Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 16, 2019

Mike Pompeo's great letter to Democrats on settlements and peace (full text)

The Jerusalem Post got hold of the letter that Mike Pompeo wrote in response to a left-wing Democratic letter criticizing the US position that Israeli settlements are not illegal per se.

I converted the facsimile of the letter to text.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE
WASHINGTON

The Honorable
Andy Levin
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Levin:

I am in receipt of your letter of November 21 in which you criticize the State Department's determination that the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not categorically inconsistent with international law - a decision which you contend reverses “decades of bipartisan US policy on Israeli settlements.” You further argue. in conclusory fashion, that this determination “blatantly disregards Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

While I appreciate your interest in this important issue, I could not disagree more with those two foolish positions. I will briefly respond to your principal points.

First, the State Department's determination did not reverse any policy with regard to Israeli settlements. Rather, the State Department reversed a legal determination by Secretary Kerry. made during the waning days of the Obama Administration, that the establishment of settlements was categorically inconsistent with international law. That determination was made in a failed attempt to justify the Obama Administration's betrayal of Israel in allowing UNSCR 2334 — whose foundation was the purported illegality of the settlements and which referred to them as “a flagrant violation” of international law — to pass the Security Council on December 23, 2016.

Second, Secretary Kerry's determination did not enjoy bipartisan consensus. Rather, it received bipartisan condemnation, including from leading Democrats in both chambers of Congress. Indeed, an overwhelming number of Senators and House Members, on both sides of the aisle, supported resolutions objecting to the passage of UNSCR 2334. Secretary Kerry's statement departed from decades of bipartisan consensus, reverting to an approach last advanced by the Administration of President Carter in 1978 whose position was reversed by the next succeeding president, Ronald Reagan.

While you are free to fixate on settlements as a barrier to peace. you are simply wrong in referring to that view as being subject to bipartisan agreement. No less a Democratic spokesman than the Senate Minority Leader publicly stated at his AIPAC address on March 5, 2018, that “it's sure not the settlements that are the blockage to peace.”

Third, you assert that we have “blatantly disregarded” the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Trump Administration has thoroughly reviewed and analyzed this issue and we respectfully disagree. Among the numerous sources and authorities supporting our view. I commend to you the writings of Eugene Rostow, who left his position as Dean of the Yale Law School to become Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration. Dean Rostow represented the United States in the peace talks that followed the 1967 Six Day War and was responsible for the drafting of UNSCR 242, which even today remains the primary architecture for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Dean Rostow stated in 1983 that “Israel has an unassailable legal right to establish settlements in the West Bank.”

Fourth. US policy with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict largely has been consistent for decades and remains so: we support and seek to facilitate direct negotiations between the parties towards the goal of a just and lasting peace agreement. Regrettably. as many experts concur, UNSCR 2334 and the related self-justifying remarks by Secretary Kerry have saddled the Trump Administration with a significant handicap in advancing the cause of peace by erroneously injecting into the conflict an incorrect and largely irrelevant legal component. This in turn has led to the hardening of positions. especially on the Palestinian side. By way of example. the closing of the Office of the General Delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington
D.C.. which you criticize, was mandated by Federal statute following President Abbas’ announcement before the United Nations General Assembly on September 20, 2017, that the Palestinian Authority “called on the International Criminal Court . . . to prosecute Israeli officials for their involvement in settlement activities . . . I doubt that President Abbas. with apparent animus towards Israel. would have taken such an inappropriate and unlawful position absent the cover mistakenly granted under UNSCR 2334 and Secretary Kerry's unfortunate speech.

The Trump Administration is committed to working tirelessly to advance the cause of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. We approach the issue pragmatically and diplomatically, but we eschew the erroneous positions of international law that have gained favor in the past decades. The Obama-Kerry departure from America’s historic support of Israel has done nothing to make peace more attainable. The State Department's recent determination that the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se illegal is an important step in the peace process and we are confident that it creates the right platform for further Progress.

We hope this information is helpful to you. Please let us know if we may be of further
assistance.

Sincerely.
Michael R. Pompeo
Secretary of State

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J-Street U's reasons against the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act prove those against the EO are throwing mud to see what sticks

In looking at the bogus arguments against the Executive Order on including Jews as a protected minority for Title VI purposes, I stumbled onto the J-Street U arguments used against the nearly identical Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2018.

J-Street U wrote a letter to Congress opposing that act, which was originally pushed during the Obama administration. Most of their arguments are the specious ones we have already debunked, but they added one that tells us a lot more about the leftists who oppose fighting antisemitism than the act itself:

In addition to focusing narrowly and exclusively on anti-Semitism that is related to Israel and to Zionism, the bill alarmingly fails to take into account the pressing issue of anti-Semitic hatred in our country stemming from the white supremacist far-right, which has risen precipitously since the 2016 election. ...It would be a grave mistake for Congress to ignore this virulent strain of anti-Semitism that has lead to a rise in hate crimes and violence across the country.

J-Street U claimed that the Antisemitism Awareness Act didn't deal with right-wing antisemitism - and this is a laughable lie. It refers to the IHRA definition which includes all kinds of antisemitism, right and left. Its definition (without the examples) leaves no doubt:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

By falsely and absurdly claiming that right-wing bigotry is not included, J-Street U - and by extension, all of the Leftist arguments against the EO - shows that their concern isn't for free speech or worries about chilling debate on campus. They simply want to shut down the very idea that there is any kind of antisemitism other than the neo-Nazi kind (and there are plenty of other flavors of antisemitism besides Right and Left) and therefore they want to be able to demonize the Jewish state in exactly the same way the far-Right demonizes Jews. Any argument is meant only for the real goal of defending most types of antisemitism on campus.

That's messed up.

What is especially sick about this antisemitism denial is that it tramples on the rights of thousands of Jews on campus, today, who are being disenfranchised and attacked because they don't subscribe to the religious philosophy of the Left, where victims are to be worshipped and white-passing people like Jews are the devil-oppressors.

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In our modern age, we tend to think of the outcome of warfare being decided primarily by technology and logistics, with armies able to deploy and utilize complex weapons systems in the land, sea and air being superior to those who cannot. Even when you look at asymmetrical warfare, which tends to utilize roadside bombs, terror tactics and propaganda instead of aircraft carriers and robot drones, success in this field requires mastery of technical and political skill, rather than fighting experience.

But if you look back throughout the thousands of years of history when war was conducted primarily with the same hardware (swords, spears, bows, shields, armor and the like), the factor marking the difference between a successful and unsuccessful army was the experience of the soldiery.

Troops loyal to Julius Caesar, for example, were not referred to as “Caesar’s Soldiers” or “Caesar’s Legions,” but “Caesar’s Veterans,” highlighting the fact that soldiers who spend decades fighting side-by-side provided the edge in battle even against far larger armies.

Even the strategic genius of a commander is frequently the result of a general himself being the veteran of numerous campaigns, providing him the chance to try different things at different times and experience both victory and defeat.

I bring this up since another strength BDS warriors bring to battle (along with Internet-enabled communication skill and complete indifference to the needs of others) is their experience waging their propaganda campaigns over many years and even decades. For most of us, the thought of engaging in a divestment debate in our student union or town hall is appalling not just because of the nature of the subject matter, but because few of us have experience engaging with (in this case) aggressive political warfare that is likely to create tension and conflict (the very things many of us spend our lives trying to avoid).

But years of experience battling against the boycotters eventually provides us the veteran’s perspective, helping turn what might have originally felt like distasteful conflict into a battle we eagerly anticipate for the thrill it provides (especially in victory – the familiar result for pro-Israel activists engaged in a BDS fight).

I can attest to this personally as someone addicted to the rush of watching a BDS go down to defeat. And my eagerness to mix it up with Israel haters/BDS propagandists derives from longing to engage in arguments I’ve been writing about for years.

But the veterans’ experience can also be seen in the wider Jewish community ready to fight back unapologetically against defamers of the Jewish state. As time goes on, more experience should drive more success and success will drive our desire to obtain more experience, creating new generations of vets capable of continuing to stare down the BDS threat, regardless of the ruthlessness of our adversaries.

As a final note, I’d like to pay a tribute to a veteran of many wars who lost out to the one enemy none of us can avoid forever eight years ago yesterday. Christopher Hitchens may have never been a great friend to the Jewish state. But he was a great friend to others who earned his sympathy (such as the people of Iraq) and Hitchens fought for their cause, regardless of what previous friends and allies had to say on the matter. While I am sad that this iconoclast of great wit and letters passed away without embracing the justice of Israel’s cause (or the Jewish world of which he was a part), I still miss him and his words, even (or especially) the ones with which I disagreed.

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12/16 Links Pt1: Boris Johnson to pass anti-BDS law; The Myth of the Nakba, and Its Consequences; Defund Lebanon. And Do It Yesterday.

From Ian:

Boris Johnson to pass anti-BDS law, official says

The new Conservative government in the UK will pass a law making it illegal for public bodies to engage with BDS, UK Special Envoy for post-Holocaust issues Eric Pickles said at the International Institute for Strategic Dialogue’s conference in Jerusalem on Sunday night.

"BDS is antisemitic and should be treated as such," Pickles said, explaining that the new law will not allow public bodies to work with those who boycott, divest from or sanction Israel in any way.

Queen Elizabeth will read the traditional "Queen's Speech" – prepared for her by the prime minister and his cabinet, which outlines the government's agenda for the next year – at the opening of the new parliament on Thursday. A UK news website called "i" reported that Johnson will write the anti-boycott law into the speech.

The Conservative Party’s platform in the UKs general election last week included a commitment to "ban public bodies from imposing their own direct or indirect boycotts, disinvestment or sanctions campaigns against foreign countries. These undermine community cohesion."

The move is meant to bloc local councils controlled by the Labour Party from using taxpayer funds to boycott foreign countries, including Israel.

UK election result ‘divinely inspired,’ says senior UK rabbi

“I believe that it was a divinely inspired result,” said Rabbi Joseph Dweck, senior rabbi of Britain’s Sephardi Jewish community, describing Thursday’s landslide defeat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in the UK election.

A member of the Conference of European Rabbis, Dweck told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that he was “grateful for the results. I believe that there is a renewed confidence that the Jewish community has both in Britain and the British people. We know now that we have a fast friend of the Jewish community at 10 Downing Street [Prime Minister Boris Johnson], who has, throughout his political career — especially during his time as mayor of London — proven his care, attention and protection of the Jews of Britain.”

Asked how Johnson should continue dealing with antisemitism in the UK, Dweck said he believes that “he should continue as he has: denouncing antisemitism, and to work with his government to eradicate any and all expressions of it in the country.”

Dweck said he is “deeply concerned” about rising antisemitism, but made it clear that he is as “concerned about it here in Europe as I am about it in America. We have seen a great upsurge of antisemitic crimes occurring in the States, and the antisemitic rhetoric that is rampant in many American universities is profoundly worrying. It will not be long at all until those students hold government office.”

Corbyn and the thrill of defeat

The Labour Party got a taste of wipe-out, and it could not have happened to a nicer bunch of antisemites, who are already busy, guess what, blaming the Jews.

From the “Well, that didn’t take long Department,” this Labour woman has already got it figured out. The Jews did it…yes, not the butler…the Jews.

The Jews, she says, won it for Boris and lost it for Corbyn, which is an amazing feat, when you consider the math.

The figure I’m getting is 270,000, so far as the (decreasing) number of Jews throughout the UK…from a total population of 67 million otherwise.

To which you can only scratch your head and say… what? How can so few have made all the difference, unless you are an anti-Semite and do math differently.

For some people, life is so simple. No matter who, what, where, when, it adds up to the Jews – even if there is only one left in town.

I mean, to be an anti-Semite you should need Jews, and in the UK, there are hardly any at all.

Some soccer stadiums draw bigger crowds.

Spectacularly, the British rejected that man Corbyn and his message, plus the leftist agenda altogether, and let’s hope the song of deliverance reaches America.

The Union of Reform Judaism Biennial just ended.

On Friday, three resolutions were passed, none of which have anything to do with Judaism in particular.

One of them called for study on how the US should provide reparations for slavery in the US today.

I'm wondering, would URJ consider asking Germany to pay reparations to the descendants of Holocaust survivors?

Any sober person can agree that Holocaust survivors went through much worse times than slaves in the US. If descendants of slaves deserve reparations, shouldn't descendants of Jews of Europe?

Thinking through the logic of why one group seems to deserve it and not the other can illuminate the logical problem. Holocaust survivors overcame much worse persecution, much more recently. Antisemitism in the US in the middle of the 20th century was no less than racism was.

It is almost like those who worked hard to overcome prejudice should be penalized.

And it also seems like Reform Jews put the lowest priority on their own people.

The URJ's resolutions show that the organization has little to do with actual Judaism and has embraced the very recent idea of "tikkun olam" as a substitute for Judaism. (Is there any difference between "tikkun olam" and "social justice"? If not, then there is nothing Jewish about "tikkun olam" except the Hebrew.)

These resolutions weren't the worst thing that happened at the Biennial.

Most disgustingly, the MC of the biennial on Friday had an "IfNotNow" pin, according to the INN Twitter account:

Today in Good For The Jews.

Rabbi Matt Green, the MC of the #URJBiennial happening this week, proudly wore an IfNotNow pin in front of 5,000 Reform Jews. He told the crowd that we need to work to end the occupation and for freedom & dignity for all.

There was raucous applause. pic.twitter.com/UeHUK0qG0d
— IfNotNow🔥 (@IfNotNowOrg) December 12, 2019

I noted that if IfNotNow has its way, the entire Old City of Jerusalem - which they consider "occupied" - would be given to Arabs who would then ban Jews as Jordan did from 1948 to 1967. Then they won't have to worry about an egalitarian space at the Kotel to pray - they couldn't get there anyway!

The Reform movement has little left to do with Judaism. While the attendees held a Havdalah ceremony Saturday evening, the rank and file who identify as Reform (and, increasingly, Conservative) actually do no Jewish rituals beyond a watered down Passover seder and maybe Chanukah candles. (It is actually laughable to think that more than 1% of Reform Jews do Havdalah at home.) Only 2% of Reform Jews can speak Hebrew. As Daniel Gordis - who has Conservative ordination - has written about non-Orthodox in America, "We now have a generation of Jews secularly successful and well-educated, but so Jewishly illiterate that nothing remains to bind them to their community or even to a sense that they hail from something worth preserving."

There are some exceptional Reform and Conservative Jews who love Judaism in all its aspects, not only the imposter "tikkun olam" concept. But they are a tiny minority. Most who identify with those movements have little or nothing to do with Judaism beyond bagels and bialys and Mrs. Maisel.

Those movements have to go back to basics - to study the Jewish texts. They don't have to agree with everything the Orthodox believe but they should be conversant in the Tanach and Talmud - at least reject Jewish tenets from a position of knowledge and not ignorance. Their kids know hypocrisy when they see it and this is what hurts Judaism more than anything else.

It may be too late, and if the URJ Biennial is any indication, it is.

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Palestinian university closes because students insist on openly supporting terrorism on campus. Where's the coverage?

For the past week, Bir Zeit University has been closed by the school administration twice because of student demonstrations against a new rule against using the campus for "manifestations of militarization."

The rule prohibits “any national celebrations by any of the student blocs of a military character, such as models of missiles and other weapons, and the presence of masked students in them."

Bir Zeit, and other Palestinian universities, routinely host pro-terrorist demonstrations:

The university closed its campus last Wednesday in response to students rioting and destroying its western entrance in response to this new rule. After more unrest on Thursday the university again decided to close the campus today for the safety of the students.

Ghassan Al-Khatib, Vice President of Birzeit University for Development and Communication, has been calling for dialogue with the pro-terror groups in order to find a compromise. They have not been interested.

The head of the student movement, Abd al-Rahman Alawi, says "Bir Zeit University, "which graduated the martyr engineer Yahya Ayyash and the prisoner Marwan Barghouti and dozens of martyrs and prisoners who had a clear imprint in the history of the Palestinian resistance, should be a source of uprisings and a political platform as it is now."

University officials say there are two reasons for the new rule, which had been discussed internally for years. One is the obvious - that pro-terror activity on campus is disruptive and against the values of the university. The other is that those activities give Israel an excuse to say that the university tolerates pro-terror activity.

Indeed, last week Israel arrested the president of the Student Council Conference at Birzeit University in Ramallah, Shatha Majid Hassan, at her home on December 5, along with a number of Hamas students that the IDF accused of gathering intelligence and preparing bombs for sabotage last Friday.

University officials insist that this anti-militarization rule has nothing to do with the arrests. In fact, the university forced all student blocs to sign a pledge not to engage in military-type demonstrations before the last student elections.

The other aspect of this story is that up until now, it has not been reported in any English-language media.

Yes, a major university closes its doors right before final exams, students are rioting, and there is complete silence on the story.

Bir Zeit University has some 14,000 students shut out from campus twice in a week and there is a near-total news blackout!

Most major Palestinian Arabic media has been ignoring the story or only publishing bits and pieces about the university closing without discussing why. It has been covered more by the pan-Arab press than Palestinian media.

This shows yet again:

- Palestinian media is not free to report on things that make Palestinian institutions look bad.

- NGOs and international media are not interested in doing any work to expose internal Palestinian rifts and conflict.

- Narratives of Israeli evil and Palestinian innocence are more important than reporting the news honestly.

- The world gets a highly skewed idea of how things are in the most-reported part of the worldd.

- Most reporters on the ground in the Middle East are lazy and have no interest in reporting actual news on their own, or their editors kill any stories that don't fit the "narrative."

Professional news organizations in Israel and the territories should be ashamed at their lack of commitment to their jobs. An unpaid blogger from thousands of miles away should not be getting so many scoops while people paid full salaries to report the news spend their time in Tel Aviv coffee shops, reading Ha'aretz to decide what story they want to cover.

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Here is an excerpt from the Congressional Record, June 27, 1956, part of a very lengthy testimony about the Arab boycott of Israel and of Jews.

What is especially interesting here is that the section on Arab anti-Jewish propaganda shows that there was a transition period between direct anti-Jewish statements and seeming "anti-Zionist" statements, for all intents and purposes identical. The testimony says that the change was prompted by American public relations firms retained by Arab countries.

This is an early blueprint of today's anti-Zionist propaganda, just today it is slightly better disguised.

ARAB ANTI-JEWISH PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES IN THE UNITED STATES

Perhaps the most vicious offense committed by Arab governments against Jewish citizens in the United States is their deliberate fomenting of domestic anti-Semitism in this country and their collaboration with and sponsorship of elements in the American hate movement.

Collaboration with American hatemongers

In carrying out its anti-Jewish campaign, the Arab Information Center has determined upon a course of intimate cooperation with professional anti-Semites in this country.

A policy statement sent by [Kameel Abdul] Rahim on October 25, 1954, from Cairo before his departure for the United States to head the center. to Dr. Omar Haliq. Arab League representative tn New York (Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatch of March 17, 1955) declared that the Arab Information Center henceforth would welcome the cooperation and assistance of professional anti-Semites in all fields and ways. Rahim emphasized that such activities were to be handled discreetly so as not to expose the center to charges of anti-Semitism or compromise its character as a cultural exchange. Rahim indicated that he intended to deal with this facet of the center's activities personally.
....
Distribution of anti-Semitic literature

The increasing voluminous literature published directly by Arab official propaganda agencies bears a comparable stamp of anti-Jewishness although, significantly, it does not usually bear any imprint identifying its source. Mort of the anti-Jewish items now being freely distributed across the country, often elaborately and handsomely printed, are published by the embassies of the Arab states and distributed by the Arab Information Center.

Generally, Arab officials obey the advice given them by American consultants to avoid heavy-handed anti-Jewish themes in their propaganda. On the other hand, the Arabs understand that the term “Zionist” and “Jew” are so closely identified in the United States by the general public that the theme of anti-Zionism can be handled adroitly to produce anti-Jewish implications, thus the continually repeated refrain concerning “the influence of the American Zionists in Washington.”

Occasionally, however, the Arab line is directed into an unmistakable excursion into overt anti-Jewish incitement. This is especially true in two pamphlets now widely in circulation, Story of Zionist Espionage in Egypt and Jewish Atrocities in the Holy Land..... These pamphlets clearly seek not only to inspire antipathy toward Israel but, in addition, to invoke a feeling of anti-Jewish prejudice and bias generally. And as a matter of fact, domestic anti-Semites in the United States already have distributed and exploited these documents for their own purposes.

The Story of Zionist Espionage In Egypt is openly anti-Jewish as well as anti-Israel...[It describes Zionism and communism this way:]

“Zionism and communism are two distinctive forces with one political objective— world domination. Both powers cooperate secretly and in public without friction since the power in the end will eventually go to Zionism.

"They will not achieve supremacy until they destroy the Islamic and Christian countries all over the world. Therefore communism helps Zionism and each in its own way completes the other: only thus will they reach their aim—Zionlist world supremacy.”

Jewish Atrocities In the Holy Land includes:

“Now we have once more to hear the horrible tale of sadistic cruelties and wanton brutalities perpetrated against an innocent population, mainly composed of women, children and old men. But this time the aggressors are those very Jews who were lately so loud tn their outcry against the Nazis.

"When reading of these atrocious acts, one unconsciously thinks of their perpetrators as being untaught savages, or barbarians of the remote past. Yet these same Jews have for centuries, by virtue of their money-amassing activities, gathered to themselves the cream of culture, and refinement of whatever country they have settled in. The wealthy, educated Jew surrounded by all the culture and art that his riches can command has long been a familiar figure in civilized society.”

An even more outrageous document, published by the World Truth League of POB 44, Jerusalem, Jordan-Arab side, is distributed widely in the United States through embassy offices of the Arab delegations to the U.N. as well as by the Arab Information Center. The sheet, composed in a sensational format, contains touched-up photographs of alleged Israeli massacres of Arab children, old men, and women. It quotes liberally from the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion to the effect that the Jews believe the gentiles are a flock of sheep and we are the wolves and you know what happens when the wolves get hold of the flock. This Jordanian leaflet maintains that Jews. not Israelis, are the unconscionable exploiters of the gentile world and they have very well proved it once again by their recent Judaic barbarities against innocent Arab shepherds. It declares that the basic material in all Jewish propaganda is composed of lies and distortion of facts as is known by now all over the world.

...
It is apparent that crude and vicious canards of this kind are not intended to be limited merely to incitement of hostility against Israel. They are designed for the larger purpose of promoting hatred toward Jews of every national allegiance throughout the world.

For those who insist that anti-Zionism has nothing to do with antisemitism, this history shows that they were identical in the 1950s and everyone knew it. The accusations against Israel today mirror those in the Arab antisemitic literature of 60 years ago. Given that the accusation of antisemitism was considered toxic, the Arab world slowly replaced "Jew" with "Zionist" but the intent was the same - to foment Jew-hatred worldwide.

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Kuwaiti man considers himself a religious Zionist Jew

In August, someone who calls himself Naftali Benya offered his first tweet. He wrote in Hebrew, "Good morning to all."

בוקר טוב לכולם
— Naftali (@naftali_benya) August 25, 2019

This was followed by a tweet in September which was much more interesting:

כן אני יהודי
אני לא מתבייש
ולא מפחד
יש לי רק יראת אלוהים
אני יהודי ואני גאה
ואם אתם חושבים שזה מטורף
אתם תתביישו
— Naftali (@naftali_benya) September 24, 2019

Yes I am Jewish
I am not ashamed
and not afraid
I have only fear of God
I am Jewish and I am proud
and if you think it is crazy
you should be ashamed

It turns out that Naftali is Youssef Al-Mebhanna from Kuwait. He grew up a Muslim but when he was twenty, after speaking with a friend from Qatar who asked him for proof Israelis are murderers, he realized that he was being told lies all his life. He became interested in Judaism and Zionism, and even though he never had a formal conversion he puts on a talit and tefillin every day, and he learned Hebrew from watching Israeli comedies.

Here is his interview and story, in Hebrew:

Last week he tweeted, in English:

Last week in Kuwait I was about to get arrested by the authorities for my support to the Jewish right in the land of Israel. I quickly booked a flight to London where I am right now. Baruch HaShem I am in London right now and I'm safe and sound. I will keep you guys updated.
— Naftali (@naftali_benya) December 5, 2019

Naftali is now in England where he hopes to convert to Judaism and then make aliyah to Israel.

He sounds like a remarkable young man.

(h/t Yoel)

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Beirut removes sculpture that looked like a Star of David from a certain angle

A sculpture in the Beirut of three squares intersecting was removed by the governor of the city - because if viewed from one angle, it looked like a Star of David.

The sculpture had been there for over a year. Apparently someone noticed the optical illusion only recently, complained, and the dysfunctional Beirut government swung into action to remove the suddenly highly offensive object.

Nah, they aren't antisemitic!

I once made a poster that used that same illusion to create a 3-D Israeli flag.

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12/15 Links: When Jewish WWII vets pulverized postwar UK fascists to tamp down rising racism; Living La Vida Orwell: Calling Trump an antisemite; Mossad helps Denmark bust 20 terrorists

From Ian:

When Jewish WWII vets pulverized postwar UK fascists to tamp down rising racism

Daniel Sonabend’s book ‘We Fight Fascists’ charts the rise of the 43 Group, which fought Oswald Mosley and others with fisticuffs, showing Jews would not accept post-WWII bigotry - Hairdresser Vidal Sassoon was known to fight with scissors

Six months after the end of World War II, Britain’s fascist leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, attended a Christmas party. He was given a rapturous reception by 1,000 stalwart supporters — complete with raised-arm salutes. Despite the defeat of the Third Reich which he had so admired, Mosley remained convinced that Britain’s fascist moment was still to come.

But the former head of the British Union of Fascists would also face a group of equally committed opponents — mainly Jewish ex-servicemen who fought, spied upon and, ultimately, helped to defeat, Mosley’s much hoped-for return to the political stage.

As Daniel Sonabend brilliantly captures in his new book, “We Fight Fascists: The 43 Group and Their Forgotten Battle for Post-war Britain,” this was a tale of often bloody, and occasionally terrifying “organized chaos.”

In the aftermath of the Allied victory, Mosley initially ordered most of his supporters to keep their heads down. In a bid for respectability, and to help maintain and grow fascist networks, he urged them to form local book clubs and cultural societies. On no account were they to mention the Jews.

Many, though, were unable to contain their enthusiasm for their lost cause. With the lifting of various wartime regulations, a plethora of fascist organizations — deeply antagonistic towards one another but united in their hatred of Jews — began to spring up.

A Cable Street Moment

When the exit poll figures were released at exactly 22:00 Jews across the United Kingdom were jumping for joy & relief that the threat posed to them by the prospect of a hard left, antisemitic Prime Minister had been averted.

There is no anti-British, anti-Western cause Corbyn hasn’t adopted. Throughout his career he has expressed support for the IRA, Colonel Gaddafi, Yassir Arafat, Hamas, Hizbollah, the USSR, a plethora of antisemitic individuals ranging from the self hating Paul Eisen to blood libel invoking Raed Salah. There is no podium too extreme for him to stand on, there is no person too odious for him to call his friend.

The rise of Corbyn heralded a rise in Jew hatred in Labour. Jewish members, regardless of their seniority, were hounded out.

That didn’t mean they sat in silence impotent to control their own fate. On the contrary.

From at least three submissions to the European Human Rights Commission on the institutional nature of Labour’s antisemitism to an unprecedented expression of concern by the Chief Rabbi & a demonstration in Parliament Sq the Jewish people fought the injustices perpetrated against them on the streets, in social media, in the corridors of power.

The Jews of Britain fought antisemites wherever they found them.

On the last night of the election campaign Jews went to East London, to the site of the Labour Party’s final campaign event, to make sure their most hardcore activists were confronted by the people who refused to become victims of a Labour government.

David Collier: The BBC can only find Christmas trees in ‘Palestine’

On 5th December, BBC Newsround published a page titled ‘Christmas trees from around the world.’ If the BBC take it down, the page is archived. It was published on their Newsround pages and is explicitly targeted at children. The item is intended to raise the Christmas spirit and brings images of impressive Christmas trees across the world. So far, so good.

Until you look at the page. I have a radar for anti-Israel activism and propaganda. To analyse articles and work out which ones are subtly twisted by a journalist who wants to weave their personal dislike of the Jewish state into the words on the page. On many occasions that bias is subtle and can even be expertly hidden. Rarely are these people caught with their trousers so firmly down around their ankles as with this particular BBC page. Outside of the world of a petty anti-Israel activist deliberately writing a piece of Palestinian propaganda fit for a Hamas PR unit – this BBC article makes absolutely no sense.

How many impressive Christmas trees are there in the world? The BBC webpage published 10 days ago managed to find seven. Just seven. The page hasn’t been updated since and there are still seven trees. The BBC found impressive trees in Vilnius, New York, Gaza, Prague, California, Ramallah, and Bethlehem.

BBC Christmas treesThree trees in PA/Hamas areas. Three. This is not education – this is blatant propaganda. Even the Arab outlet ‘Gulf News’ wouldn’t publish such a piece. They found other images from Dortmund, Strasbourg and the Vatican – cities with Christmas trees that for whatever reason – the BBC just couldn’t find.

BBC’s ‘Newsround’ breaches BBC Academy style guide

On December 5th the BBC’s ‘Newsround’ website – which is aimed at children aged 6 to 12 – published a photo feature titled “Christmas trees from around the world”:
“It’s December so that means it’s almost Christmas! And of course it also means festive firs are being put up all over the world. Here are some of the best ones from 2019 so far.”

The item features seven captioned photographs taken in various locations: Lithuania, New York, Gaza, Prague, Ramallah, California and Bethlehem. In other words, three out of the seven images (42.8%) portray Christmas trees in areas ruled by either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas.

Moreover, the caption to the fifth image reads:
“Another great display in Palestine! Fireworks lit up the sky as Ramallah switched on the lights for their giant Christmas tree.”

That wording obviously suggests to readers that both Gaza (referring to a previous photo) and Ramallah are located in a country called Palestine.

The Israel in Arabic social media continues to upset Arab media, as it once again has shown a short clip made by an Israeli visiting Kuwait (probably under a different passport) showing his kippah and tefillin bag used for prayer in the hotel and then panning to the iconic Kuwait Towers.

قام احد الاسرائيليين بزيارة الكويت ونشر هذا الفيديو، مصطحبا معه عدد من أدواته الدينية اللازمة للصلاة pic.twitter.com/uRALUIJrmX
— إسرائيل بالعربية (@IsraelArabic) December 13, 2019

This has appeared in a number of Arabic media sites.

Erem News says Kuwaiti security authorities began an investigation, some saying that the Israeli "may have entered the country with a foreign passport."

Israel in Arabic is doing an amazing job in normalizing the idea of Jews and Israelis in Arab countries. Not only does it have a large number of Arab followers, but every time it publishes a video like this is gains huge coverage in mainstream Arab media - and eventually the idea of Jews in Arab countries will not be considered such a big deal because of that very coverage.

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As I have been reporting for many weeks, Palestinian leaders have been using Mahmoud Abbas' promise of new elections at the UN as a pretense to ask the world to pressure Israel to allow Arabs in Jerusalem to participate in the elections.

This past week Palestinian prime minister Shtayyeh met with representatives of the German Green Party and the director of the Middle East and North Africa Department at the British Foreign Office, where he said, "We cannot accept any situation in which elections are prevented in Jerusalem just like any of the Palestinian cities and governorates. Holding elections in Jerusalem is a national and political priority and not holding them means dedicating their separation from the rest of the Palestinian components."

Ma'an's editor wrote an article about the importance of elections in Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority has formally requested that Israel allow elections in Jerusalem, and has not received a response - and might not until Israel forms a government, he fears.

In the past, Israel banned any campaigning in Jerusalem altogether. For previous elections, Israel allowed ballot boxes to be placed in post offices in some Arab areas of Jerusalem, where they were transported to the PA-administered territories afterwards and counted. This way Israel considered them to be absentee ballots and Palestinians can claim that Jerusalem Arabs were allowed to vote. But this time the push seems to be to allow full campaigning and polling places, something the current Israeli government would not allow - but the PA loves to use the international community, especially Europeans, to pressure Israel on Jerusalem in any way possible.

I am still skeptical that any elections will ever take place, but the pressure on Israel will exist whether they do or not - and, as we have seen, that is a major goal of the elections farce to begin with.

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On Saturday a "Palestinian Canaanite Conference" was held in the Mahmoud Darwish Museum in Ramallah.

At the conference, Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh claimed that the Palestinians are descendants of the Canaanites.

There is no historic evidence of this claim. But Shtayyeh seems to know this, because at the same time he said that this is a war of "narratives."

"We launched this conference because Israel is waging a systematic war against us. Of all those wars - geography, demography, water and money - the most dangerous is the war of the narratives."

Shtayyeh continued, "All the excavations under the Aqsa Mosque, the settlers' attacks on the Ibrahimi Mosque [Cave of the Patriarchs], Joseph's Tomb, and the enactment of the Law of Nationalism all relate to the war of the narratives."

In other words, the entire purpose of the conference was to push the fiction that Palestinians are Canaanites, because even the Torah admits that the land was Canaanite before the Israelites conquered it. Identifying as Canaanite allows Palestinians to claim that not only were they there before the Jews, but that the Jews had expelled them thousands of years ago.

Even more absurdly, Shtayyeh claimed that the modern Palestinians still worshiped Baal as their alleged ancestors did: "Baal was the most important god among the Canaanites, and we to this day call on his name when we pray for water for the land which is watered from rain water."

Worshipers of Baal were known for other things he might not wish to be associated with.

Engraving of Baal Pe'or, defecating

UPDATE: Shtayyeh ("Winter") is a relatively rare name for Palestinians. I see a Shtayeh family centered in northern Egypt and a Syrian Bedouin tribe with that name in the 19th century.

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12/14 Links: Bernie Sanders Has a Big Jeremy Corbyn Problem; Jersey Mayor: Gunmen wanted to target next door yeshiva with 50 kids inside; Adam Sandler's frenetic new film ‘Uncut Gems’

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The British working-class saves Britain – and its Jews

Among shallow, tunnel-visioned Corbyn supporters, the Chief Rabbi’s plea not to vote for Corbyn merely served to identify British Jews with the Conservatives and therefore with right-wing capitalism.

But the northern working-class was having none of that. For them, the antisemitism scandal confirmed their view that the Jews were the potential victims of bad forces within the Muslim world just like them, and were also the victims of those trying to silence such concerns by claims of “Islamophobia”.

In fact, these decent working people would doubtless be baffled to learn that most British Jews are on the other side of that particular issue. Its leaders grotesquely equate antisemitism with Islamophobia, and hardly breathe a word about Muslim antisemitism.

And most British Jews voted Remain. For although the Jewish community has mostly voted Conservative since the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, it also mostly subscribes to liberal universalist principles that seek to erase national borders because it believes that affinity to the nation-state creates nationalism and antisemitism.

Such British Jews thus deny the facts staring them in the face and which have caused them so much fear and grief: that liberal universalists are now the principal incubators of antisemitism.

The seismic shift at this election may herald a realignment of British politics along the lines envisaged by the thinking known as “Blue Labour”.

This embodies the insight that working-class communities have always been innately small-c conservatives deeply attached to traditional values. Consequently, Blue Labour stresses personal responsibility and attachments to family, community and nation. And of course, these are at root Jewish values – the very ones that have been under assault from liberal universalists for decades.

Corbyn has been defeated. That danger has now passed. But the antisemitism remains; and the culture war over the soul of Britain and the west goes on.

Noah Rothman: Bernie Sanders Has a Big Jeremy Corbyn Problem

Don’t take my word for it; take that of Sanders’s own surrogates. Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of Sanders’s most visible endorsers with whom the senator frequently shares the stage, has apologized for some of what she’s admitted were anti-Semitic remarks. Or, if that’s not good enough, take the Democratic Party’s verdict. Those anti-Jewish slights for which Omar declined to show remorse had been targeted by her fellow caucus members for censure before a revolt of the party’s progressives and Black Caucus Members scuttled the initiative.

Amid the failed Democratic effort to condemn Omar, Sanders’s foreign-policy adviser, Matt Duss, attacked the maneuver as one purely designed to “police criticism of Israel.” It is worth recalling that the remark Duss considers scrutiny of Israel was Omar’s claim that pro-Israel lawmakers exhibit an “allegiance to a foreign country.”

Duss joins Sanders’s campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, as two of the more prominent members of the Sanders team who have been implicated in the propagation of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. In 2012, when Duss served as the Center for American Progress’ Middle East director and Shakir edited the organization’s blog, Think Progress, the institution’s writers were accused of drafting statements that groups like the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center regard as indicative of anti-Jewish bias.

Another Sanders endorser and surrogate on the stump, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, is similarly implicated in blurring the lines between opposition to Israel and anti-Semitism. The congresswoman has made absurd and callous claims about the Holocaust, shared anti-Semitic artwork online, approvingly compared the often anti-Semitic (according to the ADL) Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement to the Boston Tea Party, and blamed the massacre of Jews at a Jersey City kosher market on “white supremacy” (the alleged perpetrators killers in fact associated with the hate group Black Hebrew Israelites).

Sanders may be insulated from the charge that he shares these suspicious sentiments because he is Jewish, but this clear pattern raises some disturbing questions. It is incumbent on the press to ask them. To at least a degree, Sanders clearly evinces some of Corbyn’s instincts on policy, but his affiliations suggest a similar tolerance for the radical left’s occasionally anti-Semitic indulgences.

Sanders stands a good chance of winning his party’s presidential nomination, and any major-party nominee can win the White House. If the Democratic Party is on the verge of succumbing to the same sordid temptations that consumed the Labour Party, the public deserves a full understanding of all that would entail. In that event, the abolition of private health insurance might be the least of our worries.

An American Corbyn? Jewish Groups Demand Sanders Abandon Anti-Semitic Surrogates

The same day Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party was going down to defeat in Great Britain — in part due to his party’s uncomfortably close relationship with anti-Semitism — an American Jewish group became the latest to demand Corbyn’s ally Sen. Bernie Sanders disavow his anti-Semitic surrogates and supporters in the 2020 presidential campaign.

In recent days, two Jewish organizations publicly condemned Sen. Bernie Sanders’ association with two different campaign surrogates accused of anti-Semitism, the latest in a series of controversies involving bigotry by Bernie supporters.

Sanders’ troubles began Thursday with a statement from J’accuse Coalition for Justice, a think tank dedicated to combating anti-Semitism, over Sanders’ decision to campaign with notorious anti-Semitic congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in the key primary state of New Hampshire.

“Given the critical role New Hampshire plays in shaping our presidential elections, Democratic primary voters have an obligation to hold Senator Bernie Sanders accountable for the people he associates with his campaign,” Executive director Zach Schapira told InsideSources. “Now, in the immediate aftermath of the most recent anti-Semitic attack in Jersey City, it feels particularly insensitive for him to choose to appear alongside someone who has had a troubled history with anti-Semitism.”

A day earlier, the American Jewish Congress released a letter urging the Vermont senator to stop using anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour as a campaign surrogate as well. Sarsour, who the group describes as having “a long history of flagrant anti-Semitism and hatred for the State of Israel,” campaigns for Sanders.

There are three main criticisms of Trump's executive order on antisemitism.

One, prompted by the truly offensive New York Times article that said initially that the law would define Jews as a separate nationality, is that somehow regarding Jews as "Jewish Americans" deserving of special protection is a step on the way to taking citizenship away from Jews. This was absurd from the start - are Korean Americans, protected from discrimination under Title VI, considered less than American?

Yet the NYT now reports on the "controversy" over the law based on its own inaccuracy:

In Chicago, Rabbi Hara Person, the chief executive of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, saw the president’s action and worried. ...
“Not to overdramatize, but it feels dangerous,” she said. “I’ve heard people say this feels like the first step toward us wearing yellow stars.”

Even two days after the NYT report was found to be an example of poor reporting, critics are citing the article as the truth, and not the text of the executive order itself.

The second criticism of the EO is based on its supposed potential to suppress free speech. Supposedly, since it says that schools should consider the IHRA definition of antisemitism when deciding whether someone is being discriminated against, critics claim that the order is an assault on free speech.

But if you read the actual text of the EO, it explicitly says the opposite:

[A]gencies shall not diminish or infringe upon any right protected under Federal law or under the First Amendment. As with all other Title VI complaints, the inquiry into whether a particular act constitutes discrimination prohibited by Title VI will require a detailed analysis of the allegations.

Title VI protects students (and others who receive government funds) from discrimination. Only when speech becomes harassment does that become an issue. And this is an issue under the existing Title VI with respect to racist and xenophobic harassment already. Why is putting antisemitism on the same level as racism a problem? Those who are complaining, whether they realize it or not, are arguing that Jews do not deserve the protections that other minorities have on campus.

Isn't that antisemitic?

Law professor David Bernstein discusses the third criticism of the EO, and notes the hypocrisy of those who advance that argument.

There is a separate, more sophisticated argument: that college administrators will proactively suppress constitutionally protected speech for fear of "hostile environment" liability. But as I noted elsewhere, there's nothing in the EO that remotely suggests colleges do this, and if colleges react in that way to hostile environment law, it's not the least bit unique to Jews; they could equally suppress, say, speech about affirmative action for fear of creating a hostile environment for blacks, or about abortion for women, etc.

In other words, if that's the problem, the problem is not with the EO, which doesn't address hostile environment law at all, but with the long shadow on speech cast by hostile environment law, and it's hostile environment law, not the EO, that needs to be addressed.

There are also those who want hostile environment law to suppress speech, but only speech leftists abhor, which doesn't include genocidal speech about Israel. Such individuals of course oppose the EO, but their claim that it's because they care about free speech is disingenous.

Rather, they see the possibility that hostile environment law will apply to some anti-Israel speech as a barrier to their goal, which is to use that law to suppress other speech.

Indeed. The people who are the most vocal about the EO are those who support those who routinely shut down pro-Israel speech and events on campus. If anyone is chilling free speech, it is anti-Zionists, not an executive order that notes that anti-Zionism is often a form of antisemitism.

One must wonder protecting Jews - or even "Zionists" - from discrimination is a bad thing. And the only reason that makes sense is that some people want to take away the rights of Jews and Zionists on campus and elsewhere.

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