Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

02/11 Links Pt1: Requiem to the Israeli Left's Apartheid Argument; Senior Fatah official: "Palestine" stretches from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea

From Ian:

Ha'aretz: Requiem to the Israeli Left's Apartheid Argument

In this day and age, with progressives tending to bestow automatic moral rightness on the weak and to assign automatic moral blame to the strong, the left is inclined to be furious at the very suggestion that the occupied are to blame for the continued occupation. Part of this fury is based on denying Palestinian recalcitrance and rejectionism.

But the other part is actually more poignant: Some on the left believe we must end the occupation regardless of the price we’ll have to pay, since it is an evil one cannot acquiesce to. From this perspective, the infringement on Palestinian human rights is so grave that it undermines Israel’s moral foundation – to the point of voiding its very right to exist. If Zionism rests on the universal right to self-determination, the argument goes, it cannot exist at the expense of another people’s ability to exercise that same right.

I don’t know if the historian with whom I dined subscribes to this extreme view, but I think this is what many who see the “apartheid” argument as closing the case believe.

Still, one is obliged to ask if what we are talking about here is an offense so abhorrent, so inhumanly odious, that one must die rather than commit it. Should we really end the occupation even if it means collective suicide for Zionism and probable death to most of its sons and daughters (or at least to those who cannot afford to emigrate)?

Undeniably, there are crimes one should die before committing. Genocide would probably be the obvious example. But it is hard to stretch this argument to include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It would seem there is not much moral weight to the idea that we should choose our own death only to save the Palestinians from the consequences of their rejectionism and their turn to murderous terrorism. There is also little point in committing suicide only to replace Israel’s military rule with a more brutal regime that will deprive the Palestinians of human rights to an even greater extent, as Hamas has done in Gaza.

The truth is that, short of attempting to justify collective suicide, the moral argument from “apartheid” has no use. As long as we refuse to die, it will not save us from having to limp along with no full solution in sight to the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire.

We will have to brace ourselves for a long stretch of political awkwardness and moral ambiguity. Which is still far better than jumping together, with our hands at each other’s throats, into the lava around us. The incantation “apartheid” will not make any of those harsh circumstances disappear.

Is ICC being equal with Israeli settlements, Turkish occupation? - analysis

Amid the all-important International Criminal Court debate about whether Israeli settlements are a war crime, almost completely ignored has been the question of Turkey’s occupation of Northern Cyprus.

The Palestinians officially asked for ICC intervention in January 2015, and ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda essentially declared Israeli settlements war crimes on December 20.

In contrast, the first complaint by a Cypriot official, represented by Shurat Hadin, against Turkey’s settlements in Northern Cyprus was filed in July 2014 – half a year earlier than the claims against Israel.

Seven weeks after Bensouda decided against Israel, all that has been said about the Turkish occupation of Cyprus is that a decision is anticipated at some undefined point later in 2020.

How did the Turkish case fall to the back burner as compared to the case against Israel?

Does this unequal situation prove anti-Israel bias by the ICC, as some claim?

Will anti-Israel case go unanswered at The Hague? Israeli lawyers already have a plan

The Israel Bar Association will try to represent Israel in the International Criminal Court at The Hague to push against the charges laid by the Palestinians, Israel Hayom has exclusively learned.

The IBA's move is designed to give Israel a voice in the court without having the country officially join.

Israel has refused to sign the Rome Statute and is hence not part of the ICC. The Jewish state also says the court has no jurisdiction on matters pertaining to Israeli territory because Israel is not a party to the convention, but the court has nevertheless begun proceedings that could culminate with a full-fledged investigation against Israel over its actions in the Gaza Strip and in various Palestinian cities.

Israeli leaders have slammed the court for taking that position.

The IBA's governing body approved Monday a motion that could pave the way for the organization to represent Israel in cases concerning the state. "In order to avoid having the Palestinian Authority's position go unchallenged, we have discussed the possibility of becoming an amicus curiae in the court and we have assembled a task force to facilitate that," the motion reads.

On Sunday, Iran failed for the fourth time to successfully place a satellite into orbit:

Iranian government officials admitted Sunday that an attempt to place a small Earth-imaging satellite into orbit was unsuccessful, the fourth consecutive launch failure for the country’s space program.

A Simorgh rocket launched at around 1545 GMT (10:45 a.m. EST) Sunday from the Imam Khomeini Spaceport, located in Semnan province in the north-central part of the country, according to Iranian government officials and state media sources.

But the Simorgh booster did not place its payload — an Earth observation satellite named Zafar 1 — into orbit as planned, according to Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran’s minister of communications and information technology.

The failure Sunday of the Simorgh rocket, the larger of Iran’s two tested satellite launchers, marked the fourth straight Iranian mission that has failed to place a satellite into orbit since 2017. That does not include an accident in August in which a Safir rocket — Iran’s other orbital-class booster — appeared to explode during preparations on a launch pad at the Iranian spaceport.

US and Israeli officials have always been concerned about Iran's attempts to place a satellite into orbit, because the same technology that allows space flight allows intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Did Israeli or US cyberweapons help ruin this mission?

The evidence is light but interesting.

First of all, the consistent failures of the Iranian space program point to more than coincidence and more than Iranian incompetence.

The second interesting thing about what happened last Sunday is that it came close after a massive hacking attack against Iran on Saturday:

Iran was sabotaged with an unprecedented cyber attack on the eve of its failed attempt to launch a satellite into orbit, the regime has claimed.

Last night, a rocket launch from Imam Khomeini Spaceport was scuppered due to low speeds which stopped it breaking into orbit.

It was a humiliating blow to Tehran, which the United States believes is developing rocket technology to advance nuclear capabilities.

But hours before the failure, Iran's deputy information minister Hamid Fatah had revealed the country's communications network had been hit with 'the most widespread attack in Iranian history'.

He tweeted: 'Hackers today launched the most widespread attack in Iranian history against the country's infrastructure.

'Millions of origin targeted millions of destinations and are seeking worldwide disruption to Iran's Internet network'.

The satellite launch was originally intended to be on Saturday, and it was delayed a day - possibly due to this cyberattack, which was even worse than Iran seems to be admitting.

Iran claims that the cyberattack was not done by state actors. However, a massive denial of service attack can help hide an actual targeted cyberattack happening at the same time.

There is another tantalizing piece of evidence that Israel might have been involved in the failure of the launch. At the Likud conference in Nahariya on Sunday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "We were told today that Iran failed to launch a satellite. They also failed to deliver weapons to Syria and Lebanon, because we are constantly operating there."

This could be psychological warfare, or it could be a tacit admission that Israel was involved. However, Iran is clearly getting closer to success in their space program, and there is no reason to assume that this program is not military.

(h/t Tomer Ilan)

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Right now, in conjunction with Mahmoud Abbas' speech to the UN today, there is a large rally in Ramallah against the Peace to Prosperity Plan.

What the organizers don't want you to know is that the Palestinian Authority is pulling out all the stops to increase the number of participants.

They closed down all government offices - and the Palestinian Authority employs some 200,000 workers.

They provided buses for people outside Ramallah to come to the rally.

It seems that the schools are closed, since the Teacher's Union urged all teachers to go to the rally.

In other words, this is not a popular rally - it is a Palestinian Authority and Fatah rally where they did everything they could to make it look impressive.

It would be interesting to know whether UNRWA schools are also shut down today.

The brainwashing of the people against the peace plan has been effective. A poll released yesterday showed that 66.5% of Palestinians "strongly opposed" the plan while another 22.7% "somewhat oppose it." Of course, one cannot find a single objective news report about the deal in the Palestinian media, essentially controlled by Fatah and Hamas. (Even ostensibly independent media understands that anyone who writes in support of the plan would be metaphorically or literally lynched.)

Meanwhile, a column in Felesteen (translated here) had perhaps the best description of why peace is impossible:

Their “deal” includes economic peace, prosperity, projects, facilities and other relatively petty tools that have no place in the ongoing battle to expel the Israeli occupier from the land of Palestine and liberate the Islamic religious sites.

The only "peace" plan acceptable to the Palestinians is one where Israel disappears, or one that gives them a path to destroy Israel.

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Palestinian media are reporting:

The Israeli army canceled the entry of hundreds of Jews to the Tomb of Joseph in the West Bank city of Nablus, last night, due to fears of clashes between its forces and the Palestinians, who are always protesting such provocative incursions.

And the Israeli public radio said it was that the Israeli army canceled the entry of 1500 Jews to Joseph's tomb, and that the army explained its decision that it "is trying to prevent frictions with the Palestinians, and could lead to other confrontations and the deterioration of the situation."

The Israeli army added that it was decided to reduce the incursions of Jewish groups into Palestinian cities, "as an operational necessity only."

Israeli radio quoted Palestinian sources as saying that a decrease in the IDF incursions into Palestinian cities has been observed since the confrontations in the city of Jenin last Thursday-Friday, during which a Palestinian policeman was killed.

The Israeli army claimed that there was no connection between the martyrdom of the Palestinian policeman and the decision to cancel the entry of Jews to Joseph's grave, but admitted that it was trying to calm the situation in the West Bank.

The fact that Palestinian media is reporting this indicates that they are teaching their readers that riots pay off.

It isn't like the Palestinians are going to show good will for the Jewish pilgrims being canceled by rioting less - the lesson is that violence prompts the mighty IDF to penalize Jews for Arab violence

This may have been a big mistake.

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Mysterious video of a person who claims to be a Jew in Saudi Arabia, inviting Jews to visit him

This video has been making the rounds of Arab, especially Saudi, media the past week.

It shows a man who claims to be a Jew from Najran, a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia near the Yemen border.

There were a number of Jews originally from Yemen who had conquered Najran in pre-Islamic times. In 1934, the town came under Saudi rule and the Jews were persecuted. In 1949 the Jews fled back to Yemen and from there they went to Israel.

This man, however, claims that he still lives in Najran as a Jew and he is inviting Jews from around the world to visit him, where he can show them ancient synagogues -one that is a thousand years old and one that is over 1500 years old.

It is not unreasonable to assume that there was at least a few synagogues in Najran over the 1500 years that Jews lived there, but no one seems to be aware of them.

Could there still be crypto-Jews in Najran? It is certainly possible. In the comments on this article in Slaati, one person claims to know this man, whose last name he says is Mizrahi, and confirms that there are still some hidden Jews in Najran.

I cannot find any mention on the web of synagogues in Najran.

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02/10 Links Pt2: Tu B’Shvat: The Festival that Proves the Jewish People’s Connection to the Land of Israel; Confirmation Bias and Antisemitism; Hakarot Hatov: ‘Week of Thanksgiving’ to the Druze

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Celebrating Tu Bishvat, New Year for the trees

Tu Bishvat, the 15th of Shvat in Judaism’s lunar calendar, which we celebrate today, is also known as Rosh Hashanah Le’ilanot - “New Year for Trees.” Judaism’s arbor day celebration is a good opportunity to take stock and consider some environmental New Year resolutions.

Tu Bishvat is one of the Jewish festivals that is uniquely tied to the Land of Israel and is widely celebrated here by Jews – religious and secular – while less well known or marked in the Diaspora.

Tied so inextricably with nature, the festival has taken on a more universal environmental theme. Tu Bishvat is a reminder that environmental laws and precepts are not a modern invention. From the earliest times of the Bible, we have been commanded to respect the land, animals, plants and trees. Today, we face a peculiar situation in which both the means of destruction are more widespread and massive but also the ways of protecting the environment are much more advanced.

Tu Bishvat expresses down-to-earth Zionism, highlighting the link of the Jewish religion and people to their homeland. While environmentalism is becoming something of a new world religion, Zionism is out of fashion. Sadly, as the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to launch balloons and kites attached to incendiary or explosive devices, fire is being used as a form of ecoterrorism. Fortunately, environmental issues can also create common ground to bring Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians together to solve problems which do not recognize man-made borders. Israeli R&D is famous worldwide for its contribution to water management, alternative energy and agriculture, to the benefit of all.

This is the festival when the sentence in Deuteronomy (20:19) that “A person is like the tree of a field” most comes to mind. People, like trees, need the correct balance of natural elements including water, sunlight, clean air and good nourishment.

Honest Reporting: Tu B’Shvat: The Festival that Proves the Jewish People’s Connection to the Land of Israel

In contemporary Israel, tree-planting is central to the Tu B’Shvat experience. The practice can be traced back to the time when the Jewish pioneers began to settle in the Land of Israel. For them, working the land became an ideal, and they began a process of afforestation in order to overcome the desolation of the land.

The planting of trees on Tu B’Shvat gradually became customary, and in 1908, the Jewish National Fund and the educational system officially adopted the custom. Since then, Tu B’Shvat has been known in Israel as a holiday for planting trees, on which schoolchildren and their teachers plant trees all over the country. The tree-planting ceremonies symbolize the renewed connection between the nation and its land.

By 1948, approximately 2% of Israel was covered by trees. Over the space of the seventy years thereafter, the percentage had grown to roughly 8.5%, making Israel the only country in the world with a net growth in trees over the course of the twentieth century.

So strong is the connection to Israel’s identity, that on February 14, 1949, Israel’s Constituent Assembly convened for the first time in the Jewish Agency building in central Jerusalem. The Hebrew calendar date that day was Tu Bishvat. Each year, the Knesset celebrates its establishment on the New Year of the Trees, and on that day, its members participate in tree-planting ceremonies around the country.

Outside of Israel, Tu B’Shvat generally remains a minor holiday, with no special prayers recited in synagogues and no connection to any particular historical event. Nevertheless, Jews around the world view the day as an opportunity to be grateful for the planet we live on, and specifically for the Land of Israel. Even if one is unable to relocate to Israel, we are all able to partake in this day, enjoy fruits and grains grown in Israeli soil, and celebrate the millennia-old connection the Jewish people have with the region.

While Jews have lived all over the globe, Jewish tradition has always centered around the Holy Land, and these rituals and their specifics serve to highlight the centrality of the Land of Israel to the Jewish people’s identity.

Palestinians need to feel relevant - which makes them love terrorism

As I was looking at Arab stamps for my last post, I noticed this one from Kuwait:

I didn't recognize Fatima Bernawi - because she was black, and the Kuwaiti stamp designer was apparently a racist.

Bernawi was one of the earliest Palestinian female terrorists. (Palestinian propaganda refers to her as the first female political prisoner, because to them all terrorists are political prisoners.)

In October 1967 she, along with two others, left a bomb in a handbag under a seat at the Zion Cinema. An alert policeman heard the ticking and managed to take the bomb outside to an empty area where it exploded before the bomb squad could arrive.

Bernawi was sentenced to life in prison, but was released in a prisoner swap in 1977.

In a fawning article about her on Face2Face Africa, Bernawi was quoted before her death as being proud of her acts, even though they didn't kill anyone. Her reasoning is rather sick:

Before her death in Amman in 2016, Bernawi spoke of how she had dreamt about the attempted cinema bomb attack all her life.

She said that though the attack was a failure, she believed it was successful.

“It generated fear throughout the world. Every woman who carries a bag needs to be checked before she enters the supermarket, any place, cinemas and pharmacies… I don’t define that as a failure,” she said in 2015.

Palestinians have such a low self esteem that, like children having a temper tantrum, they want to make sure that they have made a difference to the world - no matter that their contribution is to force the world to spend tens of billions of dollars in extra security.

The article also notes how much of a hero Bernawi was to today's Palestinian leadership:

This was after she had received the Star of Honour, the highest military decoration awarded by the Palestinian Authority.

Bernawi, according to media reports, was honoured for her outstanding sacrifice and courage against “the enemy” and for her “pioneering role in the struggle, her sacrifice for her homeland and her people, and its revolution, and her willingness to give from the beginning until now”.

Bernawi was also honored in honor of Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, on April 17, 2015.

She was described as “one of the first Palestinian women to adopt [the means of] armed self-sacrifice operations after the start of the modern Palestinian revolution, which was launched by Fatah on January 1, 1965.”

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Oman has just issued a stamp with the slogan, "Al Quds - Capital of Palestine."

There have been dozens of similar stamps over the years issued in Arab countries, often with pictures of the Dome of the Rock.

But when did they start?

The first Arab stamps to feature Jerusalem as a motif came from Jordan and then various other Arab states in 1969 as a tax to pay for the restoration of the Al Aqsa Mosque after it was burned by a mentally ill Christian.

But before 1967, not one Arab stamp ever featured Jerusalem as its theme. (Saudi Arabia featured the Kaaba in Mecca in a 1965 stamp.)

Stamps tell you a lot about the priorities of the nations. Before 1967 there were plenty of Arab stamps that were anti-Israel. But no Arab nation felt that Jerusalem was worth commemorating - until the Jews too control of it.

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02/10 Links Pt1: PA withdraws its request for UN vote on Trump peace plan; Israeli Arabs are Israeli, not Palestinian; US envoy explains deal’s asymmetry: We trust Israel, but PA can’t keep a bargain

From Ian:

Abbas’ Palestinian Authority Hurts Everybody

By perpetuating the conflict, the Palestinian Authority also forces international donor countries to indefinitely waste their taxpayers’ money on supporting terror and incitement against Israel, financing P.A. corruption, and eternalizing the Palestinian refugee problem. Moreover, it forces the international community to adopt its false narrative, such as ignoring the historical Jewish connection to Jerusalem in U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 and in several UNESCO resolutions, mutating basic historical facts that are central not only to Jewish history but to Western history as a whole into historically illiterate gibberish.

The United States has tried hard in recent years to put an end to this unacceptable situation. It has cut economic aid to the Palestinian Authority due to its payment of salaries to terrorists, stopped financial support to UNRWA, and closed the PLO office in Washington. The United States also defied the P.A. narrative by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and by clarifying that Israeli settlements are not illegal. It is hard to overstate the importance of these moves, all of which came in response to the P.A.’s abject failures.

The Trump administration’s new peace plan signals clearly that this Palestinian Authority has to be replaced with a P.A. that first and foremost cares about the well-being of its citizens and respects their rights, fights corruption, and has well-functioning institutions. It has to be replaced by a P.A. that disarms Hamas and thereafter is able to govern the Gaza Strip. It has to be replaced with a P.A. that has a narrative of peace and is ready to accept Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. It has to be replaced by a P.A. that fights terror, stops the “Pay-for-Slay” policy, and ends incitement and hate indoctrination at home and abroad. And ultimately, it has to be replaced by a P.A. that respects the outstanding readiness of the Arabs and the international community to support it and rises to their expectations. If this cultural change takes place, the new P.A. will turn into an independent state and will be provided with an abundance of new resources.

Unlike any previous peace plans, this new plan tells the Palestinian Authority that if it does not choose to change in the coming four years, the United States, Israel, and the pragmatic Arabs are not going to wait any longer and will not enable the P.A. to have veto power over their will to move forward for the good of Palestinians, Israelis, and the entire region. Time is ticking.

The P.A. has grown used to being spoiled by those it hurts. As Mahmoud Abbas revealed in his address to the Arab League foreign affairs ministers, previous American administrations spoiled the Palestinians so much that, in spite of the P.A.’a refusal to accept President Barack Obama’s peace plan after it was presented to Abbas in March 2014 (he replied that any Palestinian compromise is impossible), the Obama administration was still the driving force behind UNSCR 2334. This resolution defined all the territories as occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem with the Temple Mount and Wailing Wall, and declared Israeli settlements illegal. No more.

The U.S. peace plan marks a paradigm shift in the American approach to the Palestinian Authority. Will this P.A. change? Chances are slim, but only time will tell. One thing we know already—the paradigm that was adopted until now, which was largely based on willful blindness, did not yield the expected fruits. Let us hope that this new paradigm, which is based on the realities on the ground, will help heal the wounds that this P.A. has inflicted on its many victims—Palestinians, Israelis, moderate Arabs, and international donor countries whose money has been spent on murder and hate—and help us build a road to peace.

Israeli Arabs are Israeli, not Palestinian

The raising of Palestinian flags in protest against the "Deal of the Century deal" and the proposal to transfer sovereignty over the Triangle (a cluster of Arab towns and cities near the Green Line) to a future Palestinian state has caused a small yet familiar storm.

Many Jews, and indeed quite a few Arabs, have asked how it is possible to wave the flag of the Palestinian Authority while resisting falling under its sovereignty.

I am positive that there is not one Arab citizen of Israel who wants to live under the control of any Arab ruler in any Arab state, including the State of Palestine.

In Arab society, there is even a saying that "Israeli Jewish hell is better than the paradise of the Arab states."

Yes, the Arab states have civil equality among its residents, but you will not find liberty and or freedom of speech.

There is neither human dignity nor liberty nor a high court of justice.

An Israeli Arab who is used to demonstrating and yelling in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv against the policy of the government and those who lead it would not be able to do that - and survive – in Damascus or any of the Gulf states.

The reign of eternal tyrants in Arab nations is as far removed from the experiences of Israeli Arabs as we are from the Stone Age.

Raising the Palestinian flag during the protests against the Trump plan was an act of identification, not identity.

PMW: After PMW's exposure: TikTok removes video glorifying four actual terror attacks

Last Wednesday, Palestinian Media Watch exposed that a user of the social network TikTok had posted a video animation glorifying four lethal terror attacks that were committed against Israelis. PMW is pleased to report that TikTok responded immediately and removed the terror glorifying video.

The following is PMW’s original bulletin exposing the terror promotion:
Animated video of real murder of Israelis
- on social network popular among children

An animated video that encourages murdering Israelis by showing graphic recreated scenes of real terror attacks has appeared on TikTok – a social network popular among children, where users can create and share short videos.

The video shows four lethal terror attacks that were committed against Israelis – a terrorist who rammed his car into Israelis at a Jerusalem light rail station, another who shot at Israeli police, and two stabbers. An eagle – possibly symbolizing the eagle in the emblem used by the Palestinian Authority and the PLO – flies above the carnage throughout the video, at one point moving in unison with 19-year-old Palestinian terrorist Muhannad Halabi as he stabs a religious Jew in the Old City of Jerusalem. The video carries the text “Jerusalem is the dread of the Jews," followed by a red heart.

The following are screenshots from the animation paired with details of the Palestinian terrorists and the attacks they apparently portray:

Yesterday, Beatie Deutsch, a 30-year-old New Jersey native and ultra-Orthodox Jewish mother of five from Jerusalem, won the Miami half-marathon women’s division in 1:16:49 - wearing a skirt, headscarf and long sleeves.

While Deutsch was athletic as a youngster, she didn't keep it up. Four years ago, when she lost family races on a beach, she decided to get into shape. Only four months later she finished sixth in the 2016 Tel Aviv Marathon.

Deutsch has inspired other Orthodox Jews to run, and there were 600 Orthodox Jews in the Miami race, most of whom were running to raise money for charities. Deutsch herself was running to raise money for Beit Daniella, a charity for children with mental illness.

Because of the high religious Jewish participation, this is the first year the Miami Marathon offered kosher-certified meals for athletes at the finish line.

Deutsch first made headlines as a runner when she completed the 2017 Tel Aviv Marathon while seven months pregnant.

Last night she wrote on her Facebook page:

All day long I've been trying to find the time to post about my race today..

but I needed the perfect pictures and the perfect words before I could post.

Until suddenly I realized I didn't.

Because even though I'd love to share some professional quality pictures (which will come), if you've been following me long enough you know I'm not about perfection. And even if I don't have time to share a masterfully written caption, I can't go to sleep without expressing my gratitude. Hodu L'Hashem KiTov [Thanks to God for He is good] - I came in first place at the half marathon in Miami today in 1:16:49.
.
Thank you Hashem for giving me the opportunity to stand on the podium today at the @themiamimarathon and proudly represent Israel and the Jewish people.

She wanted to represent Israel at the Olympics in Tokyo and was disappointed when they scheduled the marathon for a Saturday. She's hoping they reschedule it again so she can participate.

Deutsch is truly remarkable, and her story strikes a chord - when I tweeted about her victory last night it was retweeted and liked hundreds of times by those touched by her life.

(h/t Irene)

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Former Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, posted a Twitter thread yesterday predicting that a non-aggression pact between Israel and many Arab states is coming.

In December, he predicted that the "Deal of the Century" would be released in January. He is offering this prediction as a follow-up.

His new prediction is for a non-aggression pact between Israel and the nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, plus Egypt, Jordan and possibly Morocco.

The Gulf Cooperation Council members are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Why Egypt or Jordan would sign such an agreement that would be superfluous to their existing peace treaties is unclear.

Al Thani is critical of this idea, which includes his own country, as being the result of pressure from the Trump administration. He says he is not against a "just peace" but that should precede any such agreement.

"Although there are Arab countries that promised the American side that they would take a positive position on the deal, they did not, and they justified this by saying that they could not because of their media. I was almost sure that these countries wanted to make those promises to come closer to America, even though they knew that the deal would be held up by the majority in the Arab League," he wrote.

Al Thani claims that the timing of the deal was to help Netanyahu and Trump win their elections, and he complains that Israel is pursuing a long term strategy for the region while Arab nations are held hostage to short-term interests and tactics.

One person who responded to the thread pointed out laughingly that while Al Thani is claiming to be skeptical now about any peace with Israel, he told CNN that he himself wanted to see Israelis in all Arab states.

السؤال الذي يدور في ذهني هو ألا يمكن انك اهبل ولا عبيط ولا احمق ولا تستغبي ؟؟ 🤔

الاجابة صعبه شوي 🤦🏻‍♂️😂😂 pic.twitter.com/j2rya3hgZ5
— ولد عزيّز (@R_ksa2030) February 9, 2020

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2017: The year the UN stopped rubber stamping all Palestinian demands

The PLO's Mission to the UN website has a link to a blank page with only a title:

I don't recall that the UN ever dedicated any year to be the "International Year to End the Israeli Occupation." So what's going on?

In August 2016, during the 377th meeting by the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the PLO representative called upon all UN members to declare 2017 to be the "International Year to End the Israeli Occupation."

There was some support for the initiative by Namibia, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bangladesh and a few other states.

Mahmoud Abbas also called on the UN to make that declaration when he addressed the body in September.

But it was only three years after the 2014 "International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People." It seems likely that the UN members, already inundated with pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel initiaitves, decided that they PLO had gone too far in trying to hijack the entire UN for their own petty and narrow agenda.

Nothing ever came of this initiative at the UN.

But it seems that the Non Aligned Movement, at its 2016 summit in Venezuela, appears to have endorsed that appellation. It received no press as far as I can tell.

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No, @BernieSanders, Judaism is more than antisemitism

People say they were touched by Bernie Sanders' answer at a CNN town hall on how his Jewish heritage has impacted his politics.

"I remember as a kid looking at these big picture books of World War II and tears would roll down my cheeks," Sanders said. "How horrible people can be to other people in the name of racial superiority or etcetera has certainly been with me my entire life, and that is why I will do everything I can to end the kind of divisiveness that Trump is fomenting in the country. The pain that my family, my father's family suffered in Poland is something that has impacted my life absolutely."

The only other time Sanders addressed the issue was in an op-ed for Jewish Currents titled "How to fight anti-semitism."

I am a proud Jewish American. My father emigrated from Poland to the United States in 1921 at the age of 17 to escape the poverty and widespread antisemitism of his home country. Those in his family who remained in Poland after Hitler came to power were murdered by the Nazis. I know very well where white supremacist politics leads, and what can happen when people do not speak up against it.

Apparently, Sanders' entire view of Jewishness is in context of Jew-hatred.

To Sanders, there is no actual Judaism. No rituals, no study, no Torah, no customs. He sees not an iota of impact from thousands of years of Jewish thinkers and writers and theologians and philosophers. Jews are inert victims that must be saved by his flavor of politics but they are not actors in their own story.

His only other connection to Judaism is by going to an anti-religious kibbutz in the 1960s where the only faith was socialism. In 2016, he said, "I am not actively involved with organized religion."

Yet one does not have to be involved with Jewish institutions to want to learn about one's heritage. Sanders' doesn't have to put on a kippah and tzitzit to read about Philos or Spinoza or Judah HaLevy or Maimonides. He doesn't have to agree with any or all of them, but he should be a little conversant in some Jewish thought (beyond that of a Jew who converted and had antisemitic writings.)

Doesn't anyone find it strange that he seems so disinterested in (or perhaps hostile to) his own people's history and heritage?

Sanders' life was not impacted by Judaism. It was impacted by antisemitism. Judaism is not a response to antisemitism. One lives a Jewish life with or without persecution. Viewing Judaism only through the lens of those who hate Jews is not Judaism.

Any Jews who felt proud at Sanders' answer should look a little closer at their own relationship with their heritage. Because his answer was nothing to be proud of.

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02/09 Links: Why the Left won't tolerate liberal Zionists; Jewish Harvard Club member assaulted during pro-Palestinian lecture; Jesse Eisenberg is Marcel Marceau in trailer for World War II drama Resistance

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: Why the Left won't tolerate liberal Zionists

The Columbia Journalism Review touts itself as "the voice of journalism." While the magazine, which is published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, has faced accusations of liberal bias, it still retains a reputation as a prestigious source of commentary about the news media. So when CJR commissions a hit piece on a publication, it is an event of some significance and, at least in theory, ought to alert readers to serious misconduct.

The latest CJR exposé, however, is important not because it reveals biased or misleading reporting or unprofessional behavior. According to the magazine that still claims to be the "intellectual leader" of the press, the problem with The Forward is that it has taken a stand against left-wing anti-Semitism and appears open to publishing occasional dissent against its liberal editorial stands on American and Israeli politics.

The Forward's financial troubles made news last year when it ceased publishing in print, fired its editor and laid off much of its staff. I have strong disagreements with the left-leaning editorial philosophy that the English-language successor to the historic Yiddish newspaper has adopted since it ousted Seth Lipsky, its founding editor, in 2000. But I view The Forward's struggles as indicative of problems afflicting the media and Jewish publishing that transcend politics. We need publications that can reflect the legitimate debates on important issues that are being conducted in the United States and Israel.

But CJR's decision to publish a rant against The Forward's editorial decisions in the last year by far-left anti-Zionist writer Mairav Zonszein is important. That's because what CJR has done here is essentially to smear a liberal Jewish journal because it had the temerity to call out left-wing anti-Semites like Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Minn.), as well as anti-Semitic activity on campuses like Bard College. Zonszein claims that The Forward, which in recent years has disappointed many in the Jewish community by providing space to Palestinian opponents of Israel and Zionism, let the left down by calling out such hatred and claims that its occasional publishing of conservative opinion is "polarizing."

She also cheers CNN contributor/writer Peter Beinart's defection from The Forward to the smaller but openly anti-Zionist Jewish Currents, as a harbinger of a power shift on the Jewish left.

It is curious that CJR would consider Zonszein, whose work has regularly appeared in far-left anti-Israel publications like Jewish Currents, +972mag and The Nation, to be qualified to comment in their august pages on any subject, let alone a Jewish one. But as new Forward editor Jodi Rudoren pointed out, it was a gross breach of journalistic ethics on the part of CJR to commission her to write an evaluation in a forum supposedly dedicated to the study of journalism about a publication that she has bitterly criticized in rants on Twitter and elsewhere. The Forward was entirely correct to refuse to cooperate in the writing of an article that could not possibly have been fair in its treatment of its subject.

Jewish Harvard Club member assaulted during pro-Palestinian lecture, lawsuit says

A Jewish member of the Harvard Club claims she was assaulted by a professor during a pro-Palestinian lecture at the swanky venue — and then was booted by the Ivy League institution.

Vanesa Levine is suing to get reinstated to the prestigious Midtown club, whose notable present and past members include Michael Bloomberg, John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Levine, 28, a marketing manager in Brooklyn, said she was a newly minted member of the 154-year old club when she and her mom attended a February 2019 lecture called, “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine” by Rashid Khalidi, a former press officer for the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

She said she “peacefully” asked during a question-and-answer session how Mideast peace could be achieved if Palestinians are taught “to support terrorism against Jews and Israelis.”

The audience erupted in “mob-like” fury at her query, according to the lawsuit.

Harvard finance professor Faris Mousa Saah, 53, called her a whore in Arabic and grabbed her by the arm, bruising it as he tried to take the microphone, according to court papers.

“I’ve been to hell and back ever since the Harvard Club incident,” Levine told The Post.

Though she was eventually able to ask her questions, Levine and her mom, who was born and raised in Israel, were asked by security to leave — with angry audience members following them into the hall, photographing her and chanting, “We’re going to get you expelled,” she charges.

Does the EU hear the Israeli public?

Last October, the EU Delegation to Israel published an unusual tender, worth €285,000, soliciting the assistance of local public relations companies in order to “change the negative image” of Europe in Israel.

The proposal cites an EU-commissioned survey which demonstrates the extent of Israeli public mistrust of Europe. According to the survey, 55% see the EU as Israel’s “enemy,” while only 18% identify it as a “friend.” According to the Israeli news outlet ICE, the results of the survey reaffirm negative perceptions toward EU member states on a number of fronts, including their funding to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), claims that the EU supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign directly or indirectly, and even accusations that it “supports terror entities indirectly.”

These attitudes, apparently held by many Israelis, did not emerge suddenly. The EU is completely out of sync with Israelis on the issues that strike the deepest emotional chords, and is seen as tone deaf, at best, in appreciating the Israeli perspective.

Even if the public learns about the EU’s investment in cutting-edge scientific research at Israeli universities, they will not soon forget about how Europe flirts with BDS with product labeling or treating the anti-Israel movement as merely free speech.

Israelis see that the EU engages selectively with a narrow ideological group of civil society, such as B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence. They hear the repeated condemnations of Israeli policy concerning Area C of the West Bank, as if this is the major issue on the EU’s agenda.

Yes, the PFLP links to "children's NGO" DCI-P are real and relevant

From TOI last week:

Israel is angry at Belgium for what Jerusalem says is a systematic campaign to demonize the Jewish state at the United Nations, including by hosting a “radical” pro-Palestinian activist next week at the Security Council.

In February, Belgium holds the rotating presidency of the council and is using this privilege to invite speakers who, according to fuming Jerusalem officials, hold an extreme anti-Israel bias. They were especially outraged about Brussels inviting Brad Parker, a senior official for a nonprofit called Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), to speak at the council’s session.
“Belgium has positioned itself as one of the Security Council member states most hostile toward Israel,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat told The Times of Israel on Thursday. “Inviting a one-sided radical activist such as Mr. Parker to brief the Security Council is yet another negative record.”

Israel’s Ambassador to Belgium Emmanuel Nahshon on Thursday took to Twitter to express regret at Brussels inviting “terror supporters” to the Security Council. “This is extremely disappointing and we will express our outrage in the strongest possible terms.”

Unfortunately, @BelgiumMFA @BelgiumUN has chosen to invite terror supporters to a Security Council debate . This is extremely disappointing and we will express our outrage in the strongest possible terms.
— Emmanuel Nahshon (@EmmanuelNahshon) February 6, 2020

I posted a tweet pointing to an NGO-Monitor report detailing some of the links between DCI-Palestine and the PFLP.

Here is @NGOmonitor's detailed report on ties between @DCIPalestine and the PFLP terror group.@EmmanuelNahshon is 100% correct.@PeterBeinart, @jvplive and other terror apologists like to pretend that this information isn't true.https://t.co/XGXkYL6Hii
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) February 7, 2020

A group I never heard of responded:

And here is our report on @NGOmonitor, which spreads guilt-by-association allegations to advance its partisan agenda:
SHRINKING SPACE: Defaming human rights organizations that criticize the Israeli occupationhttps://t.co/lOwbYKatr3
— Policy Working Group-Israel (@IsraelPolicy) February 9, 2020

So I looked at their report. The relevant part says:

The second tactic that NGO Monitor employs to defame Palestinian NGOs is associating them with armed groups, in particular by claiming they have alleged ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is listed as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the EU.
NGO Monitor says it has exposed ties between Palestinian NGOs and the PFLP. However, it has not presented any evidence that the accused organizations ever participated in terrorist activities or violence. It also has not explained how the organizations’ work – field research, documentation, legal work, international advocacy – is in any way related to terrorism.
The accusations are largely based on references to outdated information, on a small number of cases in the 1970s and 1980s, on selective internet inquiries and on guilt-by-association. Employees of those organizations are often accused of being “affiliated”, “linked”, or of having “alleged ties”, sometimes via family relations, with terrorist organizations or their leaders. Apart from very few exceptions, no trials or formal indictments have been initiated by Israeli authorities against employees or board members of Palestinian organizations relevant to NGO Monitor’s accusations and relating to the period of their involvement in the organization.

DCI-P lies in its reports. I've proven that many times over. Here are two of the "innocent children" they claim Israel killed for no reason:

Moreover, when it claims that 75% of children arrested by Israel are tortured, their methodology is laughable - they look for kids that will say what they want, and if they find inconsistencies in their stories, they go back and prompt the kids to change the stories.

The funny part is that this group accuses NGO-Monitor of bias, but its members seem to all be associated with the NGOs (like B'Tselem) that NGO-Monitor goes after. Moreover, this group, which seems to only have one report issued, accuses NGO-Monitor of no transparency in its sources of funding (which isn't true) - but they told me that they are all volunteers and not funded by anyone. Yet this report says it was funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, associated with Germany's democratic socialist Left party.

In other words, Leftists are defending the leftist/terrorist NGOs whose entire purpose is to bash Israel.

Reporting the ties between the PFLP and various NGOs, including DCI-P, is not meant to show a direct link between the NGOs and specific terror acts. It shows that the groups themselves have an agenda that aligns with that of the PFLP, which as a Marxist/socialist terror group is well versed in using Soviet-style propaganda against Israel - and there is no more effective propaganda nowadays then to accuse Israel of human rights abuses.

NGO-Monitor isn't the only group to show ties between the PFLP and DCI-P. Israel itself has issued a report that shows that (at least until May 2018 when there seems to have been a major re-organization) many senior DCI-P members were also PFLP members.

The anti-Israel Left is purposefully ignoring the facts that NGOs like DCI-P lie, liberally, and they try to cloud the critiques with half-baked information. I've proven the lies - go after my proof if you want to defend a terror-supporting group.

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