Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, May 01, 2020

05/01 Links Pt1: Ruthie Blum: Israel is a country, not a concept; Caroline Glick: The final days of the Iran nuclear deal; Israel's Covid-19 Stats Are Stunning

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Israel is a country, not a concept - opinion

WHICH BRINGS us to one peculiar side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic: a spike in the desire of Israelis living abroad to return home, and an increase in the interest of Diaspora Jews to make aliyah.

According to Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog, the government should prepare for a “major wave of immigration to Israel when the coronavirus crisis ends.”

In a recent interview, Herzog referred to the fact that Jewish communities around the world have been hit hard both by the virus and by the antisemitism that it has evoked. He said that the Jewish Agency has been receiving thousands of inquiries from Israelis, and hundreds from British, French and American Jews.

Two families who arrived this month – a couple from France and the Israeli parents of American-born children returning after a 14-year stint in New York – told Channel 12 on Wednesday that a major factor in the timing of their move was Israel’s handling of the pandemic. Both said they felt far safer in Israel, from a health standpoint, than in the US and Europe. The now former New Yorkers pointed to all the people in Brooklyn “who are dying like flies.”

The French wife stated that Israel, unlike her country of origin, does not have a shortage of surgical masks.

Two young Israeli men studying in Italy who came rushing back when the crisis struck expressed the same sentiment. One told Channel 12 that he used to take Israel for granted, but when he witnessed Italian hospital staff refusing to provide ventilators to any patient over the age of 60, he had an awakening.

“Even if Israel ran out of equipment, it would find a way to acquire the machines before letting anyone die,” he said.

It’s a great lesson for all the Israelis who have been whining and winging about the country’s “disastrous” healthcare system in general and the Health Ministry’s “poor” management of the COVID-19 crisis in particular. Sadly, it’s a message most of us won’t hear, especially not now, when the decreasing number of patients on ventilators has enabled us to focus the brunt of our anxiety on the decimated economy.

Caroline Glick: The final days of the Iran nuclear deal

First and foremost, the US will benefit if the administration invokes the snapback sanctions articles because it is the right thing to do. As the IAEA reported and Salehi acknowledged, the Iranians are comprehensively breaching all of their commitments under the JCPOA. There is no substantive justification for maintaining the fiction that the deal is still salvageable. There is clearly no substantive justification for selling Iran conventional weapons.

This brings us to the second reason, and to Iran's defenders – particularly the EU and the Democrats:
If the US triggers the snapback sanctions, the move will critically harm the European Union which, under German leadership has consistently advanced a harshly anti-American foreign policy. If the EU responds to a US move to trigger the snapback sanctions by insisting the US has no authority to act, the position will boomerang.

Even before the appearance of the coronavirus pandemic, many EU member nations were rejecting the EU's authority to dictate a unified anti-American, pro-Iranian foreign policy.

In February 2019, Poland co-hosted a summit on Iran in Warsaw with the US. Then EU Foreign Policy Commissioner Federica Mogherini refused to participate in the conference that bought more than a dozen key EU states along with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE together to discuss the threat Iran poses to global security.

The EU's utter failure to manage the coronavirus pandemic has struck a massive blow to the EU. Its incompetence has convinced millions of Europeans who had previously supported the EU that they have nothing to gain from it. Their national governments are the only instruments to protect their lives and liberty.

The EU's weakened was apparent earlier this month when several EU member states angrily rejected an attempt by current EU foreign policy commissioner Josep Borrell to pass a resolution condemning the Trump Middle East peace plan and Israel's intention to apply its law to parts of Judea and Samaria in the framework of the Trump plan.

If the EU subverts a US effort to restore UN sanctions on Iran, its action is liable to destroy whatever is left of Brussel's power to dictate a unified EU foreign policy.

Dr. Martin Sherman: Haaretz – One outrage too far?

For Miriam Peretz, there is one goal in life: Sanctification of death—Rogel Alpher, Haaretz, April 28, 2020, (from the Hebrew).

From the Al-Qassam Brigades to the Zionist soldiers: The Al-Qassam Brigades love death more than you love life.—Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV,Nov. 18, 2012.

Explode, onward, explode, and let your soul be liberated.…How beautiful the [explosive] belt is on your waist; anyone who faces you as an enemy will be humiliated. Water your land with blood, when your weapon speaks. Smile on the day of your death as a Martyr…Onward to Paradise, and Allah is the one who will remain for your children—Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV, Nov. 12, 2019.

Of course, Haaretz, an allegedly “Israeli” daily, has every right to print whatever depraved drivel and reprehensible rubbish it wishes. It must, however, be prepared to bear the commercial consequences thereof.

For decades, under the ludicrous—indeed, almost lewd—pretext of being the “paper for thoughtful readers”, it has given a platform for the grotesque garbage, noxious nonsense and preposterous poppycock of the likes of Gideon Levy and Amira Hass, who regularly condone—or at least, express sympathetic understanding for—Palestinian-Arab terror attacks against Israel/Israelis—while demeaning, de-legitimizing and demonizing Israeli punitive and preemptive countermeasures against them.

But this week (April 28)—on National Memorial Day, when Israel remembers its fallen warriors, it might just have carried its caustic crusade against the Jewish state one outrage too far. On what is arguably the most hallowed date on the national calendar, Haaretz chose to publish a toxic tirade by its arrogant and pompous TV critic, one Rogal Alpher, against Miriam Peretz, arguably one of Israel’s most noble public figures. A twice bereaved mother, Peretz lost two of her sons, Uriel and Eliraz, both IDF officers, killed in action, and her husband, Eliezer, who died at the age of 56, shortly after the death of Uriel, his eldest son—reportedly from an illness brought on by the grief over his loss.

For many, Peretz has become a symbol of the ability to rise above personal sorrow and tragedy and to rally the strength to contribute to others and to Israeli society at large, devoting her life to educating youth and young IDF soldiers on Jewish and Zionist values.

Today, UNRWA is celebrating its 70th anniversary.

The question is, why? What is there to celebrate?

UNRWA was originally meant to be a temporary refugee agency for those displaced from the 1948 war - Arabs and Jews - until a permanent solution could be found for them.

Originally UNRWA tried to find permanent housing and jobs for Palestinian refugees in Arab countries. It tried to ensure that non-refugees couldn't get free services. It tried to act like a responsible agency.

But over its first few years, it lost that focus. It changed into a permanent welfare agency. It adopted the Palestinian narrative that there is no solution without "return" to destroy the Jewish state demographically. It made a mockery of the Refugee Convention by creating its own definition of refugee that would ensure that it would become a permanent bureaucracy with an ever-growing set of clients. According to UNRWA, even American families of multi-millionaires are considered "refugees."

Now it is a joke. It teaches children to hate. Its teachers are often rabid antisemites. It meekly accepts demands from terror groups like Hamas, for example not to teach the Holocaust. It claims not to be political but it is completely political and partisan, even bringing kids to anti-Israel rallies. It keeps the "refugee" problem festering by keeping camps open even under PA rule, even when the residents are citizens of Jordan and not refugees by any definition.

There is nothing to celebrate. UNRWA needs to be dismantled.

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A person named Gazi Kodzo is a radical black socialist who heads an organization called Black Hammer. He may be the only member but he does have tens of thousands of followers.

Kodzo put this rant on Twitter and Facebook yesterday:

🖕🏾 Anne Frank! As a Black Child in america all through school I was propagandized to mourn a BECKY. I wasn’t told about the COUNTLESS Black girls america GENOCIDED! Indigenous girls america GENOCIDED! Palestinian girls that israel is killing through GENOCIDE right now!
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How fucking played I feel! KNOWING I was crying in a class room over some KAREN in EUROPE while sitting in a school that’s resting on land that is filled with the BLOOD & BONES of NAMELESS African and Indigenous GIRLS!
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‪Genocide wasn’t even a WORD until it happened until the WHITE ON WHITE CRIME of the holocaust! In 1949! THOUSANDS of African and Colonized tribes WIPED OUT OF EXISTENCE! MILLIONS OF MY PEOPLE KILED due to EUROPEAN Colonialism for 500 years with NO WORD to define it UNTIL it happened to Anne!‬
There is a REASON america pushes Anne Frank into our heads and not COLONIZED GIRLS who have and are dying due to colonial genocide! Colonizer Jews went through GENOCIDE for a couple years IM A COLONIZED AFRICAN Im in Genocide RIGHT NOW! AND HAVE BEEN IN GENOCIDE FOR 600 YEARS! 🖕🏾 Anne Frank!
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If you are a colonized person and this makes you feel uncomfortable or Immoral for thinking this. BITCH you’re brainwashed to measure your humanity off of how much you cry over the paper cuts of your oppressor while your own people’s heads are being chopped off.‬

‪If you’re a colonizer and this makes you feel uncomfortable and upset. GOOD! You have NO IDEA how many comforts I want to TAKE from you. lol‬

"Becky" and "Karen" are derogatory terms for white girls.

Although his accounts were suspended from Twitter, that wasn't before this gathered at least 1600 Likes.

Many on the Left denounced this antisemitic rant, although Kodzo reveled in the publicity he was getting and bragged about gaining lots of new followers even as he blocked his critics. Earlier today he posted support from someone who says he is a black Jew that agrees with Kodzo, although he admits he never heard of Anne Frank before yesterday.

We've spoken about black antisemitism before - a topic that the media intentionally downplays for fear of being labeled racist - but this is a brand of antisemitism that embraces socialism as well. And while most on the left did not agree with Kodzo, there were some who agreed on the leftist politically incorrect message boards and Twitter:

Hitler was wrong to genocide the Jews and start a world war but he wasn't wrong about Jews being problematic. Not because they're jews but because they're a cabal of religious zealots like anyother.

Fuck off mossad! Try to not to headshot and pregnant Palestinian mothers today.

He’s right tho. Why is Anne Frank so shilled when there has been millions of other victims of genocide both wypipo and PoC?

Fuck, there’s shilling for the German jews but people forget the brutal genocide of the slavic peoples and Chinese civilians during that same war

You never learn about Palestinian kids cause it’s more pertinent to our current times. Jews are perpetuating the same atrocities that their ancestors faced. Their grandparents/great grandparents would be ashamed of Israel.

He's right though. Teaching the Anne Frank bullshit is idpol in the first place. It's better to learn your own countrie's idpol. The Anne Frank diary shit is probably one of the worst historical accounts you can read. You can't learn history from it. Just about little girls and their menstrual cycle's and the boy's they have a crush on.

If any of you foreigners wonder why American education is so bad and American don't know any geography or history, just remember, 1 out of every 5 history lessons is a holocaust lesson for American school children.

And browsing through other parts of the /leftypol/ one sees other antisemitism that has nothing to do with blacks and everything to do with socialism:

Why is nazism so similar to judaism? Anonymous 04/27/2020 (Mon) 22:57:35
When reading a lot of nazi literature i feel like a lot of existing tenets of judaism were incorporated in christian catholic culture that underpinned nazism. The whole aryan race thing feels like a rehash of the chosen people. I guess in a way judaism is similar because it is an ethnosupremacist religion unlike the other abrahamic religions which are much more expansionist and seek to dominate via assimilation rather than direct competition. It's no surprise today that israel funds ukranian nazis and the like. They are strikingly similar. Nazim in a way was a means to address the failings of catholicism in regards to judaism when it came to resource competition.

Exactly. The answer to Judaism is outlawing circumcision and anti-gentile bigotry and surveilling synagogues like the CCP surveills mosques and throw religious bigots in re-education camps.

i think judaism has more unique features that nazism tried to incorporate, see in jewish culture the ritualistic murder of gentiles is not only condoned but encouraged. The IDF for example exists to serve such purpose. Allowing each jew to prove his jewishness to others by killing non jews.

the IDF is a useless army, they couldn't even liberate a small town from hezbollah in 2006. It only exists as rite of passage of jews. And as a mechanism to allow them to exert there vileness on gentiles without facing the same consequences in europe.

Some of the worst antisemitism is removed - but it exists in the leftist spaces. This is denied by the more mainstream Left but it is out there for anyone to see if they look.

Anyone who claims that antisemitism is only a far-Right problem is willfully blind. It is a disease that affects all parts of society. And it cannot be fought by people who cannot admit that their own political allies are sometimes infected with it as well.

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What is Bibi's strategy for extending sovereignty on parts of Judea and Samaria?

Here is my guess as to what Binyamin Netanyahu's plans are for extending sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria.

I think it is the first stage of a disengagement plan.

There are a few facts that need to be understood to begin with:

1. The status quo has been remarkably good tactically, but is a disaster strategically. Israel has managed to minimize terror attacks through some brilliant tactical moves but they cannot last long term. It has a corrosive effect on the soldiers who have to serve in the territories. No one is happy ruling another people. But abandoning Judea and Samaria would be bad for security and would give up lands that Jews feel a strong psychic attachment to. Keeping it all means ruling over a growing hostile population. Is the status quo sustainable over 100 years? The answer is no, and Bibi is one of the few politicians who thinks how to best position Israel for the next century.

2. Israel has no peace partner, and won't have one for the foreseeable future. A peace agreement with the Palestinians is simply inconceivable. Whatever Israel does for the long term must be unilateral and strategic.

3. Trump might lose in November. If Israel is going to do any dramatic moves to shake things up and enhance its strategic and geo-political position for the future, now is the only time to do it, while the US can deflect the outrage. The muted international response to the Golan announcement and the Jerusalem embassy move by the Trump administration shows how important it is to have the US on your side.

4. There has been a consensus in Israel for decades that the Jordan Valley must remain under Israeli control for the security of the country. Yitzhak Rabin was not willing to give it to a Palestinian entity.

5. Netanyahu is on the record of supporting extending sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria - but he is also on the record against having Israel rule over a hostile Arab Palestinian population. If you look at his Jordan Valley map, Jericho is excluded (even as it is surrounded.)

6. Netanyahu gets votes and political power based on his hawkish statements, but he is far more attuned to Arab human rights than he is given credit for. Just almost no one reports it.

7. Bibi was almost certainly involved in the specifics of the Deal of the Century, which gives clues as to his thinking on how the future might look. But he has to do it in such a way that the Palestinians don't have any veto power. More importantly, he has to do it in a way that can keep the Right in his coalition.

My guess is that Bibi is intending to draw a line, even if it is a very jagged line, of what would eventually be the permanent borders of Israel - and quietly withdraw from the Arab parts.

Because of the US election, he cannot consider doing this gradually. This is the one chance to redraw the map, so it must be taken advantage of.

The implication, however, is that everything outside the line is no longer in play, and no longer claimed by Israel.

That's the part no one wants to talk about. But it may be the key to the whole thing.

If Israel says it formally has no interest in sovereignty over areas not slated to be included, which would include nearly all of the areas that Palestinians live, the demographic problem that everyone warns about is no longer an issue. It isn't that Israel will recognize Palestine on the remaining lands - Israel will probably just ignore them as long as their leadership acts like speaking to Israel is toxic.

Let the Palestinians declare a state there. Let the world recognize it. It is no longer a big deal. Israel is washing its hands of control of problematic areas.

If I'm right, expect a major redeployment of IDF soldiers and border police away from weekly riot areas. Expect them to stop doing useless things like taking down Palestinian flags. This will reduce unnecessary friction. Even though Bibi has denied it, I think that Israel will offer citizenship to the relatively small numbers of Arabs that end up on the Israeli side of the line and who want it.

I would also guess that more bridges and tunnels will be built to keep the Palestinian territories contiguous, similar to the "Deal of the Century" plan.

This way, many of the real arguments against "occupation" become muted. No checkpoints, no soldiers, no tear gas, no demographic threat.

And, if I am right, this would make Israel's Gulf Arab allies happier as well, because it starts ending the conflict instead of perpetuating it, which is what every peace plan ended up doing. I can even imagine the Gulf countries becoming Israel's liaisons with the Palestinians, with some carrot and stick approaches - when the borders are quiet, offering things like help with buying Palestinian exports, or facilitating Israel allowing 5G internet to boost the Palestinian economy.

Of course the governments of the world won't recognize what they would call annexation. Israel is used to that - it has dealt with the world insisting the "occupation" is illegal for 53 years and not recognizing the Golan's annexation. The additional pressure will subside, especially if the US supports it. And those who have the ability to look beyond the cult of Oslo will see that this plan does not preclude peace - in fact, it might even wake up the Palestinians to start negotiating before they become completely irrelevant.

For over 50 years, Israel and her friends have not had a good answer to critics complaining about "occupation." This is because Israel has remained ambiguous about its own position on the territories. Extending sovereignty will end that ambiguity and strengthen Israel's political and legal position.

This could address the legitimate problems of Israel today being in places it is not wanted, while ensuring security for her people.

There will always be people screaming about supposed Israeli crimes, but those people will never go away. They won't be happy until Israel is destroyed, so their opinions mean nothing. Israel has the opportunity to act now in a way that can become a permanent solution without closing the doors to the tiny chance for a change in Palestinian leadership that can be a partner.

It is even possible that this idea is the unofficial contingency plan of the "Deal of the Century" - what happens after the Palestinians reject their last chance for peace. Even with what I am describing, they can become a state. This fits in with Bibi's mindset and, largely, with the Kushner/Greenblatt plan.

Of course it is easy to poke holes in this plan and show why it is doomed. I could come up with dozens of things Palestinians and Europeans and UN and even far-right Israeli Jews would do to try to sabotage it. But the question is, given the constraints, what is better?

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04/30 Links Pt2: 3 more virus deaths bring toll to 222; Pres. Trump Praises ‘Spirit and Resiliency’ of Jews, at Start of Jewish American Heritage Month

From Ian:

3 more virus deaths bring toll to 222, as daily infections continue to drop off

The Health Ministry on Thursday evening said the country’s death toll from the novel coronavirus has climbed to 222 — three additional fatalities since the morning.

The overall number of cases rose to 15,946, up just 112 in 24 hours as the downturn in infections persisted.

Meanwhile, the gap between the number of recovered patients and active cases continued to grow, with the number of recovered patients rising to 8,561 — an increase of 328 over the previous 24 hours.

According to the health data, 105 people are currently in serious condition with COVID-19, 82 of them on ventilators. Another 79 are in moderate condition, while the vast majority (6,979) of the active cases are displaying mild symptoms.

There was no immediate information available on the latest three deaths.

In recent days, Israel’s infection rate has dropped off significantly, with only dozens of new cases being reported every 12 hours, and the government has announced steps to ease restrictions on businesses and travel.

How the Chimera of a “Palestinian Right of Return” Makes Peace Impossible

A review of The War of Return by Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf, All Points Books (April 2020) 304 pages

In a story that may be apocryphal, the late Christopher Hitchens claimed that he had once seen legendary Israeli diplomat Abba Eban comment that the most striking aspect of the Israeli-Arab conflict is how easily it can be solved: It is simply a matter of dividing the land of Israel into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The only thing standing in the way of this solution is the intense religious or nationalist attachment of both sides to the idea of an undivided nation between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, this assumption that partition alone can bring peace has been the foundation of all of the international community’s peace efforts since the 1967 Six Day War. The only difficulty, it is believed, is persuading the two sides to agree to it.

Not so, argue former Israeli Knesset Member Einat Wilf and journalist Adi Schwartz in their new book The War of Return. What actually lies at the heart of the conflict, they say, is the Palestinian assertion of a “right of return.” Hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled or were expelled from what became the State of Israel after its War of Independence, and the persistent demand that they and their descendants be allowed to return constitutes a refusal to accept a Jewish state on any part of the former mandate. For decades, the Palestinian national movement has insisted on the return of the Arab refugees, and for just as long, Israel has seen this demand as an existential threat that would immediately turn Israel into an Arab state by sheer weight of demographics. And it is this, Wilf and Schwartz say, that has rendered all peace initiatives futile. As Henry Kissinger once said, the minimum concessions that the Arabs demand are greater than the maximum Israel is willing to concede.

“Our research revealed that the Palestinian refugee issue is not just one more issue in the conflict; it is probably the issue,” Wilf and Schwartz assert. “The Palestinian conception of themselves as ‘refugees from Palestine,’ and their demand to exercise a so-called right of return, reflect the Palestinians’ most profound beliefs about their relationship with the land and their willingness or lack thereof to share any part of it with Jews.” As such, they say, the refugee issue has become “a nearly insurmountable obstacle to peace.”

In The War of Return, Wilf and Schwartz trace the convoluted history of the refugee issue and its centrality to Palestinian nationalist ideology, from its origins in 1948 through decades of war and peace efforts to the current stalemate between the two parties to the conflict. Along the way, they reveal much that has been misrepresented, deliberately concealed, and often consciously distorted throughout the long struggle over this tiny piece of emotionally fraught real estate. Presented with such evidence, and despite some innovative suggestions as to a solution, their conclusions, while often revelatory and convincing, are regrettably more than a little depressing.

The Tikvah Podcast: Matti Friedman: The End of the Israeli Left?

Have you ever seen the old murals that decorate the walls of Israel’s historic kibbutzim? They often feature young, brawny Jewish men and women working and plowing the land. They evoke the pioneering spirit of early Zionism: glorifying the mixing of sweat and soil, focused on what Hebrew labor could achieve through cooperation and collective action, and strikingly statist, even socialist. These murals are, in fact, a stark reminder that the Jewish state was founded in large part by Labor Zionists, and that the Israeli Left once dominated the country’s politics. Things have changed a great deal over the past 72 years. Israel is now a nation with a strong conservative consensus. The Labor Party of David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir—the political organization that erected the governing structures of the country—has been reduced to a mere three seats in the 23rd Knesset. And a poll conducted earlier this month shows that if elections were to be held right now, the party that dominated Israeli politics for decades would not win a single seat in the next Knesset.

What happened? And what does Labor’s decline tell us about contemporary Israel? Earlier this week, the journalist and author Matti Friedman wrote a piece in the New York Times examining “The Last Remnants of the Israeli Left.” In this podcast, he joins host Jonathan Silver to discuss the history and precipitous decline of socialist politics in Israel.

Simba, Everything The Light Touches Is Our Kingdom Unless Muslims Ever Ruled It, Even Briefly (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Simba, Everything The Light Touches Is Our Kingdom Unless Muslims Ever Ruled It, Even Briefly

by King Mufasa

Serengeti - Simba, look out over the pridelands. All the way to the horizon in all directions. Everything the sunlight touches, we hold sway. Except for that shadowy place, the badlands where the hyenas roam. And except for any part of the kingdom where the Islamic empire once held, no matter how fleeting that hold. Then it must remain under Islamic control forever, because reasons?

I admit I'm not entirely clear on that part, Simba. But apparently the way it works is, only the period after the seventh and eighth centuries count, unless Muslims were losing, in which case revert back to whenever they were winning and make that the default state. Yes, it seems arbitrary, but so do many things. My choice of a hornbill as a majordomo, for example. But we work with what we are given, Simba. One cannot insist everything conform to his will; that way lies misrule, ecological collapse, and failure of the pride. Just look at the Palestinians.

All the animals, the plants they eat, their nesting and breeding grounds, their role in this kingdom - all that exists in a delicate balance. The Circle of Life means everything we do affects everything else, ultimately even our own species and group. When the time comes you must assume responsibility for maintaining that balance even as you prey on the other creatures. It is a burden you must carry everywhere but the places where some forgotten Islamic potentate won a battle that gave him brief control over some random locale long ago. Then you must never set foot there no matter how grossly its helpless inhabitants are mistreated by its government. That would be colonialist and racist. You cannot judge a society just because it engages in barbaric behavior and glorifies it. Except your own. Then go ahead, because you probably deserve it. You're not Muslim. I think that's how it works.

Be wary of those who might usurp this kingdom from you, Simba. That uncle Scar of yours has always had designs on the throne. The hyenas have always resented our dominance of the food chain. It will not be easy to maintain control, balance, and family integrity without wisdom that I hope you develop while you're still young. If any of those characters converts to Islam and decides to take over the kingdom in the name of Allah, no one will ever be allowed to take it away from them, because Islamic control erases everything that came before even as it tries to shore up its legitimacy by anchoring itself in the preexisting holy sites of other faiths. Pride Rock will become Haram al-Scarif, and that will be it. Scar-al-Islam.

You get my drift.

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Jewish Voice for Peace endorses someone who thinks Iran is a democracy

Jewish Voice for Peace Action, their political arm, issued this today:

Since I'm always interested in the foreign policies of potential members of Congress, I looked up Lopez' platform on her website.

Here is her entire foreign policy:

The United States must cease interference in the democratic processes of other nations, whether through the use of unilateral coercive measures (sanctions), forced imposition of neoliberal austerity plans through the IMF, or through both covert and overt warfare. In every corner of the world, frontline communities are innovating responses to food scarcity, housing shortages, and climate change. These solutions have the best chance of building toward a liberated future since they are time-tested, sourced locally, and implemented through collaboration.

I certainly agree that the United State shouldn't interfere in the democratic processes of other nations, but I don't think she means Israel. When she says "sanctions" she seems to be speaking about Iran.

Indeed, the only other time the word "sanctions" appears on her website is concerning Iran on her COVID-19 Response Page:

We also call for an end to sanctions on countries like Iran, so that their people can get access to the medical supplies they need in order to combat the COVID-19 crisis.

Forget the fact that the US sanctions on Iran doesn't include medical equipment, or that Iran has rejected medical aid.

This idiot thinks that Iran is a democracy!

What part of "Iran's Supreme Leader" does she not understand? When the only people who run in "elections" are approved by the current leadership, does she consider the voting to be a "democratic process"?

Of course Jewish Voice for Peace loves her - they can feed her any lies they want and she's stupid enough to believe them!

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Al Aqsa remains closed to Muslims - unless some Jews show up. Then they might allow LOTS of Muslims in.

Today the Islamic Waqf said that it will continue the closure of the Al Aqsa Mosque and the courtyards that make up the entire Temple Mount.

"This is because the reasons that led to these painful decisions for all of us are not gone, and they still exist and threaten the lives of people and lead to an increase in the spread of the epidemic."

This is reasonable and prudent. But there may be something that would change their minds.

A few days ago, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque, warned Israel against allowing settlers to ascend to the holiest place in Judaism, stressing that if the doors of the Mughrabi gate open to the "settlers," then all the doors of Al-Aqsa will open to tens of thousands of worshipers.

Typically Jews only go to the site in small groups that could easily maintain social distancing.

Apparently, all the concern about the health of Muslims in a potential "super-spreader" scenario of tens of thousands or even, during Ramadan, hundreds of thousands of Muslims visiting the sacred spot disappears if there is a chance of a couple of dozen of Jews visiting.

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.

04/30 Links Pt1: Germany outlaws all Hezbollah activities; The Blood on de Blasio’s Hands; Sbarro bomber kicked off social media platforms

From Ian:

Germany outlaws all Hezbollah activities, including by political wing

Germany on Thursday officially announced that it has outlawed activities by the Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah. In a dramatic departure from Berlin’s previous policy, which was based on the European Union’s stance, the new ban does not differentiate between the group’s military and political wings.

Hezbollah activities “violate criminal law and the organization opposes the concept of international understanding,” said German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer.

The group, headed by Hassan Nasrallah, denies Israel’s right to exist and “supports the armed terrorist fight” against the Jewish state, his ministry said in a statement issued Thursday. “It is to be expected that Hezbollah will continue to plot terrorist acts against Israel and Israeli interests also outside the Middle East.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas wrote on his Twitter account that Hezbollah denies Israel’s right to exist and threatens “with violence and terror and massively upgrades its rocket arsenal. It is important that Germany exhausts the means of the rule of law to take action against criminal and terrorist activities of Hezbollah.”

Early on Thursday morning, German police raided four groups associated with Hezbollah in various locations across the country to ensure that “evidence of potential sub-organizations in Germany could not be destroyed when this ban was announced,” the Interior Ministry said.

Netanyahu calls on Hezbollah to be banned worldwide

Israel and the United States have long pushed for Germany to ban the Shi’ite terrorist group. Germany previously drew a distinction between Hezbollah's political arm and its military units, which fought alongside President Bashar Assad's army in Syria.

Hezbollah symbols may not be used publicly in any assembly, or in print, audio and visual material in Germany, and its assets will be confiscated “to the benefit of the Federal Republic of Germany,” the Interior Ministry’s press release read.

The ban is because Hezbollah is a terrorist group, and also because it “calls for the violent elimination of the State of Israel and questions the right of the State of Israel to exist.

“The organization is therefore fundamentally against the concept of international understanding, regardless of whether it presents itself as a political, social or military structure,” the ministry said.

“Its violent denial of the right to exist of the State of Israel also fundamentally opposes Germany’s national ethos,” another Interior Ministry document states.

The order allows German authorities to “use all available instruments of the rule of law to crack down” on Hezbollah and its German sub-organization, the statement reads.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz praised the decision, saying it is “very important and values-based.”

Banning Hezbollah is “significant in the world battle against terror,” Katz added. “I want to express my appreciation to the German government for this step and am certain many governments in the Middle East and victims of Hezbollah’s terrorism share my gratitude.”

Next episode of EoZTV is an interview with another superstar, @EVKontorovich!

!0 AM EDT/ 5 PM Israel Time pic.twitter.com/3Xs2ZZTrVu
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) April 30, 2020

This was shown on Libyan TV, where a "reporter" with a crude Israeli flag microphone asked shopkeepers if they thought Libya should trade with Israel.

In the segments we can see, the "reporter" was berated and beaten, to the delight of viewers.

(h/t iTi)

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Electronic Intifada published an article from Hind Khoudary, cashing in on her fame from informing Hamas about a Zoom meeting between Gaza and Israeli peace activists, resulting in the abduction and disappearance of Rami Aman three weeks ago.

Khoudary, a former Amnesty contractor who described herself as a human rights activist until this incident, shows off the insanity that is the accepted Palestinian mentality - and this is accepted by the anti-Israel crowd as if it makes sense.

Her article includes these examples of what only can be described as psychological illness.

She describes her reaction to hearing Aman in the Zoom meeting say that most Gazans want peace with Israel: "I grew so angry listening to this meeting, I started to shake. This was normalization, pure and simple. To me, there is no greater sin."

No greater sin than Arabs speaking to Jews on Zoom as if they are human beings? Of Arabs seeking peace through dialogue?

Worse than gang rapes? Worse than genocide? Worse than blowing up buses and hotels and pizza shops filled with kids?

To Khoudary and Electronic Intifada, that is indeed the case.

She doubles down:

I believe that the worst sin any Palestinian can commit is normalization.

She paints herself as a victim:

I know that what happened may affect my future career, my relationship with international organizations I’ve worked with before, even my online presence. I have already been kicked out of a couple of online journalism groups.

But she knows that she has equally insane haters who share her pathology of Jew-hatred:

But I’ve also received a lot of support from Palestinians, ordinary folk, journalists and political activists.

And she breezily dismisses anyone who disagrees:

And to those who ask how resolution and peace can ever be reached without “dialogue,” the answer is simple: Peace begins when occupation ends.

Besides the absurdity of demanding that Israel just give back land without negotiations, Khoudary betrays what she considers "occupation" to be - and to her, it didn't start in 1967. She wrote earlier, "The root cause of Palestinian misery is the creation of the State of Israel."

Which means that she is not demanding Israel end "occupation" - she is demanding that Israel dismantle itself.

Only then, she says, could there be peace.

This is the reason the Arab world has grown tired of the Palestinian issue. Israel has given the Palestinians land and self-rule - more than any Arab regime has ever given any of their many minorities - and the response has been terror, rejectionism and demands way beyond the foolhardy Israeli peace offers of years past.

Khoudary's rants hurt her cause more than she can even imagine.

People like Khoudary think that they have support because a fringe of crazed anti-Israel activists show support for her extremist positions. Similarly, Palestinians still pretend they have support because the UN and the Arab League still issues statements bashing Israel and expressing solidarity with Palestinians. But they are closing their eyes to the truth - the Arab world and the Arab street are sick of them and their refusal to accept peace.

As long as Khoudary is being positioned as a spokesperson for Palestinians at sites like EI. even the Europeans will start to follow suit and give up on the idea of statehood for immature, intransigent Palestinians.

In that sense, I welcome Knoudary's screed where she claims that speaking to Israeli Jewish leftists is a worse crime than murdering Jews. I welcome Electronic Intifada publishing such pieces. Even as they think that they are bolstering their case (just as there was a fringe who used to justify Palestinian terror in the early 2000s) in reality they are the ones who are hammering the nails in the coffin of the Palestinian cause.

Any Palestinians who truly want peace, who truly want a peaceful Palestinian state side by side with Israel, should be in the forefront of denouncing Khoudary and her fans. It is a shame that such people are so hard to find.

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That elusive, magic moment when the Judea and Samaria became "occupied Palestinian territories"

This week was the 100th anniversary of the San Remo Conference that provides the legal basis for Israel's ownership of Judea and Samaria. I've never seen a convincing argument otherwise.

The international community has not accepted that reasoning, but it is an interesting exercise to figure out exactly how the world - specifically, the UN - has looked at Judea and Samaria over the years.

When did the territory become "Palestinian?"

When Israel regained that land in 1967, nobody referred to it and Gaza as "Palestinian territories."

The media sometimes called it "Israeli-occupied Jordan." But practically no one in the world accepted Jordan's annexation of the territory in 1950, and the UN certainly didn't.

UN resolutions in the 1970s referred to "Occupied Arab Territories" but that was because they were including the Sinai and Golan Heights which no one considers to be "Palestinian." Often the documents punted on the idea of exactly whose territories were being occupied by saying "Occupied West Bank."

One might think that the date that they became "Occupied Palestinian Territories," which the UN still refers to routinely as the "oPt." would be the date that Jordan formally gave up its claims on Judea and Samaria in 1988 and recognized the PLO as the sovereign of the territory. Even though Jordan itself had no legal right over the territory, perhaps that was the fig leaf that the UN used?

However, the UN started referring to the west bank of the Jordan as "occupied Palestinian territory" years before. The earliest I can find is from the report of an international conference on the question of Palestine in 1983, which refers to "occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories." (I found an earlier reference to the phrase in 1981 but it was from a speech by a Jordanian delegate to the UN and not from an official UN document.)

Also interestingly, the UN archive system seems to have changed the titles of some documents to refer to the "situation in the OPT" as early as 1979, but the documents themselves use no such language. Perhaps the UN archivist is trying to retroactively change history, but I'm not sure why they might have chosen 1979 as the start date.

If one does not accept Israel's argument from international law from San Remo, then there must be a date that the territories transferred to become "Palestinian." Transfer of territory is a legal matter that requires a legal transaction, whether it is a war or an agreement or an annexation. For those who do not accept Israel's claim, there is great confusion as to who legally owned the territory after the Ottoman Empire collapsed - was it the British? The League of Nations? And then, after 1948, was it Jordan?

But besides the Palestinians themselves, no one said that the territory was Palestinian - until the 1980s when the idea gained currency.

I still can't find that magic moment when the UN and the international community collectively decided that the land belonged to the PLO terror group, or to a people who nobody recognized as a people before the 1950s.

This indicates that the purported Palestinian ownership of the land has been more propaganda than law.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

In Israel, Memorial Day (yom hazikaron) is the day before Independence Day (yom ha’atzmaut). It makes sense: you can’t think about the miracle of our Jewish state without remembering the 23,816 soldiers, police, and other security people who lost their lives so we could get it and keep it, or the 4,166 civilians who were murdered by terrorists who want to take it from us.

Israel is a small country. An equivalent number, adjusted for population, would be over 1 million Americans. Every Israeli knows someone who has lost at least one family member to war or terror.

When I cook or putter in my little workshop, I listen to the radio, to reshet bet, the news and talk channel of Israel’s public broadcast corporation. My favorite radio personality is a guy called Yigal Guetta. Guetta was born in the northern development town of Kiryat Shmona in 1966 to a family that immigrated to Israel from Morocco. He wears a black kipa and served in the Knesset on behalf of the Sephardic Haredi Shas party in 2016-7, but was forced to resign by his party after he revealed in an interview that he had attended the gay wedding of his nephew. He didn’t dispute the rabbis who demanded that he quit. He was and is a traditionally observant Jew. But family is family. Some years before that he was fired from a job as CEO of a small city when he accused the mayor of corruption. Like me, he likes to cook and sometimes describes traditional Moroccan recipes on the air. This is who he is.

But yesterday, I learned something about him that I did not know. He talked about one day when he was 8 years old, April 11, 1974. That was when Palestinian Arab terrorists (PFLP-GC) infiltrated Kiryat Shmona from Lebanon, and murdered 18 people, including 8 children. The terrorists first entered a school building, but it was closed for the Passover holiday. Then they moved on to a residential building, shooting everyone they saw and throwing grenades. The army was late to arrive, and Guetta’s brother and sister-in-law were among the victims.

He described how his parents were never the same after that. I can’t come close to imagining how it was for them.

You would think things would have changed since 1974, but because of our failure to take a consistently severe stand against our enemies – in Jabotinksy’s phrase, our failure to build an “iron wall” – Palestinian Arab terrorism continues. Just yesterday, maybe while Yigal Guetta was describing 1974’s events in Kiryat Shmona, a 62-year old woman was stabbed seven times, in the street in Kfar Saba. Fortunately she will recover, but less fortunately the terrorist, who was shot by a civilian security guard, will also live. Israelis all know the drill – he will get the best medical care available in the Middle East, spend a few years in probably the most comfortable prison regime in the world outside of the Scandinavian countries, and receive a handsome salary from the PA, funded by generous donations from the EU.

Terrorism won’t end until Israel finds the gumption to eradicate the Palestinian Authority that sponsors, funds, and promotes it. Indeed, the PA’s official media recently praised the terrorists that killed Guetta’s relatives as “martyrs” and “heroes.”

But you haven’t heard the worst part. The psychopathological post-Zionist contingent in Israel, combined with various American leftist groups and supported by the New Israel Fund, holds an annual“Alternative Yom haZikaron ceremony” which “mourns the loss of all those who fell in the context of the conflict – both Israelis and Palestinians.”

Do you understand? The PFLP-GC terrorists, the great “martyrs” and “heroes” of the Palestinian movement, who murdered 18 people in cold blood, including 8 children, including Yigal Guetta’s brother and sister-in-law, are mourned by some of their Jewish targets.

And not only them. The terrorist that exploded his bomb in the Sbarro Pizza restaurant in 2001, killing 15, including 7 children. The ones that hijacked the bus on Israel’s coastal highway in 1978, and killed 38, including 13 children. These Jews pray for them.

I simply cannot wrap my mind around this. I cannot understand why an Israeli Jew or indeed any Jew would mourn for those who met their ends when they murdered or attempted to murder us. Do Americans hold ceremonies to mourn the 9/11 terrorists? Do Russians cry for Hitler? The only word that adequately describes this is “insanity.”

It isn’t surprising that extremist anti-Israel groups like If Not Now and J Street would participate in this lunacy. But the largest Jewish organization in North America, the Union for Reform Judaism, is one of the event’s cosponsors. They even retweeted an announcement by the organizers of this event, and added their own words, asking people to “… Join us and thousands of others from all over the world as we join together in peace.”

One of the feelings invoked in me by yom ha’atzmaut is that the re-establishment and survival of a sovereign Jewish state in our historic homeland is a highly unique and remarkable event. If I were a religious person, I would say it is miraculous. Surely it was accomplished at great cost, and it continues to exact a cost in blood. We owe so much to the families who have lost their sons and daughters in the struggle against an implacable enemy, that to mourn the very ones that ripped the hearts out of those families is an obscenity.

The long struggle has been too much for some of us, and there are those who have descended into a syndrome of madness, who choose to draw close to their murderers by adopting their point of view. They hope, perhaps, that by sacrificing their own people they will purify themselves from the evil they have come to believe is inherent in their nation-state, and if truth be told, in themselves as Jews.

By forcing themselves to empathize with those who are capable of shooting Jewish children, they believe that they will be better humans, and therefore find a way to communicate with the Other so as to bring peace.

But at the end of the day, this strategy always fails; and they find themselves estranged from their people, while still despised by their enemies.

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I had a blast doing this interview. It goes for almost an hour but it is interesting throughout. Aboud is really a great guy.

Hope you enjoy it!

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04/29 Links Pt2: For first time, Israelis recovered from coronavirus outnumber those still sick; HSBC blocks donations to terror linked InterPal charity.

From Ian:

For first time, Israelis recovered from coronavirus outnumber those still sick

For the first time since the outbreak of the coronavirus in the country earlier this year, the number of people in Israel who have recovered from the virus surpassed the number of those who are still sick, according to Health Ministry figures published Wednesday.

There have been a total of 15,782 confirmed carriers of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, of whom 7,929 have recovered. Of the 7,641 still sick, 120 have serious symptoms, 91 of them on ventilators, and 85 are in moderate condition.

The coronavirus has so far claimed 212 lives, with two people dying overnight, the Health Ministry said.

Since its Tuesday morning update, another 193 cases were confirmed, the ministry said.

One of the new fatalities was identified by Hebrew-language media as Rabbi Yaakov Koldetsky, 70, from Bnei Brak, an associate of ultra-Orthodox spiritual leader Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and a former Torah study partner of the late spiritual leader Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv.

He had been hospitalized at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv a month ago, after being diagnosed with COVID-19 following his return from the United States. His situation deteriorated several weeks ago, and he died Tuesday night.

Top public health expert compared 'Zionists' to Nazis

A public health expert at the centre of criticism of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has a long history of making inflammatory statements, comparing "Zionists" to Nazis and wrote that "Jews" should reflect on the actions of the Israeli military, the JC can reveal.

Professor John Ashton, a former regional director of public health for north-west England, appeared on BBC Panorama on Monday to discuss the findings of an investigation into the failure to stockpile personal protective equipment (PPE) for NHS staff.

But aside from offering his advice over health issues, Professor Ashton, who has been a long-time member of the Labour Party, regularly posts on social media on issues involving Israel and Zionism. In one tweet he suggested it was, "Time to isolate Zionists and all religious fundamentalists whatever colour of black."

An analysis of social media posts made by the former President of the Faculty of Public Health from 2012 until 2018 shows that he has frequently equated Zionism with Nazism.

Writing in November 2012 in response to Israeli military actions in Gaza, he stated: "Sickening to see Zionists behave like Nazis."

When challenged by former Labour MP John Woodcock over allegations that Hamas terrorists were using Palestinian families as human shields in the same conflict, Professor Ashton wrote: "The Nazi thing was not a distraction to the Jews in Europe. The Zionist thing is not a distraction to the Palestinians."

Following comments made in 2013 by Ed Miliband, the then Labour leader, that he would consider himself to be a Zionist, Mr Ashton, one of the initiators of the World Health Organisation's Healthy Cities Project, again went on the attack. In March 2013 he wrote: "Is this true? If Miliband is a Zionist what are the humanistic internationalists to do? Is this Labour Party policy?"