Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 13, 2020

03/13 Links Pt1: Israel Now Looks Like a Coronavirus Containment Visionary; Palestinians Choose "the Cause"over Statehood

From Ian:

Israel Now Looks Like a Coronavirus Containment Visionary

The walls went up, and Israel is now a fortress. In a dramatic decision the government made this week, all those entering the country from abroad – regardless of where they have been – must be quarantined for two weeks to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Many other Western countries have begun taking similar measures, including the US, which barred entry from Europe on Wednesday night.

But when Israel first started pulling up the drawbridges, it was taking the most extreme measures in the West to contain COVID-19. After the government announced it was stopping flights from China, there was talk about adverse diplomatic effects.

China is very sensitive to its image in the world, and as a result, Israel made efforts to show that its problem was with the virus, not all of China. Those efforts included a video, produced by the Foreign Ministry, of Israelis saying that they stand with the Chinese in this difficult time; it was such a success that major Chinese newspapers and official TV channels reported on it. Israeli aid organizations also tried to send supplies to Wuhan, where COVID-19 first broke out.

The challenge is to try to maintain economic ties as normally as possible, even when people are not moving between the countries because of steps necessary to maintain the public’s health, sources in the Foreign Ministry said. (h/t Zvi)

127 Israelis infected with coronavirus, 2,479 health workers in quarantine

The Israeli Health Ministry confirmed that 2,479 healthcare workers had entered quarantine as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 127 people on Friday.

Some 1,174 hospital workers are in quarantine, as well as 171 MDA employees, 24 IDF healthcare workers, 93 psychiatrists, 128 geriatric care workers, 106 east Jerusalem healthcare workers, 20 administrative workers and 763 community staff.

Furthermore, the ministry reported that 949 doctors, 635 nurses, 127 assistants, 81 lab technicians, 64 logistic workers, 40 administrators, 83 pharmacists, 14 dietitians, 31 social workers, 108 physiotherapists, 171 paramedics and 176 others have entered quarantine.

Two of the coronavirus patients are in serious condition, five are in moderate condition and 119 are in fair condition. The others have recovered and been released.

The Health Ministry shared the epidemiology of many of the sick patients Friday morning, including four new cases - siblings between the ages of six and 18 - who had been in "close contact with a known coronavirus patient." These four, numbered patients 119-122, have gone to their respective schools and preschools before being put into isolation, those being the "Orot" school in the town of Or Yehuda, and the "Tzivoni" and "Dekel" kinder-garden, as well as the "Ulpana Tzfira".

Corona Is Slowing Down, Humanity Will Survive, Says Biophysicist Michael Levitt

Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, an American-British-Israeli biophysicist who teaches structural biology at Stanford University and spends much of his time in Tel Aviv, unexpectedly became a household name in China, offering the public reassurance during the peak of the country’s coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak. Levitt did not discover a treatment or a cure, just did what he does best: crunched the numbers. The statistics led him to the conclusion that, contrary to the grim forecasts being branded about, the spread of the virus will come to a halt.

The calming messages Levitt sent to his friends in China were translated into Chinese and passed from person to person, making him a popular subject for interviews in the Asian nation. His forecasts turned out to be correct: the number of new cases reported each day started to fall as of February 7. A week later, the mortality rate started falling as well.

He might not be an expert in epidemiology, but Levitt understands calculations and statistics, he told Calcalist in a phone interview earlier this week.

The interview was initially scheduled to be held at the fashionable Sarona complex in Tel Aviv, where Levitt currently resides. But after he caught a cold — “not corona,” he jokingly remarked — the interview was rescheduled to be held over the phone. Even though he believes the pandemic will run its course, Levitt emphasizes his support of all the safety measures currently being taken and the need to adhere to them.

Levitt received his Nobel prize for chemistry in 2013 for “the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.” He did not in any way intend to be a prophet foretelling the end of a plague; it happened by accident. His wife Shoshan Brosh is a researcher of Chinese art and a curator for local photographers, meaning the couple splits their time between the US, Israel, and China.

When the pandemic broke out, Brosh wrote to friends in China to support them. “When they answered us, describing how complicated their situation was, I decided to take a deeper look at the numbers in the hope of reaching some conclusion,” Levitt explained. “The rate of infection of the virus in the Hubei province increased by 30 percent each day — that is a scary statistic. I am not an influenza expert but I can analyze numbers and that is exponential growth.” At this rate, the entire world should have been infected within 90 days, he said.

Arutz-7 reports:

Terrorists opened fire at an Israeli vehicle near Hadoar junction in the Talmonim bloc of the Binyamin region on Thursday night.

No one was injured.

The driver, a resident of the western Binyamin region, continued driving toward the community of Na'ale, where he reported the incident to the IDF and police.

At least 9 bullets were fired at the vehicle, causing it damage.

Security forces are searching the area in an attempt to locate the terrorists.

This is about story number 30 on the Arutz-7 website. It isn't reported at all even in most Israeli media.

Other sources say there were 12 bullet holes in the car.

These aren't a few rocks. These are bullets.

And it happens more often than you think - because the media ignores the constant terror attacks that, thankfully, do not cause serious injuries or deaths.

For example, a week or so ago, a bus was shot near Alfei Menashe. Arabic sites trumpet these events while Israeli and world Jewish news websites aren't even aware of them!

For people who control the media, we are doing a pretty bad job.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

ACLU lies about Arizona legislation saying it "criminalizes anti-Israel speech"

From the ACLU-Arizona:

OPPOSE ATTEMPTS TO CRIMINALIZE PROTECTED SPEECH!

Could publicly criticizing the state of Israel be used as evidence that you’ve committed a hate crime? If SB 1143 becomes law, it might. Mirror bills, SB 1143 and HB 2683 amend Arizona law to incorporate a definition of anti-Semitism that is so broad and vague that statements that are solely critical of Israel could be used as evidence of a hate crime, including many statements protected by the First Amendment.

The legislation’s broad definition of anti-Semitism risks incorrectly equating constitutionally protected criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. People who protest Israel could find themselves facing a bias crime prosecution because of their political speech. The First Amendment squarely protects political speech, including criticism of any government.

What does the legislation cover? It doesn't criminalize any speech. It is only meant to determine when someone committing a violent crime might be guilty of a hate crime.

The department is responsible for the effective operation of the central state repository in order to collect, store and disseminate complete and accurate Arizona criminal history records and related criminal justice information. The department shall:...
...Collect information concerning criminal offenses that manifest evidence of prejudice based on ANTI‑SEMITISM, race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender or disability.
...The chief officers of criminal justice agencies of this state or its political subdivisions also shall provide to the department information concerning crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on ANTI‑SEMITISM, race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender or disability.

And later on it says:

"ANTI‑SEMITISM" INCLUDES THE DEFINITION OF ANTI‑SEMITISM THAT WAS ADOPTED BY THE INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE ALLIANCE ON MAY 26, 2016 AND THAT HAS BEEN ADOPTED BY THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, INCLUDING THE CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLES OF ANTI‑SEMITISM IDENTIFIED IN THE ADOPTED DEFINITION. ANTI‑SEMITISM DOES NOT INCLUDE CRITICISM OF ISRAEL SIMILAR TO THAT LEVELED AGAINST ANY OTHER COUNTRY.

So what is the ACLU (and CAIR and IfNotNow....) defending?

If someone attacks a black person and calls him the "n" word, it becomes a hate crime. No one has a problem with that.

If someone attacks a gay person and calls him a faggot, it becomes a hate crime. No one has a problem with that.

If someone attacks a Jewish family at a mall and screams that they are all "fucking Zionist baby killers" - they don't want that to be called a hate crime.

Similarly, if someone stabs a black person and says "This is for all white people!" the ACLU has no problem calling that a hate crime.

But if someone stabs a Jew and says "This is for all Palestinians!" then the ACLU wants to defend the stabber.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

There was a nice detail in a much longer antisemitic article in Jordan's Al Ghad about how Jews constantly attack Muslims.

The article says:

Many of those who ignite these conflicts are Jewish social media people and their weapon is rumor and lies, and unfortunately, many Muslims - individuals, groups and countries - accept this pernicious approach!
...
The ugliest of all is what Al-Jazeera in particular did to help Jews penetrate the minds of Muslims by opening the way for them to promote their falsehood through its pulpit, and the crime of Al-Jazeera grows when it deliberately brings a weak opponent before the trained Jewish who is professional in promoting falsehood, which is the primary media game in directing and misleading the masses.

You see? The reason Jews beat Muslims in Al Jazeera is because Al Jazeera is putting up smart Jews against dumb Arabs!

If you have the time, you can see one of these beatdowns, with Mordechai Kedar speaking after Trump first said he intended to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

03/12 Links Pt2: Obama is back; Bernie Sanders and the End of Sharia-Bolshevism; IfNotNow Endorses Bernie Sanders for President

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: Obama is back

The centerpiece of Obama's foreign policy was an attempt to bring about a rapprochement with Iran that would, in the words of the former president, give the Islamist regime a "chance to get right with the world."

Unfortunately, Iran was never interested in that opportunity and exploited Obama's eagerness for a nuclear deal that would be his signature foreign-policy accomplishment. The result was a weak pact and an emboldened Iranian regime.

Trump's decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal has been denounced by Democrats, as well as Obama's "media echo chamber." But his "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran has put the regime on its heels and given other states in the region hope that its quest for regional hegemony can be stopped.

The other major difference concerns the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Biden has sounded more supportive of Israel than his boss or most of his 2020 Democratic competitors. But the former vice president also remains an enthusiastic supporter of Obama's efforts to pressure the Jewish state into concessions that the majority of its people have rejected as irresponsible and a danger to their security.

Biden opposes Trump's efforts to end Obama's policy of more "daylight" between the United States and Israel, such as the move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory and the effort to force the Palestinian Authority to stop funding terrorism.

Instead, a Biden administration – staffed by Obama alumni – may take the region back to the old failed US policies that believed Israel had to be saved from itself, and which also rejected the strong consensus among the Jewish state's voters that there is no viable Palestinian peace partner.

Turning back the clock to the way the world looked four years ago may sound good to Trump's critics, but in the Middle East, it will be also be good news for a dangerous regime in Iran and Palestinian rejectionists who long for the days when America was joining with the mob trying to pressure Israel rather than standing up to it. Unless and until Biden is ready to say where he differs from the man he served so faithfully, he will be vulnerable to criticism that his election will be a rerun of Obama's Middle East policies that have already been tried and failed.

.@KenRoth As the #1 campaigner for the U.N.'s new blacklist of 96 Israeli companies, are you willing to declare that your staff & followers should boycott a vaccine tied to any Israeli company that may be on or added to the blacklist?

Didn't think so.https://t.co/PiKBgQ1N4T
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) March 12, 2020

Bernie Sanders and the End of Sharia-Bolshevism

The men running Senator Bernie Sanders campaign for the Democratic Party nomination may have been oblivious to how ordinary Americans feel about his close relationship to Sharia-supporting Muslims, but the rest of the country, including liberal Muslims and Indian Americans, found his close association with more radical Muslims deeply disturbing.

Sanders' advisors make for a strange combination. His Campaign Co-Chair is Rep. 'Ro' (Rohit) Khanna who, despite being a Hindu of Indian ancestry joined the 'Pakistan Caucus' in the U.S. Congress; a move hailed by Pakistan's Ambassador, but condemned by 230 Indian American organizations.

Sanders' campaign manager Faiz Shakir, also of Pakistani Muslim ancestry, was believed to be instrumental in getting the Senator to speak at a convention of the controversial group Islamic Society of North America.

If the objective was to add an extra (Muslim) 2-3% of the vote to an already enthusiastic base of young Americans, blue-collar white workers and the Latino vote bank, it is not difficult to understand why on the eve of Super Tuesday One, Sanders was pictured hugging controversial Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

As if this wasn't enough, liberal and reform-minded American Muslims tell me, even the socialists and social democrats among them have said goodbye to America's "democratic socialist."

Some of us are old enough to have seen the failings of the mainstream left in Europe, Iran, India, Turkey, the Arab World and Africa. The Islamists latched on to the 'anti-Americanism' of the Marxists and then decimated the left like a parasite.

Today, they would rather live with a President Biden or even a re-elected Trump than see a potential Islamist in the White House.

Rasha Al Aqeedi, Managing Editor of Raise Your Voice magazine, put the feelings of liberal and secular U.S. Muslims in a tweet: "Seriously who is advising Sanders? It's not a marginal issue when we have been for months hearing about "Muslims support Sanders." Either drop that line if you don't want to hear the counter perspective or change it to "opportunist sectarians support Sanders."

California State University Professor Claims Israel Will Place Arab Coronavirus Patients in ‘Mass Prisons’

A professor at California State University, Stanislaus, with a long history of anti-Israel and antisemitic statements claimed on Sunday that the Jewish state was planning to discriminate against Arab coronavirus victims and put them in “mass prisons,” and then blamed subsequent complaints on the work of “Zionist hoodlums.”

Asad Abukhalil, a professor of political science, tweeted on March 8, “Israel will — I am sure — have different medical procedures for Jews and non-Jews. Non-Jews will be put in mass prisons.”

The response was immediate, with many pointing out that there is equality of treatment and employment in Israeli hospitals, with many Arab doctors and nurses.

“I’m so surprised you would say that,” said one response. “My Israeli mom was hospitalized for 2 months in Israel. Her supervising Dr. & many of her Drs & nurses were Israeli Arabs working side by side w Israeli Jews. They were wonderful.”

“Are you suggesting that those Arab doctors will discriminate???” it asked.

Another respondent said, “Ive personally been in Israeli hospitals seeing Jewish & Arab Israeli staff treating Jewish & Arab citizens w/ same protocols in same rooms.”

On Tuesday, Abukhalil said he had been merely joking, and then went on a tirade about “Zionist hoodlums” reporting his tweet.

“If mocking Israeli racism is anti-Semitism, how do you deal with the true racism of the Israeli state, which was founded on series of discriminatory law [sic] and which has only been adding more Racist discmriminatory [sic] laws ever since it was founded atop the Palestinian nation,” he tweeted.

Syria has far more female Palestinian prisoners than Israel. Oh, and they torture them to death.

I have seen scores of articles, tweets, and protests against how Israel holds large numbers of Palestinian women prisoners and how they are supposedly mistreated. It is a huge propaganda effort that has been happening for years; here are a few posters:

How many Palestinian women are in Israeli prisons now?

As of September - only 40. And that number has been steadily decreasing throughout the past decade - there were 61 in 2017 and 73 in 2008. NGOs, the UN and anti-Israel activists spend thousands of hours publicizing this and claiming Israel tortures and abuses these women.

They never admit that the women themselves are usually terrorists. There have been plenty of women who have been involved with terror attacks against Jews. It seems sexist to assume that women are innocent - especially since Palestinians celebrate their female terrorists.

But the sheer amount of attention that these activists give women in Israeli prisons makes this story, just out today, most interesting:

The Syrian regime has been holding 110 Palestinian women in secret detention throughout its vast prison network, with a large number of them tortured to death, a human rights organisation has found.

The London-based organisation Action Group for Palestinians of Syria (AGPS) revealed that in addition to at least 486 Palestinian women who have been pronounced dead since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, 110 others have been secretly detained by the regime of Bashar Al-Assad and at least 34 have been tortured to death within its prisons.

The group has stated that it believes the number of Palestinian women who have been killed overall throughout the war are much higher than is officially acknowledged, as the regime has reportedly kept their names secret and left their cases undocumented, as well as the fact that many families of the victims refuse to reveal their relatives’ names out of fear of retaliation by the regime.

The organisation cited the accounts of former Palestinian female detainees of the regime who said that they were regularly subjected to intense psychological and physical torture during their detention, including heavy beatings with irons sticks, electric shocks and rampant sexual abuse.

If these NGOs cared about the welfare of Palestinian women prisoners so much, why has everyone been silent about those imprisoned, tortured and killed in Syria for the past nine years?

Even the worst reports from the biggest anti-Israel liars do not approach the reality of what is happening in Syria. Yet there is silence on Syria and lots of noise about Israel.

The double standard needs to be called out for what it is - antisemitism.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Pandemic Prompts Divine Thoughts Of Postponing Passover Till After Sukkot (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jerusalem, March 12 - Ministering angels disclosed today that the Almighty has begun consultation with His advisory board regarding the possibility of delaying this year's observance of the Feast of Unleavened Bread for more than six months until the danger of a burgeoning plague has passed.

Archangel Gabriel told reporters Thursday that the LORD has voiced concern for several weeks already that the observance of a pilgrimage festival under current circumstances will prove catastrophic, as it is expected to bring together hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps even millions, in a single location for days at a time. Such prolonged proximity to an unknown number of plague carriers, whether they display or do not display symptoms of the affliction, carries frightening epidemiological implications.

"God is close to a decision as to whether Passover will happen on schedule this year," the angel stated. "We should have an announcement by the end of the workweek tomorrow. The most likely scenarios under discussion at the moment include canceling Passover entirely for this year, but perhaps more likely, postponing it until after the onset of the autumn holidays, perhaps as an extension of Sukkot when so many people come to Jerusalem anyway. We all want to know what to expect so we can make adequate preparations and take the necessary precautions, but the economic, social, spiritual, and other effects of moving the festival deserve due consideration and discussion. I urge the public to maintain its admirable discipline and cooperation to date with the hygienic and other measures to help contain the disease, and ask a little more patience so that this important issue can undergo proper evaluation."

Hospitality industry figures voiced consternation. "We need to know already," declared a Judah Hotel owner. "In a typical year I'm full to capacity with pilgrims who've come to bring the paschal and festival offerings, and that means ordering food, arranging adequate laundering of guest linens, and providing extra services such as guides if that's what they want. I understand attendance might be sparser this year, but I'm still going to be out a pretty perutah if I order things that no one is here to eat."

Spiritual community figures also expressed concern. "I think it might be better to cancel Passover outright rather than delay it till after the Feast of Booths," argued a tribal elder of Ephraim named Jeroboam. "It's entirely the wrong season to be celebrating Passover, the spring festival, in the fall. I say just call off pilgrimage festivals to Jerusalem entirely, while we're at it. No need to take these epidemiological risks all the time. It courts disaster even in less troubling conditions."

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

03/12 Links Pt1: The Illusion that the Palestinian Leadership Is Prepared to Negotiate Peace; Remembering the victims of Dalal Mughrabi

From Ian:

Jason Greenblatt: The Illusion that the Palestinian Leadership Is Prepared to Negotiate Peace

As my colleagues and I delved into the history of the Oslo peace process and the unsuccessful efforts of multiple U.S. administrations to bring Israel and the Palestinians to a deal, one issue stood out: While successive Israeli governments (left and right) had acknowledged the Palestinians' ultimate goal - some form of a Palestinian state or self-determination - the Palestinian leadership continues to refuse to acknowledge Israel's ultimate goal.

In 2014, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas insisted that millions of descendants of the original Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war had a personal "right of return" to all of Israel, including Tel Aviv and Haifa. The Trump plan stops the nonsense and says no to using generations of Palestinians as pawns to keep the 1948 war alive.

Several U.S. administrations and Israeli prime ministers had presented the Palestinian leadership with opportunities to end the conflict. Each time, the Palestinian leadership walked away, at times not even advancing a counteroffer. They weren't willing to compromise.

So long as Palestinian leaders were feeding their people a steady diet of incitement against Israel, plying them with the myth that they would achieve their claimed right of return, and glorifying murderers of Israeli civilians as "martyrs," there could never be a true end of conflict with Israelis.

Our approach, therefore, was to formulate a plan to deal with the situation as it was, in a realistic and implementable manner, and not through a prism that filtered out the harsh realities of the past 25 years of unsuccessful peacemaking. The Palestinian leadership, of course, rejected this plan before they even saw it.

After observing Ramallah's behavior over time, the Trump administration determined that we were not going to pander to the illusion that the Palestinian leadership was now prepared to negotiate in good faith. And we were not going to immunize them from the consequences of their actions.

The Palestinian ‘Right of Return’ Is Really About Destroying Israel

Demanding that six million Palestinian “refugees” have a “right” to “return” to a place where most of them never lived runs counter to Palestinian claims that they want to have their own independent state. As the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis noted in The Washington Post, this demand negates the idea of Palestinian statehood — unless that state means, by definition, the demographic end of the Jewish nation of Israel. As the American Jewish International Relations Institute observed, such a move would “end the existence of the majority-Jewish state” in Israel.

In their unguarded moments, Palestinian leaders and their state-controlled media have said as much. Palestinian Media Watch, which monitors Arab media in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, has highlighted that official PA television promotes the “right of return” by showing a map of “Palestine” that simply erases Israel. PA-approved textbooks also hail that demand.

Defenders of the “right of return” often cite UN General Assembly Resolutions 194 and 394 and Security Council Resolution 224 to buttress their claims. But the Arab states voted against 194 in part because it did not establish a “right to return.” Indeed, it only “recommended” that original refugees from the conflict, not descendants, be permitted to return, and only after they agree to live “at peace with their neighbors.” (It should also be noted, as the late historian Martin Gilbert has documented, that these resolutions can be applied to the Jewish refugees as well.)

For decades, Palestinian leaders have rejected offers for statehood and peace while citing a “right” that doesn’t exist. Both the press and policymakers should speak honestly and openly about what it would truly mean and perhaps reflect on why Palestinian leaders continue to demand it.

Yisrael Medad: The Assault on Israel as the ‘Jewish State’

No matter how academic or intellectual they are — or project themselves as being — those promoting a pro-Palestinian agenda always engage in not only historic revisionism and fallacies, but in complete misrepresentation of facts. Right at the beginning, Nusseibeh asserts that the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry concluded in 1946 that the demand for a “Jewish state” was not part of the obligations of the Balfour Declaration or the British Mandate.

That declaration includes, however, the phrases “sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations” and “a national home for the Jewish people.” Yes, the word “state” is missing, but everything else is there.

For Nusseibeh, however, “even in the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, when Zionists sought to ‘establish a home for the Jewish people,’” there was no reference of a “Jewish state.” As support, he notes that Judah Magnes and Martin Buber — two of the political minimalists who carried no responsibility of elected office in the Yishuv — avoided the clear and explicit term “Jewish state,” as if that means anything.

No non-Jew is discriminated against by law, except, of course, for the Law of Return, which is what makes Israel the Jewish state.

Of course, he ignores the League of Nations 1922 Mandate decision, one approved by 50 nations, based on the Balfour Declaration, which reads quite forthrightly that “recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”

The whole purpose of the Mandate was to “secure the establishment of the Jewish national home,” not an Arab one. The British Mandate sought “the cooperation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home.” “Jewish immigration” was to be facilitated and “close settlement by Jews on the land” was to be encouraged. A “Jewish Agency,” representing the Zionist movement and world Jewry, was to be a full partner in the recreation of the Jewish national home.

And Nusseibeh is a “philosopher”?

He is also an expert on Jews, Jewish nationalism, and Judaism.

He asserts that the term “Jewish” can apply “both to the ancient race [?] of Israelites and their descendants, as well as to those who believe in and practice the religion of Judaism.” But he has a problem as “some ethnic Jews are atheists and there are converts to Judaism.” There we have it: non-Jews telling us Jews who we are. He is also upset because defining a modern nation-state, he posits, “by one ethnicity or one religion is problematic in itself.”

There were three murders in the Palestinian controlled territories last night.

A 31-year old was stabbed to death when he tried to collect a debt. An unidentified body was found in Latta.

A 65 year old man, Ali Sabih Al-Zaydat, was run over during a family feud in Bani Naim.

Because of that murder, other family members started to burn down their enemies' houses.

The head of the municipality of Bani Naim Ali Manasra said, "The situation in the town is not stable, and several houses have been burned, and the civil defense is working hard to put out these fires, and the security force that reached the town is striving to contain the violence and prevent its continuation."

Clan clashes are not that unusual for Palestinians. They are rarely reported in the West, but perhaps the world should be more aware that Palestinians consider violent vengeance to be part of their culture.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Blood stains on the car seat

The Al Qassam website of Hamas writes, as one of its top stories, "On Tuesday evening, a Zionist usurper was seriously injured due to stone throwing by rebel youths near the town of Huwwara, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank....The health of the usurper is unstable and he is unconscious and on artificial respiration."

The actual story from Arutz-7:

A 14-year-old Jewish boy from Samaria was injured Tuesday night when a Palestinian Authority Muslim hurled a rock at his head near the town of Huwara.

The youth was taken by Magen David Adom to Schneider Children's Medical Center, where he is unconscious and on a respirator in the intensive care unit. He is scheduled to undergo surgery at 12:00p.m. on Wednesday.

Initial investigations show that the attack occurred after a vehicle carrying several Jews stopped at the Huwara intersection, on the main road leading to the towns of Yitzhar, Itamar, and Elon Moreh. At the time, the youth and his brother were dancing to the sound of Purim music.

When a vehicle with several Arabs passed near them, the Arabs began cursing and attacking the Jews. Several other Arabs then arrived, attempting to block the Jews from continuing their journey.

Eyewitnesses said that the Jewish boy entered his vehicle in order to leave the scene, but one of the Arabs threw a block at his head from a short distance away, and the missile broke through the car's window and hit the boy on the head.

The vehicle driven by Jews succeeded in continuing its journey until the main Yitzhar Junction, where they met IDF forces who provided first aid to the critically injured youth.

There are three things to learn from this.

One is that Hamas remains as disgusting and immoral as ever, as it wants to highlight that a Jew injured by being hit in the head with a large rock is a victory for Palestinians altogether.

Two is that, as usual, the perversions of Hamas do not get condemned or disparaged in any way by the rest of the Palestinian media. This is expected behavior, and not anomalous.

Three is that Israel's defenses have left Hamas largely impotent that it feels the need to brag about something that it had nothing to do with and that was a far cry from the terror attacks that Hamas used to perform with near impunity. They are losing relevance, and they are desperate to make themselves feel relevant again.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

I'm sure he really meant to say "Zionists."

From MEMRI:

Jordanian Islamic Scholar Ahmad Al-Shahrouri: The Jews Are More Dangerous Than Coronavirus, AIDS, and Cholera; Jihad Purifies Our Bodies and Souls, Can Save People from These Diseases#7868 | 01:26Source: Yarmouk TV (Jordan)
Jordanian Islamic scholar Ahmad Al-Shahrouri said in a March 8 episode of his show on Yarmouk TV – a Jordanian TV channel affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood - that the Jews are more dangerous than coronavirus, AIDS, cholera, and every disease in the world. He also said that to be saved from these illnesses, one should remember the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jihad, which he explained is a means of purification of one's soul and body. Sheikh Al-Shahrouri added that being saved from coronavirus serves to give one the honor of liberating the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Al-Shahrouri is a professor of shari'a at Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan and serves as the imam of the university's mosque.

Ahmad Al-Shahrouri: "Brothers, we are talking about epidemics and diseases that afflict the body, but what about epidemics that afflict the soul and the mind? An epidemic that afflicts the mind... Let me ask you a question: Is it okay for us to talk about the coronavirus because it is 'hot news' and forget about the Jews, who are more dangerous than AIDS, coronavirus, cholera, and all the diseases of this world?
[...]
"If you want to be saved from these deadly diseases, we should all remember Jihad. Jihad is a means of purification. We should all remember Al-Aqsa Mosque. If we attach our souls to Al-Aqsa, they will be purified. Our bodies will be purified. Anyone who remembers Al-Aqsa loves life. He is saved from the coronavirus, but not in order to get married, build, or study – rather, he is saved so that he can have the honor of liberating the Al-Aqsa Mosque."

I'm also sure he means the "inner, spiritual jihad" when he's talking about "liberating" the Temple Mount from Jews.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

03/11 Links Pt2: SOAS Director – caught lying to the Jews to keep them quiet; BBC travel show brings in political activist on Jerusalem archaeology

From Ian:

David Collier: SOAS Director – caught lying to the Jews to keep them quiet

Last week I reported on a Europal event due to take place on the SOAS campus. Europal have links to Hamas and have spread antisemitic material on a UK campus. Several Jewish organisations set up campaigns and angry members of the community sent emails to the university in protest. Eventually SOAS responded -and sent out a reassuring email from the SOAS Director. The event would go ahead but was a ‘student only’ event. There would be no Europal presence. SOAS promised they would be ‘no external speakers. The event took place and now we know the truth. SOAS has been caught lying to us.

This is the email SOAS sent out:

SOAS emailThe email is clear. This is a student only event – there will be no external speakers – and Europal are not going to be there either.
The SOAS Europal event

The event took place on Saturday. This is an image from one of the sessions.

SOAS Europal event

Speaking at the front is Shamiul Joarder. Jorder is Head of Public Affairs of Friends of Al Aqsa (FoA) – another Islamist group. For many years FoA supported the Iranian, pro-Hezbollah ‘Al Quds’ day march in London. The FoA founder Ismail Patel has spoken at the event. Patel has also recommended the writing of Roger Garaudy -a 9/11 truther and convicted Holocaust denier. Friends of Al-Aqsa has also published work by Holocaust denier Paul Eisen and antisemite Gilad Atzmon. In the following image Patel can be seen with Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh:

Patel has openly said that Hamas ‘is not a terrorist organisation’ and fully supported the speaking tour’ of Raed Salah, who has since been found guilty of inciting terrorism. Patel himself has advocated the killing of adulterers.

What Happened to the New York Times’ Man in Tehran?

The Iranian diaspora has coined a term for this kind of news management, hashtad-beest, or “80/20,” meaning that 80% of the reporting focuses on the obvious and unavoidable, including mild or implied criticism of the regime, in order to establish credibility among foreign readers. According to Iranian political activist Heshmat Alavi, “The remaining 20 percent of their published material focuses on pushing Iran’s talking points, such as justifying Zarif’s arguments, praising Soleimani as a popular figure and criticizing Iranian opposition groups.” And so the regime-friendly gaslighting produced by the Times’ man in Tehran highlighted a consistent array of topics pleasing to the ayatollahs and irritating to the U.S. administration: the Yemeni humanitarian disaster (always laid on Riyadh’s doorstep, never the Houthis’ or Iran’s), Brett Kavanaugh Bad, anti-refugee attacks in Germany, Israel bombing Hezbollah convoys in Syria (Bad), Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman visiting the United States (Bad), Pompeo replacing Tillerson (Bad), John Bolton (Worse), Apple closing its App Store to Islamic Republic consumers (Apocalypse), and predictable logrolling between Erdbrink and Vali Nasr and Al Jazeera’s favorite Iranian-American, Yara Elmjouie.

Erdbrink deserves some credit, however. When NPR interviewed Erdbrink about the then-upcoming Our Man in Tehran release, the interviewer mentioned his longtime residency in Iran with his Iranian wife. Could he be truly objective? “If objectivity is measured by, do I see Iran exactly though a Western view? Then no,” was Erdbrink’s answer. With this artful dodge, he was admitting to being a functional hostage of the regime, and with its array of tools—granting entry visas and press credentials, revoking both at whim, banning, silencing, imprisonment, uniting or separating families, taking hostages—Tehran can dictate not only how it is covered but by whom.

What is striking here to an outsider is the value that Tehran places on intermediaries and proxies. I asked Reuel Marc Gerecht, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies chief Iran expert, who has traveled through Iran and speaks fluent Persian, about this strategy. “I don’t think the Iranians are as strategic as many folks think,” Gerecht said. “They really are dependent upon Westerners leading on most issues. Most Westerners aren’t being led; if anything, Westerners have the rhetorical lead and Iranians follow. Ben Rhodes, Phil Gordon, Jake Sullivan, to name just a few, don’t need NIAC [National Iranian American Council] to frame arguments. As a rule, Iranian officials are pretty crude and stuck in a left-wing, Islamic, mindset of the 1970s, even if they are young. Zarif only looks good because the others are so bad, so inept with Westerners. The Islamic Republic is like Cuba: it exists in a time warp intellectually. It’s one of many reasons why it can’t evolve and reform.”

Keeping Thomas Erdbrink in limbo probably guarantees a certain level of compliance from his successor Fassihi. Why the New York Times so readily accedes to what looks from here like blackmail is another question. On Feb. 12, 2020, the Washington, D.C., think tank the Atlantic Council convoked a panel titled “Iran: Propaganda and Perception 41 Years After the Revolution,” starring, among others, its own Barbara Slavin, Farnaz Fassihi, and others. In a two-hour discussion about the rigors of reporting from Tehran, Erdbrink’s name did not come up once.

Rubin Report: Muslim On The Real Danger Of Ilhan Omar’s Agenda (Pt. 1) | Dalia al-Aqidi

Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report talks to Dalia al-Aqidi (Journalist, Republican Candidate) about why she is challenging Rep Ilhan Omar for her congressional seat in the fifth district of Minnesota. Dalia is a Muslim refugee who grew up in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. She immigrated to the US when she was 20. She shares her concerns about groups like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) and how they worked with and groomed congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. She reveals how CAIR is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood and is working to train many more candidates in the same progressive mold.

This is the man who endorsed Ilhan Omar and Bernie Sanders.

I urge all the Liberals to watch it. https://t.co/IlrebfwhkJ
— Dalia al-Aqidi (@Dalia4Congress) March 10, 2020

Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution (courtesy BBC).

Read this article.

If you are not completely horrified, read it again.

Benjamin Gerstein is the president of the student body at the University of Michigan.

He wasn’t beaten with sticks or carried through the streets with a dunce cap on his head. He didn’t see his parents murdered or sent to concentration camps. He wasn’t starved or threatened with execution or imprisonment.

His crime was to suggest a few years ago, that the “Palestinian people” did not deserve a state. It was really a relatively mild statement, certainly less severe than anything I would write. When someone noticed, he was forced to recant. And here is part of what he wrote on Facebook in his “defense:”

I made statements that erase the history of the Palestinian people. I made racist statements, including the denial of the right to self-determination, that were ignorant of Palestinians’ struggle under occupation. I am sorry beyond words … I accept total and complete responsibility for the harmfulness of my language, the offensiveness of my words, and the active role I played in the silencing of Palestinian voices.

I have grown considerably since I made those statements, and the repulsive views I expressed in the video no longer reflect my current understanding. I am devastated to see them reappear and be defended today. I know an apology is never enough and I am complicit in the oppression of Palestinians through my past actions.

I am asking myself if this could have happened when I was a student in America, in the early 1960s before the murders of JFK, MLK, and RFK, when LSD was still mostly in the lab, and Max Yasgur was just a farmer.

I’m not sure, but I doubt it.

I don’t know whether to be ashamed for him, to call him an idiot, or to feel sorry for him because I can only guess what may have been done to him to get him to crawl on all fours and lick the shoes of his enemies. Or maybe that’s what some American Jewish kids are like today. I don’t know. Maybe, like Jeremiah Denton, he blinked out “T.O.R.T.U.R.E” in Morse code when he posted that, but probably not.

American Jews: don’t send your kids to the University of Michigan or similar places. Let them join the military, enter apprenticeship programs to learn a trade, or make aliyah and serve in the IDF. Teach them about Mao’s cultural revolution, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and the treatment of POWs in Korea and Vietnam, so they will recognize brainwashing.

Don’t let this happen to them.

(See also my post about this - EoZ)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Fourth election on Israel’s horizon? No worries. There’s nothing wrong with Israel possibly having a fourth election and this is not a failure. It’s how the public uses the free and democratic Israeli election process as a way to refine its political views.

What we see now is a maturation process, a societal coming of age.

Those of us on the right would never vote for Gantz or Lapid. Not during the first election, and not in subsequent elections. But a part of me, the part that is angry with Bibi, played Devil’s advocate: “Traditionally, there has been more building under left-wing Israeli governments,” I would tell people on social media, going for shock value.

I wanted to wake people up. I wanted to tell them: “Bibi has frozen settlement de facto, beyond what Obama ever required. Stop pretending that a right wing government has enacted right wing policy!”

But it’s more than that. Netanyahu has failed to stop the leftist courts from destroying settlements, he’s promised buildings that have never materialized. He waits for people in other countries to decide when Israel will exercise its sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. (What kind of sovereignty is that???)

These things make me mad. But I am also angry at Bibi over old history: the votes for Disengagement; the way he promised reciprocity, then gave away Hebron. I’ve written about these things before. I don’t wish to write about them again. But the collective memory of these actions make me sometimes not want to vote for him.

Please note that my anger at Bibi comes from my passion for Israel. When Bibi does things that in my opinion, harm my beloved country, it makes it harder for me to vote for him. So in past elections, I’ve voted for smaller right wing parties, and even toyed with not voting at all.

But this time I knew that it was time to stop effing around, so I voted Likud.

It took three elections to get me to that point, quite frankly. And the thing is, maybe it will take four or more elections for everyone else to get to that point, too: the point where we have a clear majority of Israelis who want the same things for our country.

Where we all—or at least most of us—understand what it takes to get there.

Because it sure ain't Gantz and Lapid.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

03/11 Links Pt1: Trump abolishes controversial language on Jerusalem in new human rights report; UK MPs to Palestinian schools: stop using books inciting against Israel

From Ian:

Trump abolishes controversial language on Jerusalem in new human rights report

The Trump administration will no longer refer to Arab residents of Jerusalem as Palestinians, Israel Hayom has learned.

In a new human rights report released on Wednesday, the US for the first time calls the Arab residents of the capital "non-Israeli residents who live in Jerusalem."

The annual State Department report evaluates the state of human rights across the world. It has a chapter dealing with the situation in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem. In recent years its terminology has changed regarding those areas.

Two years ago, the report decided to omit the term "occupied" in reference to Judea and Samaria, and last year the report included strong rebukes of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas over their violation of human rights rather than just over Israel's record.

The administration's latest decision is in keeping with its principled stance of sticking to the truth and facts on the ground. The administration told Israel Hayom that the new definition of Arab residents in east Jerusalem reflects the reality in the capital,: On the one hand the Arab residents are not Israeli citizens but on the other hand, there is no Palestinian state either, and hence they cannot be considered Palestinian citizens.

In one paragraph dealing with the shortage of classrooms in the city, the report refers to Arab citizens in east Jerusalem without using the word "Palestinian" to describe their lack of Israeli citizenship: "Based on population data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the NGO Ir Amim estimated in previous years a shortage of 2,500 classrooms for non-Israeli children resident in East Jerusalem and 18,600 non-Israeli children in Jerusalem were not enrolled in any school."

A senior administration official told Israel Hayom that "the goal of this report is to maximize accuracy. Being accurate and factual has been the hallmark of this administration's foreign policy."

The UN’s Selective Outrage on Occupied Territories

Here the contrast in the UN’s policies is extraordinary: these same companies offer services in the settlement projects of other disputed and occupied territories but are subject to no condemnation for this activity. Most of Israel’s settlements are on public lands, and the tourism services are offered there for new homes built after Israel’s conquest of the territory. However, in contrast, in other conflict zones Airbnb, booking.com, TripAdvisor openly advertise homes and services in the homes of actual refugees.

In fact, these sites advertise specific dwellings that belonged to Azerbaijani refugees driven from their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory under Armenian occupation since the early 1990s. Some of the original property owners have identified their homes in advertisements placed by Armenian settlers on Airbnb and other tourism sites.

Armenia has an extensive settlement project in its territories of Azerbaijan that it occupies. However, in contrast to Israel’s control of the West Bank, where the Palestinian population has been able to stay in their homes, Armenia expelled over 700,000 Azerbaijanis when it invaded the territories. This happened in 1992-1994, not generations ago. Armenia’s expulsion of the Azerbaijanis is the largest population expulsion in Europe since the end of World War II, yet is hardly known in the international system.

If the UN Human Right Office indeed wants to promote peace and be taken seriously as such, it should include in in the UN Human Rights Office database the business activity of all occupied territories and protracted conflicts. This would be a sign that it is truly interested in solving territorial disputes everywhere, not just one.

In fact, when it issued its blacklist, the UN Human Rights Office may have inadvertently opened the flood gates. In today’s interconnected world, aggrieved parties are keenly aware of developments in other protracted conflicts. They will want to know why the world’s most prominent multilateral organization is willing to apply sanctions in one protracted conflict, but not others. The UN Human Rights Office must now be prepared to explain why some occupations are inconsequential, but only Israel’s control of the West Bank is deserving of a blacklist.

UK MPs to Palestinian schools: stop using books inciting against Israel

Palestinian Authority and UNRWA schools continue to use textbooks that radicalize children against Israel, parliamentarians in the UK, a major donor to the PA, lamented on Tuesday.

MP Jonathan Gullis, who initiated the debate with Minister of State James Cleverly, displayed a reading comprehension textbook for 10-year-olds that praised Dalal al-Mughrabi, who killed 38 Israelis including 13 children, on a bus in 1978.

Gullis cited research by IMPACT-se, a research institute analyzing textbooks, which reviewed 202 such books from the current Palestinian curriculum, finding “a systematic insertion of violence, martyrdom and jihad across all grades and subjects, where the possibility of peace with Israel is rejected.”

MP Stephen Crabb questioned “why there has been so little progress” in removing incitement from textbooks, pointing out that “concerns have been constantly raised by members across parties in this house about the use of inciteful language in textbooks – which, whether directly or indirectly, UK aid has helped to finance.”

Labour Friends of Israel chairman MP Steve McCabe said: “I strongly support a two-state solution – and it is precisely because of that support that I believe it is imperative that we tackle the issue of radicalization in the Palestinian school curriculum.

The textbooks “seek to pass on old hatreds and prejudices to a new generation of young people,” McCabe added. “It’s a barrier to reconciliation and coexistence, is pernicious and simply unacceptable.”