Palestinian leaders threatened Sunday to withdraw from key provisions of the Oslo Accords, which define arrangements with Israel, if US President Donald Trump announces his Middle East peace plan next week.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told AFP that the Palestine Liberation Organisation reserved the right "to withdraw from the interim agreement" of the Oslo pact if Trump unveils his plan.
The era of the two-state solution may soon be rocked by a decision that could signal its demise. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is mulling the merits of a proposal to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Sunday morning.
If diplomatic stagnation continues after the Israeli election and construction in the settlements doesn't stop, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will dismantle the PA and return responsibility for the West Bank to the Israeli government, he told Haaretz in an interview on Thursday.
2010:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to dissolve the Palestinian Authority (PA) if Israel does not stop building settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
"If Israel does not stop settlement building ... I will strive to end Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories," he said.
Rafik Husseini, the top adviser to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told The Sunday Telegraph that Palestinian politicians may take the drastic step of disbanding the authority if a lasting agreement is not reached during the current peace negotiations.
Somehow, Abbas didn't follow through. Just like he didn't follow through on his many threats to resign if he didn't get some demand or another.
The chances that PLO leaders would voluntarily choose to lose the (still significant) power they have is exactly zero.
The chances that they will continue to make baseless threats rather than take responsibility for the welfare of their own people is exactly 100%.
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According to StopAntisemitism, this is sponsored by Vision for Africa, a Christian organization. The march was lead by a Pastor Drake in Marbara, Uganda.
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So what is it that makes Life and Fate (by Vasily Grossman) so deserving of the description “great”, a realisation of which more and more English readers — not least thanks to Robert Chandler’s translation — are becoming aware? There are a number of ways in which the term can be used of a novel; a key one is if the work appears to convey every aspect of the world which it describes.
Though it might seem impossible to do that with the panorama Grossman surveys, he manages it: from the mother of a Russian soldier travelling to find the grave of her son, to the civilians and soldiers still eking out their lives in the rubble of the besieged city; from the minds of Hitler and Eichmann to those of Stalin and the NKVD, the novel is a vivid, living x-ray of the whole 20th-century nightmare.
The novel’s tricky publishing history is now well-known. Completed in 1960, it was confiscated by the KGB and only smuggled into the West in 1980. But you can see immediately why, even in the Khrushchev period, this novel could never have been allowed. One of the central, simple insights of the work is the way in which it innocently demonstrates how Nazism and Communism were mirrors of each other.
On one side, the Nazis would put people in camps because of their racial origin. On the other, Soviet, side people could be consigned to the camps because of a relative who had chosen to live abroad or who had the “wrong” job before the revolution. In both cases, the individual could be disappeared due to factors over which they had absolutely no control. As one of the more decent Russian characters of the novel reflects: “To me, a distinction based on social origin seems legitimate and moral. But the Germans obviously consider a distinction based on nationality to be equally moral. One thing I am certain of: it’s terrible to kill someone simply because he’s a Jew. They’re people like any others — good, bad, gifted, stupid, stolid, cheerful, kind, sensitive, greedy… Hitler says none of that matters — all that matters is that they’re Jewish. And I protest with my whole being. But then we have the same principle: what matters is whether or not you’re the son of an aristocrat, the son of a merchant, the son of a kulak; and whether you’re good-natured, wicked, gifted, kind, stupid, happy is neither here nor there. And we’re not talking about the merchants, priests and aristocrats themselves — but about their children and grandchildren. Does noble blood run in one’s veins like Jewishness? Is one a priest or a merchant by heredity?”
Never over-laboured, the mirror keeps offering up reflections. The Germans had their crazed purges just as the Russians — before, and after, as well as during 1937 — had theirs. The Nazis had Rohm, the Russians had Bukharin. Stalin and Hitler are not just evil geniuses of their own creation, but clever students of each other.
Find yourself 10 minutes and listen to Howard Jacobson at his best (which is extremely good) - and calling out Jenny Tonge for what she is. https://t.co/szGDjJzcfL
The most anti-Semitic congressperson in memory, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, grievously retweeted a blood libel claim about a seven-year-old Palestinian child. The online antisemitic canard stated the boy “was kidnapped by a Herd of violent #Israeli settlers, assaulted & thrown in a water well, was found this morning frozen to death in Beit Hanina, Jerusalem after Israeli forces assaulted search teams.”
The claim, originally posted to a fake Twitter account called “Real Seif Bitar,” was false.
What is true is that the boy was found dead in a cistern Saturday morning after going missing on Friday.
Israeli journalist Eylon Levy pointedly accused Tlaib of being, at the very least reckless, and quite possibly far worse …
“Blood libel” is an antisemitic, defamatory allegation that Jews murder non-Jewish children to use their blood as part of religious rituals.
The Jerusalem Post reported: “Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi re-tweeted the allegation and added ‘the heart just shatters, the pain is unbearable, no words.’ Congresswoman Tlaib then retweeted the Ashrawi tweet that included the allegations.”
Tweet and delete. If someone complains, shrug. Anyone can make a mistake.
There is no excuse for what they did. They know how the Palestinian rumor machine works. They know that @RealSeifBitar is not a real journalist, and that his vicious language is not that of a reliable source.
They should know that the blood libel that leads to the murder of Jews, sometimes to the destruction of whole Jewish communities, has a long history in both the Christian and the Muslim worlds.
But they don’t care, because it serves their purpose. Because it serves the Palestinian Cause. Because – maybe they would even admit this if you asked – truth for them is not independent of the observer. Truth for a Palestinian is identical with what helps the Cause. And that is defined as what hurts Jews and Israel.
So it is fine to make up massacres that didn’t happen (Jenin, 2002) as did pro-Palestinian journalist Phil Reeves, or to make movies about them like Mohammad Bakri. There’s no problem with accusing Israel of opening the dams to flood Gaza, even when there are no dams in the area. And if you get caught in a lie, no big deal. Just move on.
Tweet and delete. Because the Palestinian Theory of Truth says you can.
Bernie Sanders launched a campaign video highlighting his Jewish identity and casting President Donald Trump as part of the white nationalist threat.
The four-minute video posted Thursday night on Sanders’ Twitter feed, interpolates excerpts from Sanders’ speech last year to J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group, with commentary by Joel Rubin, the campaign’s Jewish outreach director.
It starts with Sanders’ declaration of pride in being Jewish. “I’m very proud to be Jewish and look forward to becoming the first Jewish president in the history of this country,” Sanders says.
During his 2016 run for the Democratic nomination, Sanders at first played down his Jewish background, although he was the first Jewish major-party candidate to win nominating contests. This cycle, he has emphasized his Jewishness.
The video otherwise focuses almost entirely on the threat that Sanders says President Donald Trump poses to Jews and other minorities.
According to the tweeter, on Saturday there was a pro-Ayatollah rally in France with communists, Hamas and Hezbollah supporters. Ten Iranians who fight for a free Iran who are also friends of Israel counter-protested with their flags. This pro-Palestinian, pro-Ayatollah man attacked them with his metal pole and injured three of them, one of whom was hospitalized.
The attacker's name is Abdelkader Dahmani, seen here in a 2016 protest with the same T-shirt where he calls such protests "fun."
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The "State of Palestine" signed on to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on April 1, 2014, with very little intention of actually implementing any of its provisions. Instead, as its initial report to the UN Human Rights Council shows, the main reason for signing the Convention was to slam Israel:
The State of Palestine is under a colonialist, military occupation on the part of Israel and this report will throw some light on the colonialist policies of that occupation and the serious, systematic and widespread violations that infringe the provisions of the Convention. In fact, the Israeli occupation authorities deliberately and systematically target Palestinian children on a wide scale including through extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, displacement and forced migration with the aim of terrorizing an entire generation.
Still, acceding to the Convention involves describing what the signers are doing with their own children. The UN gave the Palestinians a long list of questions asking what they are doing to adhere to the Convention, and the Palestinians just published their responses.
87.The Ministry of Education has issued guidelines to combat all forms of violence in school and has implemented programmes to the same end, including a child-friendly-school programme that aims to provide an educational, social, psychological and health-related school environment that is welcoming and friendly to children. The programme also envisages activities to protect children and teachers alike. In addition, modules have been incorporated into school curricula that aim to promote a culture of dialogue, respect for the opinions of others and the acquisition of basic life skills by pupils.
89.There are no cases in the State of Palestine in which children are alleged to have participated in hostilities. National laws and legislation provide complete protection for children and forbid their use or exploitation in hostilities. The Palestinian Child Act No. 7 of 2004, as amended, prohibits the use or exploitation of children in any unlawful activities and reaffirms the right of children to life and security.
Every single week children are encouraged to sling stones to Israelis.
Here's a protest of students in Hebron where they attack soldiers.
90.There is a national consensus against the exploitation of children in any circumstances and, in fact, children are not exploited for political purposes in the State of Palestine.
Here's a protest organized specifically by the PA for children against Trump last year.
"I am the Palestinian lion cub…The blood of the Martyrs flows in my veins
I am like a lion in the fields [of battle] If the drums of war call, I harvest the souls in the fields
My sword is drawn and won’t return to the sheath…
The armies of treachery fear me and the Dark-Eyed [Virgins] yearn for me
I have not sold my homelands, and have not given up my assault rifle
Today I carry my shrouds, and in my heart my faith strengthens
Because victory and liberation are coming at the hands of the lion cubs”
This is child abuse - and it is encouraged by the Palestinian Authority.
But the UN is not likely to look past the lies in the report.
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Back in 2009, I wrote a post that noted that Palestinian Arabs - including people the media calls "eyewitnesses" - lie. All the time.
It was after B'Tselem, admitting it could not verify the story, parroted an absurd claim that Israeli soldiers forced women in Gaza to line up to enter a house, and then shot the first one in the head.
I noted others:
September, 2008: "Eyewitnesses" reported seeing a settler shoot a boy at point blank range 20 times. It turns out he had been killed by a grenade, and no Israelis were involved. July, 2008: A Hamas work accident levels a house and kills 7. "Eyewitnesses" said it was an Israeli airstrike. June, 2008: "Eyewitnesses" say that Zionist settlers release wild pigs to destroy their crops. February, 2008: "Eyewitnesses" reported that an explosion in the Bureij camp that killed 8 was caused by Israeli airstrikes, but it was an work accident.
Nothing has changed in eleven years.
Later in 2009, Palestinians claimed 40 civilians killed in a tank shell attack on an UNRWA school. In the end it was 9 Hamas members and three civilians.
In 2012, AFP reported that a supposed airstrike that killed a 15-year old boy never happened and he died when an explosive device he was carrying went off.
Over the past couple of days another insidious lie was publicized. An Arab child in Jerusalem went missing, and the family initially claimed he was kidnapped by Jews. They later recanted that claim but it was too late - social media pushed the lie and continued the lie after the boy's body was found, drowned.
Someone with no credentials at all named Seif Bitar tweeted the lie, where thousands of people retweeted it - including Hanan Ashrawi and Rashida Tlaib.
Bitar isn't a journalist. He isn't an official. He wasn't claiming to be an eyewitness. Yet his lie was swallowed whole and repeated by Palestinians in power in the PA and in the US.
Without a modicum of fact checking.
The only explanation is that Tlaib and Ashrawi want to believe the worst about Jews in Israel and they will uncritically accept even the most vicious lies that fit their antisemitic viewpoint.
It turns out that Bitar has been doing stuff like this for years. In 2018, he posted a video he claimed of Jews chasing a poor Palestinian woman, and said they beat her up later. I researched the incident and saw that it was a Palestinian woman with a knife who stabbed one Israeli and was trying to stab more, and a crowd tried to keep her at bay until one managed to disarm her without firing a shot.
Just this past week we saw another Palestinian tweeter claim a photo of his "grandpa" that was really taken in Turkey. But that's just social media. Far worse is that official Palestinian media this past week claimed that Israel opens non-existent dams to flood Gaza, and that the Holocaust was not as bad as the Nakba. Those lies are not being reported by mainstream media and not being retracted.
This is only a tiny sample of Palestinian lies over the years, many by Mahmoud Abbas and Saeb Erekat directly.
Palestinians lie because of the honor/shame culture they live in where appearances are more important than the truth. Ordinary Palestinians are taught from birth that they must not tarnish their cause. Hell, we saw Arafat threaten reporters who broadcast Palestinians celebrating the 9/11 attacks on America. The cumulative lesson for Palestinians is to avoid shaming their leaders and their people at all costs.
The leaders themselves lie, knowingly, because they know they can get away with it. It is rare that mainstream Western media calls them out on their lies (here's one example, where Abbas was forced to walk back a blood libel.) And even when Western media is quite aware of the lies, they will keep quoting these Palestinian leaders with no caveat the next time, and the lies will be multiplied by anti-Zionists.
The truth is the only thing that any real peace can be based on. As long as their leaders are addicted to lying, nothing will change.
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Less than a year after the murder of Sarah Halimi, on March 23, 2018, another Jew, Mireille Knoll, was murdered in Paris. The main suspect, Yacine Mihoub, was accused by his accomplice, Alex Carrimbacus, of having stabbed Knoll as he shouted "Allahu Akbar," because "the Jews have money.'" Mihoud's lawyer said that his client had not been in a "normal state" at the time of the crime, but added that it was an anti-Semitic murder. He did not explain how Mihoud was sufficiently aware of his actions to go to his mother's apartment after he murdered Knoll and asked her to wash the knife he had used to kill his victim. (Mihoud's mother is now accused of complicity in the murder).
Muslim anti-Semitism has long been ignored in France. The only book in French devoted to the subject -- A Survey on Muslim Anti-Semitism: From Its Origins to the Present Day by Philippe Simonnot -- actually justified Muslim anti-Semitism by claiming that the Jews living in the Muslim world had supported European colonizers, and adding that Jews support Israel, a "new colonial enterprise based on Muslim land theft."
A "manifesto against the new anti-Semitism," by a journalist, Philippe Val, and signed by 250 politicians, writers and artists, was published in Le Parisien on April 21, 2018, less than a month after the murder of Knoll. Perhaps driven by a desire to spare Islam and not to say clearly that the actual victims of Muslim anti-Semitism are Jews, Val wrote "Muslim anti-Semitism is the greatest threat to 21st century Islam".
A few days later, in Le Monde, a text signed by thirty imams was published, saying that "Islam is not guilty," and that the problem comes from "harmful ignorance." The text added that there was a solution: "reading the Qur'an."
Since then, nothing has changed. In a recent book, France Without the Jews, a sociologist, Danny Trom, analyzed the growing insecurity suffered by the Jews in France, the willful blindness of successive governments and courts, and year after year, the departure of more Jews: "Now the possibility of one day having to leave is integrated into the perspective of every Jew, no matter how he defines himself or how he relates to Zionism. The departures reflect not only a growing and very real feeling of insecurity, but also a feeling of loneliness and abandonment in the face of adversity."
In a recent article in Le Figaro, Celine Pina wrote: "When one kills in the name of Allah, the excuse of mental imbalance does not hold. If there is one thing in common in all of this blood that keeps flowing, it is the implantation of Islamists on our soil, their network of mosques, their propaganda through books, satellite dishes, their speeches which permeate many districts and territories, their shows of strength.... the situation is not under control."
Before he was found dead early Saturday morning, the disappearance of an eight-year-old boy from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina was snowballing into a political football that threatened the tenuous calm between Jews and Arabs in the capital.
Qais Abu Ramila’s body was discovered in a reservoir of rainwater Saturday after long hours of search efforts after he was last seen at 4 p.m. Friday heading to a local market to buy pita. The boy apparently slipped into and drowned in the pool, full from the heavy rains last week, according to police.
Residents of Beit Hanina, including MK Ahmad Tibi, joined search teams in the area throughout the night.
Relatives of Abu Ramila claimed to have security footage showing the boy entering a car Friday afternoon, raising suspicions that he had been kidnapped.
With the 2014 abduction and murder of teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir by Jewish terrorists still fresh in the minds of many residents, the family issued a statement saying: “We demand the police check security footage [from the streets]. If it turns out he was kidnapped by settlers it would set the entire neighborhood on fire,” The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication Maariv reported.
The boy’s father later clarified that the video didn’t contain footage of his son, but some residents marched toward the nearby Jewish neighborhood of Neveh Ya’acov. Rock throwing ensued when police prevented them from entering the neighborhood and 12 demonstrators were lightly injured and three arrested.
Adding fuel to the fire, Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi re-tweeted a tweet from an account named “Real Seif Bitar” that accused “Israeli settlers” of kidnapping and executing Abu Ramila and also accused IDF soldiers of assaulting search teams. Ashrawi added to her tweet “the heart just shatters, the pain is unbearable, no words.”
US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib then re-tweeted Ashrawi and included all the allegations.
US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib retweeted a claim that “Israeli settlers” had “kidnapped and executed” a Palestinian boy. In fact the boy was found by Israeli emergency services dead in a cistern on Saturday morning after going missing on Friday. Nevertheless, some Palestinian social media accounts incited against Israel, with small clashes resulting in East Jerusalem.
A Twitter account called “Real Seif Bitar” tweeted that the boy had been kidnapped and executed and showed a video of the boy’s body being found by emergency services. The tweet claimed that the boy was kidnapped by “Israeli settlers, assaulted and thrown in a water well, was found this morning frozen to death in Beit Hanina, Jerusalem after Israeli forces assaulted search teams.” Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi re-tweeted the allegation and added “the heart just shatters, the pain is unbearable, no words.” Congresswoman Tlaib then retweeted the Ashrawi tweet that included the allegations.
However Ashrawi apologized for her tweet. “My apologizes for re-tweeting something that’s not fully verified. It seems that the news of his being kidnapped is not certain.” She also tweeted other clarifications and then appeared to delete the tweet. Tlaib’s retweet was also was thereafter deleted but she did not apologize for spreading the false information.
The tweet accusing Israelis of kidnapping and murder and which actually shows the boy’s body being taken from the cistern by medical personnel has now been viewed 125,000 times. It has led to an outpouring of incitement against Israel. George Galloway, the UK politician, wrote “there are no words which can fully convey the evil of this story.” Many noted that Tlaib had erred in re-tweeting the false story. Arsen Ostrovsky wrote "seriously Rashida Tlaib?...this was a tragic case of a child who went missing and fell into a pool of rainwater, have you no shame in reposting these lies?" Many compared it to a modern day blood libel.
Seriously @RashidaTlaib? There is no basis whatsoever there was any foul play. In fact, Israelis were involved in the search for the boy. This was a tragic case of a child who went missing and fell into pool of rainwater. Have you no shame in reposting these lies? pic.twitter.com/jhDIBcTa5Q
Here is Jew-hater in chief @GeorgeGalloway using the tragic death of a young Palestinian boy to stir up hate. Sadly Abu Ramileh drowned in a tragic accident but to George its just another opportunity to incite his followers
Some say – with breathtaking error – that protecting Israel has nothing to do with fighting antisemitism. The State of Israel is the ultimate defense against this evil force. It is the sanctuary to which Jews fled when they were expelled from North Africa or escaped the former Soviet Union and had no place else to go. When Jews were singled out for execution on the tarmac in Entebbe, Uganda, it was Israel that saved them in one of history’s most daring rescues. When Jews were persecuted in Yemen and Ethiopia, it was Israel that brought them to safety on missions such as Operation Moses, Operation Solomon and Operation Magic Carpet. To this day, Israel helps support local governments and NGOs around the world in defending the Jewish people.
The recent rash of antisemitic attacks in the United States is repugnant and shocking. But apart from baseless pronouncements from armchair pundits and opportunistic politicians, they have nothing to do with the president. Quite to the contrary, President Trump, in empowering law enforcement, preserving individual rights to self-defense, supporting tighter security in schools and places of worship and advocating for more protective mental health policies, is directly addressing concrete measures to keep us all safer and more secure.
Many have called for a softening of our public discourse and more education regarding the evils of hatred as a means of reducing antisemitic attacks. As one who has spent the better part of the past three years in Israel, where regrettably such attacks occur far more frequently but with far less international coverage than attacks in the United States, I can’t help but doubt the seriousness of that plan. We can always use better education and more civility, but those who will commit acts of antisemitism are not going to be the ones who attend the course. I have yet to see anyone present an effective method to identify in advance and arrest or cure the unstable and hate-filled miscreants who are attacking Jews. As in Israel, the primary approach must be increased security, better surveillance and intelligence, self-defense and mental health reform. President Trump is exactly in the right place on these initiatives.
I have an important message for the Trump haters who think they are fighting antisemitism by fighting Trump: In five years, President Trump will be out of office and your hysterical hyperbole will not have made a dent in combating this evil scourge. Whatever other policy differences you may have with the president, if you truly oppose antisemitism, then you have a friend and ally in the White House.
A decade ago, the anti-Zionist forces scored their greatest political victory. On June 4, 2009, the new American president Barack Obama delivered his "Address to the Muslim World," at American University in Cairo. Before an audience that included a large contingent of Muslim Brotherhood members, specifically invited by the White House, Obama resonated their rejection of Jewish history and denial of the Jewish roots and rights to the Land of Israel.
In Cairo, Obama asserted that Israel’s establishment was a product of "a tragic history … Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust."
Obama pointedly failed to utter a word about the nation of Israel’s historic ties to its homeland.
Instead, he announced that he would travel from Cairo to Buchenwald concentration camp. Jerusalem was not on his itinerary.
Obama’s speech was the single most hostile act any US leader ever took against the Jewish state. Speaking to a room full of Israel’s enemies, Obama resonated their lies and propaganda.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly stunned by the existential hostility towards Israel and the Jewish people Obama displayed at Cairo. But once he recognized the nature of the problem Netanyahu spent the next ten years insisting on the truth. Despite catcalls of criticism from the Israeli left, from liberal American Jews, from the EU, and from the Obama administration, Netanyahu and the governments he led insisted on telling the truth about Israel and Zionism over and over and over again and insisted that the truth be acknowledged. At every opportunity, Netanyahu stated and restated that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people and was never the capital of any other nation. He stated and repeated endlessly that Israel is the homeland and the nation-state of the Jewish people and was never the homeland or nation-state of any other people.
Perhaps The New York Times, which buried the Holocaust in its inside pages when it even deigned to mention that unprecedented horror, will finally take notice of what happened at Auschwitz. Publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger, a proud American Reform Jew, fiercely opposed singling out Jews as victims of Nazi annihilation. Jews who were deported to death camps were identified in his newspaper as “persons,” not Jews. Its first published account of the Nazi extermination plan, duly identified as “probably the greatest mass slaughter in history,” appeared on an inside page at the bottom of a column of unrelated stories.
It got worse. In the summer of 1942, the Times cited a report by Szmul Zygielbojm of the Polish National Council documenting the slaughter of 700,000 Jews: “Children in orphanages, old persons in almshouses, the sick in hospitals, and women were slain in the streets.” For months, Germans had been “methodically proceeding with their campaign to exterminate all Jews.” But the Times front page that day featured articles about tennis shoes and canned fruit. Auschwitz horrors never received front-page attention.
The Times described the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in brief inside-page stories. Its first account, nearly three weeks after the revolt began, was four paragraphs long. Its solitary editorial about the uprising referred to 400,000 “persons” who were deported to Treblinka. There was no indication that those “persons” were Jews. As Sulzberger explained to a friend, “We chose to think of Jews as human beings instead of any particular religious group.” Only once in four years was the fate of Jews mentioned on the front page or as the subject of a lead editorial. Their horrific plight never qualified for the daily Times ranking of important events.
The Times can never erase its inexcusable dereliction of journalistic responsibility. At the upcoming Auschwitz memorial observances, it will be interesting to read its coverage of what it buried in insignificance 75 years ago, along with the six million murdered Jews who were deemed too inconsequential for notice in its pages.
Of all of the speeches given at the Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem yesterday, the Palestinian Authority news agency only covered one sentence of one speech.
Macron said, "no one has the right to invoke (those killed by the Nazis) to justify division or contemporary hatred."
The PLO is choosing to interpret this as meaning that Israel cannot use the Holocaust to justify its "oppression" of Palestinians.
Here's something Macron said the previous day in a meeting with President Rivlin:
We also decided to very frankly discuss and raise the issue of anti-Zionism, which is currently very much bound up with the issue of anti-Semitism. Thank you also for speaking so clearly just now. As I’ve had the opportunity to say, anti-Zionism, when it means negating Israel’s existence as a state, is a form of anti-Semitism. Which doesn’t mean it becomes impossible to have disagreements, to criticize this or that action by the Israeli government, but negating its existence today is clearly a contemporary form of anti-Semitism. So yes, we’ve passed laws, taken initial decisions, and others in particular will follow that enable us to fight more effectively against hate speech, including anti-Semitism on the Internet. But beyond this, we must indeed resist, in a way, this erosion of conscience we too often witness, and laws are not enough to change the human soul. To do this we must remember, remind everyone what anti-Semitism led to in Europe – the Holocaust – and as well as remembering, continue to educate and train people.
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Israel's primordial sin, according to progressives, is in its definition as a Jewish state and its close ties with the US. The disregard Israel has toward international organizations that are obsessively anti-Israel only makes this "sin" worse.
Had Israel heeded their advice, Israel would have had to commit suicide because they consider its self-defense as fascism and its Jewish character as racist.
The claim that Israel is a colonialist and apartheid regime could not be farther from the truth. It is designed to promote the Jewish state's delegitimization and compensate for the guilty feelings Europeans have over their own colonialist past and early support for Jewish statehood.
The clash between Israel and the progressive Left is a structural one. Israel's success has threatened the latter's very core.
It "brutal" approach and successful wars against its enemies and terrorists upended the notion that they should be appeased. And Israel's thriving economy has pulled the rug from under those who have tried incessantly to boycott and marginalize Israel.
Likewise, it's successful diplomatic stature despite the ongoing condemnations from international bodies, and its ties with Arab states, have shown the European Left to be feckless and pathetic.
Thus, it is clear why the Left in Europe is angry at us, for we have proved it wrong time and again. But what is sad is the anti-Semitic undertones alongside this anger.
In fact, the anti-Semitic attacks on the supposed evil of the Jewish state help those elites explain to themselves and others why Israel has succeeded and defied gravity.
Israel is strong enough to ignore those anti-Semitic attacks. European society should worry though.
On Jan. 15, ABC published "The moral case against Zionism" by Salman Abu Sitta, who argued that racism is intrinsic to Zionism. To dismiss an entire national liberation movement as racist - thereby calling into question its very existence - is extraordinary. Zionism is Jewish national self-determination.
Not only is national self-determination a universally-recognized right, but every national liberation movement in history has sought to create a state for their nation in their national homeland. Zionism is no different in this regard. If one thinks one national liberation movement is intrinsically racist, then, to be ethically consistent, one must consider all racist.
The Palestinian National Charter and the draft constitution of the future Palestinian state make clear the position of Arab Palestinians over any other people in the desired state. Either Palestinian nationalism and Zionism are both intrinsically racist, or neither are.
In the same way Zionism necessarily demands that Jews become the masters of their own fate. So too, does feminism. Feminism is the belief in the equality of the sexes, the notion that women too can be masters of their fate. That women need not be reliant on a man for their safety, success and happiness. It is for this reason that Zionism and feminism are upsetting to so many people: because equality is radical, indeed threatening, to those who hold power over others.
If the idea of a woman or a Jew being equal in society makes you feel uncomfortable, you should think twice about your own biases. If your “commitment” to the social order includes arranged marriage, female genital mutilation, domestic violence, excusing or diminishing domestic violence, sexual harassment or assault (also covering it up), victim-blaming, disrespecting or demeaning women, a media that berates women (more than men) for their appearance, legal systems that prevent women from coming forward when they are attacked, unequal pay, or demonizing “feminists,” you are enabling bigotry.
Similarly, when you hold double standards against Jews, support or protect organizations or individuals who demonize the only Jewish state, or that call for terrorism against the Jewish state or Jews, you are, intentionally or not, aligning yourself with antisemites.
Someone who believes in equality, believes in equality for all. It is for that reason that you cannot be a feminist who believes in equality for all, and not be a Zionist as well. Feminism and Zionism are two sides of the same coin.
Written by: Dr. Khalil Nazzal / Secretary of the Fatah Region in Poland
The seventy-fifth anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz that German occupiers set up in Poland during the Second World War is approaching. ...The world was appalled by the horror of the crimes committed in this large prison, which killed huge numbers of citizens of the countries of the occupied Europe, especially the followers of the Jewish religions of various nationalities, in the context of a systematic Nazi policy that was aimed at the Jews. This includes the use of toxic gases as an effective method of mass killing. Not a single justification can be found that reduces the burden of the crimes that the peoples of Europe and the world were subjected to during the Second World War, and these crimes dealt with the Jews in particular, but they did not justify others, so dropping atomic bombs on Japan is a crime, and the destruction of Warsaw and the killing of hundreds of thousands of people 1944 is a crime, and the rape of thousands of German women by soldiers of the invading armies towards Berlin is a crime. We reject all these crimes, and we reject the crime of attacking Jews just because they are Jews, and the first reason we reject it is that it is a crime against humanity, and we cannot accept the persecution, prosecution, and killing of innocent people because of their religion, national affiliation, or the color of human beings.
Accounts differ on the number of victims of the Jewish religion who fell as a result of Nazi crimes during the Second World War, while some historians say that the number reaches six million, others reduce this number and limit it to hundreds of thousands. Despite our conviction that every soul is being unlawfully destroyed, as all human lives are lost, the debate over the number of victims does not stand up to logic and morality. Here we must emphasize the following issues:
First: The state of the Zionist settler occupation is not an heir to the pain and suffering of the Jews. It is a state based on racist ideology that despises human life and practices racial discrimination against our Palestinian people for no reason other than because they are Palestinians, and this is the thought that led to the Palestinian catastrophe, and it is what the Palestinian crime is still suffering. In this way, the thought that caused the Nakba practically aligns with the thought that caused the Holocaust. The minds of the perpetrators are identical in all times and ages, while the pain of the victims is similar, whether in Auschwitz or in Deir Yassin..
Second: While the hideous massacre against the Jews in Europe lasted for six years, the Nakba and Zionist crimes have continued against Palestine and its people for decades, and Western leaders still shy in the shameful silence when it comes to Palestine. The Second World was eighty years ago but they don't bother to stretch the sight a bit above the apartheid wall to see the victims of their ongoing crime since they planted in Palestine this entity where professional murder, terrorism, racial discrimination, and ethnic cleansing is practiced on a daily basis.
Third: No matter how large the number of Jewish victims, this does not give anyone the right to practice racial discrimination and national oppression against our people, as crime does not justify other crimes, and the tendency to dramatize the numbers of Jewish victims cannot be a smoke cloud to cover the daily Israeli crimes against legitimate Palestine, which is an attempt to ruminate the charge of "anti-Semitism" and attach it to all who possess the courage to reject occupation policies and to solidarity with the just struggle of our people. Just as courage and justice in World War II meant saving the Jews from the threat of genocide, today it means aligning with the Palestinian right and rejecting the crimes committed by the occupation army and its settlers against the Palestinian people. "Antisemites" and humanity are aligned with the policies of the occupation state and defenders of its crimes.
Fourth: [Those who reduce] the number of [Holocaust] victims rely on studies and research that aim only to seek the truth. Here, we must pay attention to the fact that those who practice reducing numbers fall into the Zionist trap and Israeli propaganda that uses intimidation to blackmail the world and force it to accept the occupation policy of racism. "Intimidation" does not justify the crimes of occupation, and "understatement" does not diminish the ugliness of the crime committed against European Jews! [This is a reference to Mahmoud Abbas' contention that only a few hundred thousand Jews were killed - EoZ]
Fifth: Our people were not a party to the Second World War, so why are we being blamed for the consequences of the crimes practiced by Europe against its citizens of different races and religions, especially against the Jews? The far and near know that Palestine during that war was subject to the British occupation seeking to establish a state for the Jews of the world at the expense of our people and the ruins of our homeland. The effort of our people at that time was focused on resisting the Zionist project and confined to the historic borders of Palestine without losing its human affiliation and siding with the oppressed wherever they were.
Jews have the full right to recall the pain that Nazi crimes have left in their memory. And because we are a victim of Zionist racism, we are biased without hesitation to the sufferings of the victims, Jews and others, and we refuse that those pains to be a justification for the continuation of the historical injustice to which our people are subjected. We are with the victims. As for the state of occupation and settlement, it is a sinful plant that poisons our lives and tarnishes the memory of the victims of Auschwitz, with the disgrace of racism, persecution and killing of innocent people of Palestine and its legitimate owners.
In short:
* Nazis killing Jews is a crime, whether it is six million or 200,000.
* There were lots of crimes in World War II by allies as well.
* The Palestinians are the real victims, and have been for 70 years.
* If you hate Nazis you should hate Zionist Jews.
This essay is a sickening attempt to co-opt and invert the Holocaust, to justify Palestinian terror against Jews and to say that the very existence of a Jewish state as a refuge for Jewish victims of antisemitism is a crime akin to the Holocaust.
The problem is that this sort of propaganda, as transparent as it is, is attractive to today's modern antisemites, and ignorant people who are influenced by anti-Zionist propaganda will read this and feel sympathetic towards its message. After all, many of the points made here are made every day by the anti-Israel crowd.
The article is also an illustration of how antisemitism and anti-Zionism are the same. Even as the anti-Zionists claim that they are against (only) Nazi-style antisemitism they are eager to say that today's Nazis are Jews.
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Prince Charles' speech at the Holocaust Forum was quite good. Unlike most of the speakers who tried to insert their own political themes into their speeches, Charles spoke about individual victims and the importance of remembering and drawing lessons from the unthinkable.
The lessons of the Holocaust are searingly relevant to this day. Seventy-five years after the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, hatred and intolerance still lurk in the human heart, still tell new lies, adopt new disguises, and still seek new victims.
All too often, language is used which turns disagreement into dehumanisation. Words are used as badges of shame to mark others as enemies, to brand those who are different as somehow deviant. All too often, virtue seems to be sought through verbal violence. All too often, real violence ensues, and acts of unspeakable cruelty are still perpetrated around the world against people for reasons of their religion, their race or their beliefs.
Knowing, as we do, the darkness to which such behaviour leads, we must be vigilant in discerning these ever-changing threats; we must be fearless in confronting falsehoods and resolute in resisting words and acts of violence.
Abbas met with Charles in Bethlehem, a city where Christians have been fleeing Muslim persecution, and claimed that Christians and Muslims under his rule live in peace and harmony.Charles, of course, didn't say anything, because he is not "fearless in confronting falsehoods."
It isn't only Charles, of course. Vladimir Putin and Emannuel Macron both met with Abbas as well during their visits.
I am not saying that it is always inappropriate to pay a state visit to the dictator of the Palestinian Authority. But to do so within a day of a visit to Yad Vashem where impassioned speeches are made about learning the lessons of the Holocaust, and immediately paying honor to a modern day Nazi who teaches his people that they must destroy the Jewish state via terror and "return," is the height of hypocrisy.
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Dr Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri was the Director General of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) from 1991 to 2019, and ex-officio Secretary General of the Federation of the Universities of the Islamic World (FUIW). Dr Altwaijri is an accomplished academic, a senior lecturer, and an eminent writer and poet. Armed with a keenly holistic vision for human civilizational development, Dr Altwaijri played a vital role in the development, supervision, and launch of 16 strategies approved by the Islamic Summit Conference. He also established the Supreme Council of Education, Science and Culture, an alliance designated for work outside of the Islamic world. Dr Altwaijri is also a staunch advocate of cultural dialogue and the alliance of civilizations.
Senior #Trump administration officials in blue are Jews. And the percentage of Jews from the population of #America is only 1.6%! Clear dominance.
The head of the major Islamic cultural organization for some 29 years pushes anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.
Incidentally, the chart is a complete lie. A little research shows that only one person in the entire cabinet is Jewish, Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. (The original color photo is from CNN and lists everyone there.) Wikipedia does not mention that any other person is Jewish although Attorney General William Barr's father was born Jewish and converted to Catholicism.
So instead of the cabinet being 75% Jewish, it is about 4% Jewish.
The longstanding head of ISESCO is an antisemite and a liar.
Altwaijri is not stupid or uneducated. He has an MA and PhD from the University of Oregon. He's certainly familiar with Jews from his university days.
And none of that helps. He's an antisemitic conspiracy theorist who retweets antisemitic lies.
The real scandal is that this is not a scandal, and it will never be a scandal. Because the enlightened liberal West expects Muslims to be antisemites and liars, and holds them to no standards whatsoever. Any prominent Israeli who tweeted something remotely as offensive would be on the front page and forced out of whatever job he or she had.
Holding Muslims to standards you would never tolerate from non-Muslims is bigotry, plain and simple.
But, strangely, the Left considers anyone who points out Islamic bigotry to be an "Islamophobe," not the people who assume Muslims are bigoted by staying silent.
(h/t WC)
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The photo came from an excellent photo essay I found on a Chinese language site, of many old people working and playing in rural Turkey. And a search of those photos confirmed that they were all from Turkey.
This is not an accident. Some Palestinians scour the web for photos that they can then claim comes from them. They then make up stories to fit the photos. Thousands of people believe them.
If the Palestinian narrative was so obviously righteous - why do they have to lie?
(Since I tweeted back the origin of the photo, the original tweet was deleted, with no acknowledgement that he was wrong.)
(h/t Gidon Shaviv)
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For so many of them to come together and stand shoulder to shoulder – and say that they will remember the horrors of the Holocaust and work to combat hatred of Jews so that something like that may never happen again – is an incredibly powerful message that will hopefully reverberate around the world.
Before Thursday’s event at Yad Vashem, we implore leaders not to corrupt the message with their political messages. Now is not the time to fight over different versions of history that are more advantageous to one country over another. Now is the time to say: “Never again.”
And when the leaders and their entourages – including hundreds of foreign journalists – return to their home countries, they should make sure that this message continues to reverberate among the general public.
Talking is not enough; they should take action to combat the scourge of antisemitism, which has continued to rear its head with increasing intensity in recent years.
One good way to start is to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
The definition, which Israel has encouraged countries to adopt as a nonbinding code or a guideline in combating antisemitism, also includes many examples of the ways people try to launder their antisemitism as hatred of Israel, such as comparing Israel’s actions to those of the Nazis.
The European Union and many of its member states have already adopted the definition. Italy took it on last week. What a powerful message it would send if even more of the governments whose representatives are gathered in Jerusalem would announce they are adopting it as well.
The significant gathering of leaders at Yad Vashem this week presents an opportunity to examine what has been accomplished since the 2005 UN resolution in the fight against antisemitism, racism, and Holocaust denial, as well as the work to preserve the memories of those who were lost. It is gratifying to note the many countries that hold official events on this bleak day, along with historical, cultural and educational activities that preserve information for future generations and combat ignorance, indifference, and historical revisionism.
At the same time, alarmingly, antisemitism is increasing significantly: data collected in a number of countries show a dramatic increase in antisemitic violence, including the murder of Jews in their homes, schools, and synagogues. The conference in Jerusalem must, therefore, establish strong momentum for a collaborative effort to reverse this trend.
The way to deal with hate crimes is, of course, appropriate legislation in each country and enforcement of those laws by local judicial systems. Concurrently, we must be forward-thinking and focus on educating younger generations.
I call on the leaders gathering in Jerusalem to invest in ambitious and large-scale education programs that combat racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, and supremacism, just as The Jewish Agency does through our Israeli emissaries throughout the world. This can also be accomplished through international bodies such as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), or through new frameworks set up to address the issue. None of us are exempt from the obligation to instill in our young people a commitment to tolerance, diversity and understanding of the other.
Seventy-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we must launch a widespread war on anti-Semitism and hatred wherever they rear their heads. Doing so will demonstrate true respect for those who perished and bring a comforting semblance of meaning to their sacrifice.
HonestReporting joins the World Jewish Congress's #WeRemember campaign as part of a united voice in memory of the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust.
In the 1930s the German mass media came under complete control of the Nazis, enabling them to spread propaganda against the Jewish people on an unprecedented scale. This, in turn, villainized and dehumanized the Jews.
We have seen the consequences of biased, unfair coverage and believe fair news coverage is integral to the safety of Israel and Jews worldwide.
Indeed, I write on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz – the most brutal extermination camp of the 20th century – of horrors too terrible to be believed, but not too terrible to have happened.
Of the 1.3 million people murdered at Auschwitz, 1.1 million were Jews. As Elie Wiesel put it, “The Holocaust was a war against the Jews in which not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims.”
I write also in the immediate aftermath of the 75th anniversary of the arrest and disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg on January 17, 1945. Wallenberg demonstrated how one person with the compassion to care and courage to act can confront evil, prevail and transform history. It is a tragedy that this hero of the Holocaust who saved so many was not saved by so many who could, and we owe a duty to Raoul Wallenberg to determine the truth of his fate.
I write also on the occasion of a global resurgence of antisemitic incitement, violence and terror, and in the midst of ongoing ethnic cleansing and mass atrocity.
And so, at this important historical moment, we should ask ourselves: What have we learned in the last 75 years – and more importantly – what must we do?
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Sunday, January 26, 2020
Elder of Ziyon
