Sunday, January 19, 2020
Elder of Ziyon
Time to get ready for this year's months-long "Israel Apartheid Week" with some new examples of how Israel accepts people of all colors, faiths and backgrounds.
(h/t Irene)
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Ian
From Ian:
PMW: PA daily calls for murder to stop Holocaust ceremony in Jerusalem
Apple’s Siri says Israeli president is ‘President of the Zionist occupation state’
PMW: PA daily calls for murder to stop Holocaust ceremony in Jerusalem
“One shot will disrupt the [Holocaust] ceremony and one dead body will cancel the ceremony” – call for murder in op-ed in official PA dailyJonathan Tobin: Holocaust Politics Is Bad for the Jews
As over 40 world leaders gather in Jerusalem this week to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz at the event Remembering the Holocaust: Fighting Antisemitism, the Palestinian Authority wants to disrupt the ceremony. The official PA daily published an op-ed yesterday literally calling for murder in order to ruin the ceremony:
“One shot will disrupt the ceremony and one dead body will cancel the ceremony.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 18, 2020]
Before calling for murder, regular PA daily columnist Yahya Rabah criticized the international community for recognizing that the “Jews' Holocaust is terrible” while accepting as “insignificant, beautiful, [and] spectacular” what he called the “Palestinian holocaust by Israel that still continues.” Rabah warned: “It can be assumed that they [Palestinians] will resist the ceremony being held in Jerusalem itself, as Jerusalem is theirs.” His suggested solution to stopping the international ceremony from taking place – and which the official PA daily printed - is murder.
Palestinian Media Watch has reported on Palestinian Authority justification of terror and murder to achieve political goals.
Poles suffered more cruelly at the hands of the Nazis than any other occupied country, save the Soviet Union. But while the Poles were horribly persecuted, the fate of the Jews was far worse. Approximately 18 percent of all Poles were killed during the war compared with a mind-boggling 90 percent of all Polish Jews.Israel Advocacy Movement: Bernie Sanders is the American Corbyn… and this isn't good.
But there’s more at stake here than a natural desire on the part of many Jews to express anger about revisionist history. As is true of other Eastern European governments, Poland does not share the antipathy towards Israel that is so common in Western Europe. Promoting warm relations between Israel and Poland isn’t so much a matter of Netanyahu practicing realpolitik but a policy based in the realization that the conflicts of the past should not doom Jews and Poles to conflict in the present and future.
Moreover, the politics behind the decision to exclude the Polish president from the list of Yad Vashem speakers is particularly troubling.
Moshe Kantor, head of the European Jewish Congress, chairs the Yad Vashem event. Kantor is a Jewish philanthropist. But he’s also a Russian business oligarch who is close to Putin. That authoritarian leader is clearly interested in undermining Poland and separating it from allies like Israel. It’s likely that the insult to Poland was orchestrated by Moscow.
Russia is also guilty of its own outrageous revisionism. The invasion of Poland and the start of World War II were made possible by the Soviet-Nazi pact of August 1939, in which the two totalitarian governments divided up their neighbor. But Putin’s foreign ministry has the chutzpah to claim it was the Poles’ fault, and that Stalin was justified in collaborating with the Nazis.
Kantor could have been overruled by Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin, but he failed to heed Netanyahu’s plea to avoid the dispute. The only explanation for that is that Rivlin’s antipathy for Netanyahu and a desire to thwart the prime minister’s policy goal prevailed over common sense. And it has created an incident that hurts Israel and helps no one but Putin. Indeed, the absurdity of the decision is one that has created a rare agreement between columnists from the right-wing Israel Hayom and the left-wing Haaretz.
Poles and Jews shouldn’t be doomed to continued enmity by a shared tragic history. Nor should the interests of Putin or the absurd rivalries of Israeli politics determine how the Holocaust is remembered.
Bernie Sanders is the American Corbyn… and this isn't good.
— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) January 19, 2020
You can now support our work on Patreon: https://t.co/ljkZpJWqs7 pic.twitter.com/02LNIB05Ma
Apple’s Siri says Israeli president is ‘President of the Zionist occupation state’
Apple users from around the world were surprised to learn overnight Saturday that Israeli President Reuven Rivlin is the “President of the Zionist occupation state,” according to the giant tech’s vastly popular Siri app.
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After the story broke on social media, angering many people in the process, it was understood that Rivlin’s English Wikipedia page was hacked which caused the unpleasant malfunction.
Siri is a built-in “intelligent assistant” application that enables users of Apple devices to voice commands to the app in order to perform a string of tasks.
When Siri is asked about a public figure, the answer is usually extracted from the person's Wikipedia page. (h/t vwVwwVwv)
Appears to have been fixed in Siri now too pic.twitter.com/XHurR4j1T2
— 𝗠𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗱 𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁 (@MadMikeOfficial) January 19, 2020
- Sunday, January 19, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
book review
Traditional anti-terrorism methods would follow the operational organization chart of the terror groups, using human and electronic intelligence to find the top people and arrest or kill them. But Israeli intelligence officers in the 1990s realized that when you starve terrorists of their funds, they can't mount any attacks. How to do that is a challenge, though.
The book follows Meir Dagan, legendary head of the Mossad, as he learned the importance of the money trail and became also the head of a task force, codename Harpoon, across Israel's financial, legal and intelligence experts aimed at disrupting and stopping terror financing.
As time went on, several methods emerged of going after the money. Dagan ensured that when Israel went after terrorists during the Second Intifada, they would take all financial records and computers that would allow them to reconstruct the networks of payments and sources.
Another, cruder method was to directly attack sources of money during wartime. Israel bombed banks in Beirut during the 2006 Lebanon War, which meant that Hezbollah couldn't pay their fighters, and - according to the book - Hezbollah asked for a ceasefire when they ran out of money. Similarly, Hamas gave up in the 2014 war after Israel traced a huge cash shipment that was smuggled in through Gaza tunnels to Hamas' main money man, Mohamed el-Ghoul, and blew up his car and all the money.
Also in this category was the spectacular assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, Hamas commander and financier of Hamas rockets, in Dubai. Such acts ensured that any of the accountants and money-men for terror groups would think twice and spend much more time protecting themselves, meaning less time to do damage.
A very effective method, and one that Derahan-Leitner knows well, is using the legal system to sue terror groups and their financial institutions in friendly countries. Some of these break new legal ground, and now banks are much more responsible for keeping track of who they provide services to.
The book's blurbs talk about how it "reads like a thriller." Not really. There are a couple of interesting episodes, though not directly attributed to Israel or the US, where a major Hezbollah financier was convinced to invest in a sure-thing investment in Doha; after seeing astonishing returns he convinced Hezbollah leaders including Hassan Nasrallah to invest a total of about a billion dollars. The company vanished along with their cash.
The sources of terror financing were Islamic charities throughout the world, Iran, the PLO skimming money from aid given to them by Europe and the US to build a state, and a huge criminal enterprise that Hezbollah and Iran set up in Venezuela and Africa (as well as the US) to make money off of illegal drugs, prostitution, cigarette smuggling and the like, and laundering these through purchases of items like cars.
Many of the episodes mentioned in the book were tactical successes but the major money machine from Iran and Hezbollah criminal enterprises continued to churn out huge amounts of cash for terrorists. Mentioned although not stressed in the book are US sanctions against terror groups and their sponsors, mostly Iran. Israel cannot do this alone - it had to lobby the US over years to understand the importance of money for worldwide terror. The current sanctions against Iran are one of the single most important things possible to choke off terror financing in the Middle East.
- Sunday, January 19, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
- flood libel
Palestinian media are reporting that for the third time this week, Israel opened up some (nonexistent) dams to flood farmland where Gaza farmers planted wheat, barley, legumes and other crops.
Quds News Network, which recently was honored by Google and the news NGOs, said:
Abdellatif Qannou’, a spokesperson for Hamas, said that the Israeli ongoing assaults on farmers and their properties are a crime and a form of the Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people.Apparently news awards don't care about things like "truth" as long as the news source attracts youth.
Qannou’ added that this is an example of the Israeli barbarism, arrogance, and blatant violation of all humanitarian laws and international norms, which require an international intervention to leash the occupation and end its barbaric policy against our people.
There was severe and deadly flooding in Iran this past week as well. It took days before Iran's president acknowledged the disaster.
I wonder if Israeli dams are powerful enough to flood Iran? Hmmm.
Meanwhile, even the UN says that Israel has nothing to do with the flooding.
Some 235,000 people residing in 39 low-lying areas lacking adequate infrastructure across the Gaza Strip are at risk of flooding during the upcoming winter season due to possible overflow of stormwater facilities and sewage pumping stations, according to estimates by the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Cluster for the oPt. This may expose an already vulnerable population to waterborne diseases, property losses, disruption in access to livelihoods and services, and displacement.80% of Gazans aren't paying their utility bills that would keep them safe from disasters like this.
The immediate reasons behind this risk are gaps in maintenance and repairs of the relevant WASH facilities, compounded by the shortage of fuel to operate backup generators during long electricity outages: both factors are driven by significant funding shortages.
In 2019, less than 74 per cent of the amount needed to operate Gaza’s 484 water and sanitation facilities was funded, leaving a critical gap of $18 million.
According to the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), Gaza’s main provider of water and wastewater services, the running costs of Gaza’s 484 public water and sanitation facilities are US$68 million per year, including staff salaries, fuel, electricity, chemicals and spare parts. In 2019, less than 74 per cent of this amount was funded, leaving a critical gap of $18 million. According to the Palestine Water Law, the main source of funding for the operation and maintenance of these facilities is the recovery of bills from consumers. However, recovery rates in Gaza currently stand at around 20 percent, forcing CMWU to rely primarily on support from international donors, which has significantly declined in 2019.
(h/t Irene)
- Sunday, January 19, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
- Nasser al-Lahham
Every week Dr. Nasser Al-Lahham. editor of the Palestinian Maan News Network, goes on TV and says his view of the situation in the Middle East.
This week's was pretty laughable.
Al-Lahham said that Israel’s export of gas to Egypt and Jordan makes Tel Aviv a great power in the region. As a result, today, Israeli and American companies control the Arab nation - they destroy it through arms and rebuild it with the Arabs' own money.
Al-Lahham said it is possible that not only will Israel in 2020 become a member of the League of Arab States but it can become the president of the League as well, "in light of Arab silence and negligence."
He continued: to say that Israel's ambitions are not only to seize Jerusalem and occupy Palestine, but to seek to control the Arab countries and plunder their resources with American assistance.
Of course, he doesn't really believe any of this. Al-Lahham is engaging in the time worn Arab tradition of starting absurd rumors in order to get the Arab street to wake up and start rioting against Israel.
Saturday, January 18, 2020
From Ian:
Simon Schama: Auschwitz and the new anti-Semitism
LBC: Maajid Nawaz takes down caller who said Hamas are not terrorists
Simon Schama: Auschwitz and the new anti-Semitism
The greater point, though, is connectedness. The reason why the likes of Émile Zola sprang to the defence of Dreyfus and into combat with the anti-Semite Edouard Drumont – whose acolytes and devotees, at one especially odious moment in 1899, proposed a wide variety of “solutions” to deal with the Jews of France, including turning them into dog food, subjects for medical school vivisection and target practice for artillery – was that Zola saw the integrity of republican democracy itself as contingent on treating the Jews as full, patriotically loyal citizens.Phyllis Chesler: Western Feminists AWOL in Supporting Abused and Dissident Muslim Women
So too, now, any campaign against anti-Semitism is necessarily a campaign for the basic decencies of liberal democracy; a consistency of principle which makes Jews not just the kin of other people who have suffered genocide – Armenians, Bosniaks and Tutsis, for instance – but of those currently suffering the theft of civil rights on account of their race or religion: the Uighurs, Rohingya, the defenceless children of Latino fugitives from terror and dispossession in their homes; and, indeed, Palestinians living under the daily hardships and injustices of occupation.
What, then, is the purpose of acts of remembrance of the kind that will take place at Auschwitz and Jerusalem; who are they for? To begin with, in the age of disinformation when Holocaust denial has become commonplace and more are taken in by the demonising forgery of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion through online access to the libel; at a time when the power of evidence has to contend with the intoxication of malignant belief; at a moment when those who went through the tormenting fires themselves are leaving us, it is essential that the cautionary history be imprinted in the minds of the future.
But this should be not done just to vindicate the survivors and the millions whose bodies were turned to smoke, or whose bones still lie in the mass pits of eastern Europe. It should also be done, especially in this wretched time of tribal shrieking, for the sake of our common humanity. If the story represents the very worst that humans can do, and must not do again, the act of telling is also a reassertion through horrified decency of the mutual care and kindness of which humanity must yet be capable.
Muslim and ex-Muslim feminists and dissidents have been risking torture and death in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and the Far East by refusing to wear the hijab and by adopting other Western ways.
Bizarrely, Western feminists and accomplished and powerful women, including diplomats and politicians, are donning the hijab as a gesture of cultural “sensitivity” and as a symbol of resistance to alleged racism.
For example, the American female lawyers defending the jihadists in Guantanamo Bay, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, are wearing hijabs and abayas so they will not “offend” their clients, and as a way of gaining their trust.
“Women on Mr. Mohammed’s team mostly wear long skirts and other loose-fitting clothes topped by a variety of colorful scarves, shawls, head coverings and, in at least one instance, a one-piece, pull-on hijab,” The New York Times reported on December 27.
Something is radically wrong with this picture, and I’ve been writing about it for more than 20 years. My strongest allies are brave Muslim and ex-Muslim women and men, as well as other tribal feminist activists (Sikhs, Hindus). With exceptions — like Eleanor Smeal’s campaign against the Afghan burqa in the 1990s — most liberals, leftists, and feminists support Sharia-compliant customs of all kinds. Westerners support barbaric behaviors due to the influence of multi-cultural relativism, a commitment to tolerating even the intolerant, and as a statement against Western racism. In doing so, they betray their own feminist and humanitarian principles.
The hijab is a symbol of female subordination. When Western feminists fetishize it, they also cover for the extreme and barbaric abuse of women that often is hidden beneath the Islamic veil.
LBC: Maajid Nawaz takes down caller who said Hamas are not terrorists
When this caller claimed Hamas were "resistance fighters" against the terrorist state of Israel, Maajid Nawaz gave him a few facts.
Khalid from Swindon insisted that Hamas were simply trying to protect and free the Palestinians.
But when he claimed that they were peaceful and only "throw rockets here and there", Maajid decided to teach him a few things. Maajid told him: "Sheikh Qaradawi is an Egyptian Muslim brotherhood cleric, based in Qatar. That extremist gave a fatwa to Hamas, saying it's ok to kill Israeli civilians.
"The reason I'm explaining all this to you is because you said Israel does that.
"I asked you to point to the specific law where Israel does that and you said you can't. I then pointed to the specific fatwa - because for Hamas, a fatwa is law.
"So Hamas admits to killing Israeli citizens. Israel doesn't have a law that justifies killing Palestinian civilians.
"So therefore, Hamas is a terrorist group. Israel may be many things, but isn't targeting Palestinian civilians."
- Saturday, January 18, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
Last week, Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues Cherrie Daniels and Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Elan Carr held a briefing in Washington.
Carr addressed the issue of when criticism of Israel turns into antisemitism:
There are three primary sources for the rise in anti-Semitism: the far-right ethnic supremacists, the radical-left anti-Zionists, and the militant Islamists. It is a fundamental principle of our work that we do not rank these sources in importance nor do we minimize any of them. All three are dangerous and all must be combated. If one-third or two-thirds of a tumor is left untreated, the patient does not fare well. So all must be combated.Later, during Q&A, a reporter named Said who was clearly insulted by this tried to ask a question:
When Jewish individuals are demonized, delegitimized, or when Israel is held to a standard not applied to any other country in the world, that is anti-Semitic. Secretary of State Pompeo has clearly stated, and I quote: “This bigotry is taking on an insidious new form in the guise of ‘anti-Zionism.’ … Now, don’t get me wrong, criticizing Israel’s policies is an acceptable thing to do in a democracy. It’s what we do. But criticizing the very right to exist of Israel is not acceptable. Anti-Zionism denies the very legitimacy of the Israeli state and of the Jewish people. … Let me go on [the] record: Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,” end quote.
Q: My question is to Mr. Carr. What would constitute a legitimate criticism of Israel in your opinion, or in your definition?Said managed to get his followup later, but he wasn't pleased that he couldn't start an anti-Israel rant this time either:
MR CARR: Any criticism of Israeli policy is legitimate as long as Israel is not being subjected to a double standard. Now, one of the defined examples of anti-Semitism is subjecting Israel to a double standard. So even criticism of Israeli policy could be anti-Semitic if it’s a criticism that is – if it embraces a standard not applied to any other country in the world. However, other than that case, any criticism of a policy of the state of Israel is legitimate. However, criticizing Israel’s right to exist, targeting Israel as a Jewish collective, denying the Jewish people the right of self-determination in its ancient homeland, these are defined in the IHRA working definition as examples of contemporary anti-Semitism.
MS ORTAGUS: Okay —
QUESTION: But on – in terms of —
MS ORTAGUS: Said, I’m trying to let everyone —
QUESTION: Please, let me just follow up on this?
MS ORTAGUS: No, we’re going to let everyone do a question first.
QUESTION: I just wanted to clarify something that he’s —
MS ORTAGUS: No. We’ll let your colleagues have a question, and then we can come back to you once everyone’s had a chance. Thanks.
MS ORTAGUS: Said, did you have another follow-up?To Said, obviously Israel should be treated with double standards, because, um, occupation!
QUESTION: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify. You said that Israel is being held to a double standard. Can you give us some examples? I assume you – that you are referring to debate or activities that probably are taking place in international bodies like the UN and other places. Could you clarify and cite some examples?
MR CARR: Exactly. Well, exactly. I mean, the UN Human Rights Council’s obsessive focus on condemning Israel and according Israel a specific agenda item for discussion and condemnation is unacceptable, and that’s one of the reasons why the United States walked out. And we see under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Pompeo a determination not to collude in this kind of singling out of the one Jewish state in the world and treating Israel like no other country should be treated.
Now, again, criticism of Israeli policy, sure, have at it. You can criticize American policy, Israel’s policy, and every country’s policy. But be fair, don’t apply double standards, and don’t question the very right of the Jewish state to exist.
QUESTION: But Israel, you must agree, occupied the Palestinians for over 52 years.
MS ORTAGUS: Wait, let’s let Michel go. Go ahead. Thank you. You don’t have to answer that. Go ahead, Michel.
QUESTION: What’s the —
QUESTION: Can I finish my question, Morgan, because that is the kind of —
MS ORTAGUS: No, you can’t. No, you can’t. You cannot finish, thank you. Go ahead, Michel.
Ironically, HRW's Ken Roth tweeted Carr's definition of antisemitism including double-standards towards Israel without any irony that this is exactly how HRW treats Israel.
I responded with several examples.
Yes, everyone agrees with that.— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 16, 2020
And @HRW has been guilty of a double standard towards Israel for a LONG time. Which makes it antisemitic.
Some examples:https://t.co/JvKrN9tc0hhttps://t.co/NJwVEdkIt4https://t.co/0bzh4jjqyj pic.twitter.com/OUoOrNjhqu
Friday, January 17, 2020
From Ian:
Melanie Phillips: The west mourns the Jewish dead. But what about the living
Keep an eye out for Israel Derangement Syndrome
Melanie Phillips: The west mourns the Jewish dead. But what about the living
At Yad Vashem in Jerusalem on Jan. 23, some 46 political leaders and royals, including Britain’s Prince Charles, will be attending the fifth World Holocaust Forum to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
At this and doubtless other such memorial events, many eloquent, important and heartfelt observations will be made about the evils of Nazism and Jew-hatred. In today’s climate, however, there’s something disquieting about such memorializing.
Given the eruption of physical and verbal attacks on Jews in Britain, America and Europe, it might be said that it’s never been so important to remember the horrors of the Holocaust.
But the west is now teeming with Holocaust memorials and museums, while schools have been imparting Holocaust education since the 1980s. And yet never since the defeat of Nazism has there been such an epidemic of Jew-hatred in western society.
Moreover, some of the countries that will be represented at Yad Vashem support people who want to kill Jews. They fund the Palestinians, who pump out murderous anti-Jewish and anti-Israel incitement.
Some of these countries have also turned a blind eye for years to the Iranian regime’s genocidal agenda towards Israel and the Jewish diaspora, and have even been trying to continue to funnel billions of dollars into Iran in defiance of U.S. sanctions.
To put it bluntly, it might appear that while the west beats its collective breast over dead Jews, it is largely indifferent to the mortal threats currently posed to the living ones.
At the very least, it’s clear that all this Holocaust memorializing and education hasn’t put antisemitism back in its putrid box.
Indeed, such Jew-hatred is propagated most perversely among liberals, who constantly flaunt their anti-racist and anti-Nazi credentials.
Keep an eye out for Israel Derangement Syndrome
I am not a psychiatrist, but I’ve observed a kind of psychosis in far-left activists of the West who claim to be progressives championing the Palestinian cause: Israel Derangement Syndrome, or IDS.Martin Luther King on Peace, Israeli Security and Anti-Zionism
Sufferers of this insidious illness don’t rationally advocate for Palestinians and criticise Israeli policies, in the same way they’d criticise other states. They are doctrinaire cultists possessed of an unadulterated, unhinged hatred for Israel, which they see as a uniquely evil state that must be eradicated. Until then, it will be their all-consuming, defining cause; never mind the Uyghurs, Kurds or Iranian women. In indulging in the delusion that the end (of Israel) goal will eventually occur, they are complicit in perpetuating the conflict and emboldening the despotic regimes that act against the interests of the very people they purport to champion, the Palestinians.
Corbynism is the most recent prominent example of IDS. While we will no longer be bombarded with its leader’s sneering visage, the animosity towards Israel that its dogmatism exemplifies, replete with conspiracism and terrorist sympathising, is unlikely to fade. And it is rising across the Atlantic.
The hallmarks of this anti-Israeli posturing cult include such garb as ‘free Palestine’ t-shirts, keffiyehs, and snazzy accessories daubed with Palestinian flags. Their social media is flooded with memes and Electronic Intifada articles about evil Israel, and little else. They proudly quote token anti-Israel Jews like Noam Chomsky. In their special language ‘peace and justice’ is code for ‘end of Israel’ and ‘resistance’ is code for ‘terrorism’. And they think they’re clever, rhyming ‘resistance is justified’ with ‘apartheid’ and ‘genocide’ in their street mob chants.
The derangement that Israel is the root of all evil requires certain tropes and conspiracy theories — such as that Israel was behind 9/11 and Isis — to make sense of a world that is too complex, nuanced, uncertain and daunting, for their ideology to accommodate. But when, despite their best efforts, Israel can’t be blamed for the Palestinian plight, you will not hear a whimper from them. Not about the Palestinians living in Lebanon who are denied citizenship, excluded from social services and prohibited from owning property and entering over 20 professions. Nor that Palestinians are among the worst affected by the Syrian civil war and that their community in Yarmouk has been decimated. Nothing about the Gazans whose protests against Hamas are brutally suppressed, or LGBT groups, women’s organisations and journalists increasingly persecuted by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. They’ll excoriate Israel (never Egypt) for the blockade on the Gaza strip and the poverty of its people, but ignore the fact that, despite the blockade and poverty, Hamas spends tens of millions building sophisticated tunnels under Israel and firing thousands of rockets at it, instead of building hospitals. And when President Abbas recently announced that he won’t allow the building of a US-funded field hospital in Gaza, silence.
The Op-Ed also pointed out that King was clearly against against attacks on Zionists. Lewis wrote that “During an appearance at Harvard University shortly before his death, a student stood up and asked King to address himself to the issue of Zionism. The question was clearly hostile. King responded, ‘When people criticize Zionists they mean Jews, you are talking anti-Semitism.'” (This is not to be confused with a widely circulated hoax letter said to be written by King.)
Clarence B. Jones, a friend and advisor to King, likewise recalled King’s opposition to anti-Zionism. “I can say with absolute certainty that Martin abhorred anti-Semitism in all its forms, including anti-Zionism,” he explained in a 2008 Op-Ed. Jones elaborated on that point in What Would Martin Say?, a book he co-authored with Joel Engel. Mainstream reporters, he argues, have given a pass to anti-Semitism by black leaders like Al Sharpton because they buy the rationale that Israel’s existence is a provocation to Arabs. “Martin, for one, could see this coming after the Six-Day War in 1967, which is why he warned repeatedly that anti-Semitism would soon be disguised as anti-Zionism.”
While King would surely support better circumstances for both Israelis and Palestinians, it seems clear that he was unambiguously opposed to the Israel-bashing that counts as pro-Palestinian advocacy today. His strong statement about Israel’s right to exist suggests he recognized the centrality of this issue to the conflict. And judging by his views on anti-Zionism, he would be outraged by the idea that an avowed anti-Zionist like Omar Barghouti, who openly calls for replacing Israel with a state in which Jews will be a minority, pretends King would back boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
- Friday, January 17, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
Eugene Kontorovich, testifying before Congress this week in the hearing “Confronting the Rise in Anti-Semitic Domestic Terrorism”, submitted his statement that included a legal argument that BDS is discriminatory against Jews that I had never heard before.
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.
It makes no difference that these calls to boycott are aimed at Israel, rather than at Jews per se. Israel is the largest Jewish community in the world and is home to the plurality—and soon the majority—of the world’s Jews. Refusals to deal that target Israel alone and not any other country offer a clear proxy for engaging in anti-Semitism under the cloak of political legitimacy. Partial boycotts are boycotts. Furthermore, discrimination need not be 100% congruent with the targeted class to be discrimination. Anti-discrimination laws make it clear that the use of proxies for race, sexual orientation, and so forth can be discriminatory.His footnote points to Pacific Shores Properties, LLC v. City of Newport Beach
Proxy discrimination is a form of facial discrimination. It arises when the defendant enacts a law or policy that treats individuals differently on the basis of seemingly neutral criteria that are so closely associated with the disfavored group that discrimination on the basis of such criteria is, constructively, facial discrimination against the disfavored group. For example, discriminating against individuals with gray hair is a proxy for age discrimination because “the ‘fit’ between age and gray hair is sufficiently close.”Some young people have grey hair, many older people do not. But to say that you are only discriminating against hair color and not age is obviously disingenuous because there is an obvious correlation between the two. Similarly, boycotting Israel, as the only Jewish state and the only state with a majority Jewish population, especially when other states whose egregious human rights violations do not attract any sort of boycott, is in effect antisemitic.
From Ian:
Ruthie Blum: Right from wrong - Neda Soltan’s message from the grave
Ruthie Blum: Right from wrong - Neda Soltan’s message from the grave
ON JUNE 29, nine days after Neda’s cruel end, Iran’s Guardian Council conducted a “vote recount” at the behest of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – who had declared Ahmadinejad’s victory a “divine assessment” – and concluded, of course, that the election results were sound.There's a revolution going on in the Mideast. Why doesn't the West see that?
Shouts of “death to the dictator” from balconies throughout Iran ensued. Though the chanting was in Farsi, placards denouncing Ahmadinejad all were written in English – a clear signal of the protesters’ plea for outside sympathy and aid.
Unfortunately for the trapped and subjugated Iranian people, however, the administration in Washington was now headed by Barack Obama. Obama had entered the White House a mere few months earlier with the aim of reversing the policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush, especially those relating to the Middle East in general and the Iranian threat in particular.
Believing that the path to ridding Iran of its nuclear and hegemonic ambitions would be through goodwill gestures to the mullahs, Obama not only abandoned the Bush-coined term “axis of evil” to define state sponsors of terrorism – with Iran at the top of the list – but referred to the militia-monitored election process there as a “robust debate.”
He then continued to stress that America was going to engage in diplomacy with the Islamic Republic, regardless of who was at the helm.
Well, the proud “leader from behind” certainly kept his word on that one. As the regime in Tehran jailed, tortured and mowed down enough demonstrators to make the others recoil in fear – and Neda’s image faded from global consciousness – Obama got busy with his P5+1 counterparts in China, France, Britain, Russia and Germany orchestrating and pushing for the bogus nuclear deal with Iran that was reached in July 2015.
Surveying the anti-government protests in Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, as well as the refusal of the Syrian revolutionaries to surrender, the Canadian journalist Terry Glavin writes:UK adds entire Hezbollah movement to terror blacklist
There is a revolution going on. It has been underway in fits and starts for years. It unites Lebanese, Syrians, Iranians, and Iraqis. Its object is the sundering of a bloody Khomeinist despotism that runs from the [Islamist dictatorship] in Tehran through the Assad regime in Damascus to Hizballah in Lebanon, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and the Hashd al-Shaabi militias in Iraq, which have now insinuated themselves into every branch of the Iraqi state.
It’s all very well for Canada’s Justin Trudeau and the United Kingdom’s Boris Johnson and Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron to want to force Tehran to get back in line with Barack Obama’s nuclear-rapprochement arrangement, which Donald Trump has renounced. But the genie will not be put back in the bottle so easily.
It was Obama’s nuclear deal that freed up [Iran’s] Quds Force to enforce its ghastly Khomeinist hegemony throughout the region in the first place, and now, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani is warning that European soldiers in the region, not just American soldiers, may soon find themselves on the Quds Force’s target list. Counseling a return to the Obama-era status quo is not a call to de-escalation. Don’t believe it.
It is profoundly ill-advised. It may suit the purposes of some Canadian and European firms that are scraping for a place for themselves in the Iranian economy, much of which is owned and controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But it would be a profound betrayal of the people of Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, who have already known little but betrayal from six successive Democratic and Republican administrations in the United States, and from the “West” generally, Canada included.
Britain's finance ministry on Friday said it had added Lebanon's entire Hezbollah movement to its list of terrorist groups subject to asset freezing.
The ministry previously only targeted the Shiite organisation's military wing but has now listed the whole group after the government designated it a terrorist organisation last March.
The change requires any individual or institution in Britain with accounts or financial services connected to Hezbollah to suspend them or face prosecution.
The group had "publicly denied a distinction between its military and political wings," the Treasury said in a notice posted on its website.
"The group in its entirety is assessed to be concerned in terrorism and was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK in March 2019," it added.
"This listing includes the Military Wing, the Jihad Council and all units reporting to it, including the External Security Organisation."
A finance ministry spokesman said the change followed its annual review of the asset freezing register, and brought it into line with the 2019 decision by the interior minister to blacklist all of Hezbollah.
"The UK remains committed to the stability of Lebanon and the region, and we continue to work closely with our Lebanese partners," the spokesman added.
- Friday, January 17, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
From Daily News Egypt:
In a response to media reports on Egyptian police raid on the Turkish news agency Anadolu, an Egyptian high-ranking state official said Egypt is free to take any means to preserve its national security.
The raid was conducted on Wednesday and resulted in the arrest of four agency employees, according to the agency’s website.
The Egyptian official told Daily News Egypt on Wednesday that the Turkish news agency does not follow international standards of journalism, as it is adopting a hostile stance against the Egyptian people and leadership.
“Egypt does not interfere in other countries internal affairs, therefore it will not allow any entity or country to defame its reputation or release false and inaccurate news. Egypt considers this as an infringement of sovereign rights, which is a red line for us,” the official added.
In addition, the official added, Anadolu supported terrorist entities like the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
Meanwhile, the Turkish Foreign Ministry on Wednesday summoned Egypt’s Ankara charge d’affaires over the police raid, according to authorities.
The ministry conveyed Turkey’s reaction on the raid and detention, diplomatic sources said on anonymity.
Turkey strongly condemned the raid, urging the immediate release of the agency’s employees.
The drama continued. From Egypt Independent:
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry responded early on Thursday to Turkey’s statement about the arrest of four journalists working for the official Turkish Anadolu News Agency in Egypt, one of whom was a Turkish national, alleging that Anadolu is an “illegal” company founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in Egypt and has been designated a terrorist group since 2013.The human rights records of both countries are abysmal, of course. The fact that they are each accusing the other of being worse on that score shows that they at least pretend to care.
Ahmed Hafez, a spokesperson for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, stressed in the statement “Egypt’s rejection, in whole and in detail, of what was stated by the Foreign Turkish Ministry and other Turkish statements,” calling the arrest of the four journalists this week “legal measures” taken by the Egyptian authorities against one of the electronic “illegal” Turkish media outlets in Egypt.
With backing from Turkey, Hafez claimed, the Anadolu spreads “false and fabricated information” related to political, economic, security and legal conditions in Egypt, in what he alleged is an attempt to “distort the country’s image” domestically and abroad.
The statement described the current regime in Turkey under current president Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “one of the worst” on the international indicators of press freedom, freedom of expression and opinion, as well as other fundamental rights.
He pointed out that Turkey occupied an advanced position in the rates of imprisonment of journalists, ranking 157 out of 180 countries on the Freedom of the Press Index for 2019. He added that licenses of nearly 682 journalists in Turkey from November 2018 to March 2019 were revoked.
Hafez also claimed that Turkey supported and financed extremist groups and terrorist militias in a number of countries in the region in an attempt to achieve personal aspirations and “evoke past glories.”
That's something, right?
- Friday, January 17, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
UNRWA's new acting commissioner is not happy with Israel providing "refugee" children with a choice:
[Interim head of UNRWA] Christian Saunders said Israel was seeking to replace United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) services for Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem with those of its own.The UNRWA mandate does not say that Palestinians cannot choose their own schools! For an agency with budgetary problems, UNRWA should welcome anything that eases its burden - if it was an objective agency tasked with helping Palestinian Arabs. But in fact it is a political organization dedicated to keeping the "refugee" problem festering forever so it can stay in business.
He said UNRWA was feeling "the pressure in East Jerusalem in particular", saying that Israel was in the process of building schools and institutions "to compete" with the agency and stop it from operating there.
"The important thing to remember here is that UNRWA has a mandate from the [UN] General Assembly, from the rest of the world, the member states, to provide services to Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem," Saunders said.
Also, Israeli schools are unlikely to teach students that Israel will be destroyed by their fire and blood. Apparently, this is a problem for UNRWA.
Can Israel shut down UNRWA in Jerusalem completely if it wants?
Right now Israel and UNRWA are operating under a provisional agreement they made in 1967 "which will remain in force until replaced or cancelled." Which makes it sound like Israel can renegotiate this agreement any time it wants to.
However, Israel's main limitation is the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations of 13 February 1946, which says that
The premises of the United Nations shall be inviolable. The property and assets of the United Nations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation and any other form of interference, whether by executive, administrative, judicial or legislative action.So it appears that Israel cannot shut down any UNRWA school, but at the same time the UN cannot stop Palestinian Arab parents from sending their kids to Israeli schools if they want.
(h/t Irene)
- Friday, January 17, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
A very interesting article in Middle East Eye:
The leaders of Iranian-backed paramilitary groups in Iraq have agreed to put their differences aside and back Hadi al-Amiri as the new chairman of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) as part of a wider plan brokered by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to quell tensions between the groups and create a “united resistance” to US troops in the country.So Soleimani's successor as head of the Quds Force and other Iranian leaders, do not have the popularity and gravitas to deal with these complex internal issues - but Hezbollah's leader Nasrallah does.
The informal agreement was forged at a meeting convened in Beirut on Thursday after Nasrallah was asked by Iran to organise its Iraqi factions following the assassinations of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the de facto leader of the PMF, in a US drone strike in Baghdad on 3 January.
...Commanders and senior officials within most of the most prominent pro-Iran armed factions, including Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataeb Hezbollah, Kataib Jund al-Imam, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada and Kataib al-Imam Ali, arrived in Beirut on Thursday in response to Nasrallah's call for them to “set aside differences” and promote calm in the aftermath of the US strikes.
...The meetings in Beirut sponsored by Nasrallah “were aimed at achieving a truce between these factions,” a commander who attended told MEE.
“Iran asked Nasrallah to play the same role that Soleimani was playing in Iraq until some decisions are made,” the commander said.
And this is only one of the many things Soleimani was involved with.
This shows that Soleimani was literally irreplaceable given the sheer breadth of things he was involved with. And that Khamenei doesn't trust his own people to do such a delicate job as this one.
Nasrallah just needs to show himself....
Thursday, January 16, 2020
From Ian:
Mark Twain’s Land of Israel
Mark Twain’s Land of Israel
Published in 1869, Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad was the book that launched him to literary stardom. It is based on the dispatches he wrote from a steamship tour that took him to various Mediterranean and Black Sea ports of call, including Jaffa and Jerusalem. To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Innocents Abroad, the New-York Historical Association has mounted an exhibit on Twain’s visit to the Holy Land, where, writes Diane Cole, he found his tour’s “main attraction”:Pittsburgh native Bari Weiss wins book award for work on anti-Semitism
Throughout the trip, Twain highlighted the disparity between the desire of his guidebook-led companions to see what they had been promised and the reality of what was actually in front of them. The contrast reached its peak once they arrived in the Holy Land. “I must studiously and faithfully unlearn a great many things I have somehow absorbed concerning Palestine,” he commented, beginning with the reality of the relatively small size of the local grapes he saw, as opposed to the enormous vines portrayed in his favorite Bible-story illustrations.
Similarly, Jerusalem itself seemed “[s]o small! Why, it was no larger than an American village of four thousand inhabitants,” he wrote.
But beyond Twain’s 1867 [visit to the Holy Land] . . . it was his later travels to Europe in the 1890s that brought to the fore his rejection of anti-Semitism. In Paris, he was shocked by the visceral anti-Semitism exhibited in the Dreyfus affair. Visiting Vienna, he was condemned by the increasingly anti-Semitic press there for meeting with leading Jewish intellectuals such as Sigmund Freud and Theodor Herzl.
Pittsburgh native Bari Weiss won a 2019 National Jewish Book Award for her book “How to Fight Anti-Semitism.”Why are African Americans silent amid anti-Semitism?
Weiss, who grew up in Squirrel Hill and graduated from Shady Side Academy, won the Myra H. Kraft Memorial Award in the category Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice. Hers was one of two 2019 books on anti-Semitism cited as “important and timely” in the Jewish Book Council announcement.
Weiss, 35, of New York, wrote the book in response to the 2018 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue, where she celebrated her bat mitzvah 21 years earlier.
“Weiss’ cri de coeur is an unnerving reminder that Jews must never lose their hard-won instinct for danger, and a powerful case for renewing Jewish and American values in uncertain times from one of our most provocative writers,” according to her publisher, Crown.
The response in too many cases was silence. It was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who said, “At the end of our lives, it won’t be the words of our enemies that wound us most, but the silence of our friends.”
What is the knot in the throats of African Americans that keeps us from speaking out against anti-Semitism? Why have we remained silent in the face of hate-filled speech directed at the Jewish community by Black leaders like Minister Louis Farrakhan whose venomous sermons call secular Jews the Synagogue of Satan? Aren’t we the ones blessed with internal radars sensitive to the nuances of racism by even the most unsuspecting white bigot (“But Kristina, some of my best friends are black!)? Does our moral compass only include Black people? If that is the case, then ours is a false morality. The reason we admire righteous men like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Barack Obama is precisely because their leadership extended humanity to all people.
If I can say Black Lives Matter in the face of police corruption and brutality, then I should also be able to say that Jewish Lives Matter when members of their community are gunned down in cold blood. Because anti-Semitism is racism, and because, as the German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
During the last three years, I have seen a rise in anti-Semitism in the Black community. Part of this stems from a rise in hate speech across our nation that is being pushed at the highest levels of leadership. Teachings rooted in hatred of the other, left unchecked, lead to incidents like Jersey City – and Charlottesville. But there is another issue, a specific issue, that gives otherwise morally-courageous Black leaders pause when dealing with the issue of the Jews? That issue is identity. There is a desperate cry in the heart of every African American surrounding issues of identity that our Jewish friends, even after the Holocaust, do not understand. (h/t Yerushalimey)
Today, as we celebrate the incredible life & legacy of #MartinLutherKing, it is also worth pausing and remembering that #MLK was a staunch Zionist & supporter of the State of #Israel. pic.twitter.com/kNmnaM3r7G
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 15, 2020
- Thursday, January 16, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
In the middle of an anti-Israel article in Jordan's Ad Dostour the author Marwan Soudah writes:
Ivanov's book was one of the seminal works of official Soviet anti-Israel propaganda. The English translation is online. It clearly is meant to put a pseudo-academic gloss on the oldest hatred, yet its arguments are still being used by the anti-Israel Left today, even though they try mightily to tone down the anti-Jewish parts of the arguments.
For example, the Zionism is Racism argument started off here as Judaism is Racism:
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.
In the context of exposing Zionism with the pens of our foreign supporters, in 1969 in Moscow there appeared from the Novosti Soviet News Agency a book written by the martyr of thought and the word, Yuri Ivanov, entitled "Beware of Zionism!". .... I remember that these books were distributed in Amman for free and on a large scale to the pioneers of the Soviet Cultural Center, and personally I received my share of them from the hand of the Librarian of the Center, the late great friend Amin Afaneh, and the director of the center.
In his realistic definition of Zionism, Ivanov says, “Modern Zionism is the ideology, a ramified system of organisations and the practical politics of the wealthy Jewish bourgeoisie which has closely allied itself with monopoly circles in the USA and other imperialist countries. The main content of Zionism is bellicose chauvinism and anti-communism.”I knew that Soviet antisemitism and "anti-Zionism" was pushed to the Arab world, but I never saw an Arab describe exactly how.
Citing facts, Ivanov goes on to state that the World Zionist Union seeks to enrich by all means, to guarantee within the framework of the imperialist system, power and parasitism, as well as intellectual and political domination...while recalling the integrated system of Herzl ideas that adopted the displacement of the Arabs.
For example, the Zionism is Racism argument started off here as Judaism is Racism:
What lies behind this protracted and deliberately confused uproar? Is it but another example of the open racism of the Zionists and the "fathers" of the Jewish religion?...Partly yes, but the heart of the matter lies elsewhere. The arch-reactionary nature of the Jewish faith has long been no secret—one has only to open the Bible for one's eyes to fall on numerous racist sentences. Even less of a secret is the racism of the Zionist leaders, for after all that was what they started from.Or this passage, again sounding like the far-Left do today, with the same thinly-veiled Jew-hate:
The Israeli authorities try to conceal brutalities, which are carried out with their sanction. Information on the crimes of the Israeli military has to get by a double barrier—Israeli military censorship and the censorship of international Zionism outside Israel. This must be borne in mind by anyone wishing to make a realistic estimate of the scale and degree of the brutal persecution of the Arabs by the Israeli militarists. Early in 1969, the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdul Karim al Sheikli sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary General U Thant, informing him of one of the latest crimes of the Israeli racists, the burying alive of 14 Arab prisoners-of-war.That accusation was complete fiction.
The destruction of Arab villages, shooting on peaceful demonstrations of women and children, torture in interrogation, the widespread use of paid hirelings to organise the "elimination" of people refusing to serve the Zionist interests, and other equally heinous criminal acts, are on the conscience of those like Golda Meir, who is able to put to her listeners the rhetorical question: "Why when a house is destroyed do people start raising cries of barbarism?"!Meir never said that.
In sowing fascist methods in Israel, carefully cultivating racism there, and oppressing hundreds of thousands of Arabs, international Zionism—a tool and agent of imperialism—often dons all kinds of garb to appeal to small peoples and national groups on the grounds of "common interests." Sometimes, as is the case in Africa, for example, ignorance of the true nature of Zionism enables it to carry out the most base acts of provocation, on orders from London and Washington.
Remember, this was written in 1970. Anti-Israel literature before this was crude and more openly antisemitic, pushed mostly by Arabs and Christians. The Soviet anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda is still openly used and accepted as fact after generations of indoctrination - mostly in academia.
It is really scary how successful it has been.
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