A recent news item indicates that among the candidates for seats in the World Zionist Congress – founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897 – are Peter Beinart and Jeremy Ben Ami.
To tell the truth, when I see the petulant babyface of Peter Beinart, I experience a feeling of nausea. A misozionist and tikkunist*, Beinart was one of the more successful figures at monetizing his brand with his 2010 article “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment.” It was followed by a book which expanded on his thesis that established American Jewish organizations were “failing” young liberal Jews because they were not sufficiently sensitive to the “fact” that Israel was viciously oppressing Palestinian Arabs.
Beinart continued to write and speak on this theme, and as often happens, as time passed he became more and more extreme in his anti-Israel expression. Nevertheless, he continues to insist that he is a Zionist. For someone like myself, who believes that the survival of the Jewish people everywhere depends on a strong Jewish state, the hypocrisy of a comfortable American Jew telling Israelis to commit suicide is infuriating.
The mention of hypocrisy immediately brings to mind the organization J Street, which was midwifed in 2007 by a large infusion of cash from groups connected to George Soros (an infusion that J Street lied about until it was exposed). J Street, which also took money from individuals connected to Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to lobby the US Congress, claims to be “pro-Israel and pro-peace,” but its consistently anti-Israel actions have proven it to be neither. Like Beinart, J Street appeals to American Jewish progressives and liberals, who either don’t see or don’t care that the objects of their support are enemies of the Jewish state.
J Street is led by Jeremy Ben Ami, who is himself a study in hypocrisy (or psychopathology of another sort). His father, Yitzhak Ben Ami, was a member of the etzel, the underground army organization led by Menachem Begin that fought the British and the Arabs to create the state of Israel. He came to America during the Holocaust as part of the “Bergson Group,” in an attempt – scuttled by the liberal Jewish establishment of the time – to mobilize support to rescue the doomed Jews of Europe. Thus, Jeremy is on the opposite side of his father’s struggle.
Beinart and Ben Ami are two of a type that has begun to flourish in recent decades: Jews that make a career for themselves – either for money, academic advancement, fame, or all of the above – by exploiting the fact that they have Jewish parents to give them an aura of authority with which to attack the state of Israel. Although they have no personal stake in the consequences of their advice, they give it with a pretense of great moral weight.
Beinart’s complaint (unfortunately) no longer makes sense. In recent years, many “establishment” Jewish organizations in the US – the ADL, Hillel International, the Federation system, the Union for Reform Judaism, and others have moved farther and farther away from supporting Israel. In some cases the reason is simply practical fund-raising: they would like to be acceptable to a new group of donors who are less pro-Israel than their parents, a consequence of the concentrated anti-Israel indoctrination they have received in American universities. In other cases, like the ADL, the dominant personalities in the organizations have been replaced by political operatives with a leftist (and anti-Israel) orientation.
I think that the Obama Administration also had much to do with this, providing support for J Street as their go-to Jewish group, as well as generating a continuous flow of propaganda against the Netanyahu government. The theme was “we love and support Israel, but Netanyahu is making it a racist theocracy.” Liberal American Jews seem to have been very susceptible to this approach.
The change stood out for me when I reread Beinart’s seminal 2010 article. I don’t think that today he would be able to say that the “American Jewish establishment” univocally supports Israel. Indeed, the truth is closer to the opposite. And the “establishment” has been joined by groups like J Street and If Not Now; even Jewish Voice for Peace is being treated as a legitimate representative of a segment of the Jewish population. None of this is an accident: a great deal of money has been expended by anti-Israel foundations like the Ford Foundation and Soros-connected foundations in order to accomplish this. And Beinart himself has been a tireless soldier in this campaign.
***
The World Zionist Congress consists of delegates from all over the world, in proportion to the Jewish populations of various countries. An election will be held to select them this January, and American Jews can vote for one of several slates of candidates. One is ironically called “Hatikvah”; its platform is a politically-correct compendium of left-wing causes, and its slate contains Beinart and Ben Ami, as well as the full panoply of American Jewish virtue-signalers and opportunists. For those Liberals/Progressives who can’t quite stomach Beinart or Ben Ami, there is a very slightly less aggressively left-wing platform and slate provided by the Union for Reform Judaism.
With due respect for Herzl, I think that the World Zionist Organization and its Congress have outlived their usefulness now that the Jewish state has been reestablished and is thriving. Israel does not need financial contributions from the diaspora, and it needs advice and political pressure even less. The WZO should dissolve itself and turn over whatever resources it has to the true Zionist entity in the world (just ask the Iranian regime), the State of Israel.
For now, I recommend that American Zionists vote for the Herut Zionists, which – unlike “Hatikvah” and the Reform slate, does espouse true Zionist goals like the ingathering of exiles and the development of all of Eretz Yisrael. _______________________ * Misoziony (pronounced mis-OZ-yoni) is the extreme and irrational hatred of the Jewish state. It is antisemitism raised up one level of abstraction, although almost all misozionists are antisemites as well. Tikkunism is the ideology that replaces the traditional mitzvot of Judaism with an imperative to engage in left-wing social action
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Elena of Avalor is the first Jewish Disney princess.
There are some mistakes, but altogether it is refreshing.
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Trump’s and Johnson’s words are especially apt in light of the assault against Israel launched on Friday by the International Criminal Court. Responding to a petition by the Palestinian Authority, ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced the opening of an investigation into Israeli "war crimes" allegedly committed by the Israel Defense Forces during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in 2014. The absurd probe is the latest in a long line of discriminatory measures taken against the Jewish state by the so-called "international community."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed this very issue when he lit the first Hanukkah candle at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Sunday with US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.
"2,200 years ago, the Maccabees fought the war of liberation for the Jewish people and the Jewish faith against the anti-Semitic Greeks," said Netanyahu. "They wanted to extinguish our faith, to stamp on our freedom, to drive us out of this land, to say that we have no right to exist."
He went on: "We have fought against immeasurable odds, as no people has fought in history. We crossed the abyss from extinction to survival, independence, and now a thriving democracy. And yet, we find ourselves now, in the beginning of the 21st century – in the year 2019 – where the International Criminal Court, that should know otherwise, has set forth decrees that are just as anti-Semitic as the decrees of the Greeks."
Trump and Johnson couldn’t have said it better themselves.
2019 has been a year marred by a number of targeted mass shootings around the world, leaving minority populations reeling from the hate flung their way. But in the face of such darkness, it has also produced some remarkable moments of outstanding courage and determination not to let hate win.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have listed their the top ten moments of hope and hate this year, with mass shootings in El Paso, Texas Christchurch, New Zealand, and Jersey City topping the list; mass shootings account for half of the hate list. Three of the shootings took place in mosques and synagogues; one occurred on Yom Kippur.
On the hope list, it is the moments of human kindness that stand out: a Muslim woman defending a Jewish family against antisemitic hate on the London underground, while in Oregon a teenager inspires a new law to mandate Holocaust education in schools.
In August, 22 people were killed and 26 injured after a gun-man drove for more than 11 hours specifically to target Mexicans at a Walmart in El Paso, an attack which the ADL’s Center on Extremism noted was "the deadliest white supremacist attack in the U.S. in more than 50 years."
The attack came just months after a similar onslaught against Muslims in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March which left 50 dead. In both Christchurch and El Paso the shooters posted messages to web chat board 4Chan, stating white supremacist views.
"The attack on Christchurch underscored the fact that white supremacy is a global terror threat whose ideology manifests around the world and results in acts of violence in many instances," the ADL said in their report.
The Orthodox Jewish community in the New York Metropolitan area has been the target of a number of attacks over the last year, culminating in the killing of three people at a Kosher supermarket in an attack in which a policeman also lost his life. The targeted attack was tied to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, which has professed antisemitic beliefs.
Synagogues were also the targets of the next two events on the list, at the Chabad Congregation of Poway, California, and in Halle, Germany. The Poway shooter was another who posted a manifesto online, speaking of his hatred for non-Christians and holding up the Christchurch shooter as a role model.
But as difficult as these attacks are, the top event on ADL's hope list is a timely reminder that hate can be overcome.
THE GLOBAL interconnectedness of contemporary antisemitism means that the effort to confront and roll it back must also be global. Arabs who recognize the damage antisemitism has done to their own societies should also recognize that on the right-wing fringes of American racism, Arabs and Muslims fare little better than Jews in the pantheon of those most vigorously despised and demonized. Americans, for their part, should see that Arab antisemitism is also their problem, and bear up to the responsibilities of fighting it.
But how? What is the American role in fighting antisemitism in Arab countries – and who are America’s natural allies in that struggle?
The most common answer one hears revolves around the need to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – and with good reason. The conflict exacerbates the problem – and an eventual resolution, in my judgment by way of a two-state solution – will clear much of the swamp in which Arab antisemitism festers.
After generations of a US diplomatic focus on high politics to resolve the conflict, Jared Kushner, senior adviser to President Donald Trump, has placed new emphasis on the economic dimensions of the challenge. Creating new business partnerships based on “win-win” outcomes for Israelis and Palestinians alike could in due course augment traditional diplomacy and help build the range of viable Palestinian institutions necessary for sustainable governance.
But functional approaches by themselves are no panacea. We must not forget that among the September 11 hijackers were several well-educated and well-heeled young people. Their extremism flowed not from economic disadvantage but from a cultural pathology of brainwashing. To expunge that pathology, Arab autocrats – beginning with those allied with the US – must at last expunge this vile content from the schools, mosques and media they control.
A difficult truth about political life is that while it usually takes two or more parties working together in good faith to advance brotherhood and peace, it often takes only one to block or tear down that work. That is why our efforts to build a better world cannot rest. It is also why, as the God of Abraham is our witness, fighting antisemitism as well as anti-Islamic and anti-Arab bigotry is ultimately one seamless fight that must involve people of good will everywhere. Arabs and Jews simply must stop hating each other so that together we can face the truly dangerous people who hate us both.
The writer is a Moroccan publisher. He is on the board of directors of the Atlantic Council and an international counselor of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
David Collier has written a walloping
200-page report (available for download as pdf) exposing the anti-Israel bias and obsession
of international human rights group Amnesty
International. In its sheer breadth of coverage, the report is an
astonishing body of work, but then we’ve come to expect nothing less from
Collier. We watched on, not so long ago, as he issued a similar bombshell, his multipart exposé
of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. That report appeared to necessitate
Collier infiltrating a secret Labour Facebook group.
David Collier
This is like the kind of spy
stuff you read about in novels. It would take guts to do that and not a little
caution, sustained over a lengthy period of time, in order to avoid detection. But
Collier’s unconventional methods of research have borne fruit, witness the fact
that Boris Johnson is in and Corbyn is most definitely out.
Collier is using new and
different tacks in the fight for Israel and against antisemitism. The way he
uses social media, for instance, is something we haven’t seen before, at least
not with this level of commitment. What has Collier uncovered about Amnesty and
what can we, as regular people, do to emulate his work going forward? I spoke
with Collier to learn more:
Varda Epstein: Tell us about Jewish
Human Rights Watch. How did this body come to commission you to investigate
Amnesty International? Tell us about your background and credentials. What sort
of manpower and hours were devoted to this project?
David Collier: Jewish Human
Rights Watch is a UK-based NGO. They fight anti-Israel bias the clever way,
either by challenging it in the courts or exposing the toxic nature of those
that stand against us. For example, they have been fighting the legality of
local town councils passing BDS motions and this effort and the publicity they
caused, may have played a part in the UK Government’s recent
announcement that it is going to ban councils from pursuing such motions
altogether.
I have done work for them
before, when they commissioned a report
on antisemitism in the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. The report
successfully clipped the SPSC’s wings. We both saw bias in Amnesty as a major
issue, so it was natural they would turn to me for this project.
I have been fighting
anti-Israel bias for two decades. My own strategy is different from most. I
don’t push pro-Israeli material so much. Our problem is not whether or not
Israel is perfect – it doesn’t have to be – Israel has every right to be a
state that makes mistakes like all states do. Our issue is that our enemies are
full of toxicity and hate. This is their biggest weakness and we should spend
more time exposing them for what they are. If you engage in a “did/didn’t”
argument with an anti-Israel activist, the bystander becomes confused. Far
better just to show the person you are arguing with is a terrorist-sympathizing
antisemite. Bystanders understand this much more clearly. We will never
convince an anti-Israel activist he is a hatemonger, so don’t both trying, just
expose his hate to others.
The Amnesty research took
months and well over 1000 man hours. There were hundreds of thousands of social
media posts to cover. During the summer of 2019, I didn’t sleep much.
Varda
Epstein: Why do we care about Amnesty International’s bias? What is the impact
of this organization?
David Collier: We cannot
overstate the impact of NGOs like Amnesty. They are the bridge between actions
on the ground and International forums such as the UN, UNHRC and even the ICC. The NGOs are seen as legitimate and
impartial “judges” and their findings carry real weight. None more so than
Amnesty. If Amnesty is simply pushing raw anti-Israel propaganda as evidence
during a UN hearing, they legitimise the UN’s own bias against Israel. In
effect Amnesty acts as the glue which reinforces a global anti-Israel bias – if
they played fair, things would look very different.
Ashira Prem Rachana is a "human rights researcher" for Amnesty International
Varda Epstein: Was Amnesty International always so political? Did it ever do good work? Was there a turning
point?
David Collier: Yes, of course.
Amnesty’s sterling reputation was legitimately earned and this is, in part, why
the situation is both tragic and difficult to address. Amnesty relies on the reputation
from the good work it used to do to shield it from criticism today.
Originally, and in the much
simpler days of the Cold War, Amnesty dealt solely with political prisoners. As
the NGO arena became more overcrowded and competitive, Amnesty sought growth –
both in the areas it monitored and in the type of work it undertook. They
became more political. They felt it necessary to let go of crucial rules they
imposed on themselves to stay clear of conflict of interest issues. In truth
there were logical reasons for them to do so – but they put nothing in its
place and were slowly devoured by activists using Amnesty resources for their
own narrow interests. The decline has been gradual and going on for decades.
Nadine Moawad, MENA communications manager for Amnesty International
Varda Epstein: Your report states that a consultant for Amnesty, Hind
Khoudary, tweeted support for a terror organization, referring to known Islamic
Jihad terrorists as “heroes.” Tell us about that. Was the tweet issued as a
private citizen? Does it matter?
David Collier: It doesn’t
matter at all. I think one of the things Amnesty will do to deflect the
criticism of the report is to suggest some of these people weren’t associated
with Amnesty when they made the unacceptable comments. This is irrelevant. Imagine
a judge going home and tweeting as a private citizen that terrorists are heroes
– would any sane person consider him fit to be a judge? With Khoudary, there
were numerous tweets. At roughly the same time she called the two terrorists
heroes, she also retweeted advice to people in Gaza not to publicly say
anything that would ‘hurt the resistance’. This person is a hard-core
Palestinian activist and a supporter of terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad. At
no point can she be considered impartial, not before or after the time she made
those tweets. As it happens in this case, I think she was listed as an Amnesty
consultant at the time – but in any event, it is absurd to believe she would
ever tell the truth about what is taking place on the ground.
Varda Epstein: How does it feel when you see that Amnesty staffer Laith
Abu Zeyad regularly retweets WaadGh who tweeted a smiley face in relation to the terrorist murder of
Rina Shnerb? Do you ever need a mental health day in your work?
David Collier: That’s a good
question, my wife certainly thinks so. Sadly, I have been doing this for so
long I am used to it. This is what I do, I swim in the sewers with these
people. I have to get into their heads and understand them. If I was sickened
by what I saw, I would never be able to do the research properly. I am even
forgiving. Had Zeyad only retweeted her once, I’d have written it off. We all
make mistakes. But she was a common source for him, they interacted. He must
know the type of politics she pushes. This is the problem - these people don’t
even have to hide these associations because nobody cares.
Varda Epstein: What did you find to be the most shocking fact to come
out of your investigation?
David Collier: There is the big
picture and the little picture. The most shocking single fact I found was a
person listed as the regional Media Manager for Amnesty writing a Facebook post
in Arabic that instructed terrorist factions not to “claim their martyrs” but
rather to let the West think they were innocent civilians – not terrorists. The
most shocking part of it all, though, is the big picture. We all know Amnesty
is biased, but the report exposes the level of that bias – it shows that
Amnesty operates with a subconscious (I don’t believe it is a conspiracy)
political world vision. One that hates Israel most of all, but is biased
against India, ignores the persecution of Christians and is strategically
anti-West. I call it subconscious because it is merely the sum of the parts.
Most of the parts carry a similar bias and this translates into Amnesty policy.
Amnesty is a danger to any Western nation that allows them to operate freely
and more fool the nation that pays attention to their findings.
Varda Epstein: This website, Elder of Ziyon, plays a role in your
report. Can you describe the context? What is the importance of bloggers and
tips from regular people in your investigative work?
David Collier: Elder of Ziyon
plays a role in all my reports. It is probably one of, if not the best, archive
of relevant information stretching back to the Second Intifada. If you are
writing about almost any issue relevant to the conflict, a search of the Elder
site is always advisable. In this report for example, I wouldn’t have known
that Saleh Hijazi, the Amnesty Deputy Director MENA had used images of
terrorists for his Facebook profile, if not for Elder’s website. It both saves
me time and acts as a great source for additional knowledge.
Saleh Hijazi, Amnesty International MENA deputy director used this image of PFLP terrorist and airline hijacker Leila Khaled for his profile photo.
Varda Epstein: What hope do you have that your report will instigate
positive change? Do you think there is hope that Amnesty International can be
reformed? Where might Amnesty International turn its sights instead of Israel,
to make the world a better place?
David Collier: Amnesty won’t
change from within. They can’t, this is what they are now. What needs to happen
is that we need to expose to others the toxicity within. We need to reach its
membership; the political alliances and every forum in which Amnesty has
influence. Show those people the report. Only real external pressure will ever
work and even then, I do not know if it is possible to salvage without a
complete rebuild.
What should they be doing?
Every Human Rights NGO on the planet should currently have one single goal: The
abolition of the UN Human Rights Council and the construction of a new UN human
rights body that has strict, points-based criteria about membership. The UNHRC
should be leading the way on global human rights issues and such a body could
be such a force for good. Instead it is infested with and controlled by
despots. Nothing would improve global human rights more than a properly run
UNHRC, so if you see an NGO currently working with them – rather than calling for
their abolition, you can automatically say that NGO is not a true human rights
NGO.
Sahar Mandour, Amnesty International researcher, Lebanon
Varda Epstein: Can you tell us about your roots and also about the
person you are, today? What makes you a fighter, a person dedicated to digging
deeply to fight against antisemitism?
David Collier: I was born in
the UK and lived in Israel for 19 years. I was part of the Oslo generation,
land for peace, two states, and all that. I worked intensively with
Palestinians during the 1990s. I published a monthly newspaper and used the Al
Ayam publishing house in Ramallah. I worked for peace. Then came the second
Intifada. Israel’s problem isn’t so much the Palestinians, as the global
movement that has turned them into a cause. This conflict should have ended in
1949. The reasons it didn’t have nothing to do with Israel, nor – and I can
hear people shout at me – with the Palestinians. They weren’t even a thing in
1949. The war against Israel is an international one. The Palestinian identity
as we know it today was created from the outside. I recognise this and this is
where I fight my battles.
There is no single thing that
led me to be a fighter. I lost close friends, but then so have most Israelis. I
think I fight because I have to. I do not see it as a choice. People often ask “what
would you have done” when referring to the rise of the Nazis, the creation of
Israel, and other important milestones in history. Well, we are at war now - it
is a global battle and the stakes are higher than most people imagine. If you
are not doing anything today, there is your answer.
Varda Epstein: What’s next for David Collier?
David Collier: I was writing a
book in 2015 when Corbyn was elected to lead the Labour Party. The last four
years have been an enormous time consuming and emotional rollercoaster. Corbyn
was merely a symptom of a growing problem and I see him simply as the first
wave. Boris has now been elected and we have 5 years of opportunity to continue
fighting. I am scared people will think the job is done – it would be a huge
mistake to think that. On the immediate horizon I can go back and hopefully
finish the book. It addresses the rise of the Palestinian identity as a weapon
with which to fight against Israel. I am going back to the British archives in
London to help me as much of the evidence is there. So fingers crossed, the
next major thing for me would be to have my book published.
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The next time you encounter someone who says they are pro-Palestinian and that their group supports peace, ask them to answer one of these questions:
1. Should Palestinians, if they want, become citizens of Arab countries they have been residing in? Or must they remain stateless until they have a "right of return" to Israel?
For seven decades, Arabs have been resisting implementing UN conventions against statelessness with the very poor excuse that Palestinians want to remain stateless until they "return." This is clearly not true because every time some have had the opportunity to become citizens - of Egypt, Lebanon or Jordan - they flocked to take advantage of it.
If you don't support Palestinians becoming citizens of the lands they were born in, you aren't pro-Palestinian. You simply want to use them as pawns to help destroy Israel.
2. What have you done to fight Palestinian laws that discriminate against women or gays, or that prohibit free speech?
There are many NGOs and activist groups that pretend to care about Palestinian rights, but when those rights are being withheld by the Palestinian leadership itself, suddenly Palestinian rights aren't so important. When have they held vigils against the significant human rights violations of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority? They never have - only against Israel.
3. Do you support peace between Israel and Arab states independent of the Palestinian issue?
Many of these groups have the word "peace" in their names. Israel has improved its relations with many Arab and Muslim-majority states in recent years. Is this something they celebrate or oppose?
Every time these people are cornered into exposing their hate, see how fast they try to fall back to "whataboutism."
Because they know they are hypocrites.
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A variation of this claim, that Jesus was actually a Philistine, also features as a staple of anti-Israel propaganda, including the roundly debunked notion that Palestinians are actually Canaanites.
The idea that Palestinians are Philistines is equally false.
Unlike modern day Jews and Palestinians, the Philistines were an ancient, non-Semitic, sea-faring people, whose form of worship was unconnected to the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
In other words, the Philistine ethnicity, culture and religion are all entirely different from that of modern day Palestinians.
The Philistine connection to the Israelites began when the former invaded and occupied a portion of the Kingdom of Israel in about 1000 BCE, but were later defeated by ancient Israel’s King David.
In roughly the seventh century CE, the Philistines were conquered by the Kingdom of Babylonia and subsequently wiped out as a distinct culture.
In other words, in addition to being culturally, ethnically and religiously unrelated to Jews or Palestinians, the Philistines no longer exist.
However you look at it, the truth is in no doubt: Jesus was a Jew.
According to this @nytopinion piece, there was an "Ottoman province of Palestine."
Only problem is, it never existed. Palestine was a term given to the land by Europeans. It was never used by the Ottomans. pic.twitter.com/T9ehwcba7w
In the Gaza Strip, the Christian population has plummeted from about 3,000 a decade ago to an estimated 1,000 today, most of them Greek Orthodox.
On Sunday, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) reversed a decision made earlier this month, making the welcome announcement that in accordance with “security orders,” Gaza Christians would be allowed to travel to the holy cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and elsewhere in Judea and Samaria, for Christmas.
The situation of Christians in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, has deteriorated dramatically in the last century, and especially since the PA took control of the city in 1995. In 1947, Christians comprised about 85% of the city’s population, but that figure had plunged to 16% by 2016, and is estimated since then.
Bethlehem’s mayor at the time said that, “Due to the stress – either physical or psychological – and the bad economic situation, many people are emigrating: either Christians or Muslims, but it is more apparent among Christians because they already are a minority.”
A study by the Pew Research Center found that the decline in the Arab Christian population was both a result of a lower birth rate among Christians compared to Muslims and the fact that Christians were more likely to emigrate than any other religious group. A statistical analysis of the Christian exodus cited a lack of economic and educational opportunities among a community known for its middle-class status and higher education.
Christianity is the world’s largest religion, with an estimated 2.4 billion adherents (almost a third of the world’s 7.8 billion people). While it may seem ironic that the only place in the Middle East where Christians are thriving is the Jewish state, it is also a cause for concern. We wish our Christian readers a happy Christmas – and pray along with them for those undergoing persecution for practicing their faith.
Out of 3,000 Christians who lived in Gaza in 2007 when Hamas seized power, no more than 700-800 remain, among 1.8 million Muslims. Gazan Christian Khalil Sayegh told me, "The Christians are suffering from the current situation in Hamas-controlled Gaza....They cannot hold government jobs. But, in addition...Christians in Gaza have to tolerate being harassed in the streets just for being Christians."
"While Hamas claims to protect Christians, its presence in Gaza has empowered Islamist radicals who harass Christians and even physically attack them....There have been several attempts to bomb Gazan churches."
I asked Khalil if there are any Christmas decorations in Gaza. He explained that a YMCA facility is decorated, but only inside the building. Otherwise there's no sign of holiday festivity in the streets. The authorities "reject any indication of Christian celebration." The writer is an adjunct fellow at Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom.
Dubai Police Deputy Commander Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan is a clown. We used to follow his antics when he had daily press conferences about the apparent Mossad assassination of a senior Hamas official in Dubai.
Even though he is a publicity hound, recent tweets of his are newsworthy, because he has 2.8 million followers and many Arabs, for some reason, trust him.
In a series of tweets of his predictions for 2020, Khalfan wrote:
2020 (will witness) the melting away of the Palestinian leadership from the perspective of the Arab world and from a global perspective. 2020 will witness overt Arab-Israeli ties, with a number of (Arab) countries that have not announced this (yet.)
He also predicted that Iran's popular revolution will be successful and that Iran's Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif will seek asylum in a foreign country.
Khalfan is predicting what his UAE rulers are hoping for, which indicates that the Gulf states are not slowing down in their embrace of Israel.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
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Chris Gunness was the highly unprofessional spokesperson for UNRWA for years, justifying Hamas war crimes and using his position to mercilessly attack Israel while always pretending to adhere to UN standards of objectivity.
This is the guy widely known to have a gay lover in Tel Aviv when he was working for UNRWA but never saying a word about the persecution of gays by the Palestinians. So woke!
He left UNRWA a while back, ostensibly to be a classical music podcaster. But apparently he missed the days when he could tweet out whatever stupidity he wanted about Israel and get hundreds of retweets.
In the past couple of days he tweeted some Christmas song parodies against Israel that prove (yet again) that his hate for Israel is what animates him, not his love of Palestinians.
Gunness is so full of himself that he thinks this last one is witty enough for people to want to record - and asking people to retweet his pathetic request!
But that's not the worst one.
This next one seems to actually support Hamas hanging "collaborators" with Israel!
This is not negative towards Hamas at all - it is praising them for murdering people without a trial!
Yes, this disgusting excuse for a man is the type of person UNRWA wants in front of the cameras.
Anyway, since Gunness is into writing song parodies, we would be remiss if we didn't add to the fun:
The world supports an UNRWA
Under the UN charter
With billions in donations
It taught kids to be martyrs
Oh UNRWA UNRWA UNRWA
You love to see Jews bleed
UNRWA UNRWA UNRWA
Teach kids to be shahids.
It tries to stay in business
Defining "refugees"
As descendants of Arabs
Who lived there for two years.
Oh UNRWA UNRWA UNRWA
We all see through your game
UNRWA UNRWA UNRWA
Gets money just the same.
The leader of corruption
Flew his aide around the world
Instead of UNRWA business
He shtupped his well paid girl.
Oh UNRWA UNRWA UNRWA
Has been taking us for fools
Crying about Israel
With rockets in their schools.
(h/t Rena)
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Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday evening that Israel does not want Palestinian elections to be held in Jerusalem.
In the past Israel has allowed absentee ballots to be filed in Jerusalem post offices.
But Abbas seems to want more.
He said, "We say that elections must be held for the people of Jerusalem in Jerusalem itself, and if this happens (approval) we will issue a decree to hold legislative elections first and then presidential elections. For us it is important for the restoration of our democracy, we cannot remain all this time without elections and without democracy. We believe in democracy and believe in the liberation of Palestine soon, God willing."
As I have been pointing out since October, Abbas has no desire for elections - but he wants to use this Jerusalem issue to request the world community to pressure Israel to allow campaigning and full voting in Jerusalem, in order to claim sovereignty.
The idea that he cares about democracy is truly funny if you have followed his career since becoming prime minister.
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We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
There have been three murderous anti-Semitic shootings in America in barely over the past year, and anti-Semitism around the liberalized world is increasingly on the rise like nothing we have seen in decades. Anti-Semitic incidents on the American university campus have risen tremendously. One of America’s two major political parties now has prominent elected officials who traffick not merely in rote “anti-Zionism,” but in the type of outright conspiratorial Jew-hatred that has been the bane of our people for millennia. The man who was on the precipice of becoming prime minister of the erstwhile leader of the free world is an unapologetic, Jew-hating bigot whose would-be reign was passionately warned against by his nation’s own chief rabbi. At this point, mass vandalism of Jewish cemeteries dotting the European landscape barely raises any media attention at all.
Against this backdrop, there are two options for American Jews: (1) Be a Maccabee and defiantly tell the world that, against all the odds, we are still here and that our nationhood will never be extinguished; or (2) be a Hellenized Jew and a fifth column that forsakes the uniqueness of Jewish identity at the sacrificial altar of pseudo-“inclusive” progressive secularism.
The lesson of Chanukah — the tale of Judah the Maccabee’s great military triumph — provides a resounding answer to that question. Against any would-be foe, both “foreign” and “domestic,” always remain proud of both the Jewish people and the Jewish state of Israel. As the light of the menorah provides a light unto the neighborhood, so must you help us all provide a “light unto the nations.” But that light can only shine if we remain proud Jews and Zionists.
Abraham Lincoln, a biblically intimate statesman who viewed Americans as an “almost chosen people,” said the following about America during his famous Lyceum Address of 1838: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”
The destruction of the Jewish people would similarly never come from “abroad,” but only from within. And such a destruction could only transpire if the Maccabees relent to the tyranny of the Hellenizers.
Of Bernie Sanders, it has been said that he is "the most popular Jew in Gaza since Moses."
One reason is probably his thinking on the two-state solution of which he believes that "Israel and the Palestinians can, and should, peacefully coexist, and that the Palestinians should have a country of their own." That "solution" must include:
"Compromises from both sides to achieve a fair and lasting peace in the region. The Palestinians must fulfill their responsibilities to end terrorism against Israel and recognize Israel’s right to exist. In return, the Israelis must end their policy of targeted killings, prevent further Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, and prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes, businesses and infrastructure."
Of course, right there, he falls into the trap that "solution" promotes: "compromises."
The Arabs-termed-Palestinians were offered a state in 1937 and 1947, but refused because in accepting that offer – once by British and once by the United Nations – the Jewish people would also gain a state, and that could not be tolerated.
They lost a chance for statehood when they were occupied by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1948 and annexed in 1950, although to be fair, their national will was expressed on July 20, 1951 when the mufti-inspired assassination of King Abdullah I occurred on the Temple Mount. A start toward a state was the Menachem Begin Autonomy Plan of 1977, though that, too, was rejected.
By the way, Mehdi Hasan has termed that as "cling[ing] to the fantasy of a two-state solution, which has been dead and buried for years."
What, then, is driving presidential candidate Bernie Sanders?
Now that a French appeal court has confirmed that the murderer of Sarah Halimi will not stand trial owing to his being under the influence of cannabis, over 30,000 people and counting have signed a petition addressed to the French Minister of Justice.
"Many questions remain unanswered, and this is not acceptable.
When justice is not done, or when it is willfully unjust, we must not do nothing. Justice is everyone's business.
These are our questions to Madame Beloubet, Minister of Justice, among others:
- the time it took the BRA (Counter-terrorism Brigade) to get to the scene (it took nearly four hours for the police to arrive, and the BRA was alerted soon after) but there was no road traffic. Can we have an explanation?
- If the assassin was capable of climbing across two windows on the front of the building, one cannot say that he was "unbalanced"! How do psychiatric experts explain this?
- Why did the police stay in the building for more than forty minutes (26 policemen behind Madame Halimi's door) without trying to intervene?
- Who are the psychiatric experts?
- The author's flagrant anti-Semitism is the root cause of his act. What do you think, Madame Beloubet?
- Are you aware that the Jews of France feel humiliated?
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Last week I reported that the Supreme Fatwa Council, which is part of the Palestinian government, issued a statement opposing the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as a violation of Islamic Sharia law.
The PLO acceded to CEDAW without any reservations in 2014 when they were in a frenzy to sign every UN convention they could find to pretend to be a real state. As I reported, they never actually enacted any laws to provide for equal treatment of women. Their signing CEDAW and the other conventions was a complete sham.
After the Fatwa Council issued its statement against equal rights for women, do you think there was a backlash by Palestinian feminists? Of course not. On the contrary!
A group of tribes, under the umbrella of the Supreme Commission for Tribal Affairs for the southern governorates, affirmed that any agreement that contradicts what Allah has prescribed will not be accepted by Palestinian society. (The photo of the meeting does not show any women.)
"The Islamic Sharia is above the law, and above any political commitment, or any commitment to international laws or treaties," the commission said in a statement.
The statement said that there are articles in CEDAW related to inheritance, adultery, homosexuals, and Muslim women who marry non-Muslims. "These provisions contradict the Palestinian national identity, our Islamic religion, customs and traditions, and we are not obligated to apply them in our society."
I have not seen any articles against the Fatwa Council's view of CEDAW nor from this group of tribes. Miftah, which styles itself as a feminist NGO, has not yet said a word as far as I can see.
The Left that supports Palestinian nationhood is supporting a misogynist, anti-gay, bigoted society. And it is not like any of these organizations are actually working to fix it. They are completely silent on these issues.
Groups that claim that they care about Palestinian rights don't seem to give a damn about actual rights for real Palestinian women, or gays, or Christians, or any other oppressed group within Palestinian society and under Palestinian rule.
Which means that they don't really give a damn about Palestinians or their rights.
They are hypocrites, and the only thing that animates them is the antisemitism of opposing the Jewish state rather than lifting a finger to help Palestinians.
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Last year, then MK Tzipi Livni convened senior officials from the Justice Ministry and Military Advocate General’s international affairs departments at the Knesset for a conference. The purpose of the conclave was to provide the officials with the opportunity to justify their interference with security decisions that by law are the exclusive purview of the IDF’s field commanders and Israel’s elected leaders.
As is their wont, the officials used the opportunity to proclaim, “the legal system is the IDF's legal Iron Dome against accusations of war crimes in foreign and international forums.”
Following International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s decision over the weekend to prosecute Israel – including its armed forces and elected leaders – on phony war crimes allegations, we see that their conceit was a lie. The idea that Israel’s legal fraternity is Israel’s protection against the likes of Bensouda and the lawfare gang she runs with was first concocted in the 1990s by then Chief Justice Aharon Barak. The purpose of this fantasy was and remains to justify interference by the various components of the legal fraternity – the High Court, the Justice Ministry, the Attorney General and the Military Advocate General and others – in the decisions of IDF commanders and elected officials.
As Prof. Avi Bell of Bar Ilan University Law School explained in Israel Hayom earlier this week, Bensouda’s decision exposed the colossal failure of the legal fraternity’s strategy for protecting the country from the lawfare gang. Bensouda’s decision is a horrible, strategic blow for Israel. It endangers the very lives of IDF soldiers, commanders and elected officials.
Members of the legal fraternity asserted their competence to direct Israel’s responses by presenting the ICC as a legal body. But as the Rome Statute of 1998, which founded the ICC made clear, the institution’s political nature was evident from the outset, as was its inherent hostility to Israel. Now that Bensouda’s biased ruling has exposed this state of affairs, Israel must replace the lawyers’ failed legal strategy with a political one.
The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, announced last week that at the request of the Palestinian Authority, she is opening a probe into alleged war crimes committed by Israel in the 2014 Gaza war, as well as crimes in the disputed territories of the West Bank.
Alan Baker, director of the international law program at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told JNS: "There is no legal basis to such requests since only sovereign states may appeal to the court, and there exists no sovereign Palestinian state with sovereign territory over which the court could extend its jurisdiction. If the court accepts the Palestinian requests and opens a formal investigation, it will damage its own juridical credibility and become politicized like other UN bodies."
Eugene Kontorovich, a professor at the George Mason University Law School, told JNS that the ICC "ignores international law by inventing a Palestinian state that does not exist and creates a crime that no one in international law has ever been charged with before: the crime of people living in places. To say it is a war crime for a Jew to live in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City [of Jerusalem] is absurd. It is quite clear that the crime of people living somewhere is a crime for which one must be Jewish to be eligible."
Kontorovich noted that Bensouda "pretended, in the interest of evenhandedness, to investigate 150,000 Russians being moved into Crimea and concluded without any fanfare that is not a war crime." He noted her refusal to investigate Turkish settlers in Cyprus.
ICC to Probe 'Israeli War Crimes' in West Bank, Gaza
The chief International Criminal Court prosecutor announced Friday a probe into suspected war crimes on Palestinian territories. 'I am satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation into the situation in Palestine,' prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said without specifying who was committing the alleged crimes as the Court wrapped up its preliminary assessment of the situation.
Groups like IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace are hijacking Chanukah to attack Israel. We are seeing "BDS Dreidels,"BDS Latkes" and pathetic people pretending to be candles in public places.
But that isn't new at all.
Because the Arabs whose side they are on have done this for years.
The Arab cartoonists tend to be a bit more obviously antisemitic, but the re-purposing of Jewish symbols to attack Israel is fundamentally the same.
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Thursday, December 26, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
