Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Iran's reaction to Trump's Persian tweet, and their arrest of UK ambassador, shows how tenuous Iran's hold of their people is

On Saturday, President Trump tweeted a message in support of the Iranian people - in Persian.

به مردم شجاع و رنج کشیده ایران: من از ابتدای دوره ریاست جمهوریم با شما ایستاده‌ام و دولت من همچنان با شما خواهد ایستاد. ما اعتراضات شما را از نزدیک دنبال می کنیم. شجاعت شما الهام بخش است.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2020

This tweet has so far gathered over 365,000 "Likes," making it - by far - the most liked tweet ever written in Farsi.

The importance of the President supporting the protesters in Iran cannot be underestimated. During the Obama administration, Iranian protesters received essentially no moral support from the US and were crushed. Now the president of the United States is quite publicly supporting them.

So it is no wonder that Iran is very upset at this tweet.

PressTV reports:

Iran has called President Donald Trump's bluff on expressing support for Iranian protesters in Farsi just after he threatened to attack their cultural heritage, asking the US president not to defile the Persian language.

"Hands and tongues smeared with threatening, sanctioning and terrorizing the #Iranian nation, are not entitled to dishonor the ancient #Persian_language,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi tweeted late Sunday.

Hands and tongues smeared with threatening, sanctioning and terrorizing the #Iranian nation, are not entitled to dishonor the ancient #Persian_language.
By the way, are you actually "standing by" millions of Iranians whose hero you just assassinated or "standing against" them?! https://t.co/sfmT0qLXJq pic.twitter.com/6IwJL1uYUh
— S.A MOUSAVI (@SAMOUSAVI9) January 12, 2020

Trump's tweet came after dozens of people protested outside a university in downtown Tehran to denounce officials' belated confirmation of a Ukrainian passenger plane unintentionally downed outside the Iranian capital.

It was a few more than "dozens."

And as was widely reported, the protesters avoided stepping on the flags of the US and Israel:

Students at Tehran’s Beheshti university avoid walking on U.S. and Israeli flags painted at entrance. Via @mamlekate pic.twitter.com/iQht16DZbp
— Golnaz Esfandiari (@GEsfandiari) January 12, 2020

Except for a few, who were yelled at with the same word in the video above, "Besharaf" - "Shameful!"

Students in Tehran University take pains to avoid walking on the flags of U.S. & Israel—as the regime forces people to do—and when two Basiji regime agents then make a point of trampling the flags, the crowds shout "Besharaf!" #بی‌شرف — the regime is shameless, dishonorable. pic.twitter.com/BLr5QKztr8
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) January 12, 2020

Psychologically, this is a heavy blow to Iran's leaders. It has raised its youth for over 40 years to hate Israel and the US, and here these same youth are saying that they prefer those two nations to Iran.

The PressTV article goes on to justify their arrest of the UK ambassador:

Meanwhile, the Iranian media is abuzz with reports of British Ambassador Rob Macaire monitoring the protest from a safe distance.

Macaire was briefly arrested by security forces over his presence at the site of a protest.

He later acknowledged his brief detention in Twitter messages posted in Farsi, but denied that he had taken part in demonstrations.

"Can confirm I wasn't taking part in any demonstrations! Went to an event advertised as a vigil for victims of #PS752 tragedy," he wrote, adding that he left the site immediately after a number of people started chanting slogans, but was arrested half an hour later.

The following is footage released by Iranian police of the UK envoy's presence at the protest site:

The Foreign Ministry said it had summoned the British ambassador to protest his unconventional behavior and participation at an illegal rally, and to remind him that such conduct on the part of a foreign ambassador runs counter to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961.

Which is very funny because the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations explicitly says that diplomats have immunity from arrest in their host country. It is Iran that broke the protocol.

Iran tried to organize a "Death to UK" protest outside the British embassy in response, and it saw more police in attendance than the few dozen unenthusiastic protesters.

Iranian propagandists are spinning as much as they can, but their lies are obvious - especially to Iranians themselves.

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Jordanian media report that the head of the Palestinian Parliamentary Committee in the Jordanian parliament, Yahya Al-Saud, announced "that the right of return is sacred and cannot be forfeited by statute of limitations or through agreements concluded with the Israeli enemy."

He called for a campaign to collect one million signatures refusing to drop the "right of return."

Now imagine how this news is received by Jordanians, both those of Palestinian descent and those who aren't. A committee in their own parliament is saying that Palestinians are not true Jordanians, but different second-class citizens who is expected to "return" to Palestine as soon as Israel can be pressured to admit them.

How can Palestinians build their lives in Jordan when they are constantly reminded by their own rulers - and even the political opportunists who are of Palestinian descent themselves - that they are not real Jordanians. That the only "right" Jordan supports for them is their right - to leave Jordan.

Combine this with the history of Jordan taking away citizenship of thousands of Palestinians against their will, and you can see that the supposed Arab love of Palestinians is really a giant excuse to get rid of them.

For their own good, of course.

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01/13 Links Pt2: Which came first – Jeopardy or ‘Palestinians’?; Daniel Pipes: Will Arab anti-Zionism revive?; Where are African-American leaders condemning antisemitism?

From Ian:

Which came first – Jeopardy or ‘Palestinians’?

Trebek never figured to be at the center of controversy. Generations grew up with him. He’s been a comforting presence; the older brother always there with a pat on the back.

He may well be the most trusted, and the most beloved public personality in America. All that, through some 36 years on the job. That’s something.

He is originally from Canada. Maybe that explains it; they turn them out polite and non-confrontational over there, eh?

Alas, his term may be coming to an end, due to poor health.

We will assume that his legacy won’t be touched by the current tempest, and that the show itself will move forward intact, since, as we noted, from March 30, 1964.

Well now, that makes Jeopardy older and more “ancient” than the “Palestinians” – doesn’t it.

They were designated as a “people” for the first time, by the Arab League, June 2, 1964, when the League approved the PLO, and an Egyptian, Arafat, as its leader.

Before that, before 1948, the Palestinians were the Jews living there, including the Jewish leadership, and that means David Ben-Gurion as well, as all the records will show, from The New York Times to the BBC. We can understand the current “Palestinians” trying so hard to concoct for themselves a history and a heritage, because they have neither.

In an earlier column, we presented the case for the Beatles, how even they preceded today’s “Palestinians” as a “people” on the world stage.

That was Feb. 7, 1964, on Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town.

Other than all that, it is good to know that terrorist/Jihadist leaders are watching Jeopardy. Very good. Might learn something.

Let’s Talk About Colonialism

The word “colonialism” brings to mind many things. Most notably, it is a term associated with European imperialist adventures in the “New World” and all of the attendant horrors that followed. It invokes, in specie, mental images of white-European settlers, armed with Bibles and bayonets, dominating “less advanced” (and typically non-white) indigenous populations, leading to some of the worst human rights atrocities in history – the massacre at Wounded Knee, the African slave trade, the racial segregation policies of South Africa, the reservation schools, and the extirpation of countless native cultures throughout the world.

And since nearly all of these and other more infamous examples of colonialism were specifically white-European, the concept itself has come to be seen as coterminous with white supremacism. In other words, it is perceived as an exclusively European vice, whereas the colonial histories of non-white nations are (in almost all cases) ignored or summarily dismissed. It is under this rubric, and in conjunction with the postmodern progressive fixation on racial justice (and the very recent re-formulation of Ashkenazi Jews as “white-European”), that Zionism has been cast as a “colonial” movement, while the ongoing Arab effort to reverse the gains made by the indigenous Jewish people in 1948 is championed as “anti-colonialism”. Many have even gone as far as to describe Israel as the “last remaining settler colony in existence”.

Zionism, however, is not colonialism, but the polar opposite thereof. To understand why this is so, it is important to clearly define both of these concepts.

Colonialism is, at a baseline level, the practice of expropriating foreign territory and incorporating it into a metropole, or “mother country” (e.g. the British Crown). This process typically entails occupying these new lands with settlers, suppressing local indigenous populations, and enforcing the tongue, culture, and lifestyle of the metropole on the aforementioned indigenous inhabitants. It is, to quote Wikipedia (which I am loathe to do), the relationship of domination of an indigenous population by foreign invaders, with the latter ruling in pursuit of their own interests.

It can also, in a more rudimentary sense, mean “building a town or a city”. That is how Ze’ev Jabotinsky used it in his famous Iron Wall essay, which anti-Zionists were quick to pounce upon. But for the purpose of this article, I will use it in the former sense.

PALESTINE POSTS, Book Review

PALESTINE POSTS: AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF THE BIRTH OF ISRAEL By Daniel S. Chertoff is an amazing book. Chertoff found a collection of his father's correspondence written between 1947-1949 when Mordecai S. Chertoff (his father) was here witnessing the end of the British Mandate and the beginning of the State of Israel.

Mordecai Chertoff came to "Palestine" officially to study in Hebrew University but was quickly drafted to the staff of the English newspaper, The Palestine Post, now called The Jerusalem Post. In addition, he joined the Haganah, and later after the establishment of the State of Israel, he became a citizen and was subsequently drafted into the IDF.

The letters Daniel found were from his father to the family in America and letters sent to him from them. Besides the correspondence, Daniel had an incomplete memoir of the time, his father had once started writing. Besides all that, there are many of the articles Mordecai had written for the Post and other publications. Daniel's job was to weave these all together along with a historical narrative informative enough for those less knowledgeable to follow and not too simplistic for those who already know the history. He did a very good job. I can recommend the book to all.

I had a personal need to read the book very carefully. My Uncle Izzy, Israel Shanks "Red" Shankman, was also here in Palestine-Israel at the time. He was in the Palyam, the naval branch of the Palmach as high level crew, medic plus, on some of the ships that defied the British in an attempt to bring Jewish immigrants to safety. It's very possible that they had been acquainted, though my uncle isn't mentioned. My uncle also left Israel for New York, around the same time.

Mordecai's letters are invaluable in describing what life was like in Jerusalem during the long, difficult siege. There was rationing, since water and food were almost impossible to find. The only road Jews could take to Jerusalem, for deliveries of all sorts, went through enemy Arab territory. Attacks were frequent. It's amazing that people survived on such small quantities, but they did.

Trump, Obama, Iran and "unintended consequences" @stavridisj

James Stavridis, the retired U.S. Navy admiral and former supreme allied commander of NATO, wrote an op-ed that was published in various newspapers over this past week:

This tactical success is not matched by an articulated strategic approach from the administration of President Donald Trump. Think of chess, a game the Persians refined: Trump has taken one of the opponent's most powerful pieces off the board. Good. Yet there's no reason to think he has a plan to ultimately defeat a clever opponent who still has many capable moves available.

And perhaps most concerningly, there are an increasing number of unintended consequences beginning to emerge -- several of which could have a disproportionate impact on global events. The effects of Soleimani's death will ripple from Baghdad to Tel Aviv to Nairobi to South America.

I agree that there should be a strategy and that there are always unintended consequences for any action. I disagree that the unintended consequences only happen when there is not a sound strategy - they happen all the time.

Stavridis' examples, though, seem a bit half-baked themselves.

Let's start with Venezuela. Over the past couple of days, there has been an apparent inflection point as the corrupt regime of Nicolas Maduro has attempted to unseat the legally elected leader of the National Assembly, Juan Guaido. Maduro has used the typical heavy-handed techniques, including physically blocking Guaido and other anti-regime elected officials from the assembly, while supporting a regime puppet to lead it. Why is Maduro suddenly emboldened? In part, no doubt, because he knows the U.S. administration is focused on Iran, not watching events in Latin America closely. Unintended consequence.

Are the US foreign and defense establishments really so incompetent that they are "focused" on only one area of the world and helpless in all others? If that is the case, this isn't a case of unintended consequences - it is a case of the US being unable to walk and chew gum at the same time. Whether this was part of Maduro's calculus has nothing to do with whether the US can handle it.

Also, some analysts think that Latin America should thank the US for taking out Soleimani.

How about East Africa? On Sunday morning, three Americans were killed in Kenya, the latest of a string of attacks against U.S. interests by the terrorist group al-Shabab. Members of the group, which is associated with al-Qaeda, stormed an air base shared by U.S. troops and Kenyan forces and damaged American aircraft in addition to killing one U.S. service member and two civilian contractors. Al-Shabab watches CNN like every other terrorist group, and is well aware that the "unblinking eye" of U.S. intelligence collection has shifted its gaze to Iran. Unintended consequence.

Interesting theory. Here's another: On December 29, the US struck at Al Shabab terrorists, killing 4, in retaliation for a deadly attack that killed 79 shortly beforehand.

Why does Stavridis assume that this attack had more to do with Soleimani than revenge for the US attack in Somalia? His theory seems like a stretch, to put it mildly.

Then there is Israel, which faces an enormous threat from Iran's Lebanese proxy force, Hezbollah, which has tens of thousands of surface-to-surface missiles directed against America's closest friend in the region. While most Israelis are happy to see Soleimani dead, there is understandable concern about whether Iran will energize the Hezbollah missile force against Israel. The Israelis have many tools at their disposal to degrade that threat, but a massive rocket attack on Israel would change the strategic calculus of the Middle East significantly. Unintended consequence.

If anything, this was an assumed consequence - the very reason why Trump gave Netanyahu a heads up about the strike. Yet this consequence hasn't happened yet, and Lebanese turmoil makes it seem unlikely at this point. Why is something that hasn't happened considered an unintended consequence?

New drama unfolding in the Iraqi parliament will probably lead to the departure of the last 5,000 American troops from that very divided nation. At one time, of course, the U.S. had more than 180,000 troops in Iraq. The final tranche of military ground power is there primarily to destroy the Islamic State, but its secondary purpose is to be helpful in countering the strong Iranian influence in Iraq. One of the principal goals of Iran -- and of Soleimani himself -- was to ensure that the U.S. left the region generally, and especially that it depart Iraq. It will be ironic in the extreme if Soleimani's death ends up ensuring his key goal: the U.S. finally exiting Iraq after so many years and so much blood and treasure lost, squandering its ability to shape events across the Middle East. Unintended consequence.

Again, this does not seem nearly as likely a consequence as Stavridis assumes.

On Iraq's western border, important operations against the Islamic State have been "paused." Why? Because U.S. forces are taking defensive measures to keep people and assets safe against the inevitable Iranian response. This is prudent on the part of the Defense Department, of course, but it gives the terrorists a breather. And make no mistake, the embers of ISIS are still quite capable of flaring back up in both Iraq and Syria. Unintended consequence.

If the hit on Someimani had been part of a brilliant strategic plan, wouldn't this have happened anyway? And, again, nothing has actually happened.

A consequence is something that actually happens as a result of another action, and Stavridis has not shown a single one.

Then the article becomes a bit bizarre:

Based on what information has been made public and my own experience, I support the administration's decision to take out Soleimani.
But the consequences, especially the unintended ones, are going to set back U.S. efforts in the Middle East and around the world. You can't escape the law of history.

If he supports killing Soleimani, then the consequences are by his own definition not as consequential. If he thinks that it is going to set back US interests, then why support the hit?

Beyond that, there is a problem with his basic assumptions. The Obama administration did have a strategy for Iran - a strategy that was terrible, based on wishful thinking and inaccurate assumptions, a strategy that had a direct line to allow Iran to build nuclear weapons, albeit delayed for a few years.

Which means that not all strategies are good.

I have no idea if Trump has a real strategy for Iran, but my guess is that he has the outline of one: pushing for regime change. Soleimani's death fits nicely with that strategy. But no matter how good one's strategy is, you can't guarantee the results you want.

The irony is that the supposed unintended consequences of Trump's moves have not come to fruition. How many times can we say that about well-developed strategies?

This is a truly bizarre op-ed, all the more so because Stavridis always seemed to be a level headed person.

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According to Arabic media, Major General Hussein Salami, the (current) commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, told the Iranian parliament on Sunday that Iran will announce in the coming days a "great victory" over the United States.

Salami said, "In the coming days we will talk about the great victory over the United States," adding, "The Ukrainian plane crash has not yet allowed us to reveal the full dimensions of the victory that we achieved by bombing the two American bases in Iraq."

Will they announce that they killed 800 soldiers instead of 80? Perhaps they destroyed hundreds of fighter jets? Maybe Trump secretly visited and they killed him!

I can't wait to find out what the Iranians can come up with.

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01/13 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Iran's heroic protesters expose decadence and humbug among western liberals; Fatah promises cruel terror and "war of the street", burning of Jewish towns

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Iran's heroic protesters expose decadence and humbug among western liberals

It would be despicable and unforgivable for Britain and the EU, whose support for the 2015 Obama-brokered deal hugely helped empower this unconscionable regime, now to weaken the protesters and strengthen their tyrannical rulers still further – at precisely the point at which the possibility has arisen of bringing down a regime which otherwise risks plunging the world into a terrible war.

The protesters have been ripping down mourning posters of Soleimani, chanting that both he and Khamenei were murderers. “They are lying that our enemy is America; our enemy is right here,” they have cried. At a university outside Tehran, they refused to trample upon the American and Israeli flags that had been laid out on the ground but instead stepped respectfully around them, chastising any who stepped on them. (Even though elsewhere some pro-regime thugs predictably burnt the British and Israeli flags, the former was the far more remarkable development.)

Compare all this this with the west’s received opinion about the Soleimani killing: that he was a hero, that Trump was the war criminal and monster, and that the elimination of this supposedly great general had united the Iranian people against America.

You think? According to Saeed Ghasseminejad, senior adviser and financial economist at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies: “This tweet by @realDonaldTrump with more than 100k likes is already the most liked Persian tweet in the history of Twitter. A strong show of support by Iranians for Trump’s Iran policy, something the MSM does not and will not report.”

The people of Iran know Trump is behind them and against the regime which so oppresses them and menaces the civilised world; and they also know that the west’s so-called “liberal progressives” are against them and are instead lined up behind the regime.

This is one of those moments where the division between those who seek to defend civilisation and those who wish to aid its would-be destroyers is being starkly and terrifyingly exposed.

Iran’s attacks against the US in Iraq accomplished what was intended

AS OF now, it appears that the Iranian sound and fury over the skies of Iraq on January 8 look set to signify the conclusion of the round of hostilities that began with the killing of a US contractor by the Iran-linked Ktaeb Hezbollah militia on December 27. This act provoked a US attack on Ktaeb which killed 25 of its fighters. The Iranians then launched the violent protests against the US Embassy in Baghdad. The US upped the ante at that point with the killings of Soleimani, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and the others. The latest Iranian response indicates that Iran wants an end to this round.

Of course, Iranian efforts to expel the US from Iraq will continue. The Iranian calculus at this point may well have included the assumption that the current US administration wants out of the Middle East, and therefore should not be provoked into staying.

Iranian propaganda makes much of the notion that the Iranian project is slow and systematic and at a level of sophistication that makes it invulnerable to the attacks of its enemies. That remains to be seen. But the latest round of hostilities indicates that those who helm the Iranian bid for regional hegemony are aware of their drastic limitations in the military arena, are not suicidal, and are capable of formulating and implementing policy in line with the prevailing power realities.

Iran-US: Advantage Trump

Iran has emerged completely discredited from the recent phase of conflict with the United States and US President Donald J. Trump appears, for the time being, to be the big winner.

The Iranian regime is proving to be totally incompetent: incapable of managing the funeral of the so-called "martyr" Qassem Soleimani, which resulted in the deaths of more than 50 people, but capable of shooting down "as a result of human error" a commercial flight with 82 of its own nationals on board and killing a total of 176 passengers and crew members. This is the same regime that now announces the resumption of its nuclear weapons program. The bomb could be launched "by mistake," of course, at Israel - or dropped on a neighboring country, such as Sunni states in the Gulf, or even on Iran itself.

The Iranian people know that the plane was shot down by their own government. There are anti-regime protests across Iran. There is anger over the incompetence and the lies of the last few days. The regime will come out of it weakened. After the death of Soleimani, images of mass rallies may have given the impression of a popular rally against the United States, but it has long been known that such impressions can be misleading.

Think, for example, of the images of Parisian crowds applauding Marshal Pétain in 1940, used by Vichy propaganda. In the absence of free elections and polls, it is difficult to know the real feelings of the majority of the Iranian population. As of this writing, many are protesting against "Supreme Guide" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and calling for his resignation.

The countries of the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the lead, will be convinced more than ever that their security -- in the face of an aggressive regime that does not hesitate to export its "revolution" to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, etc. -- depends on America's protection. No longer dependent on the region for its energy supply, the United States will be able to ask those countries to pay for it, as President Trump keeps asking.

More news you haven't seen: Lebanon enforcing draconian anti-free speech laws against protesters and journalists

Lebanon is generally considered one of he most liberal Arab countries.

That's not saying much.

While Article 13 of Lebanon's constitution says:

The freedom of opinion, expression through speech and writing, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, and the freedom of association, are all guaranteed within the scope of the law.

It turns out this is not really true.

Lebanon's penal code has a bunch of penalties for defamation, slander and similar offenses.

Article 384 punishes with up to two years’ imprisonment anyone who “insults” the president, the flag or the national emblem, with up to two years' imprisonment. Articles 386 and 388 criminalize defamation of public officials and public entities. Articles 582-584 provide for up to three months imprisonment for "slander" of any public official.

Moreover, Article 157 of the Military Justice Code prohibits defamation of the army.

The truth is not a defense against these charges.

In recent months, these laws have been invoked more and more often as Lebanese have been protesting the government. One crazy example:

When banks started to issue withdrawal limits weeks before the revolution, people took videos and photos at the banks and posted them on social media.

Among them, Lebanese journalist Amer Shibani who, according to Middle-East Eye on October 15th, was threatened by a lawyer of a major bank, “You will delete your tweet or else.”

According to journalist twitter user @chehayebk, "Several were interrogated over accusations of slander and defamation," just for posting photos of the banks.

In other words, anything that someone doesn't like can become a target for a "defamation" action.

Lebanon is enforcing online "defamation" as cybercrime. The Lebanese Cybercrimes Bureau reportedly initiated 3,599 defamation investigations between January 2015 and May 2019 and the number is increasing.

This journalist deleted a tweet saying a certain bank stopped handing out dollars after he was summoned by the Cybercrimes Bureau.

In October, a group of lawyers accused the British magazine The Economist of damaging Lebanon’s reputation, economic well-being and desecrating the country's flag because it illustrated an article about Lebanon's floundering economy with this picture:

While HRW is actually on top of this story, the media has been remarkably silent - especially given that the media is the target of much of these laws.

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Oh, no! Iran declares the Pentagon to be a terrorist organization!

From Iran's PressTV:

President Hassan Rouhani has signed an amended law that expands Iran’s designation of American terrorist organizations to include the Pentagon and all its subsidiaries.

Iran’s parliament passed the initial version of the law back in April, which designated the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) a terrorist organization after the US blacklisted the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

Last week, the Iranian parliament expanded it to include the Pentagon, in response to US assassination of IRGC Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani and his companions in Baghdad.

Rouhani signed the amended version, thus making its implementation imperative upon all the country’s related bodies.

The new version blacklists all staff members of the Pentagon and subsidiary companies and institutions, in addition to those who commanded and perpetrated General Soleimani’s assassination.

All the 233 lawmakers present at an open session of the parliament on Tuesday unanimously adopted the triple-urgency motion.

It is not just urgent, and not just doubly urgent, but triply urgent!

The vote was unanimous!

Mike Pompeo must be quaking in his boots.

This will have a huge effect on the Pentagon's many bank holdings in Tehran. Not to mention that Pentagon employees won't be able to speak at prestigious Iranian security conferences.

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Auschwitz Memorial Twitter account minimizes Polish complicity for the Holocaust

For the several years, the Polish government has been trying to minimize the role of Poles in the Holocaust, as Times of Israel reported last January:

The Polish government marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Sunday, but completely ignored the complicity of Poles who actively participated in crimes against Jews during World War II.

Rather, Warsaw seemed to stress Polish suffering and Polish efforts to rescue Jews, leading an Israeli Holocaust historian to charge that Poland is trying to make the Nazi genocide look like a “Polish rescue project.”
Historians debate how many Poles aided the Nazi death machine during World War II, with estimates ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.

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But Poland has never admitted to complicity on any large scale and last year Warsaw passed a law prohibiting people from blaming the Polish nation for Holocaust atrocities.

Indeed, a new study on Holocaust remembrance in Europe argues that the Poles are among the “worst offenders” when it comes to efforts to rehabilitate Nazi collaborators and war criminals and “minimizing their own guilt in the attempted extermination of Jews.”

According to the study, conducted by researchers from Yale and Grinnell colleges and published last week, the right-wing government in Warsaw has “engaged in competitive victimization, emphasising the experience of Polish victims over that of Jewish victims.

“The government spends considerable effort on rewriting history rather than acknowledging and learning from it,” the study found.

The Auschwitz Museum Twitter account appears to be part of the Polish whitewashing of their people's complicity in the Holocaust.

The account has a lot of very good information. It humanizes many victims of the Holocaust. It has gone on a massive campaign to recruit followers, and is nearing its goal of one million.

But the Auschwitz Museum account minimizes Polish complicity in the Holocaust just as the Polish government does. This thread from Sunday illuminates this, as the Museum posted this:

Viktor Hardarson responded:

Let´s analyse your own tweet "honestly, fairly & professionally".

The beginning of the tweet sets the tone, the context and the content of the rest of the tweet.

So, the beginning is about actions of Poles during German occupation of Poland in WW2. It
mentions these actions (acts) "must be researched honestly fairly & professionally" "within the context of the German occupation...and extermination of Jews" if they were "heroic or horrible"

This is the "prelude" in your tweet.

That whether the acts of Poles relating to the Holocaust and under German occupation were heroic or horrible.

So far we´re talking about what the Poles did in relation to the extermination of Jews.
What is revealing is the phrase "heroic or horrible".
It implies direct actions with good or bad consequences
It is clear that you are talking about the acts of individuals that affected Jews in direct relations. Man to man. What one did directly to another.

And of course that should be researched. And it has been researched. For 75 years.

The 2nd part.
"However, in the case of the history of the Auschwitz camp talking about Polish complicity is false".

We´ve already established that the 1st part is about ones behaviour towards another in direct relation. It can not be about anything else based on the wording.

So the latter part has nothing to do with "planning" or "running" Auschwitz.
It´s a continuation of the 1st part so what you´re saying is: Poles had nothing to do with Auschwitz and no Jew ended up in Auschwitz as a result of Polish complicity.

This is false.
As far as I agree that research of the Holocaust should be continued there´s no need for further research on Polish complicity. We have so much knowledge about that from eyewitnesses, documentation, news, articles and so on that we know that history isn´t going to change.
Poles were complicit in the Holocaust. And Poles were often the reason Jews ended up in Auschwitz.

That is the "shit" you need to own.

In the first part of the Tweet you literally blamed Polish behaviour on the Germans. Something you have repeatedly done in our conversation.
If that was the case, that the Polish behaved the way they did because of the German occupation, then it´s equally true that those heroes that sheltered Jews also behaved in that way because of the German occupation.

There´s one thing that determines your actions. And 1 thing only.

Who you are.

How you act, or react, to circumstances is solely based on who you are.

Blaming others for your own behaviour is immature.

And it´s "whitewashing".

So let me tell you what we see in your tweet.

"If the Polish ppl did good or bad to the Jews, if it was bad it was because of the German occupation - it´s their fault, needs to be researched. But Poles had nothing to do with Auschwitz".

Does this sound like a true description of the events to anyone?

No.

This Polish historian estimates that some 200,000 Jews were killed by Poles betraying them, sometimes after extorting all their possessions.

That is part of the history that the official Auschwitz Museum account doesn't want you to know about.

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Everyday antisemitism in German public schools

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Society-wide, the numbers around anti-Semitism are stark. Six of 10 Jews in Germany have experienced anti-Semitic “hidden insinuations,” while 9 of 10 Jews in Germany feel “strongly burdened” by anti-Semitism directed at their family, according to a 2017 qualitative study out of Bielefeld University titled “Jewish Perspectives on Antisemitism in Germany.”

Schools in Berlin have seen an uptick in incidents, reporting 41 incidents in 2018, up one-third from the previous year, according to RIAS, a monitoring agency that tracks anti-Semitic incidents.

Recently, at one Berlin public school, Mr. Königsberg says, a teacher was instructing a unit on religion. One boy offered up that he was Jewish, only to hear a classmate mutter in response, “I’ve got to kill you.” The teacher heard the remark, but did nothing to intervene, says Mr. Königsberg.

Other school situations can be understated or offhand, and even perpetrated by teachers, he adds. Take the time a Berlin public school took a field trip to the city’s Holocaust memorial. A 14-year-old Jewish girl, emotional over what she was seeing, began to sob. Her German teacher told her, “Why are you crying? It was so long ago.”

A Jewish woman whose child attends an elite Berlin public school says she volunteered to run the Israel booth at the school’s international fair. She says she immediately felt uncomfortable. First, a child of about 5 years passed by and told her, “Israel is bad.” Later, as students assessed the falafel offered at the booth, several offered that the food had “nothing to do with Israel.”

Toward the end of the fair, a teenager leaned over the table to get in her face, snarling, “I wish the falafel were grenades, and that they would explode in your face.” Another parent intervened and moved the teen away from the table.

The woman visited with police over the verbal assault, but ultimately decided not to file a report. “I didn’t feel a 15-year-old should have a criminal record,” she says.

When she reported the incident to the school principal, she came away disappointed. “The issue was never raised with the community,” says the woman, who wished to remain anonymous since her child is still enrolled in the school. “Eventually the principal left. Nothing was done.”

It sounds like incidents like these are hugely unreported.

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01/12 Links: Trump Sends Message Of Support To The Iranian People Written In Persian; The perverse Western mourning for Soleimani; The new socialism, like the old, will not protect Jews

From Ian:

Trump Sends Message Of Support To The Iranian People Written In Persian

President Donald Trump sent a message written in Persian to Iranians who were openly protesting the country’s oppressive Islamic government on Saturday, which comes in response to Iran admitting this week that it shot down a passenger plane.

According to a Google translation, Trump tweeted, “To the brave and suffering Iranian people: I have stood with you since the beginning of my presidency and my government will continue to stand with you. We are following your protests closely. Your courage is inspiring.”

Trump tweeted out nearly the exact same statement in English, writing, “To the brave, long-suffering people of Iran: I’ve stood with you since the beginning of my Presidency, and my Administration will continue to stand with you. We are following your protests closely, and are inspired by your courage.”

Trump continued, “The government of Iran must allow human rights groups to monitor and report facts from the ground on the ongoing protests by the Iranian people. There can not be another massacre of peaceful protesters, nor an internet shutdown. The world is watching.”

Trump also reverberated the same message in Persian.

Trump’s comments come as Iranian protesters flooded to streets of Tehran by the thousands to demand that Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei resign after his government told the world that it did not shoot down the Ukrainian 737 last week and then reversed course on Friday, admitting that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is a designated terrorist group, shot down the plane.

“Angry crowds gathered on Saturday night in at least four locations in Tehran, chanting ‘death to liars’ and calling for the country’s supreme leader to step down over the tragic military blunder, video from the scene shows,” The Daily Mail reported. “‘Death to the Islamic Republic’ protesters chanted, as the regime’s paramilitary security force allegedly used ambulances to sneak heavily armed paramilitary police into the middle of crowds to disperse the demonstration.”

This tweet by @realDonaldTrump with more than 100k likes is already the most liked Persian tweet in the history of Twitter. A strong show of support by Iranians for Trump's Iran policy, something the MSM does not and will not report. https://t.co/4tZ0IgDZmx
— Saeed Ghasseminejad (@SGhasseminejad) January 11, 2020

The voice of the Iranian people is clear. They are fed up with the regime’s lies, corruption, ineptitude, and brutality of the IRGC under @khamenei_ir's kleptocracy. We stand with the Iranian people who deserve a better future. pic.twitter.com/tBOjv9XsIG
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 11, 2020

Melanie Phillips: The perverse Western mourning for Soleimani

No one, however, should be under any illusions. The regime can be expected to resume its strategy of mounting deniable attacks against soft or second-tier military targets.

Trump has now laid down his red line: If you attack America, you will be destroyed. The same cannot be said for Britain and Europe. Their aversion to fighting back has turned their populations, with countless Iranian terrorist sleeper cells in their midst, into sitting ducks.

It’s good that Trump is now increasing sanctions against Iran. And good luck to him in piling pressure on Johnson to follow America’s lead and withdraw from the lethal nuclear pact for which the United Kingdom has been such a cheerleader.

But this mercurial and contradictory president now has to follow through. He himself cannot make another deal with a regime that believes its Divine destiny is to cause an apocalypse and bring the Shia messiah to earth. He must instead force its destruction.

“President Trump could not be more clear. On our watch, Iran will not get a nuclear weapon,” said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

All decent, rational people should be cheering those words. For the first time, this evil regime has been held to account. Yet Western liberals are spitting tacks. We can see what side they’re on here, and it’s not their own.

The murderous, fanatical Iranian regime poses one of the greatest dangers to the civilized world. How shameful that Western liberals – in their terrifying moral and intellectual blindness – seem to be falling over themselves to give it victory.

The new socialism, like the old, will not protect Jews

Beyond the ugly portrayal of Jews, this argument, too, beseeches us to remember the economic context at stake in the anti-Semitic attacks targeting Jews. And those of us who see anti-Semitism as a force beyond excuse, one that manifests wherever the human heart is distorted by hate, are chided as lacking the sophistication to see the “cruelly rational” relationship between capitalism and Anti-Semitism.

That’s not analysis. It’s delusion, and its dangerous.

The simplicity of blaming everything on “material conditions,” gentrification and the existing order, is indeed tempting. The Jews become the natural victims of the system that they benefit from, and those who attack them are structurally absolved; their acts of violence get added to the bill of particulars in support of the need for revolution. Context does all the work, and what’s left over is picked up by “solidarity,” which can mean anything at all except that Jews deserve protection from those who seek to harm us.

In fact, the relationship goes the other way. As with the far right, the socialist left is relentlessly bad news for the Jews. Its most successful contemporary avatar, Jeremy Corbyn, presided over the transformation of one of the great political parties in the West into a conspiracy of befouled anti-Semites. And its most successful tribune in the United States, while himself a proud Jew, seems unable to quit those like Linda Sarsour who speak for him and see behind him a movement more amenable to their hateful commitments.
The committed antisemite will not be dissuaded by a demonstration that they are subscribing to something irrational. by the Forward
The first step to fighting anti-Semitism is recognizing how irrational it is
Deborah E. LipstadtJanuary 9, 2020

Punching down on the Jews by arguing that the stock market is the modern-day Cossack does more than just badly misread a problem. Success for the socialist dream of universality will always end up liquidating Jewish particularity.

There are simple conditions under which Jews have thrived, most of all in this country: liberty of speech and thought and religion; tolerance and diversity; equality of opportunity; the rule of law. These classic liberal values are out of favor with the revolutionaries at Jacobin and the vanguard of progressive sensibility at Jewish Currents, but they add up to our best shot to survive and thrive in the second century of the American Diaspora.

"Union Journal" site looks like a Russian fake news site

A website called "Union Journal" published a translation of an article I noted ten days ago.that said that Israel was selling the organs of Palestinians they kill.

The webpage of the "Union Journal" looks like a generic news site. Every article seems to be authored by the same "Miriam Jackson" and articles look to often be illegal copies of articles from other sites. But the articles about Israel all seems to come from anti-Israel propaganda sites.

I looked a little closer at this site. It used to be associated with a UK union site. The expired domain name was taken over by an anonymous user around 2018 were it first was a stock tipsheet. Only last September did it start to look the way it does now, as a news site.

The site claims to have millions of followers on social media. This is quite a lie. They have no presence at all on social media at this time. The links are all bad.

They hide their DNS ownership info and use Cloudflare to stop DDoS attacks.

According to Alexa, they have had a steadily increasing audience over the past three months.

The site pretends to be based out of New York City, but the people behind it link to a weather widget that uses Celsius, not Fahrenheit, so clearly this is not a US-based operation.

It looks like this is one small cog in a huge machine meant to push fake news when needed, probably ahead of US elections.

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From Felesteen:

Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem said on Saturday that the party will take revenge for the assassination of the commander of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani.

"Mofazik Life" quoted Qassim as saying, "Soleimani was not only working for Iran, but for the entire Islamic world and the resistance forces against (Israel)."

"The United States will find that the calculations it made are wrong and it will have to recalculate it to change the equation," he added.

Hezbollah isn't threatening the US, but threatening to attack Israel as a means to hurt the US.

It seems unlikely that this is anything but bravado. The Lebanese people are upset enough at Hezbollah and the terror group does not want to invite another war with Israel that the people will not support. Still, threats from Hezbollah are not to be discounted completely.

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This may, or may not, be the aftermath of this huge attack, in Gaza City.

Tehran Times "reports:"

Following the Israeli operation against Syria’s T4 airbase, in which some Iranian military advisors were martyred, the forces of the axis of resistance attacked ten targets in the occupied territories in an unprecedented operation.

Israeli officials at the time stated that none of their troops were killed in the retaliatory action by the resistance movement, while detailed information reveals that about 60 Zionist regime’s forces were killed.

After the retaliatory operation by the forces of the resistance movement at 3:10 local time, CNN television channel reported that the casualties were significant. Only after ten minutes all radio and telecommunication networks and even the power of the targeted areas were cut off, then the Western media outlets insisted that there were no casualties by shifting their approach in all news fields.

To understand why such an approach was adopted the following statements should be considered.

1. The vow of retaliatory operation was fulfilled in a situation that the Zionist regime and its affiliated media outlets were trying to describe Iran’s claim about the “end of hit-and-run period” as a bluff and question the Iranian ability to take revenge.

2. This hard revenge revealed several facts for the Zionist regime, including Iran’s military capability and the will to use it against any aggression.

3. Benjamin Netanyahu, who had been in Sochi, Russia to meet Vladimir Putin at that time, sent a message by Russians declaring his lack of will to respond to the attack and calling for mediation to persuade Iran to halt its retaliatory attacks.

Reviewing the Israeli military and media reaction to the Iranian retaliatory response shows that the U.S. government has taken exactly the same approach in the early hours after a strong slap by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The Americans, on the one hand, refuse to report the casualties of their troops or facilities in Ein Al-Assad base and even suspended the Israeli journalist’s Twitter account because of an unreliable tweet about the casualties, and on the other hand, they repeatedly claim that they have suffered no damage by the IRGC’s operation.

It's a real mystery, since there have been no reports of any attacks on Saturday by Islamic Jihad or Hamas media outlets. One would think they would be covering this news fairly closely, since they are part of the "axis of resistance."

Apparently, Israel has the ability to censor everyone in the world - except the Tehran Times.

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01/11 Links: Iranians protest after IRGC admits shooting down plane; Remembering the victims of Ukraine Flight 752; Soleimani planning attacks on 4 US embassies

From Ian:

Dr. Martin Sherman: Terminating terrorists and assessing assassinations

Indeed, arguably the only case where a single targeting killing appears to have brought about the end of a terror organization is that of Zuheir Mohsen and the a-Saiqa movement which he headed. Once the second largest faction in the PLO after Fatah, since the demise of Mohsen, a-Saiqa has descended into insignificance and irrelevance.

Overall, however, it does appear that, unless targeted assassinations are part of a sustained, ongoing policy of lethal pursuit of adversaries, the effect of a “stand alone” assassination is, at best, short-lived.

The imponderable “What ifs”

Of course, one of the imponderable questions is that of what would have occurred had targeted assassinations not been undertaken.

After all, one thing is certain. If Israel’s enemies know that they are in danger of losing their lives, their modus operandi will inevitably be more constrained, cumbersome and costly than if they could operate unperturbed, secure in the knowledge that their personal safety was not at risk. With the threat of potential targeted assassination hovering over them, the resources, that need be devoted to their own security, may be considerable and hamper the freedom they might otherwise have.

There is, of course, one other consideration that militates strongly in favor of targeted assassinations. After all, whatever the operational efficacy of targeted assassinations may be—or not be—the conscience of every decent individual should rebel at the thought that arch-purveyors of terror should be permitted to pursue their deadly vocation with impunity.

Indeed, as Pulitzer Prize winner, Bret Stephens recently wrote in the New York Times:
“No U.S. president [or Israeli Prime Minister - MS]…should ever convey to an enemy the impression it can plot attacks against Americans [or Israelis - MS] with impunity. To do otherwise is to invite worse.”

Indeed it is!!

Noah Rothman: Democrats Are Out of Touch on Foreign Affairs, Too

Among general election voters, polling relating to the Soleimani strike has so far indicated that the issue does not mirror America’s partisan divides. A Huffington Post/YouGov poll conducted from January 4-5 found voters approved of the strike by 43 to 38 percent. A January 5-7 Economist/YouGov survey showed voters backed the strike by 44 to 38 percent. Reuters/Ipsos’s January 7-8 poll showed 42 percent of voters supported the strike while just 33 percent opposed it. If support for Trump’s actions in Iraq essentially mirrors his job approval rating, opposition to it most certainly does not. And while the press is more inclined to play up these polls’ findings below the topline (“Americans say Soleimani’s killing made U.S. less safe, Trump ‘reckless’ on Iran” was how USA Today characterized a poll that found only one-third of voters oppose Trump’s actions), the nuances these surveys uncovered are far more intriguing.

Another Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted from January 3-6 indicated that the deep reservoir of mistrust that has characterized Americans’ views toward Iran for the better part of a half-century persists even among Democrats. When asked if Iran represents an “imminent threat” to the U.S., a substantial plurality of all voters—41 percent—agreed. The number of Democrats who agreed with that sentiment precisely tracks with the country as a whole: 41 percent. Huffington Post/YouGov confirms that Democrats and Clinton voters are more inclined to view Iran as a “very serious” threat to the U.S. than even Trump voters and Republicans.

This isn’t necessarily the product of a news cycle dominated by Iranian aggression. A Fox News poll from July found that 57 percent of Democrats (and 60 percent of all respondents) said: “Iran poses a real national security threat to the United States.” And while 42 percent of Democrats oppose “taking military action to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons,” 38 percent support such an operation. Most polling on Iran over the course of the year presents analysts with an intuitive conclusion: Democrats are far more inclined to oppose military action against Iran than Republicans. But those surveys also suggest that the voting public, including Democrats, will support such a contingency under the right circumstances. It’s not hard to make the case that Iran’s months-long campaign of direct and undeniable attacks on Americans and their allies in the region meets those conditions.

That nuance is lost in the Democratic Party’s response to the crisis that has come to typify the opening days of 2020. Even among the party’s voices of moderation, it is fashionable to blame Trump even for reckless Iranian provocations like the downing of a commercial airliner on the night of January 7. According to Pete Buttigieg, for example, the blame for Iran’s mistaken attack on a plane full of Iranians taking off from an Iranian airport amid an entirely unreciprocated Iranian volley of rockets targeting U.S. troops 500 miles away should be laid at Trump’s feet.

Democrats are betting that their voters, much less all voters, are more or less inclined toward pacifism in the face of manifest threats to U.S. interests abroad, but the polling does not support that conclusion. Just as Democrats eventually learned that Medicare-for-all wasn’t the surefire winner its consultant class believed, they may soon discover that Americans are not as squeamish about killing terrorist commanders as they presume.

Jim Geraghty: Give Blame Where It’s Due, Please

Sure, the Iranian air-defense system would not have been on highest alert this week if the United States had not killed Soleimani outside the Baghdad International Airport January 3. But the Iranians made the choice to fire rockets into Iraq that evening, the Iranian government made the choice to permit civilian air traffic in the hours after their rocket attack, and ultimately it was the Iranian military that fired the surface-to-air missile. You really have to squint and stretch to say that this tragedy — which killed 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, eleven Ukrainians (including the crew members), ten Swedish, seven Afghans, and three Germans — is President Trump’s fault.

One question for the military-technology experts: Does this tragedy stem from poor training on the part of the Iranian military, or does Russian air-defense system equipment do a lousy job of differentiating between civilian airliners and military jets?

Whatever the answer to that question is, the fact remains that right now, the Democratic grassroots believe that Trump is the root of all evil, and all bad things that happen lead back to him in one form or another. There’s a Democratic primary and impeachment battle going on simultaneously. No one of any stature in the Democratic party can afford the political risk of publicly arguing or even acknowledging that anything isn’t Trump’s fault. The Democratic presidential candidates, in particular, have to offer the biggest, most vocal, most emphatic, “yes, you’re right, grassroots” that they possibly can.

“Innocent civilians are now dead because they were caught in the middle of an unnecessary and unwanted military tit for tat,” Pete Buttigieg declared. The most common term floating around Thursday night was “crossfire,” even though Tuesday night only one side was firing any weapons. Keep in mind, so far in this conflict, the United States military hasn’t fired anything into or in the direction of Iranian territory.

If we really want to extend blame beyond the Iranian military, there is a long list of individuals and institutions who should be standing in line ahead of President Trump. Let’s start with Iranian aviation authorities who kept their local civilian aircraft flying, and the airlines who chose to keep flights taking off shortly after Iranian military action — when no one could know for sure whether the military action had concluded.