Melbourne, January 16 - Progressive activists seeking to link every cause to the struggle for Palestinian independence confessed today they have yet to arrive at a successful formula for making the fight against long-term, human-induced atmospheric shifts dependent on, or at least subordinate to, the campaign against Israel.
Speaking against the backdrop of fires that have devastated Australia's wilderness, activists described the challenges they have faced drawing a convincing causal relationship between climate change and those disasters, let alone between those two phenomena and Israeli policies or existence.
"Gaining traction with this one has proved harder than we anticipated," conceded Ali Latdam, who helped pioneer the progressive assertion that the Black Lives Matter movement formed but a part of a larger struggle against Israeli treatment of Palestinians. "I think part of the difficulty stems from the lack of resonance climate change already suffers outside a limited cadre of activists. We can't take the fight against global warming to the Zionists unless and until we can generate enough popular support for the fight against global warming in the the first place, and the fight against climate change, despite its prominence in the media, simply doesn't register as a priority among enough people outside the Soros-funded matrix of NGOs."
Activists acknowledge that efforts to draw a direct connection between Israeli policies and climate have enjoyed limited success at best. "We of course have the more-or-less annual accusation of Israel opening dams and flooding Gaza when serious rain hits," noted Rania Khalek. "That always generates some buzz. But it gets less and less effective each year as Zionist Hasbara people counter faster and faster with the irrelevant fact that Israel has no such dams. We're left with deploring the environmental conditions in Gaza, but as in Australia, basically nobody cares."
Contributing to the awkwardness in progressive anti-Israel spaces and groups, those who claim to advocate for democracy and who therefore decry what they call Israel's denial of Palestinian democratic rights - even though Palestinians under the Palestinian Authority have political autonomy and may hold their own elections, which they have neglected to do since 2006 - have remained silent in the face of pro-democracy and anti-regime demonstrations in Iran, a chief financier of Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese terrorist groups that target Israel. "We're just going to wait till this blows over and then get back to business as usual," predicted Latdam. "Did you know it's all a Zionist plot to distract from Israeli crimes?"
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Following the U.S. drone strike that resulted in the death of Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Quds Force (“Jerusalem Force”) of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a select group of Palestinian dignitaries attended his funeral. One of the few non-family members honored with eulogizing Soleimani was Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who lauded him as “Jerusalem’s own martyr.” Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziad Al-Nakhleh also paid his respects. Subsequent to the funeral, Haniyeh and a high-level Hamas delegation met with Soleimani’s successor, Esmail Ghaani. The participation of these terrorist leaders in Soleimani’s funeral signals the longtime destructive role that Iran plays throughout the region and worldwide.
Soleimani’s Al-Quds Force (AQF) was initially formed a year after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979 Islamic Revolution as the Organization of Liberation Movements, a unit of the IRGC. Its mission was to fulfil the late ayatollah’s declared goal of exporting the Iranian Revolution in order to “liberate Jerusalem.” Reflecting the central role that the AQF plays in Iranian military and foreign policy, as commander of the unit Soleimani reported directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, not to the commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards. It is also a demonstration of the official sanction and support for its activities that the IRGC-AQF receives from the highest level of the Iranian leadership.
Among the AQF’s first recruits were Lebanese and Syrian followers of Khomeini’s ideology who established Hezbollah. Since then the AQF has been responsible for having trained thousands of operatives from Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Additionally, it has long provided logistical support for such organizations, including providing weapons and explosives, training in terrorist tradecraft and cooperation in executing attacks. Throughout the Middle East, AQF has further expanded Iran’s hegemony by similarly funding, training and equipping Iraqi Shi’i militias, providing arms, financial support and training to the Taliban, and military advisers and weapons to the Houthis in Yemen.
From their earliest days, organizations trained by the Al-Quds Force have targeted Jews and Israelis. Hezbollah initially targeted Lebanese Jews in the mid-1980s and went on to carry out suicide-bombing attacks against Israeli military installations and personnel in Lebanon. By the early 1990s, AQF together with Hezbollah trained leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in executing suicide-bombings, thereby exporting such attacks to Israel. The tactic of such bombings was employed internationally by AQF and Hezbollah, causing the destruction the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992, killing 29 and injuring 242. Two years later, two Jewish communities in Latin America were targeted by Hezbollah suicide bombers assisted by the IRGC-AQF. Argentinian Jews were murdered in the AMIA attack in Buenos Aires that killed 85 and wounded more than 300 people. Just 24 hours after the AMIA attack, 21 Panamanians, including 12 prominent Jewish businessmen, were killed aboard a commuter flight by a Hezbollah suicide bomber.
The European development is potentially a game changer. As Yonah Jeremy Bob wrote in The Jerusalem Post, the EU trio has been on the fence about whether to adopt the view of the US and Israel that the 2015 agreement is dangerous and allows Iran to continue its nuclear plans. By triggering the dispute mechanism in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the trio has made a very tentative move to get off the fence.
The three countries said they still want to see the 2015 deal succeed and are not about to abandon the pact and restore economic sanctions, as the US did in 2018. However, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday that he wouldn’t be averse to the JCPOA being replaced by a new deal, and encouraged Trump to emerge with such a plan.
That’s a flurry of activity to absorb, as the Iranian issue seems to be coming to a head. Factor in the continued street protests in Iran calling for the dismissal of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following the downing of the Ukrainian passenger plane last week which resulted in the deaths of many Iranians, and it looks like Iran is being squeezed from all sides.
That was how US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook put it in an interview with the Post’s Omri Nahmias.
“We have weakened the regime dramatically. We’ve weakened their proxies, and we have disrupted and deterred many Iranian operations,” said Hook.
“Right now, you have the Iranian people putting pressure on the regime from the bottom up. Our maximum pressure is putting pressure on the regime from the top down. This has left the regime with very few options, and all of them are bad. And so at some point the supreme leader, we hope, will start making better decisions for the Iranian people and for the Middle East,” Hook continued.
Soleimani’s elimination, the EU trio’s decision to invoke the JCPOA dispute mechanism and demonstrations by the Iranian people all point to a potential watershed moment that should be exploited to its maximum benefit by the US and its allies.
This is a maddeningly confusing moment in Israel’s relations with the Middle East. Israel could be headed toward two opposing realities simultaneously: on the one hand, devastating war with Iran and its proxies; on the other, unprecedented possibilities for peace with parts of the region. We need to pay attention to both threat and opportunity.
Since 2012, when the IDF launched its campaign of attacks to prevent Iranian forces and advanced weapons from converging on its borders, Israel and Iran have been effectively at war. So far, Iran has been wary of retaliating, fearful of the Israeli reaction, which will be severe. But as the IDF has repeatedly warned the Israeli public, it is just a matter of time before the conflict escalates. Tens of thousands of missiles and rockets are aimed at Israel’s cities and towns; and not even Israel’s impressive anti-missile defense system will be able to stop massive devastation.
The US killing of Iran’s military chief Qasem Soleimani may have brought the next phase of the Israeli-Iranian war closer. And yet few in Israel opposed the assassination. Israelis take the Iranian regime’s genocidal rhetoric seriously, and see in its destabilization of the region proof of its murderous credibility. With Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Syria, and Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza, Israel is now effectively surrounded by Iranian and pro-Iranian forces – a process directed by Soleimani.
For Israelis this isn’t about Trump or Obama but about facing a potentially existential threat. A near-total consensus exists here on the need to confront Iranian expansionism. The country is now entering round three of this year’s interminable election campaign, and yet, for all the bitterness, not one politician across the mainstream spectrum has challenged the wisdom of Israeli attacks against Iranian forces. No one is warning about “recklessness” or “military adventurism.”
The Iranian regime has gone back from pretending to accept responsibility for shooting down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 to blaming the US. Tehran Times writes:
A possible disruption in Iran’s radar network by the U.S. may have caused the operator mistake the Ukrainian passenger plan for an incoming American cruise missile, at top Iranian military official said late on Tuesday.
Ali Abdollahi, the deputy commander of the Armed Forces General Headquarters for coordination affairs, said “the U.S. mischiefs in the region have been proven before, and so far Iran’s cyber systems have observed and recorded virtual objects manufactured by the U.S. in the country’s airspace”
“Disruption in performance of radar systems by the United States is not unprecedented,” the military official told national TV.
Abdollahi said a team has been established to investigate such a possibility.
Guess what? If Iranian radar is so easily fooled, then no one has any business trying to use it to shoot down objects that could be passenger airplanes!
Meanwhile, Forbes has been interviewing experts who make it sound like either Iran's air defense operators are incredibly incompetent or criminally negligent.
David Deptula, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general who heads the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, [says] “There are a lot of question marks as to why and how this could have happened.”
The Boeing 737-800 was transmitting a unique transponder identification code. If the equipment on the SA-15 that picks that up, called an IFF interrogator, was malfunctioning, battery operators would typically look at the schedule of airline traffic through their area and see if the target matched with a scheduled flight, Deptula says. Flight PS 752 was delayed by almost an hour from its scheduled departure, taking off at 6:12 a.m.
The SA-15 operators also would have considered the path and speed of the plane on radar. “Is it operating at low altitude, at high speed, headed toward a sensitive area”? Deptula asks. Flight PS 752 was rising toward 8,000 feet at a relatively sedate speed of 275 knots when flight tracking data from its transponder cut out, a normal profile for an airliner, he says. “It is departing the area, climbing through medium altitude, not trying to hide its signature, looking like a routine operation.”
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Security camera footage published by the New York Times on Tuesday shows the flight of two interceptor missiles from launch to detonation, which provides a basis to estimate where the air defense battery was located: 12.9 kilometers (8 miles) away from where the first missile intercepted the plane, likely parked at the southern end of the Bidganeh missile base, estimates Carlo Kopp, a defense analyst and cofounder of the think tank Air Power Australia.
That’s beyond the 12-km maximum range of SA-15 missiles listed by the manufacturer, Almaz-Antey. Even assuming actual performance is better, the distance and the geometry of targeting a hostile aircraft on the flight path the airliner was on made launching missiles at that point a “hail Mary shot,” says Kopp, and one that training manuals for Soviet-pedigree systems using the same guidance system discourage taking.
Another discordant note is that the air defense unit is said to have determined that the object they were tracking was a cruise missile when it was 19 km away. Given the small size of a cruise missile, the SA-15’s search radar isn’t able to produce a stable targeting track to shoot at from so far away, Kopp says. Only a large object like the 737 would.
“When the IRGC leadership say the operators thought it was a cruise missile, it says to an expert that the operators did not understand the limitations of their equipment,” he says.
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As a scholar of Jews and our bodies, let me be absolutely clear: Philo-Semitism is not good for the Jews. Or anyone else.
Why is something that literally translates to “love of Jews” bad? And what does it have to do with Jewish bodies? Both philo-Semitism and anti-Semitism assume that Jews are intrinsically different from other people, in ways that make us fundamentally, unalterably “other.” And this otherness tends to boil down, sooner or later, to supposed differences in Jewish bodies. Philo-Semitism may be superficially friendlier than anti-Semitism, but it, too, ultimately treats us as a different species.
My “favorite” historical example of the ways this has worked with regard to Jewish bodies concerns syphilis in mid-to-late 19th century Europe. As scholars like Sander Gilman and Mitchell B. Hart have demonstrated, at more or less the same time, in the same general cultural context, one finds both the anti-Semitic belief that syphilis was a particularly Jewish disease and the philo-Semitic belief that Jews were somehow immune to syphilis, either through some intrinsic physical quality or because of the practices of circumcision and endogamy.
I don't quite know where Epstein-Levi's obsession with "Jewish bodies" comes from. One of her courses is on "Jewish Bodies and Bioethics" which could explain her tunnel vision in looking at philosemitism through that bizarre lens.
This is her only example of how philo-semites look at Jewish "bodies" as being different. And it is from the 19th century.
Epstein-Levi then tries to shoe-horn that definition into other examples of philo- and anti-semitism.
There are plenty of other examples, though: Jews are cunning and shifty! Or, Jews are smarter than everyone else, look at all their Nobel Prizes! Jewish bodies are different: either they’re weak and unathletic, or they live so much longer! Jews are sexually depraved monsters who mutilate their sons’ penises! Or they’re hygienic with common-sense practices that communicate sexual restraint, fight HIV, and clean your house while they’re at it! (I made that last part up.) Regardless, both the anti-Semitic and the philo-Semitic versions of each example treat the Jewish body, and the Jewish community it exists in, as unalterably different.
The problem is that this is simply not true. Yes, there were jokes in the 20th century about Jews not having any athletic ability, as in the movie Airplane! where the stewardess offers a tiny leaflet of "Famous Jewish Sports Legends" as reading material.
But when was the last time you heard such a joke? In the era of Aly Raisman and Ryan Braun, where Israel gains medals in various Olympic sports, where even Orthodox Jewish mothers of 5 can win marathons, the joke has lost its bite.
So what terrible things do philosemites say? That Jews are studious? Good lawyers and doctors? They know how to make money? It doesn't take much thought to realize that practically no one thinks these are physical or inherent Jewish traits.
They are cultural.
Many Jews became bankers because they could charge interest to Christians over the centuries. Many Jews became scholars because of a long tradition of Talmud study where rabbinic scholars were respected. Many Jews became professionals and shopkeepers because their intellectual tradition ensured that they had a higher rate of literacy and there are professional advantages to literacy.
It is not bigotry to notice that different cultures exist and members of a culture tend to adhere to the mores they grew up in, and those who say this know very well that it is a general rule with many exceptions. If noting that some cultures are different than others - whether for better or for worse - is bigoted, then sociology is a field of bigotry.
Admiring the Japanese work ethic is not the same as saying that Japanese are inhuman machines who ignore their families for their jobs. Noting that people in "red states" have different priorities in life than those in "blue states" does not mean that there aren't plenty of people in each who don't fit that mold. Travel guidebooks let visitors know what actions or words are offensive in different parts of the world - is noticing that bigoted?
But somehow noticing that Jews have some cultural attributes is suddenly terrible.
There may be come cases of philosemitism that cross the line. Koreans who fetishize the Talmud and think that Talmud study will make them successful- people who have never met a Jew - might fit in this "bad" philosemitism category. Christian philosemites of the 19th and much of the 20th centuries wanted Jews to be "restored" to Israel as a prerequisite to the "Second Coming." Nowadays, however, that sentiment is not even close to mainstream.
Most philosemites, including a large number of today's Christian Zionists, are not so ignorant to think that so-called Jewish characteristics are inherent. They admire Jewish and Israeli tenacity to survive, and Israel's ability to create an entirely new culture of a strong, proud Jew so soon after the Holocaust. Does anyone seriously think that the stereotypical sabra of the 1970s is an updated stereotypical shtetl Jew of the 1930s? They are opposites, which means that no one with half a brain thinks that Jewish attributes are inherent as Epstein-Levi claims.
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Qassem Soleimani was a terrorist’s terrorist, a single man who was directly responsible for numerous acts of terrorism against the West and Israel, but – more importantly – who had the resources of a state at his disposal in his project to develop asymmetric warfare assets in other Middle Eastern countries. He was quite successful in building up Hezbollah in Lebanon into what is arguably the first truly existential threat to the Jewish state since 1973. He was in the process of doing the same for Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, when Trump wisely put an end to his mischief.
But he had another goal, apart from weakening Iran’s rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel, getting control of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, and forcing the US out of the region. That was to target the Jewish people worldwide. In addition to attacking Israeli diplomats in several locations, Soleimani’s terrorists murdered Jews in Argentina, Bulgaria, Panama, and Lebanon. Of course his prime Jewish target was Israel, and although his support for Hezbollah plus various Palestinian factions could be seen as part of Iran’s struggle to dominate the region, it could also be understood as part of an overall anti-Jewish project.
Our stance against Israel is the same stance we have always taken. #Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor in the West Asian region that has to be removed and eradicated: it is possible and it will happen. …
The supposedly moderate Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has also used this metaphor, as did his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iranian officials have likened Israel to a dog, and their expressions of hostility toward Israel are far more vicious and “personal” than those directed at their other regional adversaries. The regime regularly holds Holocaust cartoon contests despite the fact that Western countries, even those relatively hostile to Israel, find this kind of antisemitism offensive, and damage the image Iran wishes to project as a modern, progressive nation.
This is an antisemitic regime, and inviting and subsidizing visits from members of the Neturi Karta faction – representatives of which attended Soleimani’s funeral – can’t wash it away.
Lucy S. Dawidowicz wrote a book called “The War Against the Jews 1933-1945,” one of whose theses is that Hitler’s ravings against the Jews were more than, in Irving Howe’s words, “mere bait for the masses,” but rather, “the Nazis' deepest, most ‘authentic’ persuasion.” The murder of millions of Jews was not an epiphenomenon of Hitler’s expansionist aggression, but rather one of his main war objectives.
It seems to me that the hostile expression of the Iranian revolutionary regime toward Israel is like that. In this case it draws its hatred from the well of Islamic doctrine rather than the combination of crackpot economic and racial theories that fueled Hitler’s enthusiasm, but it is still significantly more than just propaganda to support practical geopolitical ambitions. Like Hitler’s, the Jew-hatred of the Iranian regime is not an epiphenomenon; it is the “authentic persuasion” of Khameini (and was of Soleimani, too, until Trump’s Hellfire missiles came along).
It’s instructive to note that the “Quds Force” that was commanded by Soleimani and which is responsible for covert operations and unconventional warfare (read: terrorism) throughout the world is named after al quds, Jerusalem. It’s an obsession with them.
The statements of the Jew-haters in Iran are more honest and straightforward than those from the Palestinian Authority or the still more disingenuous BDS Movement. Ahmadinejad famously threatened that Israel “would be erased from the map,” not that Israel would be forced to “end the occupation.” It’s often said that one of the most important lessons of the Holocaust was that when Jew-haters make threats, it’s foolhardy to ignore them. Therefore we must not ignore the nuclear threats of the Iranian regime.
You may notice that I say “the regime” and not “Iran.” This is because while the regime in Teheran pumps out anti-Jewish propaganda every day, the Iranian people are arguably the least antisemitic in the Middle East! So says the ADL’s Global 100 poll, which found that “only” 60% of Iranians showed attitudes or beliefs that they considered antisemitic. This compares to 93% for our Palestinian peace partners, 74% for the Middle East and North Africa as a whole, 19% for countries in the Americas, and a worldwide average of 26%. Iranians are far less antisemitic than Jordanians (81%) and Egyptians (75%), with whom we are supposedly at peace. Yes, 60% is a high number, but given the conflict and the regime’s propaganda, it is surprisingly low.
Iran was a highly developed country before the 1979 popular revolution, with a relatively well-educated and liberal population. The government of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was an absolute monarchy (“shah” means “emperor”) in which dissent was harshly suppressed; but when it was overthrown by a popular revolution, many commentators – and probably many Iranians – were surprised to see it replaced by an Islamic regime that was no less harsh. The Shah had been a relatively enlightened king, a modernizer who improved the economy and introduced women’s suffrage. The new regime quickly established clerical rule and decreed mandatory hijab for women.
Today the Islamic regime is in trouble, its economy devastated by sanctions, and popular anger has risen against the choice of the regime to spend large amounts of money to develop militias in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen; to fight a hot proxy war against Saudi Arabia and a warm one against Israel; and to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Although the regime has been successful in getting Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqis, and others (Palestinians, too) to die for it in its military adventures, it has to arm and pay them.
Probably a majority of the money it is spending on military programs goes for its strategic encirclement of Israel and the provision of arms with which to try to neutralize Israel’s great military advantage. It’s probably reasonable to count a large part of the expensive nuclear and missile programs as Israel-related as well. So if it should happen that the Iranian people overthrow the Islamic regime, it will be in part because of the regime’s irrational anti-Jewish obsession (and in part because of the actions of Donald Trump).
And this brings up an interesting parallel. Some historians think that Hitler’s obsessive desire to kill all the Jews led to his irrational and disastrous decision to invade the Soviet Union in 1941. Others point out that the diversion of resources to murdering Jews greatly damaged his war effort and even led to his defeat on the critical Eastern Front.
It would be particularly ironic if the most dangerous and destabilizing force in the world today, the primary source of the unending misery of the Middle East, were to founder, like Hitler, because of its obsessive Jew-hatred.
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In his November statement, Pompeo noted that the settlements are not “per se” illegal; meaning that they are not in themselves intrinsically illegal. Last Wednesday, the Secretary of State said that the settlements were not “inherently” illegal; meaning in a permanent, immutable, or fundamental way. Kinda sounds like the same idea, different day.
Kontorovich further places great stock in the combined effect of Pompeo simultaneously “disavowing” any and all legal or other reasoning in the Hansell memo concluding that the settlements are, de facto (a third semantic variation to consider), illegal.
As I understand the combined effect, the language remains somewhat equivocal, leaving Pompeo some “wiggle room” for future negotiations, interpretations, whatevers. Per se/inherently a distinction without a difference.
Pompeo explicitly rejects the Hansell memo. But he stops short of an unequivocal declaration on the legality of all settlement activity by qualifying them as not being inherently illegal. Otherwise, why split hairs? Why not just omit “inherently”?
I know from direct experience that there are many Hansell-like memos and “opinions” yellowing in the off-site archives of numerous foreign services. Diplomatic thinking on the issue has been frozen for 40 years, reflecting a blind commitment to the falsehood of chronic Israeli breaches of the Geneva Convention. The fact that Israel defended its eastern border from an unprovoked attack by Jordan, and subsequently trounced the Kingdom’s forces, made the Six Day War a defensive war, which is treated very differently under international law. But that doesn’t fit the upside-down narrative that has captured the imaginations of generations of leaders and foreign policy influencers: that Israel is the aggressor and chief violator of international decency.
Pompeo should be commended for exposing the Hansell sham, but he has by no means slain the beast.
Last week, to much fanfare, the largest synagogue in the Middle East was reopened in Alexandria, Egypt. Some 300 guests, including Egyptian Antiquities and Tourism Minister Khaled al-Anany, were on hand for the festive occasion.
The event made headlines from the United Kingdom to China — but only The Jerusalem Post pointed out that just three Jews were in attendance.
According to reports, only a handful of Jews now live in a country which once boasted 80,000–100,000. (Israeli diplomats and Egyptian-born Jews living outside the country are planning their own celebration next month, but these visitors will be returning to their homes in Israel, Europe, and the United States after the party.)
The Eliyahu HaNavi synagogue will never again host Jewish weddings or bar mitzvahs, nor will it ever muster a minyan. It will be no more than a museum to an extinct community, and a perfunctory tourist stop.
The media coverage of the event was typical of a trend hailing the restoration of Jewish buildings in countries with no more than a handful of Jews as somehow indicative of pluralism and tolerance in the Arab world. Even Jews fall for the fantasy, grateful for the slightest acknowledgement that members of the Tribe once lived in these countries.
“I’m very proud of what my country has done, and it symbolizes living together — today there is no difference between Egyptian Muslim, Christian, and Egyptian Jew,” gushed Magda Haroun, leader of the Cairo “community” of two Jews. “It is recognition that we have always been here and that we have contributed to a lot of things, just like any other Egyptians.”
No journalist covering the restoration story bothered to ask why a once-glorious community has been reduced to a handful of souls in Cairo and Alexandria, the youngest of whom (Magda herself) is reportedly 67.
Arbel Kynan, a top Israeli fashion model, wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday that a Lebanese designer refused to have her take part in his runway show at the Haute Couture Week in Paris, which starts on January 20, because of her nationality.
“Truthfully... it’s still hard for me to digest....” Kynan wrote. She then told of how she arrived in Paris a few days ago to be photographed by a “very respectable fashion company,” and was told she would also walk the runway in next week’s show, which is a coveted job in the modeling industry.
“Many times, people ask us where we are from, and on the day of the shoot they asked me where I am from and, of course, I answered with a big smile that I am from Tel Aviv.” The shoot continued as usual, Kynan said, and they finished early. According to Kynan, a few days passed, and then on Tuesday, she says, “I received an email from my agency stating that the client is Lebanese and he does not want me to take part in the show, because I live in Tel Aviv, Israel – this is the content of the email I received.”
Ancient Roots Israel 2020 was meant to be a conference where people from all over Israel could hear herbalists speak in English. The organizers had high expectations for the event. It was to be a meeting of people from all walks of life who share a common interest in herbal wisdom. Instead, anyone who expressed an interest in participating or attending was attacked, abused, and bullied by scary BDS people.
You hear about it and you think, “For goodness sakes! This was supposed to be about herbs. About people coming together to share knowledge!”
But that is the reality of our world today. Create something nice or say anything positive in relation to the one, tiny Jewish state, and the BDS activists will descend on you like vultures. Did you want to perform in Israel, or sell Israeli products? Rest assured that you will be bullied without mercy and without end, until you change your mind and stay home or buy a local product, instead. Arrange an event as harmless and inoffensive as a conference on herbalism? It makes no difference: if it is in Israel, it is a target.
A call goes out and it begins. Abuse Israelis! Destroy their prospects, their ventures and endeavors, until such time as the State of Israel is gone from the face of the earth and replaced with something called “Palestine.” That is what the BDS people have been told to do, and that is, in fact, what they do. It just takes a single voice urging the lemmings on to crush, kill, destroy, to make the bullying and the abuse begin in earnest, like a cloud of hungry locusts converging on a field of greens.
Perhaps it is simplistic, but a conference on herbalism brings to mind gentle, folksy people dressed for the 60’s, complete with nursing babies. Did you think this sector of the laidback would be immune from BDS abuse? If so, you are wrong. The nice people who either organized the conference, planned to attend, or serve as speakers, were endlessly threatened by others with some pretty ungentle associations, though the bullies are themselves, herbalists.
It is shameful to mix politics with herbs. But that is what these BDS tools did. And they were so scary that they were effective: the keynote speakers bowed out, and then registration for the conference slowed to a halt.
That is when the organizers of Ancient Roots 2020 got busy, figuring out who was responsible for the nasty, abusive behavior, and the attempt to spoil an innocent conference on innocuous herbs. The conference organizers carefully documented the trail between the individuals responsible for the cancellations and pull-outs to specific anti-Israel BDS organizations and associations. Organizations like Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights and publications like The Peak.
Then the conference organizers took their story to the press, distributing a short form press release, as well as a large press packet of documentation. The conference issued a statement regarding the main instigator of the attacks, Shabina LaFleur-Gangji:
“The evidence clearly shows that we are dealing with a highly experienced, career activist who writes for multiple activist publications both in print and online and has written articles and given lectures and workshops professionally about how to launch resistance/boycott movements. She has cultivated these connections in organized activism for approximately a decade and has the experience and expertise to utilize all rhetoric and resources to launch a carefully orchestrated attack quickly and effectively. She claims credit for this attack and clearly states that the attack was part of a larger BDS movement, that she wholeheartedly supports.”
And then Ancient Roots Executive Director J. Rivkah Asoulin gave this interview to Kan English News.
I wrote to Asoulin, wanting to know more. She sent me to Betina Thorball, who explained, “I have kind of slid into the vacuum of a PR spokesperson, mostly because I am quite independent in all this (except for the herbs). I am not Jewish, nor Arab, not Muslim, not Christian, not living in US, not living in Israel—but I am a member of the American Herbalists Guild (AHG), and an organizer and speaker at Ancient Roots.”
Thorball was kind enough to answer all my many questions:
Varda Epstein: Can you give us some background on you?
Betina Thorball
Betina Thorball: I am an Austrian national and resident of Switzerland. I am an herbalist, a mother, a piano player, and in my spare time a cave and mountain guide. My background is in the life sciences, I hold a PhD in Food- and Biotechnology, I worked in research, in Pharma, in Biotech, in business development and management roles, always working towards finding new solutions to health issues in the world. And one day (long story) I realized that a part of the answer is missing, and that this part can be found in a very old solution: To add the power of herbs to the spectrum of health care tools. So I started studying again and became an herbalist.
Varda Epstein: Tell us about the conference. How was it conceived? What is it meant to achieve?
Betina Thorball: Last May at Herbfeast Ireland (the conference of the Irish herbal community that we modelled our conference on), I met Rivkah Asoulin. Together we experienced the positive energy such an herbal gathering is creating and exchanged our mutual “dream” of one day helping to start such a gathering and community in our respective countries. A few weeks later Rivkah had started talking to some people around her and one day she called me, saying: “I am going to do it Betina. I am going to do it now. I am going to put together an international herbal conference here in Israel next February!”
So I said: “How are you going to do this? You have seven children. This is less than a year away. We have no money.”
And she said: “I will find a way. I have to do this.”
So I said: “Ok I will help you.”
I have done these things before (started and managed conferences), and one of my wonderful herbal teachers instilled in us the mission to spread the word of humankind’s old herbal knowledge. And here life put this in front of me, something that is my mission to do and something I had acquired skills to help execute. Rivkah, of course, did the majority of the operational work, being on site locally, but I helped with advice, as discussion partner, with website and marketing material etc. A few other wonderful women joined the organizer group, we picked a name (Ancient Roots Israel) to reflect that herbs are the ancient roots of human medicine, and “Israel,” as this was the country where it would be held. In my head there was already “Ancient Roots Switzerland” waiting to get its turn.
We wanted to create a local community of herbalist and people interested in herbalism and bring in some local and international teachers to learn from. It would be the first English-speaking international herbal conference in Israel! If it worked out, we saw the possibility to turn this into a community with a recurring annual event, maybe even with sister events in other countries one day.
Varda Epstein: I understand your keynote speaker, 7Song, dropped out after being bullied by pro-BDS activists. Can you tell us the details of that? How was he bullied?
Betina Thorball: 7Song was one of the headline speakers, and yes, he cancelled his commitment after what was described as overwhelming communication and pressure from many, many people, wanting him to withdraw from what they saw as support for Israel, and in a statement of sympathy for the Palestinian cause, as I understand it. He mentioned this was affecting his livelihood. He sounded worried and scared to me. We can only assume the details, but his distress seemed obvious. He was not happy with having to take this decision. We were sorry to read his words and the feeling of distress behind them. I personally think this was – and still is – a real conflict to him.
Varda Epstein: Is it true that some of the people who registered for the conference have canceled? What was said to them that made them change their minds?
Betina Thorball: Nobody who had already bought their ticket has tried to cancel it. We did actually receive messages of support from already-committed participants. Everybody was shocked by this and could not understand that such an initiative could be a meaningful target to pro-BDS activists.
Rivkah asked around for help, while at the same time trying to fill the empty speaker slots, while trying to understand the whole thing, while cracking up a little (as her personal money was in all this), while having to keep her large family afloat and more – you can imagine.
There were many people who said they want to come, and registrations had trickled in at a steady pace until the beginning of January. This did indeed came to a total halt when all this happened, which is also because we suddenly had no time to continue our advertising efforts. Marketing such a new event (in topic and location) is no small task and requires a day-to-day engagement of people around you, on social media and in the real world. So, we published and sent-out a press release, to inform everybody about what has happened and to voice our dismay at a political-inspired disruptive action against a gathering of professionals in the field of health, which by all standards should fall under the same ethical principles executed by Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders, i.e. medicine’s political neutrality in all aspects of education, knowledge exchange and aid to everybody without discrimination.
Varda Epstein: Was the conference strictly for Jewish Israelis, or were you inclusive of all sectors of society?
Betina Thorball: Well, by all means was everybody treated in an inclusive manner! Considering we were all volunteers, everybody who came and wanted to help and/or support was embraced! We repeatedly stated everywhere on our communication channels “Everybody is welcome.”
Rivkah tried to get as much exposure as she could, going on a local morning radio show to spread the words “everybody is welcome.” She said it all the time to everybody. Although we did not feel that as a private group we needed to think about things like “quotas,” Rivkah approached potential herbalists from all ethnic backgrounds in the country (yes, also Arab background – and we have been asked this again and again). She looked for speakers who would be experts in one of the herbal topics we wanted to cover at the conference, would be fluent in English, would be willing to travel to our venue, were available at the right dates AND would be willing to waive any customary speaker fees (as there was no money available).
I know for a fact that the racial discussion was never there, she looked for herbalists from wherever really. And the ones that said yes, were put into the program, until we had all slots filled.
Varda Epstein: The ringleader of the bullying appears to be Shabina LaFleur-Gangji editor of the Journal of the American Herbalists Guild (JAHG). The AHG Code of Ethics states: “AHG Members, including council and committee members, will avoid activities that are in conflict or may appear to be in conflict with any of the provisions of this Code of Ethics or with one's responsibilities and duties as a member of the Guild,” and “We strive to ensure an environment of inclusiveness and a commitment to fairness, justice, and diversity, and advocating policies and procedures that foster fair, consistent and equitable treatment for all,” and “Abuse, discrimination and bullying of any kind are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Do you feel that the conference organizers and attendees were treated in an inclusive manner? Was there a conflict of interest in LaFleur-Gangji’s drive to shut down your conference? Have you notified the AHG of what has happened here?
Betina Thorball: Inclusive?? Not at all—and that is the very point! We do feel there is an issue here when reading the AHG code of ethics, which by the way is my code of ethics as an AHG member—and I love it for its language. I do feel that these targeted and planned actions against our conference are indeed in direct conflict with this code of ethics. And for me this language would include actions that are taken privately, while holding a position that is paid by members.
But when it turned out that the leader of the campaign against Ancient Roots was also on the staff of the AHG, in fact the newly-appointed chief editor of their journal, all hell broke loose. The obvious conflict of interest and the larger implications here were just too much for most people who knew about this. It went through all layers of people connected to us and from here on all went crazy. Not only second, but third and fourth degree connections started picking this up and distributing it to more people than I could imagine, including at this point of course, to the press.
Have we notified the AHG? I understand that the Director of the AHG was physically in the same room in Israel with Rivkah Asoulin when all this was starting. A very weird coincidence, how life sometimes works. And other AHG members also connected to the conference were contacting the AHG to discuss what has happened here and how this was not ok at all.
I am an AHG member too, and in my opinion the AHG is a wonderful organization, doing very important work and very difficult work, and all nonprofit too. In the first wave of journalist questions my main concern was actually to protect the AHG and help find a way to fix this situation quickly. They should not get between the fronts of a political-motivated issue either! However, through their dialogue with journalists and other parties it became clear that they did not want to take a position regarding the private actions of their editor, and also not regarding a start-up herbal conference in Israel, even though we were given a harmless, wonderful little video of congratulations and support before. So then all became more and more difficult, the questions we were asked by journalists became more difficult and more in-depth, and we were from various sides asked to prove some of the things we had experienced, so that third parties (journalists) could represent the story based on facts.
Varda Epstein: Tell us about Bevin Clare. What is her connection to the conference?
Betina Thorball: Bevin Clare is the President of the American Herbalist Guild. Rivkah sent out an invitation to our conference to the most important herbalist organizations, amongst them of course the AHG. She sent it to the official AHG address. Bevin replied to this directly, being all happy and excited about our initiative and congratulating us. Rivkah asked her if she would mind putting these congratulations into a little self-made video which we could post on social media in a series of videos, where we ask different people “Why do you think this conference is important?” She did so immediately.
In the context of this campaign against us, we were also asked by Bevin to remove this video, as it was not something cleared with the board, it seems. I want to say that these were lovely, harmless words which carried no political undertones or political statement of any kind, and I actually do not understand why this video would NOT be endorsed by the AHG board: Words of congrats to a little group of herbalists (including several AHG members) putting together a small herbal gathering in Israel!
Varda Epstein: LaFleur-Gangji makes two claims about your conference here: “The conference had no Palestinian or Muslim speakers included in their line up [sic], yet included a speaker who referred to Palestinians as a non-people who willfully left their ancestral lands.”
Are either of these claims, true?
Betina Thorball: I think I answered the first part above, so yes, at the point in time where Miss LaFleur claimed that, it was true. None of the speakers we could identify under the criteria mentioned above were Palestinian or Muslim. I personally want to say that even though we did not think about anybody in these racial terms at all, it would have been amazing, if the group that led the boycott against us, would have used their efforts to actually identify and help organize such a speaker for us! We would have been very happy about that and it seems this would also have been a way to address the situation for them.
The second part of your question is for me the most unfortunate and most ironic element in this conflict. First, this line is from the personal blog on the personal website of Rebbetzin Chana Bracha Siegelbaum, a speaker at the conference. Second, the post referred to is from 2017. Third, there is no connection to the Ancient Roots conference whatsoever, as she is not invited to speak about her political and historic interpretations, but about herbal traditions. Her views are her own, we cannot police her blog, in fact we did not even know about this until this incident. Lastly, once I read Rebbetzin Siegelbaum’s blog, it seemed to me these words were the quote of yet another person, which she used to illustrate her take on historic events.
I am not defending her viewpoint. Again, this is not the forum for such discussions, I am merely stating facts as I researched them when this was made known to us. The irony for me is that this seems to be the main point of the heated antagonism against the conference, i.e. two years ago a nonpaid speaker at our conference expressed controversial personal views on her own private blog on another topic; while Ms. LaFleur is leading controversial private action against an herbal conference, while serving as a paid staff member at a herbal guild of which many people involved here are a member. I will admit this was a bit too much of a double standard for me.
Varda Epstein: Did you have any herbalists among the Arab community who intended to come to the conference? If so, do they still plan to attend?
Betina Thorball: I honestly do not know. People register or write on social media saying “Great effort. Will try to come,” without being asked any additional details. I hesitate to jump to conclusions based on how the names sound. And again, the conference is open to all people!
Varda Epstein: Why are you involving yourself in this? After all, you are neither Jewish nor Israeli. Why get involved with a political debate that has nothing to do with you?
Betina Thorball: When things turned all political here, there was a moment when I was too shocked for words and thought, “Okay, I have to let this go, I cannot take the time – and I do not have the expertise – to get involved in a political debate here, and I do not want to. My mission is elsewhere. But then I realized I have to be involved in this. I am speaking for herbalists’ rights and duty to be allowed neutrality when acting in our profession, including being at this conference. And I continue to hope that this understanding could be the common ground, on which all parties involved in this current conflict can find peace.
Varda Epstein: Why do you think so many herbalists were willing partners in the attempt to shut down what was essentially a peaceful, informational conference that is completely apolitical?
Betina Thorball: This is a difficult question. I think we all have different stories, different pain in our pasts, different realities we live in. Based on all this we see the same thing through a different colored lens.
I am still in the process of trying to really understand where they are coming from. My best understanding at this point is that they relate to a narrative in which herbs are painted as political, because a lot of herbal knowledge was held by indigenous people; it was part of their culture and traditions. Indigenous people were connected to the land and experienced unspeakable cruelty and pain, their lands taken, their lives taken or corrupted, no access to their traditions, with herbs being one of those traditions.
Access to medicine by minorities seems to be another issue playing into this viewpoint. Somehow in their minds this is connected. But I can’t follow, really.
Herbal medicine is the heritage of all humankind, it has developed in every corner of the world and in modern herbal medicine we have knowledge of herbs from so many old traditions from all over the world. And many have been using varieties of the same herb for the same purpose, without learning it from each other, but learning the same thing from nature in different places. And each of us has a heritage line into an indigenous culture, even if some of us cannot trace it anymore. So herbal medicine actually is one of the few things that connects us all! That ropes all humankind’s history together. This is the reason why for me herbs and herbal medicine should be this wonderful cause, under which we all can unite ABOVE all our many different viewpoints on many topics. And this is why I care about what is happening here so much and am adding my voice here.
You saw the hashtag #plantsoverpolitics. I deeply believe this, in the context that herbal medicine should follow the ethics of modern medicine, but also in the context that we all need to unite to save the environment, and with it, our world.
Varda Epstein: Why is it important for non-herbalists to get involved in fighting for your right to have a successful conference? What can we do to support your efforts and the conference, going forward?
Betina Thorball: Are you using basil and thyme and garlic and maybe muscat [nutmeg] and turmeric in your cooking? Then you are an herbalist. Are you making chamomile tea to your children when they have tummy ache? Well, then you are an herbalist, a family herbalist. Everybody is an herbalist, just at different levels. We use herbs in cooking and some herbal home remedies, because our mothers and grandmothers did, and taught us. Some of us start looking for more information on some of those common kitchen herbs, and discover a treasure trove of documented information, some as old as thousands of years (e.g. from the Chinese herbal tradition) and start learning from it. Many of these become community herbalists. And then there are some others, who start studying herbal medicine in-depth and take additional relevant education to become a herbal practitioner and/or clinical herbalist, working with herbs at a high level, often in collaboration with physicians.
About fighting for our conference – there are too few topics in this world on which people from all walks of life can come together in the spirit of healing, and herbs are one of them! I want to lend my voice to fight for something so wonderful not being politicized, even if it takes place in a country that is subject to heated political debates.
How to support us? Well, by participating in our conference and experiencing the vibrant atmosphere of an herbal gathering firsthand! I tell you, it is contagious! And you will come home with some useful bits of information on how to handle everyday little health issues by going into your garden.
UPDATE: Bevin Clare is the president of the American Herbalists Guild (AHG) and not the director, as I originally wrote. I have updated the text to reflect this distinction.
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.
Israel and Egypt embarked on a new energy relationship Wednesday with the launch of a natural gas supply from Israel's Leviathan field to its southern neighbor.
In the last year, Israel's Delek Group and the American company Noble Energy – which together own 85% of the Leviathan field - completed the purchase of 39% of the Egyptian gas pipeline in partnership. The purchase, carried out in conjunction with Egypt's state-owned company EGAS for about $520 million.
The start of the gas flow also marks the start of official gas exports from Israel to Egypt. The initial supply will come from Leviathan, but gas is also expected to flow this summer from Israel's Tamar gas field.
In a statement on behalf of both Jerusalem and Cairo, Israel's Energy Ministry said: "The flow of natural gas from Israel to Egypt has begun. This is an important development that will serve the economic interests of both parties."
Egypt doesn't really need natural gas for its own use. It has its own Mediterranean gas fields and actually has a surplus.
Apparently, this is the reason for Israel to export gas to Egypt:
According to both sides, the move "will also allow Israel to export some of its natural gas to Europe through Egypt's liquefied natural gas facilities and promote Egypt's status as a regional gas market."
It's a win-win.
EMGF meeting last year
Beyond that, there is a meeting today of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum in Cairo. its members include Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, the Palestinian territories and Jordan. The forum is expected to vote to turn itself into an international organization during this meeting where the energy interests of all parties are protected.
This forum didn't receive that much press coverage, but it shows Israel cooperating with Jordan, Egypt and the PA on natural gas issues. Projects include not only the Israeli gas deal with Egypt and to Europe but also a planned pipeline from Israel and Cyprus gas fields to Europe via Greece.
Moreover, this Daily Sabah article from last year practically begs the EMGF to allow Turkey to become a member as well (although they would seemingly want to kick out Cyprus.)
Lebanon and Syria are not members of the EMGF, but cash-strapped Lebanon might be longing to join and start to monetize its own gas fields in cooperation with Israel.
As an organization, the EMGF - or whatever the new name would be - has the potential of not only upending the energy map of the world but also to encourage peace between Israel and its neighbors who can all profit together.
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.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Elder of Ziyon
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