain Israel captured in the West Bank, particularly in the Jordan Valley, provided Israel with a formidable barrier for the first time that would allow the IDF to buy the precious time it needed to complete its reserve call-up. The lowest parts of the Jordan Valley and its mountain ridge form a virtual strategic wall 4,500 feet high.

Even after the Oslo Agreements were signed in 1993, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin reiterated a vision for a final peace settlement that kept the Jordan Valley under Israel: "The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the widest meaning of that term." What he had in mind was Israel continuing to control the high ground along the eastern slopes of the mountain ridge that descended down to the Jordan River.

The Jordan Valley is to the West Bank what the Philadelphi Route was to Gaza. This refers to the border zone between Gaza and Egyptian Sinai. After Israel's Gaza Disengagement in 2005, Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel shot up as Palestinian terror organizations smuggled enormous quantities of rockets through tunnels under the border into Gaza. Three wars resulted from this escalation in Palestinian rocket fire.

Israeli public opinion has clearly internalized the importance of the Jordan Valley for Israeli security. In the last decade, as many as 81% of Israeli voters agreed that in any peace arrangement Israel must preserve its sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Are Palestinians 'Disappearing' in Saudi Arabia?

The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med), a youth-led independent organization that advocates for human rights across Europe and the Middle East, said it has collected names of about 60 Palestinians detained by the Saudi authorities in recent months

Euro-Med said it considers the "practices of the Saudi authorities a flagrant violation of the requirements of justice, which guarantees everyone the right to a fair trial, including knowing charges against and the right to defense and access to a lawyer... [and] affirms that the relevant authorities do not comply with the international legal rules that guarantee the simplest rights of litigation for any individual..."

The Saudi authorities have offered no explanation for the widespread campaign targeting Palestinians in the kingdom. It appears that PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his officials in Ramallah fear that any criticism of this behavior would jeopardize the financial handouts and political support they receive from Saudi Arabia.... For Palestinian leaders, Saudi money and political backing far outweigh the fate of a few dozen Palestinians held without trial in an Arab country.

It is only Palestinians who are held by Israel for terrorist-related crimes who Abbas and his friends remember to mention in their endless litanies of complaints.

The Israeli-Arab newspaper Panet has a feature on how many Arab girls in Israel are getting jobs in malls, and what they think about it.

Most of the girls interviewed at a new mall in Hadera are very happy in their jobs. Only one mentioned any discrimination from customers who wanted a Jewish salesperson, the rest of them enjoyed the freedom of having a job, helping them become more independent young women.

Rian Bayadseh (above) from Baqa Al Gharbiya said, "I attended the opening ceremony of the new mall in Hadera. I presented my resume to several workplaces and I was invited to my current workplace. I want to open up to the world, develop my personality, rely on myself and achieve my financial independence. Yes, there are difficulties and challenges in my workplace, such as difficult working times, resilience and dealing with these situations, which qualify me for future experiences.It is very important for Arab women to gain financial independence, which increases their self-confidence and leaves them with an impact in society."

Sarah Masarweh from Kafr Qara told Panet, "The motives for working are more social but also material. The need for exposure to the world and knowledge, especially the Jewish community, the strengthening of my personality and the strengthening of my Hebrew. I face difficulties and challenges in my workplace, being an Arab. This in itself is very difficult, as is the difficulty of speaking the Hebrew language.

"I also have a hard time with customers who prefer Jewish salespeople to Arabs," said Masarweh. "But it isn't so bad. I believe in the customer's personal freedom to choose the seller.'

A young Arab man, Mamdouh Wedd, said: `` I arrived to my work place through the social network where I started working as a salesperson and now I am a manager at Rosy. This is a good experience that I learned about life, learned new and different things and strengthened my Hebrew. ”

One of the interviewees, a man named Momen Medlej, admitted that work helps make the girls more self-reliant, but didn't like that. "In my opinion, this is not an achievement or a positive development, as the girl or woman has become self-reliant and does not give men the opportunity to do their duties (as a man.)"

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Jewish Voice for Peace tweeted:

We've already dismantled the idiotic claims of the anti-Zionists blaming Israel for US police brutality.

But look at what JVP is claiming here. The ADL, a Jewish organization, is sending US police to Israel. The poor chiefs of police, heads of ICE and border police have no say in the matter - they are apparently under the spell of the ADL and are quite helpless to resist the Jewish mind control forcing them to send their people to Israel to learn how to become cold blooded killers of minorities.

Yes, this is antisemitism. Saying that hundreds of US law enforcement organizations are under nefarious Jewish control is every bit as antisemitic as saying that banks, the media and Hollywood are under nefarious Jewish control.

The JVP has proven itself to be antisemitic with a conspiracy theory that wouldn't be out of place in Czarist Russia or Nazi Germany.

If you are looking for an example of leftist antisemitism, this is it.

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At Jordan's urging, UNESCO issued a draft statement Monday reiterating its previous positions against Israeli moves in Jerusalem and Hebron.

Jordan hailed the statement:

UNESCO’s Executive Board has unanimously endorsed a draft resolution on the city of Jerusalem and its walls during its 207th session, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Sufian Qudah said on Wednesday.

Qudah underlined the importance of the decision, which was the result of Jordanian diplomatic efforts, in coordination with Palestine and UNESCO’s Arab and Muslim groups, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

The decision affirms all previous gains that have been stipulated in the Jerusalem file, he added.

Qudah highlighted that the resolution and its appendix stress all the components of Jordan’s stance on the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls, including Muslim and Christian holy sites, noting that it also reiterates rejection of all Israeli violations and unilateral measures at these locations.

The resolution calls on Israel to halt all illegal unilateral procedures and violations against Al Aqsa Mosque/Al Haram Al Sharif and in the Old City, Qudah said.

There is little new in the document - except for when it talks about Gaza:

7. The first week of May 2019, a serious eruption of hostilities took place in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel. In total 25 Palestinians were killed, including militants, four women and two children, in addition to 154 injured. The hostilities also caused a significant amount of destruction including damage to 41 housing units and 13 education facilities in Gaza1. On 6 May a cessation of hostilities was established, ending the escalation, after intense efforts by the United Nations and Egypt.

Four Israelis were killed and 234 Israeli civilians were injured in the clashes. But UNESCO makes it sound like only Gazans were killed and injured.

Why does UNESCO say "In total 25 Palestinians were killed"? Don't Israelis count?

No. Dead Israelis simply don't exist to UNESCO. Only Palestinians are victims, Israelis are purely aggressors.

UNESCO's anti-Israel bias has been obvious for years. But rarely has it been this egregious.

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Why can't Palestinians talk with Jews about coexistence without fearing for their lives?

Some local Palestinian leaders met with Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria on Wednesday to discuss issues they have in common and coexistence.

The meeting took place in the sukkah of Yossi Dagan, the head of the Samaria Regional Council.

"The best way towards coexistence is in the dialogue between leaders who know the needs of both populations," Dagan said.

While a few of the Palestinians agreed to be photographed, most of the delegation refused to be identified out of fear for their lives of being attacked by the Palestinian Authority.

Which brings up the question: if Palestinians want peace so much, why do they threaten people who want to speak to Jews as normal human beings?

That is a question that J-Street, Jewish Voice for Peaee and IfNotNow will never answer.

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