Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Arabic coverage of Trump's "antisemitic speech" - "He called Jews murderers!" - highlights what Trump's critics don't understand

The part of the speech at the IAC that President Trump's critics have been mostly concentrating on as "proof" of his supposed antisemitism was this one:

A lot of you are in the real estate business because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers. (Laughter.) Not nice people at all. But you have to vote for me; you have no choice. You’re not going to vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. (Laughter and applause.) You’re not going to vote for the wealth tax. “Yeah, let’s take 100 percent of your wealth away.” No, no. Even if you don’t like me; some of you don’t. Some of you I don’t like at all, actually. (Laughter.) And you’re going to be my biggest supporters because you’ll be out of business in about 15 minutes, if they get it.

The critics in the West have been concentrating on this section:

The antisemitic stereotypes that J-Street and others are concentrating on is that, in their interpretation of what he said, that Jews are rich and will vote for Trump to keep their wealth.

Arabic sites are concentrating on a different phrase:

Trump called Jews "brutal killers" in his speech - but Western critics didn't go crazy over that.

But isn't calling people brutal killers much worse than calling them rich?

To English speaking audiences, even the most virulent Trump hater understands that Trump was joking when he said to Jews they were "brutal killers." Arabic speakers didn't see the humor in that, perhaps because there are so many real brutal killers in the Middle East.

Western Trump critics, however, are far more attuned to confirmation bias that Trump is a right wing antisemite who says Jews have too much power. So they skipped the "murderers" part and went right to the "rich" part.

What both the Arabs and leftist Jews simply cannot understand is that most of Trump's speech was a comedy routine. The entire anecdote on the Jerusalem embassy moving - with all its many asides like this one - was an extended bit, one that he has actually honed from previous speeches.

Once again, Trump's critics simply don't get him. Unlike most Americans, they can' distinguish between when he is making a joke and when he is serious. They are making the exact samemistake the Arab media is making in reporting on his speech.

And that's why Trump won in 2016. Because his fans understand that he loves to bait his critics - and his critics fall for it every single time. Even when he tells them that he is doing it, as he did later in his speech:

At some point, whether it’s 5 years from now, 9 years from now, 13 years from now — I’m doing this to drive the media crazy. (Applause.) Because a lot of them say, “You know he’s not leaving, don’t you?” One of these characters — these people are so stupid. One of them said — one of them said, “You know he’s going to win, don’t you? And you know, at the end of his second term, you know he’s not leaving. He’s not leaving. You know that.” And I thought he’s a comedian. I thought he was kidding. He’s for real. So now we have to start thinking about that, because it’s not a bad idea. (Applause.)

No, but these people are going crazy. When they all scream, “Four more years, four more years,” I always say, “Make it 12 years and you’ll drive them crazy.” Twelve more years. But if I don’t get the build- —

AUDIENCE: Twelve more years!

The very people who are supposedly being insulted to their faces get the joke and start to chant "twelve more years," just to drive Trump's critics crazy.

Later in the speech Trump soberly addressed antisemitism. That section isn't quoted by his left wing critics, because they aren't listening for it. It wasn't art of the comedy routine.

Throughout history, anti-Semitism has produced untold pain, suffering evil, and destruction. We must not ignore the vile poison or those who spread its venomous creed.

My administration is committed to aggressively challenging and confronting anti-Semitic bigotry in every resource, and using every single weapon at our disposal.

Roughly 80 times, this past decade, the United Nations Human Rights Council has denounced Israel while ignoring many of the worst human rights abuses anywhere in the world. To call out this egregious hypocrisy, I withdrew the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council. (Applause.)

...My administration strongly opposes this despicable [antisemitic] rhetoric. And as long as you’re — and I am standing before you, as long as I’m your President, it makes no difference. It’s not happening. Okay? It stops at my desk. (Applause.)

I said in my State of the Union Address last year, “With one voice, we must confront this hatred anywhere and everywhere that it occurs.”

This episode shows why Trump will probably win in 2020. Because Trump knows the weaknesses of his critics. He knows that most Americans understand him better than the paid pundits at CNN and the Washington Post who, instead of actually listening to him, are spending their time looking for "gotchas."

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From Hurriyet Daily News:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Dec. 9 slammed French President Emmanuel Macron’s remarks and once again rejected the term “Islamic terrorism.”

Speaking at the opening of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ministers of Social Affairs Summit in Istanbul, Erdoğan criticized Macron for using “Islamic terrorism” at the NATO Summit held in London.

“Here at the last NATO Summit, the president of France is talking about Islamic terrorism. How many times have I told him, Islam literally derives from word of ‘salam’ and its meaning [in Arabic] is peace. How do you combine peace and terror with the expression of Islamic terror? There’s no such a thing,” Erdoğan said.

He said something similar a few days ago.

A Muslim cannot be a terrorist and Islam does not produce terrorists, the Turkish president said on Dec. 5, once again rejecting the term “Islamic terrorism.”

His logic is blinding.

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12/09 Links Pt2: Influential Corbyn-supporting Facebook page run by Hamas; Melanie Phillips: "The Left is Racist"; Don't let Sanders get away with redefining 'pro-Israel'

From Ian:

Influential Corbyn-supporting Facebook page run by Hamas

Hamas officials in both Gaza and London are working in support of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, ahead of the UK general election on Thursday.

According to Tazpit Press Service (TPS), the "We Support Jeremy Corbyn" Facebook page, one of the largest and most influential Corbyn support networks globally with some 72,000 members, is managed from the Gaza strip.

For over two years the page was managed by Walid Abu Rouk, a resident of Khan Yunis in the Gaza strip, after Labour Party members added him as a page manager in June 2017, declaring him "our man in Gaza." Abu Rouk confirmed to TPS that he served as the page's manager until recently.
However, Rouk also has clear ties to the heart of Hamas' propaganda efforts. A source in the strip who wished to remain anonymous told TPS “Abu Rouk serves Hamas’ information campaign and is guided by it.”

The official said that Rouk is a key link in Hamas' English language propaganda service thanks to his excellent command of the English language, and is operating under guidance from Hamas officials.

David Collier: BUSTED – Hamas linked propaganda unit interfering in UK election

Hamas and pro-Hamas outlets are conducting an online campaign to help Jeremy Corbyn win the election. A Hamas propaganda outfit deploys armies of trolls to attack Jewish campaigners fighting antisemitism, they support Corbyn online, help to create pro-Corbyn trends and vote for him in online polls.

Take the account, KhamakarPress. They have a website, with contains a link to join a WhatsApp group. When you join the WhatsApp group, other numbers in the group become visible. Several carry the 972 59 country and area code – including the group admin. 972 is Israel. 059 is the code explicitly reserved for Jawwal, a Palestinian mobile network.

The admin of the group is Wafa Aludaini, a propagandist from Gaza. Aludaini’s FB page is connected with 100s of key anti-Israel activists in Europe and the US.

The website’s European HQ seems to be in Holland and it is linked to an Islamic Organisation there. The Dutch Islamic website even defended a Salafi school that was closed due to links to terrorism. The KhamakarPress Facebook page is run by Henny A.J. Kreeft. He is a Dutch convert to Islam and has penned antisemitic articles about the ‘Jewish empire.’ He co-founded a political ‘Muslim Party‘ in 2007.

When you follow Khamakar Press, you soon realise that they are connected to massive anti-Israel initiatives. Take the ‘Palestine Ambassador’ website. It is a website set up to train anti-Israel activists. Another connection is the 16th October Facebook group – an anti-Israel propaganda outlet. All run by those who run Khamakar Press. The 16th October group claims it is unit of ‘Aithoraya Institute for media and communication.’

Whatever it is, ‘AlThoraya’ is official. Remember, 16th October is run by the same Aludaini that is the admin of the WhatsApp group.

Israel Advocacy Movement: Jeremy Corbyn is not a racist

Some bloke attempts to prove Jeremy Corbyn isn't racist.

Don't let Sanders get away with redefining 'pro-Israel'

Sanders refuses to cut ties with people like Sarsour or Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who have engaged in anti-Semitic incitement as bad as that of Sarsour. He also refuses to repudiate many others in the ranks of his supporters, campaign surrogates and officials who agree with them about Israel, all of which is incompatible with the idea that he is someone who supports Israel or the struggle against anti-Semitism in any meaningful sense of those terms.

For too long, many American Jews have been caught up in battles between conservative and liberal Zionists in which American partisan political battles were mixed up with those going on in Israel between right- and left-wing factions. The real issue facing American Jews heading into the 2020 campaign isn't about settlements or a two-state solution that Congress and most Jews still want, but about which Palestinians have little or no interest. Instead, it's whether the vast majority of American Jews who identify as liberals and Democrats are willing to draw a line in the sand and utterly reject people like Sarsour, Omar, and Tlaib.

The answer coming from Sanders and all too many others is that the common ground they share with such people on Trump and other issues is more important than any residual affection for Israel or even sensitivities about anti-Semitism. If so, then they are not merely redefining "pro-Israel" in such a way as to render it meaningless, but also fatally undermining the struggle against anti-Semitism.

To understand the consequences of such a stand, you need only to look at Britain, where radical anti-Semites seized control of the Labour Party. Here on the opposite side of the pond, we can only tremble for the future of a Jewish community in which Sanders's comfort level with anti-Semites becomes normative behavior for American Jews.

Bernie Sanders leans into anti-Semitism

Last weekend, Sarsour was surrogating Sanders’s campaign as a speaker at the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) conference. Her remarks sound more like a surrogacy for David Duke or Hamas. Israel, she said, is ‘built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else’ — a libel as equally likely to appear from the mouths of Islamists as the thumbs of white nationalists. It’s impossible, Sarsour said, to oppose ‘white supremacy in America and the idea of being in a state based on race and class’ without also opposing the existence of a Jewish state.

Naturally, this specious and defamatory linkage was affirmed by Rashida Tlaib. Naturally, when footage of Sarsour’s diatribe appeared online, she did her best to wriggle out of it with a statement about ‘context’ — but not one about AMP’s official conference program, which called Zionism a ‘disease’ intending to ‘destroy the purity of al-Quds [Jerusalem]’.

Sanders’s alliance with Sarsour isn’t just Magic Grandpa being sentimental about the kids who remind him of his radical youth. Like Jeremy Corbyn’s passion for Islamists, it’s a calculated attempt to catch votes, transform the party membership and upend the centrist party managers. These tactics worked for Corbyn. But when Magic Grandpa shakes the tree, it’s not just money that falls out.

Corbyn’s idea of socialism with British characteristics has disgraced the Labour party and, by mainstreaming racists in the name of ‘social justice’ and ‘anti-Zionism’, become a global embarrassment to Britain. Labour is now a surrogate for its worst elements. Bernie Sanders is following the same tactics, and his socialism with American characteristics is already producing not dissimilar results: the mainstreaming of ancient hatred, with Bernie as Sarsour’s surrogate. Thanks, Grandpa.

Director Quentin Tarantino’s recent decision to play an active role in Israeli life (or at least the creation of more of it) got me thinking back to his 2009 actioner Inglorious Basterds (a film which, like his most recent Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, took a few small liberties with the historic timeline).

I’ve been a fan of Tarantino since he first came on the scene with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, not because he was the last decade’s reigning film hipster, but because we shared a film vocabulary (I spent much of the '80s and '90s ferreting around video stores in ethnic neighborhoods for Hong Kong action flix, Filipino Batman musicals, and other treasures while he was screening the same films in the video stores he haunted).

Tarantino's gift for dialog is usually the first thing reviewers remark on, but I've always appreciated his patience as a film maker. In an age when Hollywood pictures ban any scene lasting for more than twenty seconds, Tarantino's can stretch out 15-20 minutes and consist of nothing more than characters interacting with one another in complex ways (admittedly, with many such scenes ending in some spectacular bout of violence). This aspect of Tarantino's skill became apparent in Kill Bill, a four-hour bloodbath/extravaganza which contains fewer individual scenes than ten minutes of a Michael Bay picture. That patience is even more on display in Basterds (something I confirmed during a recent screening with the kids).

For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, Basterds abandons the time-travel tricks Tarantino played in films like Pulp Fiction for parallel linear narratives. In one, a group of Jewish operatives under the leadership of Shabbos-goy Brad Pitt are working behind enemy lines during World War II to terrorize the Nazis. In another, Shosanna Dreyfus, a Jewish girl who escaped the massacre of her family at the hands of Nazi Jew Hunter Hans Landa (played brilliantly by Christoph Waltz) is living in Paris and runs a cinema where the upcoming premiere of Josef Goebbels’s latest propo film will be attended by the top Nazi brass (including Hitler himself). This sets the stage for separate Dirty Dozen-style mass-assassination plots by both Shosanna and the Basterds.

Another Tarantino strength is his willingness to kill off characters mid-picture, including characters you're convinced are central to the plot. This unpredictability left audiences (or at least me) wondering whether the joint schemes to kill off the Nazi leadership would succeed, clash or cancel each other out.

As with his other pictures, Tarantino uses this work to show off his film knowledge, with multiple references to pre-war German and French cinema. The potential pretentiousness of the film-maker's indulgence is blunted, however, by the fact that Basterds has much more to do with 1940's American WWII shlock actioners than with the work of Leni Riefenstahl. My personal favorite film in this category - whose name I've forgotten - features a group of Chicago gangsters sent behind enemy lines where they manage to use Tommy guns and getaway cars to kidnap Hitler, tricking the SS into shooting their own Fuehrer by shaving off Hitler's moustache ("But I AM the fuehrer!" "Shut up you swine! " Pow!)

Sorry, where were we? Oh yes, onto politics!

When the film first came out, there was controversy over a picture that features Jews taking glee in their brutal behavior towards their victims. But since those victims are all uniformed Nazis (not German civilians), this complaint only made sense if you were willing to make a moral distinction between plain old Army Nazis and Gestapo Nazis (a la Hogan's Heroes). Besides, as the aforementioned Dirty Dozen showed us years ago, decadent Nazis and their entourages at play (at a dinner party or film opening) are fair game.

At least one critic was suspicious over the amount of German financial backing for the film, highlighting that both Shosanna and the Basterds play into a "vengeful Jew" mythos permeating German society. I won't pretend to understand German culture enough to say whether this trope is as widespread as that critic thought, but I will point out that the first Jewish image in the film (consisting of a family of Jews hiding under the floorboards of a French house in justifiable fear for their lives) has been played out endlessly for film audiences over the last six decades, something that doesn't seem to have blunted European appetite for anti-Jewish fear and paranoia. If once every two generations a film features a Jew emptying a machine gun clip into Adolph Hitler's face, I can't say I see the harm in that.

Especially since we're talking about an exploitation film, the type of movie which invites you to welcome the opening credits with a cry of “Pander to me!” arms thrown out. After all, African American audiences got to spend a decade enjoying Black Belt Jones and other Blaxploitation heroes delivering roundhouse kicks to the head of bigoted Southern sheriffs. Is it too much to ask for Jews to be gifted a similar jolt at the movies once in the 75 years since the Holocaust?

I'll admit that many audiences, Jew and Gentile, didn’t quite know what to make of depictions of Jewish strength, power and heroism, especially when such strength involves use of a gun or a knife. Which is one more thing I appreciate Quentin Tarantino for challenging us with, even if he did so merely with the intention of delivering up some explosive kicks.

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AFP reports:

A 33-year-old Jordanian was sentenced to eight years behind the bars over an alleged plot to attack the Israeli embassy in Amman last year.

The state security court ruled that Khaled Abu Raya "threatened to carry out terrorist acts."

According to the charge sheet, as reported by the AFP, the Abu Raya planned "to open fire on the embassy and its employees in a bid to kill a large number of Israelis".

Here's what AFP left out of the story:

He only planned the attack after Muslim clerics issued a fatwa giving him permission.

As far as I can tell, those clerics are not being arrested.

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12/09 Links Pt1: Fatah: “We won’t relinquish a grain of soil… from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River”; Sovereignty over Jordan Valley Is Crucial to Israel's Survival

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Keep up the pressure

It is shameful for those countries to be working to enrich a corrupt, violent, terrorist-supporting Iranian government at any time, but it’s an even greater disgrace to do so at a time when it is gunning down regime opponents on the street.

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during his trip to Lisbon to discuss defense against Iran with US: “That is wrong. They should be ashamed of themselves. While people are risking their lives and dying on the streets of Tehran, they are giving sustenance and support to this radical regime.”

Iran’s murderous ways are not limited to protesters on the streets in Iran, but extend from Iran to Syria to Lebanon and Gaza, and even beyond the Middle East, to Argentina, for example, where Iran was behind the bombing of the AMIA Jewish center.

The correct response to the tyrants of Tehran is not to reward them for sowing death and destruction. The world should be working to encourage the courageous protesters and discourage the regime from continuing to put its money toward deadly causes that do not help their people.

First and foremost, sanctions should be respected and not circumvented.

While Iran continues to develop nuclear-capable ballistic missiles and precision-guided munitions and targets people around the world, the pressure must be increased, not relieved.

A Non-Aggression Pact Between Israel and Arab States Is a Good Place to Start

Yet the Gulf states do not accept the Palestinian claims; their fear of Iran is overriding. They believe Trump’s hands are tied by his desire to run in the next presidential elections. Some of them believe that if he wins the elections, he will change his stance regarding protecting them from Iran.

At the same time, secret and public visits continue between Israeli and Arab representatives. Netanyahu visited Oman in October 2018 and Katz visited the UAE in June 2019.

According to unconfirmed reports in some Arab media outlets, Netanyahu has also met secretly with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman.

Similarly, some Gulf states have hosted Israeli sports teams, and even played Israel’s national anthem “Hatikva” when the Israeli teams won.

Israel’s attempt to advance a non-aggression agreement with four Arab countries is significant. This message should filter through to the Arab world and to the Palestinians who seek to block the normalization of relations with Israel.

Israel’s policy of breaking the linkage established by the Palestinians between normalizing relations with Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is correct. The Palestinian problem no longer leads the Arab countries’ list of priorities. The Iranian danger has overtaken it, and in any case, the Palestinian arena is divided between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with the Palestinian leadership unable to reach a national agreement that would allow serious negotiations with Israel, the results of which would be binding upon all Palestinians.

The moderate Arab countries are following Israel’s offensive policy against Iranian entrenchment in Syria and the military attacks ascribed to Israel against Iranian targets. There is no doubt that this affects their relationship with Israel, which is proving itself to be a critical regional force that does not fear to confront Iran. It is worthwhile for them to ally with Israel even in secret and to coordinate efforts to halt Iranian influence.

PMW: Fatah: “We won’t relinquish a grain of soil… from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River”

Two Fatah officials have recently repeated the PA and Fatah’s uncompromising stance that “Palestine” includes all of the State of Israel in addition to the PA areas and Gaza, and that Jews/Israelis are nothing but temporary “invaders.” This position of course leaves no room for a two-state solution which the PA and Fatah claim – to foreign audiences – they support.

The media spokesperson and “popular resistance coordinator” of Fatah’s Qalqilya branch, Murad Shtewi, stressed that Palestinians view the entire area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea as “Palestine,” and that they won’t give up an inch of it. He also called on Palestinians to carry out “a popular revolution” against Israel:
“Shtewi emphasized that the Palestinian people will not relinquish a grain of soil from the land of historical Palestine from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, despite the American administration’s attempts to allow the occupation state to expand the settlement and legitimize it, and he demanded that our people carry out a popular revolution against the occupation everywhere.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 30, 2019]

At the same event a group of Palestinian scouts held “signs emphasizing the right of our people in Palestine and the return to it from its [Mediterranean] Sea to its [Jordan] River.” Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA and Fatah espouse the “liberation” of “Palestine” from “the river to the sea,” and teach even children that “Palestine will return” and that this is the end goal.

The head of Fatah’s Jenin branch similarly expressed the view that all of Israel will become “Palestine” as he stated that the Israelis “will leave” as the previous “invaders” have done. He implied that Palestinians will use violence to make this happen, stating that “we are at the beginning of an ongoing confrontation, and are not making do with a rally or procession.”

Fatah official: “We are at the beginning of an ongoing confrontation,” Israel will leave as other “invaders” havehttps://t.co/GlfvRpCvO8 pic.twitter.com/NAh67zV6A5
— Pal Media Watch (@palwatch) December 9, 2019

As we've reported, a US NGO called Ships plans to open up a hospital in Gaza near the Erez crossing, and the Palestinian Authority has been bitterly opposed to it, ludicrously claiming that the hospital is really a joint US/Israel military base.

The hospital will use equipment and staff from a similar field hospital in Syria that is no longer needed.

The PA's main problem seems to be the name of the hospital, the American Hospital. The honor/shame culture cannot deal with that. (It is also upset that Israel has cooperated with Hamas on building this hospital.)

It seems that the PA and Fatah realized that their opposing a hospital in Gaza looks bad, so Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh said that the PA will work to open a different hospital in Gaza funded by Turkey.

Turkey announced this hospital to much fanfare in 2018, which was to be jointly run between Turkey and the PA, but it never opened due to financial and staff shortages. For some reason this was not considered a scandal.

Now, Shtayyeh is saying that he is negotiating with Turkey on finally opening this hospital. "We are in the final stages of agreeing with our Turkish friends to cover the operating expenses of this hospital," Shtayyeh said today.

It is hard to explain how petty and uncaring the Palestinian Authority is for its own people and how willing it is to use Palestinian lives for political purposes. This Turkish hospital has been empty and unused for an entire year, but only now that the PA wants to not look like idiots for opposing another Hamas-approved hospital does it make any moves to open the Turkish hospital.

Both the Turkish and American hospitals were approved by Israel, proving yet again that the Jewish state cares more about Palestinian lives than the Palestinian Authority does.

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A week ago was a supposed "Day of Rage" against the US for declaring that Jews are not prohibited from living in Judea and Samaria according to international law.

Stores and schools were closed, but the mass protests didn't materialize. There were a few photo-op protests and some stone throwing but for the most part Palestinians were apathetic.

Fatah is trying the same thing today. At its request, the Hebron Governorate shut down all stores, schools and government offices today to protest Israel's plan to allow Jews to move into the area of old Hebron that has been owned by Jews since the early 19th century.

Fatah also called on all residents of Hebron governorate - 600,000 people - to go to the Jewish area of H1 in Hebron, protest and pray at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the second holiest site in Judaism.

Ma'an says "hundreds" came, although their photos seem to show far fewer people.

A few kids also threw stones https://www.facebook.com/groups/1054552847892364/wp/964331590605670/?entry_source=PERMALINK&ext=1576153375&hash=AeSZaAW6mqLXj16-at IDF soldiers.

Hebron Arabs resigned themselves to a day of lost revenuehttps://www.facebook.com/Hebroncity1 to make another useless political and religious point. Some went to Facebook to try to sell items they couldn't sell in stores, such as this bizarre combination watch/cigarette lighter.

The strikes aren't called as part of the protests. No Israeli is inconvenience by Hebron stores and municipal services on strike - it only hurts Palestinians. But Fatah wants to juice up crowds at the actual protests, and the only way to do that is to call a general strike, hoping that people will show up because they have nothing better to do.

But Hebron outside of H1 is a prosperous, very large city, where residents never see a single Jew unless they need to travel elsewhere. A few Jews moving into an empty area of Hebron that they never even visit is meaningless to them. That is why far less than 1% of the people affected by the general strike showed up to the actual planned protest, and all of them were probably Fatah operatives anyway - no women or children could be seen at these protests.

Today's protests proved yet again that Fatah is increasingly impotent and the "rage" they try to ignite simply doesn't exist among Palestinians.

It is a shame that the media never reports on this apathy.

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Palestinian archbishop slams Lebanese church leader for anti-Hezollah statements; "Church is not a place of incitement." But he's incited against Jews plenty.

Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elias Odeh of Beirut said this past weekend that he supported the demonstrations by Lebanese citizens, and that “Today, this country is ruled by a person you all know, and no one utters a word, and is ruled by a group that takes up arms,”a clear reference to Hezbollah.

The Palestinian archbishop Atallah Hanna of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Palestinian territories criticized Odeh and defended Hezbollah, saying, "Hezbollah had a role in defending the Christian presence in Syria and more than one location in the Levant," adding that "using the church’s pulpit to attack a prominent Lebanese party is an unacceptable position that does not represent us as Orthodox Christians."

Hanna added, "The church is not a place for incitement or offense for anyone, but a place of love and devotion to the noble moral, human and national value."

That's funny. Because only this past summer, Archbishop Hanna referred to Israeli Jews as "evil," saying, "Our resistance to the evil which targets our ancient Christian presence in this holy spot of the world must be through our clinging to our spiritual and faith development and also our adherence to our national identity, we belong to this country and Palestine is our homeland and it is our cause."

He's also said that "Zionist Christians do not belong to Christianity." And many other hateful statements over the years.

But I thought he was against politicizing the Church! I thought he was against incitement and offense for anyone?

Apparently, as with so many other rules, there is an exception for Jews and Zionists.

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The cynical Christmas trees of the West Bank

Yesterday, a small crowd gathered to light the Christmas Tree in Birzeit in the ceremoney I mentioned earlier where the Palestinian prime minister called Jesus a "Palestinian guerilla."

Birzeit used to have a majority Christian population. No longer. While I do not have statistics for Birzeit itself, the Ramallah and Al Bireh governorate that it belongs is about 3% Christian. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2017 the West Bank and Gaza were barely 1% Christian.

Yet major Palestinian political figures show up at the lighting of Christmas trees in Bethlehem, Ramallah and Birzeit claiming that Christianity is important to them. Not important enough to stem the huge exodus of Christians from Palestinian rule, but important enough to pretend that they are equal citizens.

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12/08 Links: Jeremy Corbyn is the biggest global threat to Jews, warns Simon Wiesenthal Centre; Biden says cutting Israel aid ‘bizarre,’ accuses PA of fomenting conflict; Why Israel will be blamed for the absence of PA elections

From Ian:

Jeremy Corbyn is the biggest global threat to Jews, warns Simon Wiesenthal Centre - the world's leading Nazi-hunting organisation - as Boris Johnson urges voters to save Britain from a 'nightmare'

Boris Johnson today urges voters not to inflict a Friday the 13th 'nightmare' on Britain by handing Jeremy Corbyn the keys to No 10.

The Prime Minister's late Election plea comes as The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the Labour leader has been named as the worst antisemite on the planet by the world's leading Nazi-hunting organisation.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre warns that Corbyn would turn Britain into a 'pariah state' if he wins Thursday's Election.

In an astonishing escalation of the row which has ripped Labour apart, the human rights body said: 'No one has done more to mainstream antisemitism into the political and social life of a democracy than the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Party.

'Members and staff who have dared to speak out against the hate were purged, but not those who declared 'Heil Hitler' and 'F*** the Jews.'

Rabbi Marvin Hier, the head of the centre, told this newspaper: 'If it wasn't for Winston Churchill and Britain leading the fight against Nazism in the Second World War who knows if the Allies would have won?

'Britain was at the forefront of defeating Hitler and now, on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the person who wants to sit in Winston Churchill's chair at No 10 is fostering antisemitism. If Mr Corbyn wins he will make Britain a pariah on the world stage. It will be a disaster for democracy.'

Leaked files expose extent of anti-Semitism in British Labour Party

The full extent of anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party is exposed in documents leaked days before voters go to the polls to elect a new government.

Allegations against members include Holocaust denial and crude caricatures of “bent nose manipulative liars,” as well as calls for the “extermination of every Jew on the planet.”

The issue has long dogged Jeremy Corbyn, its hard-left leader, who has been accused repeatedly of failing to tackle the issue.

The leaked files from internal investigations show more than 130 cases remain outstanding, even though many were reported more than 18 months ago, according to the Sunday Times.

One member was suspended after claiming that only “thousands” of people had died in the Holocaust, according to the files. She also stereotyped Jewish people by claiming they were “rich, interested in finance and intent on controlling or exploiting others” in social media posts.

Another member was suspended last year after his comments were reported to party headquarters. “I call for the complete annihilation and extermination of every Jew on the planet,” the man is alleged to have written in a post about Israel.

Be under no illusions about @jeremycorbyn - listen to this short clip:

1. Wants to stop ALL TRADE between Europe & Israel
2. Has a problem with Israel's ability to defend itself from rockets.
3. Calls the only democracy in the ME - a 'rogue state'.

86 seconds. lots of hate pic.twitter.com/hQL1KpQxXr
— David Collier (@mishtal) December 7, 2019

Speaking at the Christmas tree lighting at Birzeit yesterday, Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh addressed the small crowd by talking about how proud they should be that the first Palestinian martyr who identified as part of the student movement came from that village.

He then said, "Christmas is a Palestinian national holiday, and Christ was a Palestinian guerrilla, who stood against injustice."

The Arabic word he used for guerilla is "fidai", singular for "fedayeen" which is what Palestinians call terrorists who murder Jews.

Palestinian leaders have for years referred to Jesus as "Palestinian," a term he himself would not have recognized. Official media has even compared terrorists to Jesus. But this is the first time I can recall that a Palestinian leader has literally called Jesus the same word used for murderers.

This portrayal of Christianity's Jesus as a Palestinian terrorist should disgust all Christians worldwide.

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Here is just one of many reactions to President Trump's speech at the IAC National Summit last night:

He so perfectly exposes how the pro-Israel industry is rooted in commodifiying, tokenizing and instrumentalizing Jews and how the JudeoChrsitian Zionist ethos is essentially antiSemitic https://t.co/LOP0YRbFfW
— Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין (@MairavZ) December 8, 2019

Let's be clear: the only people who are upset over a President, or anyone, saying that people should love Israel more are people who hate Israel. Not Israeli policies, not Israeli leaders, but Israel. And that includes too many Jews, who then fall over themselves saying that such statements - that some Jews need to love Israel more - are antisemitic!

Here's the entire speech.

The audience at the IAC did not think that Trump's speech was antisemitic. Even when he made jokes about how many of them are realtors:"You are brutal killers. Not nice people at all." The audience recognized it as a joke from someone who loves them; the pundits are screaming "antisemite!"

Trump, speaking to the Israeli American Council: "You're not nice people at all, but you have to vote for me. You have no choice. You're not going to vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You're not going to vote for the wealth tax!" pic.twitter.com/IXoaVUw6MU
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 8, 2019

Some commenters who are slightly more honest but still hate Trump are using a slightly newer trope - he's not an antisemite, he's a philosemite - and that is just as bad! Because as a philosemite, he mentions what he admires about Jews and those are used as proof that he is stereotyping them which is supposedly terrible. People who love Jews saying that Jews are good with money is somehow as bad as antisemites saying that Jews are money-grubbing misers.

In the end, Trump is a Rorschach test. If you have Trump derangement syndrome he is an antisemite or an evil philosemite. If you are honest you can see he loves Jews and Israel. (None of the critics are mentioning that Trump yet again unequivocally slammed antisemitism in this very same speech, nor that he movingly praised American Jews.)

It is possible to disagree with Trump's politics and still see that he loves Israel and Jews. But the number of honest critics of Trump is very small.

There is plenty to criticize about Trump. One can even criticize how he seems to tolerate those on the Right who are antisemitic. But to claim that this speech is proof of Trump's antisemitism shows much about the hate of the critic and nothing about Trump.

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It Must Be Heaven is the Palestinian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards in February.

Directed by and starring Elia Suleiman as himself, the plot is that Suleiman escapes the Palestinian territories only to find that he encounters similar problems wherever he goes.

Reviewers love the movie.

Describing himself at the Morocco film festival, Suleiman said "I wish to drown Israel, but I cannot. So I resort to ridicule the reality I live in, What I do is a way to resist .... When we laugh and enjoy a comic scene, time stops and gravity disappears, then we return to resistance, and when you put your feet on the ground and you return to bitter reality, you find strength for resistance."

(h/t WC)

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12/07 Links: Melanie Phillips: The sickening reality of Labour party Jew-hatred; Nikki Haley slams Canada’s U.N. “deal with the devil”; Linda Sarsour Thinks You Can’t Hear or Read

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The sickening reality of Labour party Jew-hatred

It is horrifying that this party might possibly find itself governing the country after next weeks general election. It is appalling that so many people are planning to vote for it, and that its opinion poll ratings have actually gone up since the Chief Rabbi issued his dramatic warning about the threat it poses to the Jewish community. It is shameful that, in this election campaign, so-called “moderate” Labour candidates are campaigning to put this disgusting party into power.

But above all, this evidence leads to the inescapable conclusion that a spiritual sickness has not just spread within the Labour party but British society. A culture that produces so much derangement and moral depravity as is being directed at Israel and the Jewish people – and has been for decades, long before Corbyn became the Labour leader – is a society that has lost its moral compass.

Of course, Britain has a history of profound and enduring antisemitism. Its literature is infused with it; in the Middle Ages it burned Jews alive in pogroms and eventually threw them out of the country; in the 1930s and 40s, it was an accomplice to the Holocaust by barring European Jews from entry to Palestine, in flagrant repudiation of its treaty obligation as the Mandatory power to settle Jews in their ancient homeland. Its two periods of active philosemitism, under Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century and the heyday of evangelical Christianity in the 19th century, were exceptions to the rule. And there was a period after the Holocaust when antisemitism went underground and was regarded as utterly beyond the pale.

Epidemic Jew-hatred always signals a society in crisis. Its current eruption – which is happening not just in Britain but in America and Europe too – is sounding the alarm not just for diaspora Jews but for a western culture in freefall.

Douglas Murray: You can’t compare Tory Islamophobia with Labour anti-Semitism

In 2017, Darren Osborne drove a truck into a crowd of worshippers leaving prayers at a mosque in Finsbury Park. And yet, to date, Boris Johnson has not campaigned that Osborne should not have been charged, found guilty or sentenced for this appalling crime. So far as I am aware, no elected member of the Conservative Party has pretended that Osborne is some poor, misguided innocent.

And yet this is the sort of act that would have to be found in the ranks of the Conservative Party in order to find an equivalence to Jeremy Corbyn’s support for Samar Alami and Jawad Botmeh — two men who were convicted for a car-bomb attack on a London Jewish charity’s headquarters in 1994. While Corbyn acted as a long-time defender and indeed character referee for the anti-Jewish bombers, no senior Conservative appears to have made Darren Osborne into some kind of sick campaigning cause.

I could go on and on. While the Shadow Chancellor has spent years defending the “bravery” of the IRA when they tortured and murdered hundreds of innocent people, there is no evidence that the present Chancellor, Sajid Javid, ever praised or gave supportive speeches for the Red Hand Defenders or Ulster Volunteer Force. Is such evidence likely to emerge? I suspect not.

So why this strange emphasis from members of the commentariat who like to pretend that they are independent-minded, that they cannot vote for either main party because they are in some way equally bad? Perhaps some of them think it. Perhaps some genuinely cannot tell any differences between the two parties.

But a far more likely explanation is that many of these ‘independent-minded’ columnists are simply far more tribal than they would like the rest of us to think. When the Labour Party is led by a man who has spent his life mainstreaming the vilest and most deadly prejudice of all, the lifelong members of the Labour tribe who recognise that fact still feel too much a part of that tribe to do the one thing that is more appalling than anything to them — which is to switch sides and vote Conservative.

That is the one thing they can never do. And so they come up with ways to reorient the political landscape; to present themselves as being the only people remaining stable while everyone else is disoriented. Whereas they — in their moment of pretended stability — may be the most lost and morally disoriented people of all.

Melanie Phillips: Islamists are not the same as other prisoners

The terrorist attack by Usman Khan on a prisoner rehabilitation conference in London was made possible by two catastrophic and tragic misjudgments.

The first was by the Court of Appeal, which changed Khan’s sentence. At the root of their mistake lay a failure to understand fanatical Islam.

This failure also characterised the second misjudgment, by both the group that had invited Khan to its conference and the probation service which enabled him to attend: believing that he was a reformed character. This was rooted in a deeper refusal to acknowledge the unique challenges of Islamic extremism, a mistake made by most of the justice establishment.

The liberal West wants to believe every criminal is redeemable. Some are. Others are not. Islamic radicalism challenges the liberal orthodoxy that there can be no difference in treatment between groups. The nature and scale of this challenge, however, requires a unique response.

With such observations being silenced as “Islamophobic”, rational concerns for public safety have been stigmatised instead as an obnoxious mental disorder. Unless the establishment gathers its courage and its wits to face that intimidation down, Friday’s atrocity is unlikely to be the last.

Douglas Murray: A picture of our criminal naivety: Ten years ago, DOUGLAS MURRAY was publicly confronted by Anjem Choudary. Standing adoringly next to the hate cleric was an accomplice of the London Bridge murderer. Why ARE we so lax about terror in our midst?

With a notorious reputation for whipping up anti-British Islamist hate, you could be forgiven for thinking that Anjem Choudary is like every other frothing-at-the-mouth Jihadi extremist.

But he's not, as I learnt in 2009 when an invitation to debate him turned into a tense stand-off on a central London street in broad daylight.

As you'll see in the photo on this page, Choudary didn't scream at me. He didn't get up close into my face. In fact, he hardly raised his voice.

Instead, mimicking the manner of a highly learned imam — which he is not — he tried to give out the impression of being a perfectly reasonable fellow. He knew that the thugs around him were doing the intimidating for him.

But as the twinkle in his eye that day revealed, he knew — and I knew — that he was playing a deadly but careful game.

A game intended to keep him just on the right side of the law and stay out of prison.

What both of us knew was that in private it was another matter.

Because behind closed doors he was already proving to be one of the most adept terrorist recruiters in this country.