Do Black lives matter to Palestinians? Only when speaking to Western audiences.

The US Palestinian Community network posted a letter, supposedly written by the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions – Gaza Strip, supporting a general strike in the US Monday in support of Black Lives Matter:

 

 

This letter was not posted on the website of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions – Gaza Strip.

It was not posted to their Twitter account.

It was not posted to their Facebook account.

The organization changed its name from the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions – Gaza Strip (as can be seen in this letter that they tweeted in January 2019) to the “Gaza Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions.” This letter from yesterday shows that their official communication has dates, a stamp and a signature.

 

 

Either there is a tiny offshoot that still uses the old name – which cannot be found anywhere on the Web – or this letter was forged.

Either way, I cannot find any statement of support for Black Lives Matter in the major Palestinian trade union websites. They only pretend to care about Black lives for propaganda purposes.

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More Palestinian lies: “Israel destroyed a COVID-19 testing center!” (UPDATE)

Middle East Eye makes up a story:

 

Israeli authorities have demolished a Palestinian drive-through coronavirus testing centre in the city of Hebron, south of the occupied West Bank.

Raed Maswadeh, a 35-year-old engineer whose family owns the land in which the drive-through test service was being built, told Middle East Eye that three months ago the municipality had appealed to Palestinians to raise funds to build the facility. 

“My family decided to donate our land at the northern entrance of Hebron for the purpose of constructing a Covid-19 test clinic,” Maswadeh said.

It was built in the memory of his grandfather, who died recently due to coronavirus, and Maswadeh said the project cost his family around $250,000.

The land is located in Area C, a part of the West Bank totally controlled by Israel, which almost never gives out building permits for Palestinian residents. Israeli settlers in the area, however, face no such problems.

Maswadeh said that they started building the centre without a permit, like many properities in the area.

“If we applied for a permit, we would not have gotten it. We thought maybe during Covid-19, there would be some exceptions,” he said.

Maswadeh told MEE that construction had been ongoing for two months, while Israeli soldiers patrolled the area. The soldiers watched bulldozers and building equipment enter the site, but said nothing, according to Maswadeh.

However, on 12 July, they received a military order to stop the construction, which was handed to them by an Israeli army commander.

Nothing adds up. Someone would spend $250,000 to build a COVID-19 testing center without a building permit in Area C when they know ahead of time that it would probably be demolished?  80% of Hebron is in Area A, where such a center could be built with no permission needed from Israel.

In another article, Maswadeh changes his story to makes the issue sound even more dramatic. The testing center is no longer a drive-through facility but it was also a regular testing center and a residence for people to live while in quarantine before entering Hebron. It is no longer recently built after two months of construction but:

“The building has been fully equipped for three months, and  it was in the final stages before its opening, it did not matter to the Israeli occupation, which seems to be seeking to increase the spread of the epidemic in the country.  The center has been destroyed, and this is evidence that the Israeli occupation is not concerned with curbing this epidemic, which does not distinguish between Israelis or Palestinians, but Israeli arrogance ignores that.”

The center is now much more expansive, already built and equipped for three months (meaning it was already completed in April, and therefore the building must have started before a single Palestinian was diagnosed.)

An interview with the mayor of Hebron shows that this story is false.

At the northern entrance to Hebron, which connects it with Halhoul and with villages to the north, west, and east, the municipality began to build a center for taking samples (corona testing) from those coming to the city from this entrance, but the occupation authorities lied in wait, because the center received a (notification about its) demolition, even before the work on it (i.e. building it) was finished, or before it was equipped, according to what the mayor of Hebron, Taysir Abu Sneine said to “Al-Arabi Al-Jadid”.
Abu Sneine said: “We began working eleven days ago on this plot of land, that was donated by the citizen Ra’ed Masawdeh, and after the groundwork, we erected a structure that resembled a center or a clinic, but the citizen received a notification from the occupation about the demolition of the center that was being equipped, while the occupation never misses a chance to commit violations against Hebron and its sons, even when the governorate (of Hebron) is facing the coronavirus.”

According to Hebron’s mayor, the municipality only barely started construction of the building when Israel informed them that it was illegal – not, as now is claimed, while watching the construction for two or three months.

This is a classic case of Palestinians deliberately building in Area C for purely political purposes – if Israel enforces the law, it makes Israel look bad for demolishing what Palestinians claim is essential infrastructure; if Israel does not enforce the law, they have successfully stolen land from Israel. Maswadeh’s changing story and eagerness to cast Israel as a devil proves this.

Meanwhile, there is a resurgence of COVID-19 in Hebron. Instead of concentrating on that, too many Palestinian leaders are spending money and time playing these sorts of anti-Israel political games.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

UPDATE: As I suspected, the entire story is made up.  COGAT issued a statement five days ago that the illegal building was only retroactively called a COVID-19 facility after Israel issued orders to demolish it. That’s when they created a sign claiming it was meant as a medical facility. No one claimed it was a COVID-19 test center while it was being built.

You can also see from this photo that the building was not ready to open, as Maswadeh claimed.

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Rabbi Abraham Cooper missed his opportunity as a guest with @NickCannon

 

The first rule for any public speaker is to know your audience. It is a shame that Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the very knowledgeable Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center who was a guest on Nick Cannon’s show, thought that his audience was Nick Cannon himself.

Cannon was not the audience. His tens of thousands of fans are the audience.  And Rabbi Cooper did not think enough about how his words would be understood by them.

The conversation was convivial and concentrated on what Jews and Black people have in common. Rabbi Cooper referenced the Holocaust and Simon Wiesenthal numerous times. He had spoken to Cannon the days before and they were in many ways continuing a private conversation in public.

But that is not what was needed.

What was needed was a frank discussion, and even argument, over the specifics of what was offensive and wrong about Cannon’s previous podcast with Professor Griff.  Those issues were barely alluded to and papered over in this video. But if you look at the comments from Cannon’s fans, they are essentially unanimous – Cooper didn’t prove that anything Cannon (or Farrakhan) said was wrong and therefore Cannon’s apology was simply his bowing to the white people that pay him.

The tragic thing is that Cannon seemed to want to have that conversation. An acrimonious debate on the basic topics, not softened with jokes and asides, is what was necessary – and it didn’t happen.  Cooper seemed to prioritize commonality over hard truths, and his desire to be respected by Cannon caused him to be disrespected by Cannon’s audience.

It could have been done.

Why is it wrong to say that Blacks are the real Jews? Because it means that Jews aren’t the real Jews, which is offensive. Jews can trace our history back in great detail and we have been killed and expelled numerous times because we were Jews. Now someone else wants to come along and say we aren’t real? That we were mass murdered for no reason? That a group  that has no tradition of Judaism is the real thing?  The burden of proof is on the Blacks who say that they are the real Jews – let’s see the evidence of their history since Jerusalem fell in 70 CE.

Why is it wrong to say that the Jews control the banks? They touched on it but they didn’t attack the issue. Cannon tried, saying that to him the real problem is capitalism (with Cooper gently pointing out the Cannon has benefited greatly from it) but Cooper spent too long on talking about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and he went off on a tangent about Japan and China that again ignored the audience. The truth is that some Jews became bankers because of their oppression, but to say that there is a Jewish conspiracy to control the world is absurd and hate speech. And Cannon admitted that he believes some conspiracy theories, when the vast majority of them are ridiculous and a way to blame others for one’s own problems.

Not a word about the melanin theory, possibly the most offensive thing Cannon said. How difficult is it to say that a theory that white people are naturally violent is exactly as wrong and racist as saying that black people are naturally violent because of the levels of melanin in their skin?

Cooper could have gone into detail on Louis Farrakhan’s lies about the supposed Jewish control of the slave trade, or about his pretending to know what real Jews are, or his Synagogue of Satan themes. Cannon’s audience doesn’t care that he liked Qaddafi or Iran’s ayatollahs.

It’s wonderful that Cooper likes Motown. That is not what the audience needed to hear.  Even if Black people would disagree, they would respect a Jew who says exactly why Cannon and Griff and Farrakhan are wrong, in plain language, highlighting the lies more than the insults. 

It is more respectful to Nick Cannon to have an honest discussion of the actual topics than to try to be his pal. Cooper quoted the Talmud a couple of times (again without context) but he should have kept in mind the Talmudic expression that says (paraphrased)  two people who study Torah together start off as enemies and do not leave until they love each other.

Rabbi Cooper might be good at his job, but he missed a big opportunity here.

 

 

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07/21 Links Pt2: Amar’e Stoudemire offers to bridge the gap between Blacks and Jews; Oxford optimism: In early test, UK coronavirus vaccine triggers immune response

From Ian:

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Amar’e Stoudemire offers to bridge the gap between Blacks and Jews

Former NBA All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire said there is a “lack of leadership” in the Black community that has led to expressions of anti-Semitism, and he has offered to bridge the gap between Jews and Blacks.

Stoudemire, who lives and plays professionally in Israel for Maccabi Tel Aviv, was reacting to a number of recent antisemitic social media posts by Black sports figures and celebrities.

He told the TMZ website that the Black community needs an education.

“I do think, I know with me being in the position where I am where being an African-American Jew who’s learning at a high level, I think there’s a narrative shift that’s happening,” he said. “We have to figure out a way to now, you know, teach the next generation on, you know, positivity.”

Stoudemire said that due to the leadership vacuum, many Black people have turned to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan for inspiration. Farrakhan has a long history of antisemitic comments, including comparing Jews to termites and denouncing what he calls the “Synagogue of Satan,” and has praised Adolf Hitler.

In January, Stoudemire in an Instagram post called for an end to antisemitism among Blacks in response to a stabbing attack on a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, days earlier during a Hanukkah celebration.

Oxford optimism: In early test, UK coronavirus vaccine triggers immune response

Scientists at Oxford University say their experimental coronavirus vaccine has been shown in an early trial to prompt a protective immune response in hundreds of people who got the shot.

British researchers first began testing the vaccine in April in about 1,000 people, half of whom got the experimental vaccine. Such early trials are usually designed only to evaluate safety, but in this case experts were also looking to see what kind of immune response was provoked.

In research published Monday in the journal Lancet, scientists said that they found their experimental COVID-19 vaccine produced a dual immune response in people aged 18 to 55.

“We are seeing good immune response in almost everybody,” said Dr. Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University. “What this vaccine does particularly well is trigger both arms of the immune system,” he said.

Hill said that neutralizing antibodies are produced — molecules which are key to blocking infection. In addition, the vaccine also causes a reaction in the body’s T-cells which help to fight off the coronavirus.

He said that larger trials evaluating the vaccine’s effectiveness, involving about 10,000 people in the UK as well as participants in South Africa and Brazil are still underway. Another big trial is slated to start in the US soon, aiming to enroll about 30,000 people.

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The Etrog self-own by “Women for Palestine”

 

A couple of days ago, “Women of Palestine” tweeted this:

 

They probably meant “citrus” fruits.

This is in fact a Yemenite Jewish boy selling etrogim and myrtles, two of the four species Jews use for the holiday of Sukkot.

Here’s an advertisement for etrogim from the Land of Israel from the 1920s:

 

But in fact the etrog is the perfect Zionist symbol. Etrogim were prominent in the coinage of Jews during both the First and Second Jewish Revolts against Rome:

 

Here’s a Byzantine-era pendant with a menorah, shofar, lulav and etrog.

 

 

 

The more people look for Palestinian history  -the more they uncover Jewish history in Israel.

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Baidu Maps (Chinese Google) shows 1947 UN Partition lines(!) as Israel’s borders

Baidu is China’s top search engine. Here is what it shows when you look for Israel.

 

The borders are the 1947 UN Partition proposal (without Jerusalem as a separate entity.)

This is bizarre. The 1947 partition lines were unanimously rejected by the Arabs and therefore never had any legal validity. Why would China or a Chinese Internet company put them there?

It shows the 1949 armistice lines as a lighter dotted line.

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07/21 Links Pt1: Lyn Julius: The Wisdom of Peter Beinart’s Grandmother; Netherlands admits to paying terrorists who killed 17-year-old Israeli

From Ian:

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Lyn Julius: The Wisdom of Peter Beinart’s Grandmother

In progressive Western circles, Zionism has become decidedly un-cool. Self-declared Zionists, like the writer Bari Weiss, complain of bullying at the New York Times. In the vogue for identity politics, Jews are framed as white oppressors.

This postmodern conceptual straightjacket perverts historical truths. It dictates that only ‘people of colour’ can be victims, while the oppression of one million Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, resulting in the ethnic cleansing of pre-Islamic Jewish communities, among other minorities, from the Arab Muslim world from the 1940s, the subject of my book Uprooted!, must be passed over in silence.

The long history of oppression of Mizrahi Jews in the Arab Middle East is the key to understanding the main drivers of the conflict with Israel – an Arab and Muslim inability to tolerate difference, to co-exist with minorities, and an abhorrence for any exercise of Jewish power.

Yet in the Western progressive mind, bound tight as it is by the postmodern conceptual straitjacket, only Palestinians can be victims. The Mizrahi Jews are airbrushed out of public discourse. In the current jargon, they are ‘cancelled’. In this topsy-turvy world, merely to draw attention to Arab and Muslim antisemitism invites accusations of racism or ‘Islamophobia’.

Progressive orthodoxy even denies Jewish indigeneity, as one woke Manhattan rabbi recently tried to do, perhaps because it conflicts with the false settler-colonial paradigm which the left habitually applies to Israel. The fact that over 50 per cent of Israeli Jews have roots in the Middle East is simply ignored.Most Israeli Jews found refuge in the only state that would defend them unconditionally from persecution. By empowering Palestinians at the expense of Jewish Israelis, Beinart and other anti-Zionists would once again put Jewish destiny in the hands of others.

Someone who did appreciate the absolute need for Zionism was Peter Beinart’s Egyptian-Jewish grandmother, Adele Pienaar. Born in Alexandria, she was driven out by Arab nationalism. In an 2014 elegy, he wrote: ‘The lessons she drew from her experience of vulnerability and dislocation were straightforward: Jews should be on the lookout for trouble and should take care of each other since no one else would … her nightmare for Israel was that Arab nationalism would imperil its Jews in the way that Arab nationalism had imperilled Alexandria.’

Beinart’s essay, in effect, disparages his grandmother’s ‘tribal’ and instinctive Zionism in order to virtue signal to a narrow liberal intellectual milieu. It is a tragedy that he thinks the imperilment of Israel is a price worth paying for that, as the ‘vulnerability’ and ‘peril’ his Grandmother knew has not gone from this world. As for the Middle East, only a fool would think the Jews will continue to thrive without a state of their own.

Beinart's guilt damns a nation

Moreover, while many Israelis support the Palestinians' right for self-determination, as exemplified by the multitude of peace deals offered by the Israeli government representing them, what is the Palestinian objective? Beinart quietly omits the many times that Palestinian leaders rejected peaceful opportunities for resolution and statehood. Their leaders rejected the Peel Commission partition plan in 1937. They rejected the UN partition plan in 1947. They rejected former Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offer of 94% of the disputed territories in 2001 and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's more generous offer in 2006. Presently, Palestinian leaders reject even a peace negotiation. Their message is clear: There is no plan short of the end of Zionism (Israel) to which they would assent.

The Jewish state, like any other state in the world, is imperfect. However, Beinart fails to mention that the surrounding Arab and Muslim countries are even less perfect. These countries are, by and large, authoritarian and unfree, and make little effort to integrate their Palestinians, improve their conditions or offer them citizenship. Even in Tunisia, which Beinart marshals as a singular example of Arab democracy even though it has only existed since 2011, one must be Muslim to be president; Islamic education is mandatory in schools; homosexuality is criminalized; spousal rape is legal; corruption is rampant both in the government and among the police; property rights are scant; the judicial branch doesn't fully exist; the legislative branch is defunded; and the executive branch has declared a permanent state of emergency since 2015. But Beinart doesn't suggest dismantling any of these countries.

Only his guilt drives him to hold Israel to an unattainable standard. Its inability to reach his bar implies its ultimate elimination. This is because for Beinart, the ongoing conflict is entirely the fault of Israeli Jews. The Palestinians' plight has nothing to do with their actions or decisions. They are unwitting pawns merely reacting to Israel's stratagems. Yet how is this outlook anything other than the racism of low expectations?

Perhaps most glaring, Beinart fails to discuss Jordan in his proposal. In Jordan, some 50% to 70% of the population is Palestinian. Wouldn't a one-state solution work better for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Jordan, who share language, religion, culture and even relatives, than in Israel where the Jews and Palestinians share distrust?

In presenting his solution, Beinart pushes many half-truths and inaccuracies to further his narrative. For example, "Israel is already a binational state. Two peoples, roughly equal in number, live under the ultimate control of one government." But Israeli Arabs represent only 20% of Israel's population. Beinart intentionally blurs the line between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which has control over most of the Palestinians in the West Bank, because it serves his position; his solution is a few modifications away from reality.

There’s nothing moral about Peter Beinart’s ‘Cancel Israel’ project

Beinart’s argument is essentially that Israel has to be done away with as a Jewish state because that is the only way to alleviate Palestinian suffering. As it happens, Beinart’s call comes on the 20th anniversary of the Camp David Summit, when a US president and Israel’s government desperately tried for two weeks to cajole the Palestinians into accepting a state of their own on most of the West Bank, Gaza, and in parts of East Jerusalem. Soon afterwards – and while negotiations were still going on – the Palestinians unleashed the murderous Al-Aqsa intifada.

Five years later, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza; and in 2008, Israel offered the Palestinians once again a state based on even more far-reaching Israeli concessions – but the Palestinian leadership again declined. As Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would tell The Washington Post in 2009, there was no rush because “in the West Bank we have a good reality.… The people are living a normal life.”

Like every anti-Israel activist who campaigns for doing away with the Jewish state for the sake of the Palestinians, Beinart downplays and whitewashes Palestinian terrorism while demonizing Israel as a monstrous evil whose existence inevitably means cruel oppression for the Palestinians. One example from the podcast is Beinart’s preposterous claim that “mass population expulsion … is after all in Israel’s political DNA” (after 42 minute mark).

There’s a term for this kind of demonization: antisemitic anti-Zionism – and the British academic Alan Johnson once provided an excellent definition:

“Antisemitic anti-Zionism bends the meaning of Israel and Zionism out of shape until both become fit receptacles for the tropes, images and ideas of classical antisemitism. In short, that which the demonological Jew once was, demonological Israel now is: uniquely malevolent, full of blood lust, all-controlling, the hidden hand, tricksy, always acting in bad faith, the obstacle to a better, purer, more spiritual world, uniquely deserving of punishment, and so on.”

Ten years ago, Peter Beinart might well have agreed: as he told Jeffrey Goldberg in May 2010:
“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.”

Now, however, Peter Beinart hopes his efforts to mainstream antisemitic anti-Zionism among American leftists will earn him admiration as a moral leader.

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The untold story of hundreds of thousands of Jews who perished in the Russian Empire (Michael Elgort)

Lately everyone is talking about #JewishPrivilege and how “white Ashkenazi Jews” benefited from such privilege. I have decided to take a step back and to look closely at those “white Ashkenazi Jews.”.

Since the majority of Jews who are talking about such privilege are from the US, I want to share with them something that they may not know about their own ancestors.

Of course you all heard about numerous atrocities that Jews had to endure throughout centuries, inquisition, expulsions, genocides, raping, libels and many others. You name it. Later in the 20th century we had the Holocaust and various atrocities that are unparalleled.

But what if I tell you there was a gigantic industry of oppression that specifically abused Jews and Jewish children a century before it? Sounds weird, how can we not know about it, right? Something that killed tens of thousands and had 2.5 million Jews who went through it? That includes my ancestors,probably your ancestors and almost any other Ashkenazi Jews alive. And no, I am not referring to pogroms that you definitely heard of, but this also happened in  the Russian Empire.

In the 19th century the largest Ashkenazi Jewish groups lived in the Russian Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire, mostly spread within what is now Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia.

Jews lived in Muscovy (and before that in Kievan Rus) relatively sporadically, occasionally coming as merchants or high level specialists (teachers, doctors, scientists). Examples include some prominent figures like vice-Chancellor Baron Shafirov – a good friend and coadjutor of Peter the Great.

However until the 18th century there were almost no Jews living in Russia as Peter’s daughter – Queen Elizabeth - prohibited them from settling in and even ordered an expulsion of Jews. It has changed during the reign of Catherine the Great who participated in Poland's partition. In 1772, 1793 and 1795 the Poland Commonwealth was divided between three empires: Prussian, Austro-Hungarian and Russian. So you can correctly say that it is not the Jews who came to Russia, but it is Russia who came to the Jews (see this Wikipedia article).

It was in 1772 when the Pale  of Settlement rule was enacted – it was a legal limitation imposed on Jews and Jews only – they were not allowed to settle in the areas to the East of an artificial border line, however were allowed to be mobile within these borders. When Russia expanded to the West during the 2nd partition in 1793, the Pale of Settlement was expanded to include Jews who lived in former Poland – around 5 million Jews became Crown's subjects which is estimated to be 30 to 40% of all world Jews at that time.

 

Fast forward to the year 1825. A new Russian emperor - Nicholas I was crowned. Shortly after that in 1827 a new law was passed – Jews for the first time were subject to the Russian imperial army service. Jewish shtetls within the Pale of Settlement were ordered to provide 10 recruits per 1,000 men which is 30% more than any Christians were supposed to provide (7 recruits per 1,000 men).

 

The service was for 25 years and those “unlucky 10” were chosen by a recruitment lottery. The age of conscription was from 12 to 25 years old inclusive, but sometimes covered even 7-8 year old children. When the recruits were younger than 16, they were sent to special military school to become a so-called “cantonists”. I will make a thread on cantonists separately in a few days, as this atrocity deserves a separate coverage. I will elaborate on how Jewish children were abused, tortured and traumatized to become soldiers and how they were forced to convert, but for now you can read some basics about Jewish juvenile soldiers.

By the way, a small extra here – it is worth mentioning that Jews back then didn’t have proper surnames, so majority of Jews who were recruited were named after shtetls from where they came from. Hence so many Jews now bear Russian/Polish/Ukrainian sound surnames that are actual names of towns, cities and villages with a suffix “sky”, “ski, “skie” – Brodsky, Mogilevsky, Milikowski, Slutzky, Lansky, Gorsky and the like. Any time you hear people saying Jews are not real, because they have Slavic surnames, remember why they really have them.

Now back to our topic. The period in a cantonist school was not counted towards  those 25 years of service. These schools for Jews existed for exactly 30 years from 1827 to 1857 and were abolished by Emperor Alexander II, the son of Nicholas I. Peer pressure on any Jewish soldier including adults was especially hard, and many ended up converting to Christianity, choosing suicide or running away. However for every Jewish soldier who managed to run away or decided to take his own life, their own shtetl was supposed either to bring 3 new recruits younger than 20 years old as a direct substitution or to pay a huge fine. Up until 1850 the Jews were not even allowed to become warrant officers – only low rank soldiers. Each case of heroic act by a Jewish soldier was considered by the Emperor personally and there were very rare examples of Jewish making military career before Crimean war (1854-1856). Any such career required a specific consideration by the Emperor himself. In addition to recruiting, Qahals (local shtetl municipalities in Emperor’s Russia during Nicholas’ reign until 1840s) were obligated by Russian Imperial Senate to pay large monetary contributions as taxes. In order to reduce such an enormous burden, for any recruit of 16 or older each Qahal received a discount of 1000 rubles and for any recruit between 12 and 16 - 500 rubles discount. During the Crimean war (1854-56) the conscription of Jewish soldiers tripled, meaning that shtetls were ordered to provide 30 men per 1,000 instead of 10. During the famous Sevastopol battle between 500 to 1000 Jews were killed, protecting the city from the British and French invasion.

Ironically, as Jews they were protecting the city in which they were not allowed to settle as Sevastopol was excluded from the Pale of Settlement. Almost no one among them was awarded or distinguished for their heroic acts.

 

Many Jews served as volunteer doctors, including, for example, Dr. Yehuda Leib (Leon) Pinsker – later to become one of the leaders of Hovevei Tzion movement. Overall, medical careers were among the most popular for Jews then as it allowed to avoid army services and still contribute.

During the Crimean war Nicholas I suddenly died and his son was crowned – Alexander II, known as The Liberator. Unlike his predecessor (and two emperors who will come after him), he is considered the most liberal and “enlightened” emperor in Russian history. One of his biggest achievements is that in 1861 he abolished a practice of serfdom - an official slavery that existed in Russia when nobility owned peasantry as actual slaves. It happened in February 1861 just 2 months before the beginning of Civil War in the US. Simultaneously he had canceled brutal cantonist schools in 1856 (the last one was closed in 1857), and from 1858 Jews (and Muslims) were allowed to be awarded medals and honors in a similar way the Christian soldiers were allowed before. He canceled the practice of recruiting children younger than 16, reduced the ratio of Jewish recruitment and made it similar across all groups of population, reduced a term of service from 25 to 15 years, allowed Jews to become officers, in 1867 for any soldier who served in Russian Army the Pale of Settlement rule was canceled as well. In 1874 he canceled conscription for different age groups completely - now only grown up adult in the age of 21 was supposed to serve in the army. Following actions of emperor, many people were unhappy about Jews getting the rights similar to them and a wave of pogroms ran across the Empire in early 1870s, creating the first large wave of Jews leaving to Ottoman Empire and USA. Many decided it is time to run away from the military conscription.

In spite of all hardships thousands of Jews fought in the 1877-78 Russian-Turkish war; there were many war heroes and distinguished officers. For example in the Dubniak Gorka Fortress assault more than a quarter of 16th division of famous Russian general Skobelev army was Jewish (Skobelev was known as a general who promoted people based on merits, not religion or nationality) and officer Fainerman called his soldiers to a melee fight with Shma Yisrael. During the reign of Alexander II there were cases when Jews became high rank officers in Russian army. However Alexander II was killed by a revolutionary youth in 1881 and since then his son - Alexander III was surrounded by antisemites, the life of Jews in Russia went gradually south. He began to return to the practices of his grandfather – Nicholas I. Jews were not allowed to be promoted, the army had quotas for warrant officers and officers for Jews set in 1882 (5 and 3% respectively).

 

When the son of Alexander III – Nicholas II was crowned in 1894, he continued his father's practice.

In 1904-1905, approximately 30 thousand Jews fought in the Russian-Japanese war. Numerous Jews became selfless heroes, but only a handful of them were awarded. Two prominent examples are Trumpeldor and Stolberg who became full cavaliers of St. George Order (of all 4 degrees). But they were exception, rather than the rule. Simultaneously when Jews were fighting and dying for Russia, the empire faced the largest pogroms in its history - throughout Moldova and Ukraine. And then in 1910 Nicholas has decided that Jews cannot be trusted and they were again not allowed to become officers of any kind. Many of them retired and left Russian empire completely. Between 1905 and 1922 thousands and thousands of Jews left Russia and moved to USA;  the majority of what is now known as American Jewry originated from this wave, partially due to pogroms, partially due to conscription or discrimination in military careers. When the First World War came, Russia had an enormous mobilization of about 500,000 Jews. They fought with valor and thousands of them died, however in spite of all their heroic acts, they were still treated as second class people by their military peers. Due to that fact, many of Russian Jews ended up in the Red Army during the Russian Revolution, but plenty still decided to serve in the White Army (the remnants of Imperial forces). Almost all those Jews from White Army left the Russian empire. But Russian revolution and Soviet time is a different story and it deserves a separate story.

To sum it all up: between 1827 and 1917 around 2.5 million Jewish men and boys went through the abusive machine of Russian Imperial Army. It is estimated that at least 10% died in the battles, from malnutrition, bullying and constant abuse. The exact number is hard to count, as no one was running the statistics and also many deaths were not even registered.

The Bottom line: please do not say that Ashkenazi Jews were historically privileged. They were not. Ashkenazi Jews (as any other Jewish group on Earth) had their slice of hardships and our history does not deserve to be whitewashed. The Jews of Russian Empire suffered from a lot - abuse, tortures, forced conversion, pogroms and from institutional exploitation of Jewish men by Russian Imperial Army.

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The battle between Zionists and anti-Zionists over the Democratic platform

 

The Huffington Post reported:

Progressive activists are making a last-ditch effort to convince the Democratic Party and its presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden to denounce Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, disputed territory where the U.S. ally administers military law over millions of Palestinians.

In a new statement, advocates say the Democratic platform should use the word “occupation” for the first time in reference to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Campaigners argue that approach would be in keeping with Democrats’ commitment to social justice, growing sensitivity to Palestinians’ concerns and increasing skepticism of hardline Israeli policies encouraged by President Donald Trump.

Win Without War, IfNotNow, Justice Democrats, Demand Progress and eight other organizations signed a joint message exclusively shared with HuffPost on Thursday.

“Condemning the Israeli occupation by name should be the bare minimum for any leader of the Democratic Party,” the coalition wrote. “We urge the [Democratic National Committee] Platform Committee to have the courage to correctly name the situation on the ground — a necessary precursor to taking meaningful action that can hold the Israeli government accountable for ongoing violations of human rights and international law.”

The message comes after the Democratic National Committee’s platform drafting committee voted to advance the language for the platform on Wednesday. It has not yet been made public. But a draft platform viewed by HuffPost does not mention “occupation.”

Jewish Insider adds:

The platform’s Israel plank — a draft of which was obtained by Jewish Insider on Wednesday — includes language that expresses support for the U.S.-Israel alliance, a commitment to security funding for Israel and support for the two-state solution “that ensures Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state with recognized borders and upholds the right of Palestinians to live in freedom and security in a viable state of their own.” The platform also notes opposition to “unilateral steps by either side — including annexation — that undermine prospects for two states” and opposition to “settlement expansion.”

…On the issue of Jerusalem, the Israel plank states, “We believe that while Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations, it should remain the capital of Israel, an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths.” The language expresses opposition to “any effort to unfairly single out and delegitimize Israel, including at the United Nations or through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement, while protecting the constitutional right of our citizens to free speech.”

The Daily Beast adds another detail:

The draft platform, which was approved out of committee before a final vote, states that Democrats “recognize the worth of every Israeli and every Palestinian” and support a “negotiated two-state solution.” It staunchly opposes the boycott, divest, and sanction movement, but also says it qualifies as constitutionally protected speech.

The current language is very close to J-Street’s position, although that group expressed concern over the lack of language about “occupation.”

The 2016 DNC platform said this about Israel:

A strong and secure Israel is vital to the United States because we share overarching strategic interests and the common values of democracy, equality, tolerance, and pluralism. That is why we will always support Israel’s right to defend itself, including by retaining its qualitative military edge, and oppose any effort to delegitimize Israel, including at the United Nations or through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement.

We will continue to work toward a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiated directly by the parties that guarantees Israel’s future as a secure and democratic Jewish state with recognized borders and provides the Palestinians with independence, sovereignty, and dignity. While Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations, it should remain the capital of Israel, an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths. Israelis deserve security, recognition, and a normal life free from terror and incitement. Palestinians should be free to govern themselves in their own viable state, in peace and dignity.

This means that the new platform has still gone significantly Leftward on Israel, by adding language opposing “annexation” and “settlement expansion” and explicitly opposing laws that call BDS discriminatory. 

It is also unclear what the proposed new platform says about Iran. the Democratic Majority for Israel, which has been lobbying for the more Zionist side of the new platform, has written in an email to supporters that they want language  to “work to ensure Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons through diplomatic means” which implies removing sanctions and downplaying Iran’s violations of the JCPOA.

Questions about whether the Democratic Party supports keeping the US Embassy in Jerusalem, or Israel’s control of the Golan Heights, or even the IHRA definition of antisemitism and including antisemitic discrimination as a reason for schools to lose federal funding – all important Trump initiatives – are apparently not addressed. 

Jewish and Zionist voters need to know the Democratic Party position on these matters.

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Madonna posts a Farrakhan promotion on Instagram

 

On July 4 – the same day that Louis Farrakhan gave an ugly, antisemitic speech to a nationwide audience – Madonna posted an excerpt of another Farrakhan speech on her Instagram.

It wasn’t just an excerpt – it was a Nation of Islam advertisement for that antisemitic speech.

At that point, Madonna could not have been unaware of the controversy over Farrakhan’s speech being pulled from Fox Soul TV.

And even if she could credibly claim to be blissfully unaware of Farrakhan’s hate, there is no way she doesn’t know the contents of that same speech today.

Yet she has kept her promotion for an antisemitic speech on her Instagram, which according to JTA has racked up over 700,000 views.

There is no excuse for a person who claims to be in the vanguard of anti-racism to support and help promote the views of an ugly antisemite.

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07/20 Links Pt2: Why does cancel culture never apply to anti-Semitism?; The Connection Between Pan-Africanism and Zionism; I’m a Jew of color. I won’t be quiet about anti-Semitism.

From Ian:

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Why does cancel culture never apply to anti-Semitism?

Weiss’s letter highlighted a now-familiar irony: not only does anti-Semitism not count in the new reckoning of racial harms, but Jews are seen as the enemy. She noted that colleagues could “publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. [It never is].” Indeed: cancel culture never applies to anti-Semitism.

The responses to Weiss’s letter made me feel even queasier. Writing in Forbes, Dani Di Placido was just one writer who managed to distort the real outrages Weiss had elucidated, and mock her reasons for resigning: “Bari Weiss, famous for trying to silence professors during her college years… recently quit her position at the New York Times because of perceived harassment and the supposed self-censorship of the newspaper, apparently the fault of Twitter.” The jibe about silencing professors is a reference to Weiss’s involvement in calling out the social and intellectual bullying she experienced and observed, as a pro-Israel undergraduate, by pro-Palestinian professors at Columbia University, where she studied. Di Placido’s sneer about silencing professors just offers another example of how the left now operates: when a Jew calls out flagrant anti-Semitism, that Jew is accused of ‘silencing’ criticism about Israel. This is a mendacious trick.

Di Placido continued, implying that Weiss was duplicitous, with greedy ulterior motives for resigning: “Whatever your opinion of Weiss, she’s likely to land on her feet; there’s a very lucrative market out there for opinionated people who loudly claim to have been ‘cancelled.’” This is gaslighting plain and simple, and it is vile.

In the UK, of course, the idea that those who call out anti-Semitism are conspiring for personal gain against the true warriors of truth and justice (the PC mob) gained significant ground under Jeremy Corbyn. And even though he’s gone, the idea persists. Last week saw his allies throwing tantrums as Labour seemed set to apologise to anti-Semitism whistleblowers for the harassment and bullying they faced under the former leader. Corbyn’s hangers-on still think the whistleblowers’ evidence of anti-Jewish culture under the dear leader, revealed in a Panorama programme last year, was just a cynical attempt to smear the party, rather than the sign of a party gone rotten to the core.

The illiberal left, obsessed with policing thought, speech, art and expression, insists it wants justice for the oppressed. It is a grotesque irony that this campaign requires treating Jews just like our persecutors always have: liars who – no matter what we say or what happens to us – are always on the side of manipulation and greed. A culture that allows this kind of thinking about Jews to flourish, or that tolerates the kind of double standards experienced by Bari Weiss, is a culture that needs a reboot – fast.

I’m a Jew of color. I won’t be quiet about anti-Semitism.

My mother learned to be wary of German public officials of a certain age — those who likely served in the Nazi government and escaped postwar prosecution. For a time, my family lived in a small country village in Germany. When my father, who served in the Air Force, was invited to bring his family with him to meet the mayor of Bitburg, Germany, during President Ronald Reagan’s visit to the country in 1985, my mother refused to go. The official was a member of the Christian Democratic Union, a conservative German party that was home to many ex-Nazis. When my father asked how he should explain her absence, my mother responded, “Tell him I’m a Jew from Amsterdam!”

“There are all these things about growing up in that particular time, space and that particular era that become part of your consciousness and part of your worldview,” Mom said.

In the wake of the terrorism of Charlottesville, Virginia, and the attack on Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, I began to seek out other Jews of color, especially Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, who is vocal about Judaism and race online. It has been frightening and disheartening to witness a blooming of violent, white supremacist anti-Semitism.

This week, in the wake of Cannon’s statements and subsequent firing, and Diddy’s rush to embrace him, my stomach turned anew when I saw messages like this one on social media. It was genuinely chilling, and this time, the anti-Semitism was coming from people who looked like me, people who attended the same historically black university as me and reveled in the school as a place of Black pride and intellectualism, just like me.

But unlike in that long-ago journalism class, now is not the time for me to shrink back, to remain quiet.

“Surviving something obliges you to carry on the knowledge,” my mother told me when I FaceTimed with her this week. “I remember [someone] saying, ‘Never think it won’t be so bad. We thought that in 1936 and it was late in the game.’ ”

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Gas pipeline from Israel to Europe coming. This is the best defense against Israel haters.

By Adam Hegazy337259 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85603344

 

From Reuters:

The Israeli government on Sunday approved an agreement with European countries for the construction of a subsea pipeline that would supply Europe with natural gas from the eastern Mediterranean.

The Eastmed pipeline, which has been in planning for several years, is meant to transport gas from offshore Israel and Cyprus to Greece and on to Italy. A deal to build the project that was signed in January between Greek, Cypriot and Israeli ministers had still required final approval in Israel.

The countries aim to reach a final investment decision by 2022 and have the 6 billion euro ($6.86 billion) pipeline completed by 2025 to help Europe diversify its energy resources.

The pipeline is planned to initially carry 10 billion cubic meters of gas a year with the possibility of eventually doubling the capacity.

Israel haters may make headway into brainwashing people to think Israel is one of the world’s worst human rights violators.

But nations invariably act in their self-interest, and if it will hurt them to cut ties with another country, they won’t do it.

No one is boycotting Saudi Arabia’s oil because of its human rights abuses. No one is  boycotting China’s products (unless those products themselves are used against other nations, like 5G for spying.)

Israel’s exports of technology and now energy is the clearest way to secure Israel. While 10 billion cubic meters a year is not a huge amount – it is the amount that Italy consumes every six weeks or so – its loss would make a dent in a tight energy market.

Israel haters would continue to paint Israel as a violator of human rights no matter what it does. Israel’s time is better served in strengthening its economy than in arguing with modern antisemites.

(h/t Yoel)

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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.¹¹ The 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.¹² Fighting continued until morning and the terrorists suffered 50 casualties.¹³ When 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.¹⁷ Chief 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.”¹⁸ The 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.²⁰ What 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.

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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:

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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".

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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.

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