Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 20, 2020

The Forgotten Pogrom–Tiberias, 1938 (American Zionism)

The Forgotten Pogrom

@AmericanZionism

Author Note: Please follow @americanzionism on Twitter

Abstract

A major pogrom took place in the city of Tiberias in Mandatory Palestine on October 2, 1938 during the height of the Arab Revolt. Tiberias had a significant Jewish majority and a diverse population of both Mizrachi and Ashkenazi Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Although this massacre is not as well knows as the massacres in Hebron, Safed, or Jerusalem, it was nevertheless one of the most disturbing and brutal events that took place during the British Mandate period.

Keywords: Israel, Mandatory Palestine, Arab Revolt, Tiberias, Pogrom

The Forgotten Pogrom

1938 was an especially violent year in the Holy Land. It was the midst of the first de facto Intifada of the Jewish/Arab conflict, a violent nationalist uprising called the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939. Lead by the father of Arab nationalism in Palestine, Jerusalem Mufti Haj Amīn al-Ḥusaynī, the Arabs founded the Arab High Committee and set three key demands – end all Jewish immigration, ban all land sales to Jews, and give Arabs control of 100% of Mandatory Palestine, leaving them to deal with the Jews. A steady stream of incitement in schools, Arab press, and houses of worship ensued, along with a call to boycott Jewish products. It did not take long for the incitement to turned into violence. In April 1936, Arab terrorists attacked a Jewish bus and killed two. This event unleashed a Pandora's box of tit-for-tat violence which saw the death of many Jews and Arabs. This latest wave of Arab attacks on Jews and the unrealistic demands of their leadership led the British to establish the Palestine Royal Commission in 1937, known colloquially as the Peel Commission. The Peel Commission concluded that the Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine simple could not live together and “Partition offers a chance of ultimate peace. No other plan does.”¹ They recommend partition of the land into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with the Arabs receiving the bulk of the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea and the Jews receiving a sliver of land on which they were the majority (Exhibit 1). The secretary of the Arab High Committee al-Ḥusaynī made it clear that the Arabs would not accept any partition. He testified “The Arab case in Palestine is one which aims at National independence.” ² In the commission’s final report in July 1937, in the midst of this wave of violence against the Jewish community, the commission noted that “The only solution of the problem put forward by the Arab Higher Committee was the immediate establishment of an independent Arab Government, which would deal with the 400,000 Jews now in Palestine as it thought fit.” ³ Given the Mufti’s association with Hitler, his role in founding a Bosnian unit of the Nazi SS and planning for an Einsatzgruppen in the Middle East, and his direction of the Arab Revolt, it is not hard to imagine the tragedy that “as it thought fit” would have meant. The Arabs ultimately rejected the Peel Commission’s recommendation for partition. The Jews accepted a less than ideal and far from equitable agreement.

Tiberias

Tiberias was a predominately Jewish city for much of its existence. It is located on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, in Northern Israel, and is surrounded by hills. It is one of the four holy cities in Judaism. It holds such an import place for Jews that Maimonides, the most famous of Medieval Jewish rabbis and philosophers, loved and respected by Jews as well as gentiles, asked that after his death in 1204 Jews take his remains to be buried in Tiberias. His tomb remains to this day.

In the 1896 comprehensive census done by geographer and orientalist Vital Cuinet, the population of the city of Tiberias was 7,433 with 5,700 Jews (77%), 1,400 Muslims, and 330 Christians, and the greater Tiberias district has a total population of 10,052, with 6,700 Jews (67%), 2,259 Muslims, and 1,093 Christian.⁴ Similar demographic proportions existed before the Cuinet survey, and afterwards. This was a quintessentially Jewish area in the Holy Land. Of note is that the Tiberias Jewish population was made up of many Mizrachi (Middle Eastern) Jews including those whose families lived in the Holy Land for innumerable generations.

The Pogrom

There were many violent attacks in Tiberias on Jews during the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939. The one that stands out for both its brutality and organization is the Massacre of Jews in the city of Tiberias on October 2, 1938. There were other attacks in Tiberias in 1938 before the Pogrom. In May, a Jew was killed in by an explosion, and in September three Jews were murdered, and a Jew and an Arab were wounded by four Arab terrorists.⁵ Dozens of similar attacks like these occurred all around Mandatory Palestine that year. But the Tiberias massacre in October was different. Its ruthlessness had not been seen since the violent attacks in Safed and Hebron in 1929.⁶

On October 2^nd, an Arab terrorist cell occupied the hills surrounding Tiberias.⁷ It is not exactly clear how many terrorists were involved in the attack, but it must have been anywhere from many dozen to over 100. They waited for the cover of darkness to begin their well-planned operation. At 9pm, the terrorists cut the telephone lines into Tiberias so that the victims could not call for assistance. Two terrorist cells hiding in the hills tactically entered city from the north and south (exhibit 2). Five minutes later, the terrorists remaining in the hills sounded a shrill whistle loud enough so both cells could hear it. This signaled the beginning of the attack. The small local police force was taken by surprise. The terrorists first hit the office of the British district commissioner, the police station, and the quarters where British police were housed hoping to weaken or eliminate any defenses. Tiberias was a poorly defended city with only a couple dozen British police officers and a small number of supernumerary Jewish constable called Notrim or Ghaffirs. In a harbinger of what the future could hold for Jews in Israel in a single bi-national state where Jews no longer have sole control over their security, just three months before the attack, Moshe Sharett (Shertok), Head of the Jewish Agency at the time, had petitioned the British government to arm additional Jews. He also asked for mobile patrols around Tiberias and other Jewish towns and cities. Both requests were rejected by the British and the concern by the Jewish Agency was deemed “exaggerated.”

After attacking the police and government offices, in stereotypical pogrom style, the attackers went to the central synagogue and set it on fire. The caretaker of the synagogue Ezekiel Katz, 42, was trapped inside and burned to death. The terrorists also burned down the local post office before making their way to the Jewish neighborhood of Kiryat Shmuel, north of the old city, armed with bombs, rifles, daggers, and torches. That is when the “systematically organized and savagely executed”⁸ carnage began. Even children were not spared. The terrorists set fire to several Jewish wooden homes. They entered the house of Joshua Ben-Arieh where he, his wife Shoshanna, and one of their sons, Arieh, were stabbed to death and then set on fire. There younger son Moshe, only 18 months old, was shot to death. Visiting the Ben-Arieh family were three siblings –Chaim age 12, Rivkah age 10, and Ezra age 8. The terrorists stabbed and burned to death all three children. While Shimon Yochanan Mizrahi was on patrol in another part of town, terrorists stormed his house and killed his wife Rachel, 26, and all five of their children ages 12, 5, 3, 2, and 1. The terrorists also attacked a third house, the home of Menachem Kabni, 60, and his wife Dora, 40. Both were American citizens. Mr. Kabni had been the beadle of a synagogue in New York for 30 years. Rabbi Asha Werner, who had been visiting Tiberias at the time, reported that the terrorists stabbed the couple to death and burned their bodies.⁹ Miraculously, Mr. Kabni’s sister Esther managed to escape the execution. In total, the terrorists set six Jewish houses on fire and savagely murdered anyone they could find inside. Two supernumerary Jewish constables, Israel Bookman and Zvi Chatzkeleviz, and an additional Jewish man, Jacob Gross, died in a gun fight valiantly trying to stop the attacks. Several other Jews were seriously injured. All but four of the victims were stabbed to death¹⁰ and set on fire.

So diabolical and well planned was the attack that police and troop reinforcements did not arrive in Tiberias for 25 hellish minutes because the Arabs who had whistled from the surrounding hills fired on them on the road to the city. The first to arrive were the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force stationed in the village of Samakh. They managed to fight their way through an ambush and road obstructions set near the hot springs to the south.¹¹The fighting and pogrom lasted until 11pm, two grueling hours, until the British police and armed forces, along with Jewish constables, were able to repel the terrorists. British troops then pursued the attackers to the nearby village of Lubya.¹²Fighting continued until morning and the terrorists suffered 50 casualties.¹³When all was said and done, twenty-one Jews were murdered, including seven men, three women, and, as The Times (UK) reported on October 4^th, eleven “Jewish Children Butchered”.¹⁴

The massacre could have been much worse. A brigade of Jewish constables from a nearby Jewish village called Mizpah encountered a terrorist cell on their way to attack the city and engaged them. They managed to kill six of the terrorists and seized one German and four English rifles, along with ammunition.^{15 16}

Immediately after the Pogrom the British Mandatory government placed a curfew on the city. It was only allowed to be broken for a funeral procession for the victims that walked past the ruins of the still smoldering synagogue while the dead body and destroyed Torah scrolls lay inside.¹⁷Chief Rabbis Dr. Isaac Herzog and Dr. Jacob Meir sent a joint appeal to British secretary Malcolm MacDonald, “Palestine Jewry is deeply horrified at the Tiberias massacre and sacrilege. In G-d's name, we appeal to you to end the terror.”¹⁸The Jewish Agency’s Mr. Sharett would add, “The murders were a terrible price to pay for arousing the authorities to take urgent measures.”¹⁹

Even after such a horrendous pogrom that saw infants shot, stabbed, and burned to death, the attacks on Jews did not stop. The Arabs did everything they could to make Tiberias vulnerable. They set rock barricades and other obstacles on the road to the city so that British reinforcements would have a difficult time arriving (exhibit 3). Less than a month later, on October 27^th, the Jewish Mayor of Tiberias Zaki El Hadef was shot to death by an Arab terorist in the middle of the old city, in broad daylight.²⁰What was unique about Mr. El Hadef is that he presided over a council that consisted of four Jews, two Muslims, and one Christian. He came from an ancient Mizrachi family that settled in Tiberias in 1715. He spoken both Hebrew and Arabic fluently and was by all accounts loved by all the residents of the city. He was a man for all people who at the start of the Arab Revolt in 1936 managed to pass a motion in the municipal council appealing for peace. Nevertheless, like Sadat and Begin would suffer after him, he could not save himself from extremist violence (exhibit 4).

After the Pogrom at Tiberias, Moshe Sharett of the Jewish Agency, who would go on to become the second prime minister of Israel, sent a message to the Arab Palestine Defense Committee in Damascus, a message that would be repeated over and over by Jewish leaders but which always fell on deaf ears – that the Jews in Palestine extend a hand of peace and cooperation to the Arabs of Palestine, but if it is not accepted the Jews will not be intimidated and the Arabs should know that violence and murder will not deter the Jews from re-establishing their homeland in the land of Israel.²¹

“Zionism cannot be deterred by threats of killing, and the fact the Jews have stood in Palestine for 3 years against all onslaughts is an eloquent testimony that they cannot be intimidated. If the Arab neighboring countries ever resort to the practice of massacring Jews they would not prevent the realization of Zionism, but would only disgrace themselves, just as the killing and burning of women and children at Tiberias will only remain as a shameful stain on the record of the Palestine Arab. We see a possibility for a full and fruitful cooperation in Palestine embracing Jews and Arabs as well as neighboring countries for the good of everyone concerned, but on the essential condition that the basic rights of the Jewish people in Palestine are recognized. The realization of Zionism can only be to the benefits of the Arabs. The Jewish return to their ancient home is dictated by historical necessity, and no danger or threat would deflect the Jewish people from the path or stifle their surge for freedom.”²²

The word pogrom often conjures up images of poor Jews in Eastern Europe being slaughtered or of Kristallnacht. People do not often think of what happened to the Jews in Mandatory Palestine as pogroms, but that is exactly what they were. The massacre in Tiberias in 1938, both by virtue of not being as well known as the massacres at Safed and Hebron, and of not being thought of as a pogrom, an organized massacre of Jews, makes this the Forgotten Pogrom.

References

The Evening Star, Washington D.C. October 3, 1938

The Evening Star, Washington D.C. October 30, 1938

Jewish Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, United States, Vol. IV, No. 154, October 4, 1938

REPORT by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of PALESTINE AND TRANS-JORDAN for the year 1938, United Kingdom, December 31, 1938

The Times, United Kingdom, October 5, 1938

The Times, United Kingdom, October 14, 1938

The Times, United Kingdom, October 31, 1938

The Times-News, Hendersonville, NC, October 4, 1938

The Times-News, Hendersonville, NC, October 18, 1938

Footnotes

1. “Palestine Royal Commission Report”, July 1937, p. 537

2. From “Palestine Royal Commission Notes of Evidence taken on Tuesday, 12^th January 1937”, p. 292

3. Ibid, p. 298

4. “Syrie, Liban et Palestine, géographie administrative, statistique, descriptive et raisonnée”, Vital Cuinet, p. 111

5. “REPORT by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of PALESTINE AND TRANS-JORDAN for the year 1938”

6. “Massacre at Tiberias, Jewish Children Butchered, Victims Burned”, The Times, United Kingdom, Tuesday, October 4, 1938, p. 14

7. Jewish Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, United States, Vol. IV, No. 154, October 4, 1938
The Evening Star, Washington D.C. October 3, 1938

8. “REPORT by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of PALESTINE AND TRANS-JORDAN for the year 1938”

9. “U.S. Citizen and Wife Among New Holy Land Dead”, The Times-News, Hendersonville, NC, October 4, 1938

10. “REPORT by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of PALESTINE AND TRANS-JORDAN for the year 1938”

11. “Massacre at Tiberias, Jewish Children Butchered, Victims Burned”, The Times, United Kingdom, Tuesday, October 4, 1938, p. 14

12. Jewish Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, United States, Vol. IV, No. 154, October 4, 1938

13. “REPORT by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of PALESTINE AND TRANS-JORDAN for the year 1938”

14. “Massacre at Tiberias, Jewish Children Butchered, Victims Burned”, The Times, United Kingdom, Tuesday, October 4, 1938, p. 14

15. Ibid.

16. Jewish Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, United States, Vol. IV, No. 154, October 4, 1938

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. “Ambushed Mayor Dies”, The Evening Start, Washington DC, October 30, 1938.

21. “Jewish Reply to Arab Threats, Refusal to be Intimidated”, The Times (UK), October 14, 1938, p. 13

Exhibits

Exhibit 1

Peel Commission Partition Recommendation 1937

Exhibit 2

Topographical Map of Tiberias and the Kiryat Shmuel Neighborhood

Exhibit 3

The Times-News, Hendersonville, NC October 10, 1938

Exhibit 4

The Times (UK), Obituary of Zaki El Hadef, October 31, 1938.

07/20 Links Pt1: The Indigenous Rights of the Jewish People and the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People; PMW: Brutal murderers of Jews in 1929 massacre glorified as PA heroes

From Ian:

Alan Baker and Michel Calvo: The Indigenous Rights of the Jewish People and the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People

From time immemorial, up to the present day, there has been continuous Jewish presence in this area, with elements residing today within the Jewish people's own sovereign national State of Israel, and others residing in the areas of the Holy Land in Judea and Samaria that are subject to an ongoing negotiation within the Middle East peace process as to their final political status.

Palestinian claims that they are the indigenous descendants of the Canaanites is a canard that has no basis in fact or history, especially in light of the fact that the entry of Islam into the area of the Holy Land occurred only in the seventh century of the common era.

The premise of the peace negotiation process is the mutual acknowledgment of each party's basic rights. Thus, the peace negotiation process cannot avoid taking into account the indigenous character and rights of the Jewish People as set out in the 2007 UN Declaration. This premise must serve as the basis for any agreement covering the issues of permanent status, including borders, settlements, Jerusalem and other issues.

It is to be hoped and expected that the Government of Israel will come around to acknowledging the importance and centrality of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and will finally, and without any further delay or excuse, announce its endorsement of this important and central international document.

David Singer: Trump’s Vision of a Democratic “State of Palestine” is Doomed

Even the “Palestinians” remain undefined in the Trump Plan.

These fictitious flights into semantic fantasyland will require the United States and Israel to consult with ghosts.

The criteria for recognizing the State of Palestine include “the Palestinians” having:
- Implemented a governing system that provides for freedom of the press, free and fair elections, respect for human rights for its citizens, protections for religious freedom and for religious minorities to observe their faith
- Appropriate governance in place to prevent corruption
- Ended all programs, including school curricula and textbooks, that serve to incite or promote hatred or antagonism towards its neighbours, or which compensate or incentivize criminal or violent activity.
- Achieved civilian and law enforcement control over all of its territory and demilitarized its population.

The omens aren’t good according to the Human Rights Watch 2020 Report:
- Palestinian armed groups in Gaza fired 1,378 rockets towards Israel 1 January 2019 – 19 November 2019
- Between January 2018 and March 2019, Hamas detained 66 people for social media posts or for allegedly violating broadly worded offences such as “harming revolutionary unity” and “misuse of technology” used to punish peaceful dissent or opposition.
- Hamas authorities detained more than 1,000 Palestinians during March 2019 demonstrations against the high cost of living.
- Laws in Gaza punish “unnatural intercourse” of a sexual nature, understood to include same-sex relationships, with up to 10 years in prison.
- Between January 2018 and March 2019, 1,609 persons were detained in the West Bank for insulting “higher authorities” and creating “sectarian strife,” and 752 for social media posts.
- There is no comprehensive domestic violence law preventing abuse and protecting survivors.

Free and fair elections in the West Bank and Gaza have not been held since 2006.
Trump has given the “Palestinians” four years to replace the current two autocratic Jew-hating regimes with a democratic Palestinian State. Trump’s vision seems destined to end up in the garbage bin of history.

What did you learn in school today, little UNRWA child of Gaza?

"Demystifying the UNRWA approach to curriculum" is the title given by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) created for the "refugees" of the 1948 war in the Middle East (or, to be exact, their third and fourth-generation descendants), to a two-page statement on its educational system issued in January 2020. The title creates the impression among those who are unfamiliar with this UN agency that there are individuals, or organizations, trying to mystify UNRWA's educational endeavor and present it not in its true colors.

This UNRWA policy statement delares that UNRWA provides educational services to over 530,000 Palestinian children and youngsters in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the 'West Bank' (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza, and that these students do much better than their peers in regular public schools.

The centerpiece of this quality education is, if you read the report:

"The commitment of UNRWA to the delivery of an education in its schools that is consistent with the values and principles of the United Nations (UN) and promotes human rights, tolerance, equality and nondiscrimination of race, gender, language and religion".

The statement further says that "UNRWA uses the curriculum of the “host country”. This ensures Palestine refugees can integrate into host secondary and tertiary educational systems and more broadly participate in the social and economic life of the host country. As an independent UN Agency providing humanitarian and development assistance, UNRWA has no mandate to alter any host government curriculum or textbooks which are a matter of national sovereignty".

Concerning the situation in the 'West Bank' and Gaza: "While UNRWA uses the Palestinian curriculum, it reiterates that it has a robust system in place to ensure that the education it delivers in its classroom, including through the use of textbooks, is in line with UN values and principles and addresses any bias".

UNRWA's statement describes in detail the agency's various supervision methods ensuring that the Palestinian Authority's schoolbooks used in UNRWA schools indeed meet UN standards. It also mentions a report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) that "affirms the unwavering UNRWA commitment to UN values".

Remember When Farrakhan Said Palestinian Arabs Were Bloodsuckers? (Daled Amos)

If Blacks are a minority and Jews are a minority, why is there such tension between them?

One element that caused this friction is the way social interaction between Jews and Blacks was structured in the 1960's.

According to the book "Israel in the Black American Perspective" (1985):

In the Black community Jews were frequently associated with wealth and "parasitism." Under the least propitious circumstances, Blacks usually met Jews as storekeepers and landlords--the most visible representatives of an oppressive economic system. Such meetings were not likely to promote good will and mutual respect. [p4]

But if Jewish storekeepers and landlords are such a significant reason for how Blacks viewed Jews, why would that hatred seem to be so focused on Jews?

In a footnote to that paragraph, the book's authors -- Robert G. Weisbord and Richard Kazarian, Jr. -- point out that Jews were not the only storekeepers and landlords that Blacks had contact with:

In some cities, New Orleans and Newark to mention just two, Italian-black relations were acrimonious for similar reasons. Of late, "exploitative" Korean merchants in Harlem have aroused the ire of Afro-Americans, some of whom have responded with "buy Black" campaigns and organized boycotts of the Korean businesses.

And in Detroit, Arab grocers, mostly Iraqui [sic] Christians, have experienced picketing by Blacks who denounced profiteering outsiders. Burning and looting occurred in 1983 following the killing of a Black youth by an Arab storekeeper.

Antagonism to the Arabs in Detroit was rooted in the frustrations Blacks feel when confronted by the more rapid economic progress made by first and second generation immigrants. Black hostility to the Iraquis [sic] in the Motor City is strikingly similar to that directed at the Jews in Gotham and elsewhere. [p6. Text divided into paragraphs for easier reading. Emphasis added]

Over the decades, Race Riots were not directed only at Jews:

Similar to the 1943 Detroit Race Riots that devastated the Jewish population, and the 1967 Race Riots that left hundreds of Chaldean [Iraqi Arab Christian] businesses destroyed, Koreans too dealt with a destructive riot in 1992 Los Angeles.

The context for the 1992 riots is the reaction to the verdict that cleared the police officers who were videotaped beating Rodney King, a year after a Korean store owner shot and killed a 15-year-old Black girl because he thought she was stealing a bottle of orange juice --

The nearly weeklong, widespread rioting killed more than 50 people, injured more than 1,000 people and caused approximately $1 billion in damage, about half of which was sustained by Korean-owned businesses. Long-simmering cultural clashes between immigrant Korean business owners and predominately African-American customers spilled over with the acquittals. [emphasis added]

In Chicago, there was friction between Blacks and Arab immigrants too:

Common complaints about stores predominantly owned by Muslims from Palestine, Jordan, and Yemen, are that they only provide low-quality food and don’t take any ownership over their role in the community. “The reality is that Englewood is changing, and if you don’t improve your model, in time you will go out of business,” says Gunn.

Yet despite tensions between Blacks and other groups -- tensions that let to riots -- have you ever heard Farrakhan attack minorities other than Jews?

Actually, he did.

In 1995, The Chicago Tribune reported about

comments Farrakhan made Friday during a television interview in which he was quoted as saying Jews, Arabs, Koreans and Vietnamese were "bloodsuckers" who set up businesses in the black community but never gave back to those neighborhoods.

Arabs?
Not just any Arabs.

The Buffalo News had the full quote:

In an interview with Reuters Television aped Oct. 4 and made public Friday, Mr. Farrakhan touched on several sensitive subjects that previously outraged Jewish leaders and prompted accusations of anti-Semitism against him.

"When we use the term 'bloodsucker,' it doesn't just apply to some members of the Jewish community. That could apply to any human being who does nothing for another but lays on that human being to suck the value of its life without returning anything," Mr. Farrakhan said in the interview.

"Many of the Jews who owned the homes, the apartments in the black community, we considered them bloodsuckers because they took from our community and built their community but didn't offer anything back to our community.

"And when the Jews left, the Palestinian Arabs came, Koreans came, Vietnamese and other ethnic and racial groups came. And so this is a type and we call them bloodsuckers."[emphasis added]

Later, Farrakhan complained about the media for misreporting what he said: "It is unfortunate that the media is taking words that were spoken out of context to create division."

He never did make clear what the proper context for "bloodsuckers" was.

But the next day, Farrakhan did a turnaround, equating the suffering of Black Americans with other minority groups in the US:

In an address at Operation PUSH headquarters, 930 E. 50th St., Farrakhan said African-American men are dehumanized in the United States in the same way Japanese, Germans, Italians and, more recently, Koreans, Vietnamese and people of Middle Eastern descent have been treated in the U.S. during wars involving Americans.

..."We didn't feel their pain because they were considered the enemy," Farrakhan said to the gathering of about 100 people. "Thanks to the media manipulation, we are seen now as the enemy."

To understand Farrakhan's turnaround, you need to keep in mind:
-- His original comment was on a Friday.
-- His "correction" was the next day, on Saturday.
-- Two days later, Monday -- was his Million Man March.

Farrakhan's statement standing up for other minorities was a cynical move to avoid bad press for his upcoming Million Man March in Washington.

So why did Farrakhan have it in for Palestinian Arabs?

According to The Encyclopedia of Chicago, Palestinian Arabs started arriving at the end of the 19th century, and many settled in Chicago in particular --

By the early 1970s, they owned nearly 20 percent of all small grocery and liquor stores in Chicago, most located in African American communities, although Chicago's 30,000 Palestinians represented less than 1 percent of the city's population. By the 1990s, Palestinians had maintained this niche, but they also diversified into used-car dealerships, gas stations, auto repair shops, ethnic stores, and fast-food restaurants, remaining, however, primarily a community of small business entrepreneurs serving mostly “minority” communities. According to the 1990 census, more than 45 percent of employed Palestinians in the Chicago area worked in retail trade. The second largest concentration—some 14 percent—were professionals. [emphasis added]

As with Jews, Arab Christians, Italians and Asian-Americans, there were Palestinian Arabs, too, who were store owners in Black communities.

This is not to minimize the problem of race relations or deny the validity of alleged discrimination. But the knee-jerk reaction of Farrakhan to accuse such a varied group of immigrants of being 'bloodsuckers' exploiting the Black community reveals more about Farrakhan than it does about the various ethnic groups he attacked.

Maybe that is why Farrakhan ended up focusing his hate on one group alone -- Jews.

Pro-terror Arabs upset at Al Arabiya for airing segment critical of Hamas

Last week, the Saudi-based Al Arabiya channel had a show that was critical of Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups.

This caused some anger among the pro-terror factions – and not a small amount of antisemitism.

Some was the obvious:

Other graphics that were used in social media included the IDF Arabic spokesperson Avichai Adraee acting as a puppet-master for Al Arabiya:

This person tweeted that “the Zionist incursions do not stop at the Al Aqsa Mosque,” saying Al Arabiya was guilty of “media normalization” with Israel.

This one shows the Al Arabiya piglet suckling from its Israeli mother:

And here we have an evil looking Jew blowing a shofar which is playing the logo of Al Arabiya.

Palestinian deaths and injuries have fallen by more than 87% since 2018

Based on statistics from the UN OCHA-oPT, the number of Palestinians killed and injured by the IDF has been reduced drastically in the past two years.

That’s an 87% reduction in deaths and 91% reduction in injuries since 2018.

Why is this the first time anyone has reported this?

Because funding and victimhood are more important than, you know, facts. Because the IDF actually trying and succeeding to reduce escalation into violence doesn't fit the narrative that the media wants you to know.

Newest Woke Pseudo-Jew Ritual: Shofar and Howling

In their desperation to pretend to act Jewish and still remain true to their socialist religion, the Jews for Racial and Economic Justice came up with an idea: 40 Days of Repentance, because they know that they are racists.

They have been going to New York City's Army Plaza every evening and they scream. Most days they have someone blowing a shofar, but if that person is missing they still do their primal scream. Because, um, teshuva or something.

It's actually quite funny.

The first one was June 22:

Here's June 26. One person in front is having a great time.

July 4:

At one point they managed to get a different group uptown to do their own version, where a Black woman leads a crowd in a chant saying "I have been complicit in systemic racism." I'm not sure if that includes the lead chanter.

On July 10, it rained so the turnout was pretty weak. So the one screamer felt like he had to make up for the loss of "Jews" committed to repentance.

Sometimes there was no shofar - just the howling. And then they don't quite know when to finish.

What do you get when you cross Tikun Olam with werewolves?

I love how New Yorkers completely ignore the crazy screaming people.

Needless to say, this has nothing to do with Judaism. This is a religion of attention seeking, a religion of made-up ritual, a religion of hijacking, a religion of anti-religion - but it sure ain't the religion of Moses or Hillel or Maimonides.

UPDATE: One of the woke called me a racist because of this post.

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.

EoZTV: Naomi Linder Kahn of Regavim

Regavim is the organization that works to ensure that laws are upheld in land use of Judea and Samaria as well as the rest of Israel. Naomi Linder Kahn spoke about how the PA has been forcing Bedouin to illegally move to ramshackle buildings with no infrastructure to steal land in Area C of Judea and Samaria – and how the EU funds this.

Check it out!

07/19 Links: Deborah Lipstadt: Far more unites Black and Jewish Americans than divides them; Why is the French Consulate covering up the PA’s lies?; Montefiores risked cholera, quarantine for 19th-century Holy Land Jews

From Ian:

Ethan B. Katz and Deborah Lipstadt: Far more unites Black and Jewish Americans than divides them

To advance the cause of Black-Jewish relations today, the great challenge is for voices of compassion and mutual respect to rise above the prevailing din of acrimony, misunderstanding and distrust. Such voices should begin with a greater understanding of both Jews' and Blacks' complex, often painful histories -- and how the past has shaped each group's collective identity.

And they would also do well to recall an element of shared history that still offers inspiration, when many Jews and Blacks stood shoulder-to-shoulder — and in some cases gave their lives together — in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. When Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched next to Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama, or Joe Rauh, Arnold Aronson and Marvin Caplan lobbied behind the scenes to help pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, their politics were defined by a persistent experience of Jewish vulnerability. At the same time, they appreciated that their own sense of greater security made it possible to advocate for the rights of others.

Likewise, Jews sometimes saw their own story as charting a path that Blacks were now following. When 19 Conservative rabbis flew to Birmingham in 1963 during a series of violent civil rights protests, they taught Hebrew songs in Black churches — with one declaring, "Our people are your people." Indeed, in this moment, many Blacks and Jews found their commonalities more notable than their differences.

Today that sense of commonality must be renewed. If there are Jews who have found it hard to appreciate the distinctive experiences and pain of Blacks and to join their struggles on the front lines, the reverse is also true for segments of the Black community.

Without wishing to compare the challenges of our daily lives to those of African Americans, Jews need their Black fellow citizens, and particularly supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement, to be willing to listen as well to the experiences and community narratives of Jews. By the same token, Blacks have a right to expect more Jews to get off the sidelines and lean into both their own distinctive history and vulnerability on the one hand, and their relative privilege on the other, to become stalwarts once again in the fight for racial justice.

Sec. Mike Pompeo: "Anti-Zionism is indeed anti-Semitism. Period." pic.twitter.com/SDrW0RSPzF
— The Hill (@thehill) July 19, 2020

Ruthie Blum: Reflections on ‘Aliyah’

I was smitten almost instantly with Israel for not emulating the aspects of the United States that made me want to abscond in the first place. Though America too had been built and continued to be cultivated by heroes, its radicals were gnawing away at its fabric.

Today’s “cancel culture” didn’t happen overnight; it’s been in the making for a long time. That its current manifestation seemed to erupt like a volcano on May 25 — when African-American George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer — is incidental. The movement behind it was lying in wait for the right moment to unleash the lava.

Unfortunately, Israel’s uncanny ability to progress in every field at lightning speed means that it is not exempt from the kind of cultural revolution taking place across the ocean. Campuses across the Jewish state are filled with radical professors accusing it of crimes against humanity, while art exhibits, plays, and films portray the Israel Defense Forces as villainous. If not for constant genuine threats from external enemies armed with actual weapons, the nation would have been free to replicate — and perhaps even surpass — American self-destruction.

I spent this Fourth of July in New York, holed up in coronavirus isolation with my parents, observing the once-vibrant metropolis revert to the dangerous and dirty hellhole of my childhood, and reading about similar filth and violence in Chicago, the city where I voted in my first election.

Over the decades, I have been asked whether I love living in Israel. My answer is that it’s no longer a question; it’s simply my life. On this particular anniversary of my aliyah, I would amend that reply to say that if I hadn’t moved to Israel when I did, I would be doing it now.

So, what’s going on with all the explosions in Iran?

Seth Frantzman put together a great map of all the mysterious explosions and fires in Iran in recent weeks:

It sure doesn’t look like coincidence!

But some of the “experts” being quoted about these are as clueless as everyone else. Business Insider has a perfect example of building a thesis around literally nothing:

Israel is involved in an extended campaign to pressure or damage Iran before President Donald Trump can be voted out of office in the November election, a former Israeli defense official and a current European Union intelligence official told Insider.

The attacks appear to be part of a campaign of "maximum pressure, minimal strategy," said the EU intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they cannot be named discussing active intelligence matters. Their identity is known to Insider.

The [EU] source said Iran could be considering a rash response after exhibiting relative patience in the wake of the January assassination of top commander Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike.

"It's one thing to ask hard-liners to take the long view on an incident like Soleimani in light of the worldwide COVID crisis and a host of other factors," the official told Insider, referring to the shift in global attention to the coronavirus pandemic. "It's another thing to conduct a rapid series of operations without a strategy, and I fear the Israeli plan here is to provoke an Iranian response that can turn into a military escalation while Trump remains in office."

With a broad belief among America's allies that Trump is unlikely to win reelection, Israel's apparent shift in tactics toward high-pressure "kinetic" operations seem to reflect a belief that under a Biden administration, there would be a move to save the 2015 nuclear deal that had been scuttled by Trump.

"There would be a lot less appetite for adventures and secret missions to blow up nuclear facilities under a Biden administration," said the EU official.

it doesn’t take much parsing to see that this EU official knows absolutely nothing. He is guessing that Israel is behind most of these, he is guessing that Israel has no strategy, he is guessing that the US elections are the catalyst for these events, he “fears” that Israel wants to provoke a response. This is simply anti-Israel bias pretending to be analysis.

Like this EU official, I have no idea how many of these (if any!) are the work of Israel. Iran does have other enemies and plenty of Iranians would happily sabotage their government installations with minimal help from outsiders.

Assuming that Israel is responsible for some of these, the real question is: How is this being done?

Cyber-warfare can do some kinetic damage as we saw from Stuxnet. But to cause things to explode is a whole different ballgame, one that requires computer control over hardware that can be exploited to cause intense heat. Most computer-controlled manufacturing would have safeguards in place, even if the machines could physically be made to overheat to such an extent.

This points to sabotage. Which means that insiders are doing some of this. The psychological impact on Iran must be huge, because it means they cannot trust their own workers – especially around their nuclear research.

Some of the fires are probably accidental, but they add to Iran’s paranoia.

I would like to believe the Israel’s latest spy satellite, launched July 5, has some sort of directed energy weapon that can be used from space with pinpoint precision. As far as I can tell, this is still science fiction: while these are successful directed energy weapons they require an enormous amount of energy to run and the solar energy used on the satellite seems unlikely to be able to generate that.

But who knows? Israel isn’t talking and the “experts” aren’t experts.

Here is a computer-animated video meant to incite Muslims to crush Israel and hate Jews.

It shows Jews throwing rocks at Arabs in Jerusalem as a bulldozer presumably destroys their home.. A young man decided to take video of these atrocities and he films Israeli soldiers beckoning religious Jews to freely traipse through one of the gates to the Temple Mount while blocking all Muslims from going. A young man takes live video of the IDF soldier punching another Muslim and the soldiers chase him as he keeps the video feed live until he is shot and killed. Then a massive number of Muslims from Turkey and other Muslim countries overrun Jerusalem.

Of course, in reality it is Jews who are heavily restricted from entering the Temple Mount, limited to only one gate for a few hours on certain days of the week, while Muslims can stroll in and out at will at all the rest of the gates at all hours.

The video was made by someone who didn't even bother to research what Jerusalem looks like. Truth is obviously not a priority here.

The logo prominently shown in part 2 is of the Al Quds Amanati Forum, an organization with branches in Indonesia, Algeria, Pakistan and elsewhere. The Indonesian webpage of the organization says explicitly that one of its goals, besides propaganda, is to recruit "a cadre of fighters" to help Al Quds.

The video appears to be part of an "international al-Quds e-campaign" that started in June. It looks like it is heavily funded.

This is incitement not only to overrun Israel but to attack Jews.

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

AP says Peter Beinart is influential. Evidence says he isn’t.

AP has a long, glowing article about Peter Beinart this weekend, as Beinart continues his publicity drive for teaching Americans that Israel is an evil, immoral state.

Is Peter Beinart influential among Jews in America?

It’s pretty easy to prove that the answer is no.

Earlier this year the American Zionist Movement held its elections for delegates to the World Zionist Organization. Before the voting started, Beinart was part of a major push for the “progressive” Hatikvah slate to gain as many seats as possible, and Beinart hmself was on that slate which included the leaders of J-Street, T’ruah, the New Israel fund and more. He received lots of publicity.

Beinart even made a video urging progressive Jews to vote for Hatikvah (which, interestingly, does not mention a two-state solution, meaning that Beinart was already moving away from the basic tenets of Hatikvah even as he was running to be part of its slate.)

How did Hatikvah do after this massive publicity push by Beinart, J-Street and others?

Hatikvah received a mere 6.4% of the American vote – seventh place – and Beinart did not make the cut to be a delegate.

Even among leftist Jews, Hatikvah did not gain much interest. The Reform slate received about four times the votes of Hatikvah.

These are the most motivated people concerning Israel, and Beinart did not ignite their interest or imagination. And it is telling that even though Beinart publicly campaigned for Hatikvah as was promoted as their rock star, he was placed in the 14th slot on their slate.

That does not scream “influential” even within Hatikvah.

This is not the first time that Beinart has been characterized as having more influence than he actually does. His “Crisis of Zionism” book was a flop, estimated to have only sold several thousand copies total.

Controversial? Sure, Beinart thrives on that. Influential? Not at all.

07/18 Links: Glick: Israel and the Sino-Iranian alliance; John Lewis, US civil rights and Congress icon who built Jewish ties, dies at 80; Israel braces for imminent ICC decision on war crimes investigations

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Israel and the Sino-Iranian alliance

Globally, the Sino-Iran pact will compel new strategic alignments. Europe is likely to split around the choice between the US and China. Some European governments will choose to align themselves with Iran and China. Others will prefer to remain allies of the US.

With its weak and sputtering economy now largely integrated into the Chinese market, at least in the short-term, Russia will continue to stand on China's side while winking at the US. Things could change though, as time passes.

China's decision to initiate a direct confrontation with the US over Iran was a gamble. It wasn't a crazy move, given China's growing economic and technological power. But betting against America is far from a safe bet. The ultimate outcome of China's Iran gambit Iran will be determined in large part by the shape of the American and Chinese economies in the coming months and years as they emerge from the coronavirus pandemic. And as things now stand, the US is well-positioned to emerge from the pandemic in a sounder economic position than China.

Corporations large and small from countries across the globe are either considering or actively working to relocate their production lines out of China. One of the Trump administration's key efforts today is securing US and allied supply chains from China by moving as many factories as possible either to the US itself or to allied states. Japan's Sony and South Korea's Samsung are both reportedly planning to move their manufacturing bases from China to Vietnam.

The impact of these moves on China's economic growth prospects and global influence are likely to be profound. As things stand, China's only ally in its neighborhood is its client state North Korea.

India, which is now in a border conflict with China, has already taken steps to limit China's technological penetration of its territory. Indian strategists both inside and outside government are taking a hard look at their military dependence on Russian platforms in light of Russia's growing economic dependence on China. The US has not hidden its interest in developing a strategic alliance with India and replacing Russia as India's main supplier of air defense and other platforms. Israel, which is already a major arms supplier and ally to India, could play a positive role in advancing that goal.

How the Arab states respond to China's decision to stand with Iran will be determined both by the economic power balance between China and America and by the status of Iran's nuclear program. If Iran achieves nuclear capability, the Arabs will feel compelled to view China as their shield against Iran. If Iran's nuclear program is dramatically diminished, the Arabs are likely to feel more secure turning their backs on Beijing, siding with the US and strengthening their ties with Israel.

For decades, US warnings notwithstanding, Israel perceived China as a neutral power and a highly attractive market. Unlike the Europeans, the Chinese never tried to use their economic ties with Israel to coerce Israel into making concessions to the Palestinians. The Chinese didn't work with radical Israel fringe groups to subvert government and military decisions. They just seemed interested in economic ties for their own sake.

Now that China has chosen to stand with Iran, Israel must recognize the implications and act accordingly.

'You will blame Israel but...': Nikki Haley questions UN silence over Uighur genocide by Communist China

Nikki Haley questioned the silence of the United Nations over Uighur genocide by China saying the world would be up in arms if this were any other country but China.

Adding that while Israel is blamed frequently over Palestine, the former United States Ambassador to the UN said when its China then silence is maintained over its actions questioning “Where is the UN now?”

Haley gave this statement while responding to a tweet by international human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky who shared a video in which Uighurs are blindfolded, shackled and herded on trains for concentration camps dubbed as “re-education camps”.

If this were any other country but China, the world would be up in arms. Where is the UN now? You will blame Israel 10x over but when it’s China....silence. https://t.co/yDmTKS4Nsa
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) July 17, 2020

Where is the outrage?
This is just jarring! Where is the outrage? WHERE?, tweeted Arsen.

Meanwhile, the Uighurs and other Muslim communities in China have asked the UN and other international organisations to apply pressure on China and investigate the acts of genocide perpetrated against the minority community.

A report titled “Genocide in East Turkistan” holds China responsible and says that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese government continues its oppression and persecution of Uighur Turks and other Muslim communities for its own political and economic interests.

The report has said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) systematically continues to pressure and torture Uighurs forcing them to assimilate by destroying their culture

From 2008

Clifford D. MayPeter Beinart's one-state solution

Gordis concludes that "many of us are horrified by what is still not right here, but we have no interest in Beinart's suggestion that we therefore commit national suicide. Peter Beinart believes that because we cannot get the Palestinians to recognize our right to a state, we should knock over our proverbial king and give up the project."

So far, Palestinian rulers in Gaza and the West Bank have not weighed in. On one hand, it must give them comfort to see an American on the left declare himself a post-Zionist in the pages of an influential newspaper. On the other hand, were Palestinian leaders interested in developing support for a bi-national state of "Israel-Palestine," there are steps they could take to demonstrate its feasibility.

For example, they could support "normalization," meaning increasing Palestinian-Israeli dialogue and cooperation. But the Palestinian Authority (not to mention Hamas) vehemently opposes normalization – "tatbia," in Arabic. Ordinary Palestinians have lost their jobs for inviting Israelis to join them for holidays, celebrations, or even a cup of coffee. Palestinians engaging in commercial relations with Israelis risk arrest.

The PA also could also adopt a more benign view of Jewish "settlements" in the West Bank. They could say: "Just as there are two million Arab Israelis, so we expect there to be Jews living in the West Bank. We can negotiate their status." Instead, of course, the PA insists that any and all lands claimed by Palestinians must be "cleansed" of Jews.

A final point: There's no need to theorize about whether it's possible, at this stage in history, for a Jewish minority to enjoy fundamental rights in a Muslim-majority country. Jews once lived in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon – throughout the broader Middle East. In some lands, they suffered terrible persecution. In others, they were merely treated as second-class citizens. In the aftermath of World War II, almost all were forced to flee. Many went to Israel where they and their descendants now constitute a majority of Israeli Jews.

Today, 57 states belong to the Organizations of Islamic Cooperation. Jews no longer live in most of them, but it's relevant to ask: In how many of those countries are other ethnic and religious minorities guaranteed human and civil rights?

Beinart knows the answer. He knows how much blood has been shed in Syria and Yemen's civil wars. But as Ferguson recognized a decade ago, nothing, not even the prospect of his one-state solution turning into a final solution could inhibit his insouciant self-promotion.

Yishai Fleisher: A Jewish State Beats Peter Beinart's Bi-Nationalism

First, it might be useful to separate the concept of "liberty" from "democracy." Liberty refers to substantive civil rights and freedoms, while democracy is a form of electing political leadership. In the West, the two usually go together, which is why they are often conflated. But in America, for example, liberty and civil rights can exist even for those without voting rights. American "Green Card" holders, about 13 million people, have civil rights but not voting rights—yet no one claims they live under "apartheid." Two million Puerto Ricans are American citizens, but since they live in a U.S. territory and not a state, they are ineligible to vote for the president of the United States and have only one non-voting member in the House of Representatives—but again, no one calls this "apartheid."

That's because apartheid is not the absence of "one man, one vote"; rather, it is a system of oppression, racism and segregation. While Israel is indeed the ethnic-national state of the Jews, it has no system of apartheid—as has been testified to by prominent black South Africans who have visited, such as Kenneth Meshoe, a member of the South African parliament, who was born under apartheid.

Second, as described above, Israel is the ethnic-national state of the Jews, a haven for the Jewish minority in the region. While Israel affords liberties to ethnic minorities living within its borders, that is ancillary to its core mission.

Third, it must be noted that the conversation about the Palestinians largely revolves around their rights, but very little around their obligations. For Israel to absorb the Palestinians, who have been part of an anti-Israel geopolitical axis for the last century, they must solemnly renounce jihadism and accept the laws and obligations of the Jewish state.

Finally, it is important to note that not one of the Arab countries that surround Israel runs a real democracy. Western-style voting is just not in the region's DNA.

Errr ... I don’t know if there was ever a time that @PeterBeinart actually was an ‘Israel supporter.’ But his ‘One State’ solution is just a natural evolution for an anti-Zionist. pic.twitter.com/5h482JE5BV
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 18, 2020

07/17 Links Pt2: Want to fight racism? Begin by resisting BLM ideology; Soros’s Multi-Front War Against Israel; Zach Banner Tackles Anti-Semitism and Racism

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: Want to fight racism? Begin by resisting BLM ideology

Indeed, the recent surge of anti-Semitic comments from some African-American athletes and celebrities like DeSean Jackson, Nick Cannon and Ice Cube were largely ignored by BLM activists rather than condemned. While there were some blacks who did speak out, like basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabaar and sports commentator Jemele Hill, they were the honorable exceptions who proved the rule and testified to the acceptance of Jew-hatred among many blacks. Jewish groups, some of which are diffident about confronting African-Americans about anti-Semitism, aren’t likely to rally BLM advocates to confront this issue, let alone seek its sources, such as the widespread influence of hatemonger Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam.

Unfortunately, many liberal Jews are not only failing to see the inherent problems that arise from backing radical BLM ideas like demonizing all police, but they are also buying into the group’s dangerous ideas about the perils of “whiteness,” which represent a particular threat to Jews as well as undermine black aspirations for advancement.

Accepting the ideological constructs behind the idea of White Fragility—the bestselling book that is a modern patent nostrum of foolishness about race—sends well-meaning people down a rabbit hole of rigid racialism that discards Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s hopes for a race-blind society. And yet that is exactly what many Jews are doing in this overheated post-George Floyd atmosphere.

In the past, Jews have played a constructive role in the struggle for civil rights—whether by marching with Dr. King or funding African-American education precisely because their efforts were aimed at raising up African-Americans, not abasing themselves at the altar of race.

That is why rather than jumping on the BLM bandwagon, those who claim to represent Jewish interests should be holding that movement to account for its damaging ideology, as well as its anti-Zionist connections and passivity about the growth of anti-Semitism among African-Americans.

Racism is real. But so is the danger of aligning with a movement whose goals are antithetical to the values that are responsible for the tremendous advances towards a better society that the civil-rights movement supported by blacks and Jews in the past achieved.

A Saudi scholar, Muhammed, and the Jews of the Arabian Peninsula

Let’s begin by referring to the following excerpts from what appears to be a ground-breaking development:
“…In what is being hailed as an “unprecedented” event, a senior Saudi Arabian researcher has had an article published in an Israeli journal--in Hebrew.

The essay aims to correct what its author, Prof. Mohammed Ibrahim Alghbban, head of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Hebrew Studies at the Department of Modern Languages and Translation at King Saud University in Riyadh, calls 'erroneous misperceptions about the origins of Islam and distorted understanding of manuscripts’ written by the Prophet Muhammad…Alghbban writes that Islam’s founder did not clash with Jews on religious grounds, rather only on politics…”

While it certainly is good news to hear about Arab scholars learning the Hebrew language, teaching it to others (for perhaps good and not-so-good reasons), and more, Alghbban’s assessment appears to be a whitewash of the actual Jihad waged against Medina’s (the second holiest city in Islam) founders--Jews--who fled the earlier Roman wars for their independence in Judea and escaping into the nearby Arabian Peninsula for refuge.

Jews had a long history in the Arabian Peninsula prior to the birth of Muhammad in the 7th century C. E.

Yemen had several Jewish kings in the centuries leading up to Muhammad’s era, and over a thousand years earlier, the Queen of Saba--Sheba--who visited King Solomon, legends say, married him, ruled over southern Arabia and Ethiopia as well.

The Saudi professor claims that Muhammad’s problems with the Medina Jews stemmed only from political concerns.

The problem is that any student of Islam knows, however, that Muhammad was as much a political as a religious leader--and those who opposed him, in either of those categories, often wound up beheaded or enslaved.

George Soros’s Multi-Front War Against Israel

The comparison with coverage of Adelson, likewise discussed by Feinreich in the article noted above, also illustrates how much the media enable Soros in his cynical use of accusations of anti-Semitism to silence criticism. They parrot his complaints in this vein even as they themselves use anti-Semitic tropes to attack Adelson.

Among the many examples of such attacks, a number of which are cited by Feinreich, are The Huffington Post’s 2015 headline, “Tonight’s GOP Debate: Sheldon Adelson’s Malignant Tentacles,” and the op-ed under the headline. Author Richard North Patterson asserts in the piece that “...Adelson means not only to pick the party’s nominee, but to dictate his thoughts.” And: “More than anyone else, it is Adelson - not voters, candidates, or experts on the Middle East - who dictates what Republicans dare to think and say about our relationship to Israel, the Palestinians on the West Bank, and the complex government of Iran.” And, “To Adelson’s God, Israel’s solution to the Palestinians is biblically ordained: annexation of the West Bank and subjugation of its peoples.” And, “...he’s ‘the richest Jew in the world’ and, as such, determined to bend the world to his views.” It is not hard to imagine the charges of anti-Semitism that comparable statements about Soros would elicit from him and his circle and the media outlets that support his activities. But such attacks on Adelson apparently fail to merit such a response.

One can cite similar statements about Adelson from, for example, The New York Times. Times columnist Thomas Friedman, for whom attacking Adelson, and Israel, is something of a personal obsession, wrote in 2015, under the title “Is it Sheldon Adelson’s World?” “...it is troubling that one man, with a willingness and ability to give away great sums, can now tilt Israeli and American politics his way at the same time.” And in a 2014 column: “Adelson personifies everything that is poisoning our democracy...” In a more generic invoking of an anti-Semitic trope, Friedman in a 2011 column explained that the standing ovation Benjamin Netanyahu had recently received in Congress was not a reflection of agreement with his views but rather “was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”

While apparently having no problem with the use in its pages of anti-Semitic tropes directed against Adelson or “the Israel lobby,” the Times has run a number of news articles and op-eds on Soros as a victim of anti-Semitism. A Times op-ed by Soros’s son Alexander in October, 2018, asserts that his father’s liberal philanthropic exertions have exposed him to “the poison of anti-Semitism.” He characterizes anti-Semitism in America as coming exclusively from the Right, “white supremacists and nationalists,” regurgitates the absurd but often heard association of the anti-Semitic Right with President Trump, and says nothing of the much more mainstreamed anti-Semitism emanating from the Left, including from groups and individuals supported by him and his father.

The Times has for much of the last century ignored anti-Semitism and has written of it recently only in the service of some political objective, as in its promotion of politics of Soros’s variety. And Soros, again, is no less cynical in his invoking of anti-Semitism, doing so to silence critics even as he deploys it to advance his own agenda.

And, once more, central to that agenda is his hostility to Israel. His jaundiced attitude towards other Jews is not as monochromatic as his anti-Zionism. As indicated in the list of anti-Israel organizations and individuals he supports, there are Jews and Jewish groups among them, the major test being that they share, and act upon, his anti-Israel animus. There is little such nuance, however, in that animus.

It is not hard to comprehend why some Jews would be eager to distance themselves from an identity that has been and continues to be so vilified and that not long ago marked its holders for slaughter on an unprecedented scale. Each individual is free to choose his or her communal affiliations, or at least such freedom ought to be an element of any truly open society. But to move from disassociating oneself from the Jewish quest for national self-determination and its realization in Israel to supporting those who would undermine and ultimately annihilate the Jewish state, and to do so while claiming a higher purpose, to take the path that Soros has forged for himself, is not a course that would be chosen by any truly moral human being but rather the mark of a moral cripple.

Daniel Paul Rubenstein found an interview that Jeffrey Goldberg had with Peter Beinart when he released his “Crisis of Zionism” book. (I’m sure that a new book is in the works.)

It is interesting to read what Beinart said then – already part of the progressive Zionist Left before he went full blown anti-Israel.

I disagreed with Tony Judt's essay in 2003 arguing for a binational state. That should be evident from my essay, which is all about saving liberal Zionism.

…In general, I think American Jewish leaders and commentators have become far too promiscuous about throwing around words like anti-Israel. In my mind, you're anti-Israel if you want Israel to disappear as a Jewish state. Being a harsh critic is something very different, and even if you believe someone is insufficiently attentive to Israeli security, that merely makes them wrong, not anti-Israel, unless you can prove that they are inattentive because they would not mind if Israel ceased to exist as a Jewish state.

There certainly are leftists (and for that matter) rightists who focus so disproportionately on Israel's failings as to raise questions about their true motives.

Sound familiar?

I'm not asking Israel to be Utopian. I'm not asking it to allow Palestinians who were forced out (or fled) in 1948 to return to their homes. I'm not even asking it to allow full, equal citizenship to Arab Israelis, since that would require Israel no longer being a Jewish state. I'm actually pretty willing to compromise my liberalism for Israel's security and for its status as a Jewish state. What I am asking is that Israel not do things that foreclose the possibility of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, because if it is does that it will become--and I'm quoting Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak here--an "apartheid state."

It is interesting that even then, Beinart believed that Arab Israelis were not equal citizens under the law –of course they are - but he was willing to throw them under the bus to keep Israel as a Jewish state!

And foreclosing the possibility of a Palestinian state is exactly what the current Israeli coalition wants to do. You ask what has changed. First, year after year of settlement growth at triple the rate of the Israeli population…The more the settlements expand, the more settlers--including fanatical settlers--take over parts of the Israeli bureaucracy and become integral to the Israeli army and rabbinate, all of which makes the prospect of removing them without outright civil war more remote.

This was Beinart in 2010. Since then, what has changed? Netanyahu is still prime minister, Abbas is still the PLO head, the amount of land for settlements is virtually identical and the percentage of Israelis living in the territories has gone up only marginally (4.1% to 4.8%.)

However, Hamas still controls Gaza and has more weapons, Hezbollah has more rockets than it did, the Palestinians rejected a peace framework from the most pro-Palestinian president ever, they initiated a new terror spree of cars and knives, and the current president is offering them billions of dollars to accept a contiguous state – admittedly smaller than the previous ones they rejected, but still a state = and they don’t want to talk to him.

And with all that new data, Beinart changed from Zionist to anti-Israel – by his own 2010 definition.

Nothing changed for Israel or for Palestinians. Only Beinart changed. Anything else he says about why suddenly Israel must cease to exist as a Jewish state is not in response to changed circumstances, but his own bizarre slide to the side of Israel’s enemies.

There is nothing moral about it. Just ask 2010 Beinart.

07/17 Links Pt1: David Collier: Peter Beinart, a one state solution and the Jewish far-left; Melanie Phillips: The Jewish surrender to the West’s eclipse of reason

From Ian:

David Collier: Peter Beinart, a one state solution and the Jewish far-left

Peter Beinart recently wrote an article of Jewish surrender that was published in Jewish Currents. Falling over itself, the New York Times rushed to publish an abbreviated version to ensure the piece was given a much wider audience.
Beinart

The thrust of the Beinart argument is simple. Beinart used to believe in a Jewish state – he doesn’t anymore, and as he lives in his comfortable home in the US, he believes Israel should dismantle itself and embark upon a utopian one state existence with the Palestinians. Thus ending 100 years of conflict.

There is nothing new inside the article. It is a silly proposition, a notion that the answer to the conflict between Israel and its neighbours is for the Jews to to put away their guns, remove the walls that protect them, surrender their right of self determination – have faith – and create what would eventually become another Muslim majority state in the Middle East.
Beinart and privilege

The article and Beinart’s position is historically and politically illiterate. Beinart pushes a solution with all the privilege of a person sitting under the umbrella of US citizenship, 1000s of miles away from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Or as Benjamin Kerstein put in his response in the Tablet – “Peter Beinart thinks Jews don’t need Zionism. That’s because he’s never needed it himself.”

Beinart, like many of those who dabble in such utopian theory, pushes immature politics. The secular democratic one state solution is a privileged imperialist western answer to a problem they have with ignorant natives in a far-off land. Nobody on the ground wants it – not the Israelis and not the Palestinians.

The simple truth is that Israel looks the way it does – because it reflects the reality of the Middle East. The 1947 partition plan was not written into the British Mandate, but developed as reality took over. The civil war and regional conflict became inevitable. Israel is a natural product of its people, history and neighbourhood. And this simple fact – that Israel is a Middle Eastern nation, is what lies at the heart of the problem.

For some western Jews, the Israel of reality is not the Israel of their dreams. These people tend to view Israel’s growing religious population with horror, they look down on the ‘arsim‘ of Bat Yam and they are quite derogatory about many aspects of Israeli culture. They don’t like the way many Israelis think or behave and clearly they have no respect for the way Israelis vote.

Perversely they show understanding for Israel’s enemies, including those like Hamas – but as is frequently pointed out – they never have any empathy for Israelis with different opinions to their own.

They openly display that they are fundamentally disappointed with Israeli people. Beinart’s position can be described thus: – Israelis don’t deserve their state because of the way they have developed and behaved.

So I was unsurprised by the article. Every few months we are presented with a similar article written by someone who says that they have supported Israel all their lives but because those pesky Israelis have just gone and ******* (fill in the blank with whatever has just occurred – with Beinart it is the ‘annexation’) they must now publicly state that Zionism is in tatters and doomsday is coming. Immature virtue signalling that sells out the millions of Jews who live in Israel.

But what interested me most about this episode was not another of the liberal Zionists falling off the ideological cliff. It was how our own Jewish fringe groups responded.

A Eureka moment: Peter Beinart and the One State Solution

Beinart buttresses his argument for a one state solution by citing Yousef Munayyer and Edward Said, who support his view that “Equality could come in the form of one state that includes Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.”

In the November/December 2019 edition of Foreign Affairs, Yousef Munayyer, director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, (USCPR) said the “only alternative with any chance of delivering lasting peace: equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians in a single shared state.” He argues “The Palestinians [are] a population struggling and surviving under decades of Israeli oppression.”

NGO Monitor reports “USCPR is a national coalition of hundreds of groups working to advocate for Palestinian rights and a shift in US policy and is a leader and mobilizer of anti-Israel BDS campaigns.” According to its “Common Principles,” “We oppose U.S. military, diplomatic, financial, corporate, and all other forms of support for Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies toward Palestinians.”

On March 6, 2019, the Jerusalem Post reported Munayyer appeared “to condone the efforts of PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] on his Twitter feed, including retweeting a PFLP announcement of a terror attack in Jerusalem on June 16, 2017.”

The late Edward Said, a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and Palestinian Arab activist, postulated that underlying cause of “the conflict between the two peoples has always been about possession of and sovereignty over the land.”

He accused the Zionists of being a “tool of imperialism” who usurped their land, established settler colonies and a sovereign state whose only means of preservation is by aggression and expansion.

In a September 29, 2015 ~~interview~~ [an article] in the Washington Post entitled “The one-state solution and the brutal honesty of Edward Said,” he said “… the only feasible alternatives to Zionism… have a majority Arab state in which Jews are, at best, a suppressed minority, or force all six million Jews living in Israel to flee to whatever countries (if any) will accept them, or some combination of the two. "

The idea that giving up on 'Zionism' makes you a 'liberal' is false, unless creating yet another Arab dictatorship in what is now Israel at the cost of six million Jews’ lives and liberty, and of by far the most liberal state in their region, is somehow a “liberal” option.” [originally from a Ha'aretz inteview from 2000, source]