Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 08, 2020

5 Jordanians sentenced to hard labor for attempting to kill Jews

On Monday, the Jordanian State Security Court sentenced five Jordanians to five years in prison with hard labor after convicting them of planning to carry out terror attacks in Israel.

According to the indictment, in mid-2017, the defendants "examined the border area south of the Dead Sea towards Aqaba, two separate times, in order to find a safe way to infiltrate the Israeli side to carry out military operations."

And after it became clear to them that it was impossible to infiltrate there because of tight security by the Jordanian army and the IDF, they submitted “requests to enter the West Bank under the pretext of visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque through one of the tourism offices,” and that, after entering Jerusalem, they would work on “carrying out stabbing operations against the Jews,” but their requests were rejected.

After that, the accused decided, according to the indictment, "to submit applications to work in Eilat through one of the employment companies." Two of them submitted two applications, one of which was approved.

One of them, Taher Jamal, entered Israel on November 30, 2018, and attacked several workers with a hammer, injuring two. He was captured with the help of another Jordanian worker and was brought before an Israeli court the following month and charged with terrorism.

Jamal recorded a video in which he spoke of his intention to attack Jews in Eilat.

Jamal seems to be in Israeli prison as one of the men were tried in absentia.

The terrorists said they want to kill Jews, not Israelis. Yet for some reason no one in the media seems to ever refer to Jordanian antisemitism.

06/08 Links Pt2: Hen Mazzig: No, Israel Isn't a Country of Privileged and Powerful White Europeans; Jonathan Tobin: Defunding police will sacrifice Jewish security

From Ian:

Hen Mazzig (Los Angeles Times): No, Israel Isn't a Country of Privileged and Powerful White Europeans

There is a growing inclination to frame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms of race. According to this narrative, Israel was established as a refuge for oppressed white European Jews who in turn became oppressors of people of color, the Palestinians. As an Israeli, and the son of an Iraqi Jewish mother and North African Jewish father, it's gut-wrenching to witness this shift.

The majority of Jews in Israel today are of Middle Eastern and North African descent. I am baffled as to why mainstream media and politicians around the world ignore or misrepresent these facts. Israel was established for all Jews from every part of the world - the Middle East, North Africa, Ethiopia, Asia and, yes, Europe. No matter where Jews physically reside, they maintain a connection to the Land of Israel, where our story started and where today we continue to craft it.

Those who misrepresent Israel try to position it as a colonialist aggressor rather than a haven for those fleeing oppression. That all but erases the story of my family. In Iraq, my family experienced ongoing persecution. My great-grandfather was falsely accused of being a Zionist spy and executed in Baghdad in 1951.

Any erasure of the Mizrahi experience negates the lives of 850,000 Jewish refugees. They would also deny the existence of almost 200,000 descendants of Ethiopian Jews who were airlifted to Israel in the early 1990s in a daring rescue operation.

Israel is a place where an indigenous people have reclaimed their land and revived their ancient language, despite being surrounded by hostile neighbors and hounded by radicalized Arab nationalists who cannot tolerate any political entity in the region other than their own. Jews that were expelled from nations across the Middle East, who sacrificed all they had, have been crucial in building and defending the Jewish state since its outset.

Hetz Webinars: Modern Blood Libels

Tuvia Tenenbom, Ricki Hollander (CAMERA), Prof. Richard Landes (h/t Arie)

Nearly 30% of all murders in Iran are “honor killings” of women–hundreds a year

The New York Times has a good article about the horrible “honor killing” of a 14-year old girl by her father, because she had a boyfriend she wanted to marry. (In Iran, 13 year old girls can marry with their parents’ permission.)

Buried in the middle of the article, though, is an astonishing statistic:

Honor killings are thought to be rare but that may be because they are usually hushed up.

A 2019 report by a research center affiliated with Iran’s armed forces found that nearly 30 percent of all murder cases in Iran were honor killings of women and girls. The number is unknown, however, as Iran does not publicly release crime statistics.

According to the statistics I see online, the intentional murder rate in Iran is roughly 2.5 per hundred thousand. That would come out to an incredible 600 women murdered for “honor” every year in Iran – nearly 2 every day of the year.

That is almost too many to believe. The NYT doesn’t link to the study. But if it is true, then Iran may be the honor killing capital of the world.

(UPDATE: My original math was wrong, h/t DM)

“Zionists” aren’t only responsible for all social justice issues–they pull the strings on all international crises, too

A month ago I mentioned, and showed, how Israel is held responsible for every social justice problem – from climate to feminism to gay rights to disability rights to animal rights and police brutality.

But we Zionists don’t only concern ourselves with social issues. No, we control the world, which means that all geopolitical problems emanate from our secret hideouts in Jerusalem and Brooklyn.

One person who cracked the code is H. Amirabdollahian, Special Aide on International Affairs of the Islamic Parliament in Iran.

Look how insightful his tweets are on various international issues, as he finds Zionist tentacles in…

Libya:

The US:

Syria:

Germany:

Yemen:

Iraq:

Bahrain:

Of course, Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria:

Seems a bit obsessive, no?

06/08 Links Pt1: Bringing the Middle East Back Home; Annexation vs. sovereignty: Words matter; The investigation that caught the killer of Amit Ben-Yigal

From Ian:

Bringing the Middle East Back Home

Of course, the AOCs [American Orientalist Class] haughtily reply, it’s Trump who turned America into a third-world country—not us! But in fact, Trump, for all his flaws, was clear in his desire to perpetuate American uniqueness—hence his calls to overhaul immigration policy and border security. In response, the AOCs cried racism—advertising their own superiority to Trump and to their missionary predecessors.

Except, while racism is a discredited 19th-century pseudoscience, cultural differences are entirely real. They are also hugely important in shaping everything from social structure to personality to political culture.

Yet America’s leveling ideologues are happy to ignore the mountain of evidence that contradicts their dogma—especially in the service of opposing Trump. The shunning of assimilation and the celebration of grievance-based tribalism as the core American value—which they attempt to enforce by judicial fiat, education, and social pressure—is both a threat to American democracy and a source of progressive political power. Instead of liberation from third world norms—the norms of the societies they came from—immigrants and their children are shackled to them and told that their value to American society resides in these continuing attachments. In school, their children are taught that America is sinful, and that the noxious communal grievance politics of their parents’ societies can be applied to America and layered onto the historical American rights based political culture. On the low end, this means conditioning a new generation of young Americans into sectarian competition and resentment, and block voting within the structure of the Democratic Party. On the elite level, thanks in part to the AOCs and their use of “voices from the region,” this validation is sharpened further and made into a source of authority that torques both American foreign policy and increasingly the lens through which American domestic politics is presented to Americans.

For the AOCs—and for Obama, who incarnated their tendency to see American uniqueness as shameful and vulgar—exceptionalism is a misguided relic of the sinful American past, which “can discourage comparisons with other countries, suggesting that the United States cannot learn from others.” Hence, the exultation in the notion that America’s street action is a mirror image of the mass protests of the Middle East. In fact, the idea of America as the Middle East allows the AOCs to bring all of the conflicting emotions that drew them to the region into harmony. America offers a new canvas on which the guilt and pity—and even the erotic attraction—that this class of Americans feel for those societies in which they’ve lived and worked can be re-enacted.

Perhaps more important than the chance for a do-over of the failed Middle Eastern adventures and thought experiments is the opportunity that applying Middle Eastern thought categories to America offers the AOCs for reconciling feelings of frustration with and contempt for their own country. Take, for instance, the leveling language in this tweet by a think tanker who works on Syria and al-Qaida, in reaction to his Syrian friend participating in protests in Washington, D.C. The Syrian friend’s participation becomes a “fight for our rights in #America—just a few years after he was forced to flee #Syria while demanding the same.” What better way to transcend the bitterness and depression of helplessly covering and identifying with the third-world societies where they've lived and worked, in which virtually all mass protests ended in failure? Now it can play out in America, and this time, it will succeed, against our own Trump-Assad!

The identification of Obama and the AOCs with ugly third-world security regimes like Iran and the failed societies of the region points to a larger leveling process that is currently at work in America. That process makes me anxious about the future of the great country to which I immigrated—in the hope of leaving the sickness of my former society behind me.

As Americans, we’ve gone from glorifying the politics of crowds, to celebrating the tribalization of American society and the elevation of the culture of grievance and self-pity. We accept that the function of the media is not to provide objective accounts of events but to act as a put-through mechanism for security agencies. We have entrenched the culture of conspiracy and turned institutions of government into instruments to paralyze the opposite party and disrupt the peaceful transition of power. These all are hallmarks of the politics of the Third World.

9/11 gave birth to a lost generation that threw itself into the Third World in search of redemption. Now, tragically, they have brought the Third World back home.

Arsen Ostrovsky and Richard Kemp: Annexation vs. sovereignty: Words matter

Those who use the above rulings to argue against Israel’s plan to “annex” parts of Judea and Samaria omit three crucial points, however.

First, all apply to territory acquired by force or in an offensive war. The Six-Day War, in which Israel was compelled to defend itself from neighboring Arab armies seeking the Jewish state’s destruction, was defensive.

Second, in 1967, there was no “state of Palestine,” nor does such an entity exist today under international law. Therefore, Israel is not, and cannot, be annexing the territory of “another state.”

Third, and perhaps most importantly, all of the above negates the Jewish people’s inextricable connection to Judea and Samaria, which is rooted both in historical rights, and in undeniable legal ones.

One hundred years ago in April, after World War I, the allied powers gathered in San Remo, Italy and adopted an unprecedented resolution, for the first time ever entrenching the Jewish people’s pre-existing historical rights to the land as unequivocal legal rights under international law.

The San Remo Resolution, which followed the 1917 Balfour Declaration that called for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, formed the basis in 1922 of the adoption of the Mandate for Palestine.

The Mandate for Palestine, adopted by the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, recognized the “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and the “grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”

Even Article 80 of the U.N. Charter enshrined the guiding principles of the San Remo Resolution—notwithstanding the dissolution of the Mandate—by holding that “nothing in this chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.”

Therefore, even after the adoption in 1947 of the U.N. Partition Plan, and since then with all subsequent U.N. resolutions, the legal rights granted to the Jewish state at San Remo have been retained.

David Singer: European Union shamefully denies Jewish rights in Judea and Samaria

The frenzied rush by the European Union (EU) to condemn Israel’s restoration of Jewish sovereignty in 30% of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) reflects poorly on an organization which has adopted an exceptionally confrontational approach to the Jewish State.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has led the charge:
“We strongly urge Israel to refrain from any unilateral decision that would lead to the annexation of any occupied Palestinian territory and would be, as such, contrary to International Law”

So many false statements appearing in such a short sentence by this high-ranking EU official is breathtaking:
Israel’s action is not unilateral

Such action is being taken in tandem with President Trump following the outright refusal by the PLO to enter into negotiations with Israel on the basis of Trump’s detailed plan released on 28 January 2020.

70% of Judea and Samaria awaits the PLO – or any other Arab interlocutor such as Jordan – prepared to step up and negotiate on its future sovereignty.
Israel will not be annexing occupied Palestinian territory contrary to international law
“Annexing occupied Palestinian territory” means taking territory belonging to someone else to which Israel has no entitlement.
“Contrary to international law”: Israel will be applying sovereignty in 30% of Judea and Samaria pursuant to vested legal rights to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in this specific area conferred on the Jewish people by:
The San Remo Resolution and the Treaty of Sevres 1920
The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine 1922
Article 80 United Nations Charter 1945

The EU’s attempt to trash these existing Jewish legal rights in Judea and Samaria is extremely disturbing – since 20 of the 27 current member States of the EU – plus former member the United Kingdom – were among the 51 member States of the League of Nations that had unanimously included Judea and Samaria as part of the area in which the Jews were entitled to reconstitute their biblical Jewish homeland after 3000 years.

Supporters of Israel have seen the current NYT disaster for years (Daled Amos)

Journalism ain't what it used to be.

Journalists: From Servants Of Democracy To Servants of Truth...

Writing for the Washington Post in 1990, E.J. Dionne Jr. quoted Ted Smith, associate professor of mass communications at Virginia Commonwealth University. Smith described how journalists reimagined their role in reporting the news, following the Vietnam War era:

"They now see themselves as autonomous, neutral critics (who are) not of the culture but somehow outside the culture and above it," he said. "They now see themselves not as servants of American democracy, but as servants of the truth in some wider sense."

These days, journalists no longer see themselves as mere 'servants of American democracy.' Then, again, they don't necessarily see themselves as 'servants of the truth' either.

...To Activists For A Cause

In 2013, former New York Times editor Bill Keller published a "conversation" with Glenn Greenwald, whom he described as "an advocate of a more activist, more partisan kind of journalism." In explaining how he does journalism differently, Greenwald complained that

this suffocating constraint on how reporters are permitted to express themselves produces a self-neutering form of journalism that becomes as ineffectual as it is boring...all journalism is a form of activism. Every journalistic choice necessarily embraces highly subjective assumptions — cultural, political or nationalistic — and serves the interests of one faction or another. [emphasis added]

As activists, there are an awful lot of journalists out there who see themselves as members of a cause. The problem is that at least when you see yourself as serving Truth, you are inclined to accept criticism of error and make corrections. But if you see yourself as an activist to a cause -- are you really as likely to accept criticism and correct a mistake? For that matter, how far will you be willing to go to stretch a point (or two)? After all, it's for the cause. Another consideration is that, as an activist dedicated to a cause, journalists are susceptible to the pressures of other members of the cause, who now feel free to criticize your statements, and expect you to toe the line. That would explain how newspapers publish headlines that do not just give an idea of the story, but actually tilt the story.

If You Thought The Headlines of Reports on Palestinian Terrorists Were Bad...

In a recent post, I reviewed biased headlines that twist stories of attacks by Palestinian terrorists. I gave 2 examples where it took not one but 3 headlines in order to get the story straight. CBS online news went from -- 3 Palestinians Killed as Daily Violence Grinds On to: Israeli Police Kill 3 Alleged Palestinian Attackers to: Palestinians Kill Israeli Officer, Wound Another Before Being Killed The Associated Press went from -- Israeli Police Shoot Man in East Jerusalem to: Car Slams Into East Jerusalem Train Station to: Palestinian Kills Baby at Jerusalem Station But now, in the course of the past year, we have seen news stories in the US where The New York Times has felt obliged to rewrite its headlines multiple times -- by public, or political, demand. Last year, Trump spoke after mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. The New York Times dutifully reported on his comments and used the headline: Trump Urges Unity vs. Racism. The headline was obviously not nearly anti-Trump enough. So following critical tweets from politicians, presidential candidates and others, the New York Times dutifully changed the headline to: Assailing Hate But Not Guns But this is not a one-time occurrence. Just last week, The New York Times again changed its headline after pressure from Democrats. When Trump threatened that he was ready to bring out the military as riots spread throughout the country in reaction to the police killing of George Floyd -- The New York Times reported with the headline: As Chaos Spreads, Trump Vows to ‘End It Now' Opposing the neutrality of the headline, Democrats condemned it as not sufficiently anti-Trump. So The New York Times obliged: Trump Threatens to Send Troops into States However, a personal best was probably achieved earlier this year, in March. Within the space of an hour, The New York Times produced 4 different headlines as it desperately tried to satisfy Democrats. The story was about the stalled coronavirus relief bill. The problem was how to write the headline so as not to be too harsh on the Democrats. Democrats Block Action on $1.8 Trillion Stimulus (that of course would never do) Democrats Block Action on Stimulus Plan, Seeking Worker Protections (toned down; they're doing it for the workers!) Partisan Divide Threatens Deal on Rescue Bill (it's not the Democrats! No, it's that darned 'cycle of partisanship' we hear so much about...) As State Pleas Mount, Trump Outlines Some Federal Action; Senate Democrats Block Stimulus Package (reflecting complaints from conservative leaders who were tired of The New York Times game)

The New York Times Outdoes Itself

But the latest headline gaffe, also last week, is having major reverberations. Last Wednesday, The New York Times published an op-ed by Republican Senator Tom Cotton:

Since then, there have been multiple explanations, excuses, denials and James Bennet resigned as The New York Times Opinion Editor. As the paper itself admits in the 'contextual' comments that now introduce the op-ed (sort of a warning label) it was The New York Times itself that created the headline -- not Senator Cotton. And the paper admits that the headline they chose is "incendiary". But that admission hasn't stopped The New York Times from continuing to mischaracterize what Cotton wrote:

The point is that contrary to the headline and what The New York Times claims in the above tweet, Senator Cotton did not "call for military force against protesters in American cities." What he did write is advise the use of the military to either back up and support the outnumbered police and National Guard or help out where elected officials have refused to take any action where violent riots have broken out. This would be accomplished by invoking the Insurrection Act, which in the past has been used by both Republican presidents as well as by presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Whether one agrees or disagrees with this opinion piece, the headline chosen was neither neutral nor accurate, and apparently was intended to provoke a reaction. And it did:

You would have to stop reading at New York Times headline, without reading what Senator Cotton actually wrote, in order to claim that Blacks -- or anyone for that matter -- would be put in danger. Yet among New York Times reporters there were 800 staff members who signed a letter condemning the op-ed. Then, of course, there are other members of the media and social media, and politicians who have joined in to help spin this out of control. After all, how many people actually read beyond the headlines?

Spinning The Narrative

But it is important to keep in mind that the headline manipulation in this case is different from the others mentioned above. The other headline manipulations, as shown by the subsequent changes, are meant to soften the blow and play down what is reported in the article itself. But in the case of the Cotton op-ed, the headline was meant to deliberately provoke. It was inaccurate and designed to influence in advance how the reader would understand the op-ed itself. Previous posts have looked at examples of New York Times bias when it comes to Israel as well as bias against Jews.

The manipulation of headlines and the distortions in dealing with the Senator Cottom op-ed are problems we are familiar with from The New York Times reporting on Israel. And to tell you the truth, when James Bennet tweeted proudly, if not boastfully about the "patriotic protests"...

...we also remember the insistence of The New York Times on reporting on violent Gazan riots on the border with Israel as "peaceful protests," even as attempts were made (and some, successfully) to infiltrate into Israel. In the current situation, you don't have to minimize the tragedy of the killing of George Floyd or deny the validity of the protests in order to take note of the cases of violence and the need to deal with them and report on them accurately.

On Saturday, former Islamic Jihad terror leader Ramadan Shallah died after a long illness in Beirut.

During his time as leader of the terror group, some 235 Israelis and visitors to Israel were killed in over 60 attacks that Islamic Jihad took credit for.

Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO are praising the terrorist responsible for killing hundreds.

Abbas called Shallah’s brother and offered condolences, saying that Shallah was a great national figure and a great fighter for the nation. He expressed wishes that the murderer dwell in Paradise.

The Executive Committee of the PLO, led by Abbas, issued a statement extolling Shallah’s “life full of giving and struggle and adhering to the national principles,” adding that he “worked to establish the rules of national action and jihad in a march of effort, giving and sacrifice, adhering to the rules of national and unitary action.”

In short, they are praising his terrorism.

You will never find the “peace loving” EU or UN say a negative word about the PLO or Mahmoud Abbas even when they show that they support the worst terrorists and terror attacks. These statements of support for terror and of a mass murderer are proof that even the “moderate” Palestinian leaders never opposed violence and they celebrate terror attacks and terrorists every single day. Their lukewarm opposition to terror today is tactical, not moral, and they explicitly say this all the time - but most Westerners don’t want to listen.

EoZTV: Unabashed conservative Brian of London

This is an entertaining and wide-ranging interview with the witty Brian of London about current events, indigenous rights for Jews and, of all things, a lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook and Google.

Check it out!

Lebanese parliament speaker: “Any voice promoting strife is a Hebrew voice, even if it speaks in Arabic”

Over the weekend, there were clashes between Sunnis and Shiites in Lebanon. Sunni protesters on Saturday afternoon called for early elections, anti-corruption and economic justice measures, and disarming Hezbollah. In response, some Shiite youth released videos insulting Mohammed’s wife Aisha, who helped bring about the Sunni/Shiite rift by opposing Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali, who the Shiites revere.

Sunni and Shiite leaders sought to cool tensions by doing what they always do – blame the Jews.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (Amal party – Shiite) on Sunday warned that "sectarian strife is once again popping its head to assassinate the country and its national unity and target its civil peace."

"Cursed is anyone who awakens it and beware of falling into its inferno, for it will destroy everything, and even its plotters and financiers will not remain safe," Berri cautioned.

And condemning "insults against Islamic and Christian sanctities and symbols, especially against Prophet Mohammed's wife Sayyida Aisha," Berri noted that "any act targeting the unity, security, stability and coexistence of the Lebanese is an Israeli act, regardless where it may come from."

"Any voice promoting strife among the sons of the same country and same religion is a Hebrew voice even if it speaks Arabic," the Speaker added.

Since Lebanese Shiites are essentially vassals for Iran, it is no surprise that Berri’s words echoed that of Iran’s Ayatollah Qabalan:

In a statement, Ayatollah Qabalan described such attempts [to foment sectarian strife] as plots that are in line with the objectives of the Zionist regime of Israel, al-Ahed News reported.

At a time when racism is in the news, everyday antisemitism by Arab and Muslim political leaders is still roundly ignored by the very people who pretend to care the most about bigotry and hate.

Fox News reports:

A Brooklyn man who delivered a threat to New Yorkers during a live interview with Fox News on Saturday has been charged with multiple offenses, including making terroristic threats, police said.

During the live interview Saturday afternoon, a man who identified himself as “Ace Burns” threatened to burn down the Diamond District if New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio did not meet with protesters and give the youth “some direction.”

"Today, I'm giving a demonstration from Barclay's Center at 6 p.m. to City Hall, and that's the first stop -- and we're hoping [Mayor] de Blasio and [Gov.] Cuomo come out and talk to us and give the youth some direction," Burns told Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich.

"But if they don't, then [the] next stop is the Diamond District," he said, referring to a block on Manhattan's 47th Street known for jewelry shops. "And gasoline, thanks to Trump, is awfully cheap. So, we're giving them a chance right now to do the right thing."

Earlier, Burns showed the reporter the initials "FTP" on his arm, which he said could mean either "Free the People" or "Fire to Property, and that's very possible."

Here's the video. Notice that the Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich and the anchor Arthel Neville don't say a word about the threat that Burns just made on live TV to burn down the heavily Jewish Diamond District.

How stupid can they be? The man just threatened to burn down a Jewish neighborhood in Manhattan and they go on like he talked about the weather.

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.

06/07 Links: Time to call a terrorist a terrorist and ban Hezbollah in full; Palestinians tell ICC that annexation will void Oslo Accords; Former top Dubai official: ‘It’s time Gulf states normalized ties with Israel,’

From Ian:

Arsen Ostrovsky: Time to call a terrorist a terrorist and ban Hezbollah in full

Last month, the German government took the principled decision to ban the entire Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah and designate it as a terrorist organization. As a key player in the war on radical Islamic terror, Australia should do likewise.

In February this year, Peter Dutton, Australian Minister for Home Affairs, said Australia was considering listing the ‘military wing’ of Hezbollah as terrorist, adding that “nobody should have sympathy” for the Shiite terror group and that a full review would be conducted in April.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, that review has, understandably, been put on hold.

Australia since 2003, like Germany previously, has maintained a superficial distinction between Hezbollah’s ‘military’ and so-called ‘political wings.

Germany’s announcement followed a similar decision of Britain in February this year, after Home Secretary Sajid Javid said the UK came to a realization that “we are no longer able to distinguish between their already banned military wing and the political party.”

Even Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s Deputy Leader, has said: “Hezbollah has a single leadership”, reinforcing that “the same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions in the struggle against Israel.”

In case anyone needs a refresher, make no mistake about it, Hezbollah is a ruthless genocidal jihadist terrorist organization created in 1982, funded, armed and answerable entirely to the Iranian regime. 

Hezbollah’s primary goal is not only the elimination of the State of Israel, but Jews worldwide. Its ‘Manifesto’, clearly states: “Our struggle will end only when this entity [Israel] is obliterated.” 

In 2002, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah Secretary-General, stated “if Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of chasing after them worldwide.”

‘It’s time Gulf states normalized ties with Israel,’ former top Dubai official says

Former Dubai Police Chief Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim sparked controversy over the weekend when, in a series of tweets, he called on of Persian Gulf states and the rest of the Arab world to admit they want to establish open diplomatic relations with Israel, Channel 12 News reported on Saturday.

Tamim, currently deputy police chief, is known as the police officer who exposed the Mossad intelligence agency’s connection to the 2010 assassination of Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades co-founder Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the UAE capital.

He is also known as a harsh critic of the Palestinians and an avid supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump.

In a series of tweets that according to the report went viral within minutes, Tamim wrote, “The truth is that it’s meaningless not to recognize Israel.

“Israel is a country built on science, knowledge, prosperity and strong relations with all developing countries. Who are the people who do not recognize Israel’s [international] status? Where do they think Jews come from? Hawaii?”

In another tweet, Tamim further urged the Arab world to formalize relations with Israel.

“As soon as the Gulf states normalize their relations with Israel, Qatar’s role as a proxy state for terrorist organizations, will be over,” he wrote, referring to Doha’s close ties to the terrorist group ruling the Gaza Strip.

“It is known that Qatar supports Hamas and still maintains a relationship with Israel. So what stops us from having a normal relationship with it [Israel]?”

Former Dubai Police Chief Dhahi Khalfan Tamim: "Israel is a country built on science, knowledge, prosperity and strong relations with all developed countries. Who are the people who do not recognize Israel’s scientific standing? Where do they think Jews come from? Hawaii?" https://t.co/hPlrzgxTJr
— يوناتان جونين Yonatan Gonen (@GonenYonatan) June 7, 2020

Jews and Muslims are cousins, but only Jews can be racists, according to “anti-racists”

Here’s a random paragraph by a random anti-Zionist Jew named Robert A. H. Cohen from a random screed at Mondoweiss:

It’s impossible for even liberal Jewish supporters of Israel to recognise the structural and institutional racism they inhabit while they cling to the idea that only an exclusive Jewish sovereignty in Israel/Palestine can guarantee Jewish security. The longer this idea is treated as a universal law of nature rather than a sorely overrated political ideology, the longer it will take to recognise and then shed a racist mind set.

The key phrase is “exclusive Jewish sovereignty.” He cannot say “exclusive Jewish residency” because, obviously, Israel is 20% non-Jewish. So it is the “exclusive Jewish sovereignty” that is a problem.

But if that is true, then isn’t exclusive Muslim sovereignty an equally racist issue for the 57 Muslim majority states? Nearly all of them reference their Muslim character in their constitutions. Isn’t that a “racist mind set” by the exact same criteria that are applies to Israel?

No, only Jews can be racist. Which means only Jews can be publicly insulted as being worse than other human beings. Which means that antisemitism is legitimate.

Just to bring another example from today about Jews, Muslims and exclusivity, here is Hanan Ashrawi at the PLO website, also today:

Over the past two weeks, Israeli occupation authorities have banned dozens of Palestinians from access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, while facilitating provocative raids by illegal Israeli settlers into the Al-Aqsa Compound and providing protection for their infringements on the holy site.

…Jerusalem’s special status and centrality to world heritage must be protected from such hateful acts. Freedom of worship is also a fundamental right that must not be used as a tool of political repression and colonial aspirations.

She is saying that the Temple Mount must be an exclusively Muslim site, and Jews should be banned from visiting it even to peacefully stroll, let alone pray – while at the same time pretending to care about freedom of worship! (She also calls all Jews, no matter where they live, “illegal Israeli settlers.”)

By the criteria of the Leftist self-defined anti-racists, isn’t that prima facie evidence of racism?

But the rule is, only Jews can be racists in the Middle East. Arabs cannot be even when they do worse than what the Jews are accused of (falsely, nearly always.)

Which is a modern justification for antisemitism.

The people who claim to be in the forefront against bigotry are the real bigots.

The horrific racism of 19th century South Carolina Jews

During a brief Twitter argument with black Orthodox rabbi Ma Nishtana over a graphic he created that I found hugely offensive, he mentioned an 1820 synagogue constitution in Charleston, South Carolina that explicitly excluded blacks from its membership.

Rule XXIII of the Constitution of Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, Charleston, South Carolina, said, “This congregation shall not encourage or interfere with making proselytes under any pretense whatever, nor shall any such be admitted under the jurisdiction of their congregation, until he or she or they produce legal and satisfactory credentials, from some other congregation where a regular Chief [Rabbi] or Rabbi and Hebrew Consistory is established; and, provided, he, she or they are not people of color.”

I looked up the quote and found it in a 1905 book called The Jews of South Carolina, by the then-rabbi of the same congregation, Barnett A Elzas. It’s quite accurate, and incredibly offensive. I do not believe that it is representative of Orthodox shuls nationwide at the time (I see that in the late 18th century New York’s Shearith Israel said it accepted “every free person professing the Jewish religion” and Richmond’s Jewish community said it accepted “every free man…who congregates with us.” Yes, they excluded slaves, but they did not exclude Jews of color, at least not officially.

However, this 1905 book revealed some other horrific racism.

It discusses as a matter of fact how many prominent Jews in South Carolina eagerly bought and sold slaves.

Moses Lindo, an indigo seller, advertised to buy a plantation along with 50 or 60 slaves:

One of them created a poem in his advertisement of selling slaves, extolling how great they are and mentioning that of course if they don’t do their job one should lash them:

Even if you try to justify these sickening examples a being just the way things were before the Civil War, Rabbi Elzas shows his own racism quite explicitly when quoting the accomplishments of another racist Jew, Edwin Warren Moise:

General Moise, as he was familiarly called, was the type of what a good man and citizen should be. Brilliant as was his record in war, his record in peace was no less glorious. He will be ever remembered as the right arm of General Wade Hampton in Reconstruction days, who by his unselfish devotion to the cause, his many sacrifices, and his soul-stir ring oratory, helped to redeem the State of South Carolina from the horrors of carpet-bag rule. True patriot that he was, he sought no political advancement for his services, and though he gave his fortune to the cause, he was content to live as a private citizen.

He then quoted one of Moises’ eulogies:

"When the true sons of South Carolina rose in their might to redeem the State from the hands of aliens, renegades, and negroes he was called to the front, and he did his part like a man and a patriot. The red-shirt Democrats of '76 still remember how he rode with Hampton from the mountains to the sea, and how his eloquence, his zeal, and courage inspired them to stand steadfast for white supremacy and an honest government. To do this he abandoned a most lucrative law practice, and being elected Adjutant and Inspector-General in 1876, he served for four years, and declined reelection in 1880.”

That a rabbi in 1905 would approvingly speak of white supremacism, even as he realized that Jews were usually the victims of the same bigotry, seems astonishing nowadays.

Interestingly, the current South Carolina Encyclopedia says that General Moises “was a moderate on racial issues. He invited black South Carolinians to join the militia.”

General Moises’ son is then described as someone who attended the South Carolina College for a few months, “leaving that institution when negroes were admitted in 1873.”

It is shocking to read this explicit racism described so matter of factly.

The question for today as I see it is whether we still harbor some of that racism and are just as clueless as the author of this book was.

Peter Beinart’s “Safetyism”

Peter Beinart tweeted:

“Safetyism,” for those who don’t know, is “a culture or belief system in which safety (which includes ‘emotional safety’) has become a sacred value, which means that people become unwilling to make trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns.”

Beinart’s assertion is misplaced. No one is afraid to debate Zionism. But anti-Zionism is indeed essentially antisemitism, and as such there is no debating it – it is like debating whether France or Belgium have a right to exist. It is insulting to debate what is essentially a pathological hate.

But what, exactly, have Zionists done to shut down the free speech of anti-Zionists? I don’t see any shortage of outlets for anti-Zionists to spew their hate. None of them are shouted down on campus, the way Israelis routinely are (I have not seen Beinart criticize that.)

I tweeted back a thread asking Beinart to define, exactly, where the line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is – something that the critics of the IHRA definition of antisemitism refuse to do.

Then I remembered how little Peter Beinart himself cares about free speech and debate.

A number of years ago, Beinart hosted an initiative called “Open Zion” where he claimed that the voices that were unheard (meaning, anti-Zionists like Youssef Munnayer who do not hurt for publicity) could be heard. I once chided Beinart saying something like “Open Zion has a range of voices from Left to Far Left.” He responded that, no, they had Benny Morris to represent the Right. (He seems to have deleted his part of the thread, which is interesting in itself.)

If he really wanted to show all points of view, he cold have published the thoughts of the many thoughtful people who decided to live on the east side of the Green Line. Beinart’s interest in free speech doesn’t include Jews who support Israeli rule over Judea and Samaria, but it enthusiastically embraces BDSers who call Israel a Nazi or apartheid state.

Why doesn’t Beinart want Jewish indigenous rights supporters to be heard? Sounds like their very existence is upsetting to Beinart, and he wants to make sure that they are marginalized so no one else can hear them either.

For that matter, why does this strong supporter of free speech block me on Twitter for the past eight years?

Sounds like safetyism to me.

06/06 Links: Israeli Nobel laureate: We should annex now, not 'talk it to death'; A New Level in the Cyber War between Israel and Iran

From Ian:

Israeli Nobel laureate: We should annex now, not 'talk it to death'

Nobel laureate Professor Yisrael (Robert) Aumann gave a special interview to the Jerusalem Post sister publication Maariv ahead of his 90th birthday on June 8.

The Nobel prize winner is famous for holding right wing views. When asked, he said that Israel should annex the Jordan Valley and a portion (30%) of the West Bank on July 1 as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu said he will do “and not talk it to death.”

When asked about the chance of a peace agreement with the Palestinians he said that some things should not be a matter of compromise. “The Arabs are also not flexible, they say everything belongs to them”, he argued. "We Jews should not waiver in our conviction that this is our rightful historical homeland, “dating back thousands of years.”

Aumann won the Nobel prize in 2005 for the contribution his research of Game Theory made in the field of economics.

His research helped understand how seemingly irrational actions might, in reality, be rational when we take into account the situations they work with and the logic guiding them. For example, in his Nobel speech called "War and Peace," he explained how the seemingly irrational act of building enough nuclear bombs to destroy the planet is effective in preventing war because the other side can’t know if these weapons will be used or not.

Aumann joked with the reporter that until he won the prize, he worked in science. But as the prize tends to be the best sales promoter in the world, he said “I now work in sales”, referringg to the sales of his theories.

A tale of two countries: The politics of indigeneity in Israel

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often thought of as a complex and highly-nuanced topic, any understanding of the conflict ultimately revolves around a single question, the question of who is indigenous to the land. All the differing perspectives on Israel boil down to whether they consider Jews or Arabs the original inhabitants of the region.

A common narrative regarding indigeneity is that Palestinians are the original inhabitants of the land, and anti-Zionists frequently make claims based on the premise that Palestinians are the indigenous people and Israelis are the occupiers.

Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, stated to the UN Security Council, that “[W]e are the descendants of the Canaanites who lived in the land of Palestine 5,000 years ago, and continuously remained there to this day.”

Linda Sarsour, an Arab-American activist tweeted, “Jesus was a Palestinian of Nazareth.”

Jonathan Cook wrote in The Electronic Intifada that Israel is systematically “Hebraizing” Arab city names in order to erase an Arab connection to the land, and accused Israel of turning al-Quds into Yerushalayim, al-Nasra into Natzrat, and Jaffa into Yafo. In doing so, the article assumes that the Palestinian connection to the land is longer than that of the Jews.

But do the facts support these claims that Palestinians are the original inhabitants of the land?

Linguistic analysis provides insight into this central question. In the 2nd millennium BCE, the inhabitants of Canaan, what is modern-day Israel, all spoke a language called Proto-Canaanite. Over time, their language underwent a phonetic shift known as the Canaanite Shift, which was characterized by a transition from an ā vowel to an o vowel. All the languages that descended from this Proto-Canaanite language had this o vowel in place of the ā, while the other Semitic languages from outside the region of Canaan kept the original ā.

The effect of the shift is still noticeable today. For example, the word for peace in Hebrew is Shalom, demonstrating the vowel shift, whereas Arabic keeps the ā vowel in Salām: Hebrew’s vowel shift indicates it was historically spoken in Canaan, while Arabic’s lack of the vowel shift suggests it developed outside of Canaan.

The Electronic Intifada article claims that the Arabic name of Yafa is the original term for the place, but as the true indigenous people would have used the vowel-shifted name of Yafo, as Hebrew does, the truth is laid bare: Arabic doesn’t fulfill the criteria to be a native language to Israel. The linguistic patterns of Arabic are consistent with the historical context –– Palestinians are Arabs, who are indigenous to the Arabian peninsula, but their indigenous claims do not extend to Israel.

"People of certain lineages of people who want to delegitimize our leaders... who will say Linda is anti-Israel...”

That’s a longgg convoluted way of saying ‘blame the Jews’. pic.twitter.com/JmyPLMXoZT
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) June 6, 2020