Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, August 05, 2020

08/05 Links Pt1: Lebanese confront devastation after huge blast kills 100+, damages half Beirut; Lebanese blame years of government corruption; Netanyahu: We distinguish between regime and people

From Ian:

Lebanese confront devastation after huge blast kills 100+, damages half Beirut

Residents of Beirut confronted a scene of utter devastation Wednesday, a day after a massive explosion at the port rippled across the Lebanese capital, killing at least 100 people, wounding thousands and leaving entire city blocks blanketed with glass and rubble.

Smoke still rose from the port, where a towering building of silos was half destroyed, spilling out grain. Hangars around it were completely toppled. The blast knocked out a crater some 200 meters (yards) across that filled with seawater — it was as if the sea had taken a bite out of the port, swallowing buildings with it.

Much of downtown was littered with damaged vehicles and debris that had rained down from the shattered facades of buildings.

An official with the Lebanese Red Cross said at least 100 people were killed and more than 4,000 were wounded. George Kettaneh said the toll could rise further.

The blast has left 300,000 people homeless and caused damage across half of the city estimated to cost more than $3 billion, Beirut’s governor said. “I think there are between 250,000 and 300,000 people who are now without homes,” says Marwan Aboud.

The blast appeared to have been triggered by a fire that touched off a cargo of ammonium nitrate that had been stored at the port for years, though it was unclear what sparked the fire. Hitting with the force of an earthquake, it was the most powerful explosion ever seen in the city, which was split in half by the 1975-1990 civil war and has endured conflicts with neighboring Israel and periodic bombings and terror attacks.

Scores of people were missing, with relatives pleading on social media for help locating loved ones. An Instagram page called “Locating Victims Beirut” sprang up with photos of missing, and radio presenters read names of missing or wounded people throughout the night. Many residents moved in with friends or relatives after their apartments were damaged and treated their own injuries because hospitals were overwhelmed.

Lebanese blame Beirut explosion on years of government corruption

In Lebanon, citizens are accustomed to fury at the government, with the crumbling economy, hours-long electricity cuts, and an armed group dominating much of the country’s politics.

But the shock and horror following Tuesday night’s explosion at the Beirut port, which has claimed over 100 lives so far and left thousands wounded, marked a new low for an already demoralized public. In the midst of one of the worst crises in Lebanon’s history, the catastrophe marked what many called a new, painful nadir.

Though the source of the blast remains unconfirmed, most of the evidence so far points to government negligence, and many Lebanese seem to agree. The official government account indicates that 2,750 metric tons (about 3,000 tons) of highly explosive ammonium nitrate ignited Tuesday night, according to Lebanese Public Security Director Abbas Ibrahim. The explosive material had been idling in the harbor since 2013.

An investigation by Al-Jazeera found repeated letters from Customs Director Badri Daher asking for the cache of ammonium nitrate to be removed. No action was ever taken by authorities.

“We knew they were there,” said Beirut customs official Hasam Quraytam, referring to the tons of ammonium nitrate, “We just didn’t know it’d be this dangerous.”

The Higher Defense Council, which has called a two-week state of emergency, has announced that it is launching an investigation. The results will be announced in five days, the HDC said in a statement.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun stumbled through a speech at a Lebanese cabinet meeting on Wednesday, barely raising his eyes from his screen as he promised that the government would uncover the truth behind the explosion and punish those responsible “with the full measure of the law.”

Seth Frantzman: Israeli aid should be on the ground in Lebanon, regional policies prevent it

Within hours of the explosion that tore apart Beirut, killing a hundred and injuring 4,000, Israel was prepared to support its victimized neighbor in its time of need. Lebanon and Israel are not just neighbors; the countries share many commonalities.

The architecture and design of their port cities are rooted in the 1940s and 1950s. The coastline is the same.

The people of Beirut, like Israel’s Tel Aviv, are open-minded and progressive. But the policies of the Lebanese government appear to have prevented immediate aid or support from reaching the tragedy-stricken country.

Israel has extensive experience in search and rescue as well as disaster relief. The Jewish state has pioneered the use of technology to aid in disasters as well, part of the overall technological innovations in the Home Front command.

These technologies and abilities have been learned from Israel’s experience assisting Haiti in the 2010 earthquake and also in Japan in 2012 after a 15-meter tsunami disabled the Fukushima Daicchi reactors. Israel has also sent aid to Nepal, the Philippines and Mexico during disasters there.

In interviews I conducted in recent years, the Home Front Command described its new technological innovations to help map and locate survivors after a disaster.

Israel has already been recognized for offering support to Lebanon. But Lebanon’s authorities have been slow to respond.

This is despite the fact that Israel’s hospitals in the North are a short trip from Beirut. They have experience working with wounded people from Syria.

The Mufti of Jerusalem said he only hated Zionists, not Christ-killing Jews

Haj Amin al Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, hosted a delegation of American Christian tourists exactly 90 years ago.

He was anxious to explain to them how he is not antisemitic at all, as reported in The Palestine Bulletin of August 5, 1930.

“The Moslems cannot admit that the Jews are the Chosen People. The chosen man must be the best man, as for example President Hoover in America, so the Chosen People must be the best people. This does not coincide with reality,” he told his guests.

But, he insisted, Muslims in Palestine did not dislike Jews because they are Jews, but only opposed Zionists. Apparently, Jews could never be the best people, but they are OK.

Immediately afterwards, again making sure that he was sayin what he assumed his audience wanted to hear, he described the Jews in Palestine as “a foreign people which persecute Christ and tried to crucify him.”

Today, there are still lots of people who insist that they have no problem with Jews, but only Zionists. And their arguments are just as believable as the Mufti’s.

Here’s a tweet from the Ayatollah Khamenei that is pretty explicit in its antisemitism.

The Quran says Prophet Moses (pbuh) was frequently persecuted by the Israelites. Our enemies too, some of whom are also descendants of the Israelites, seek to persecute our nation that follows the Prophet of Islam, Prophet Moses, Prophet Jesus, & the rest of the prophets (pbut).

Jews persecuted the prophets and now they are persecuting the followers of prophets. This is a slight watering down of popular antisemitic theme one sees in Muslim countries, where Jews are vilified as “killers of prophets” and therefore irredeemably evil.

skynews-beirut-explosion-lebanon_5058194

From AFP:

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab Tuesday urged “friendly countries” to send help after two massive blasts flattened Beirut’s port, killing dozens and wounding thousands.

“I am sending an urgent appeal to all countries that are friends and brothers and love Lebanon, to stand by its side and help us treat these deep wounds,” he said in a televised address.

When Lebanese officials say “friendly countries” they mean the entire world – except for Israel.

Only a few weeks ago, Makram Rabah, a professor at American University of Beirut, told Anadolu Agency, "Lebanon is punished currently due to the policies of Gebran Bassil (former foreign minister) and Hezbollah," stressing that Lebanon needs to maintain good ties with the Arab states and the international community "except for Israel."

At the same time Lebanon’s Maronite leader said, “Lebanon was open to all countries, east and west, except Israel.”

Also last month Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that his party is "open to help from any country in the world except for Israel."

Lebanon recently dropped hiring forensics accounting firm Kroll because it has an office in Israel.

Lebanon’s hate for Israel, even as if allows its country to be devastated by Hezbollah and Iran, is counterproductive to the point of absurdity. In 2017, hours before its planned premiere, “Wonder Woman” was banned in Lebanon simply because its star is Israeli.

So when Diab said “friendly countries” it was very clear that he knew that Israel offered help and he was rejecting it. Given that Israeli disaster relief experts could have been on the ground in Lebanon hours before any other country, that means that he chose to let some potential survivors die rather than be put in a position where he accepts help from Israel.

This isn’t principled. In fact, it is the opposite of principled.

08/04 Links Pt2: The Fragility of the Liberal Democracies and the Challenge of Totalitarianism; Why Philo-Semitism is Better Than Anti-Semitism; Advice to Jewish celebs: Grow up!

From Ian:

JCPA: The Fragility of the Liberal Democracies and the Challenge of Totalitarianism

The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, triggered rioting, looting, and arson across the United States. It became evident that an underground leadership structure had been in place and set in motion a wave of violence whose destructiveness was unforeseen.

According to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, the goal of organized mob violence is to foment a state of civil war, which will lead to revolution. The would-be revolutionaries in the United States did so well that their success exceeded their expectations.

Mayors of several major cities and governors of some states where violence took place chose not to act and ordered the police and firefighters to stand down. Such inaction created a state of anarchy, leaving the public without protection.

The moral shock resulting from the outbreak of mob violence which was not put down may have been worse than the actual damage caused by the rioters.

In the United States, it has been assumed that the creation of wealth is good for society, especially if through hard work, one could achieve the “American Dream.” Nonetheless, for the past decade, life has become complicated for many young adults. The growing numbers of this increasingly dissatisfied group in society must be taken into account.

The fragility of the liberal democracies is a serious dilemma. There is a short distance between “peaceful demonstrations” and mob violence, civil war, and regime change. The dynamics of political warfare and the methods of mob violence are knowable. Because it is a matter of self-defense, we must use this knowledge to safeguard our democracies and our freedoms.

Yair Rosenberg: Why Philo-Semitism is Better Than Anti-Semitism

Why people who like Jews, even for the wrong reasons, are usually better than those who don't

Some time back, I wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post explaining my unified theory of Donald Trump’s relationship to the Jews. The purpose was to answer a simple yet confusing question: How can a man who has Jewish family, friends, and business associates, and who proudly proclaims his support for Israel, nonetheless regularly say anti-Semitic things?

In short, my explanation was that Trump accepts anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews (they’re greedy, good with money, control lots of stuff, only look out for their own, etc.), but that he views these things as positive. “He is the human embodiment,” I wrote, “of the Onion article ‘Affable anti-Semite Thinks The Jews Are Doing Super Job With The Media.’”I situated this thinking in a broader context of historical “philo-Semitism”—people who believe traditionally anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews, but take them as compliments and seek to befriend or emulate Jews as a result. In my piece, I explained how this sort of outlook can unfortunately be easily manipulated and used to turn people against Jews, and offered the example of South Korea, where philo-Semitic assumptions about Jews were used to galvanize the public against a Jewish businessman.

What I did not suggest in the article, however, is that philo-Semitism is the same thing as anti-Semitism. In fact, I was careful to say that it was better than the alternative. But nonetheless, thanks to the success and spread of the op-ed, I have seen commentators on both the right and left mistakenly suggest that its upshot is that philo-Semitism is simply another form of anti-Semitism, and that adherents of both should therefore be treated the same way. This is not what I believe and would actually be quite harmful in practice. I want to explain why.

1) It is a simplification to suggest that “philo-Semitism = anti-Semitism.” There are actually different types of philo-Semitism. There’s bad philo-Semitism that’s based on ignorance which typically regurgitates anti-Semitic stereotypes in a positive way, and then there’s good philo-Semitism based on actual knowledge of Jewish people and Judaism and the affinity that comes from that familiarity. Knowledge-based philo-Semitism is a wonderful thing and has produced true friends of the Jewish people! We should be striving to turn the former into the latter, whenever possible. (It is not always possible, as with ineducable individuals like the current president.)

Advice to Jewish celebs: Grow up!

I have a Jerry Seinfeld question. Why do Jewish celebrities keep whining about their parents?

Popular actor-comedian-director Seth Rogen ignited an Internet firestorm with his recent complaint that he was "fed [him] a huge amount of lies about Israel" when he grew up. His educators "never told him" that "Oh, by the way, there were people [Arabs] there." But Rogen says he now knows the truth and realizes that having a Jewish state "makes no sense."

What actually makes no sense is the notion that his educators said there were no Arabs in pre-Israel Palestine. Who in their right mind would think there were no Arabs? The 28 years of conflict leading up the creation of Israel in 1948 consisted of Palestinian Arab pogroms against the Jews there. I sincerely doubt the Rogens were so delusional as to not be aware of that.

Another Jewish pop-culture icon managed to reach from beyond the grave to peddle a similar complaint about his parents. Harvey Pekar, icon of the comic-book world, spent his final days on this earth creating a full-length graphic novel titled Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me. It was published a few years back, shortly after his passing.

His parents' apparent sin was being pro-Israel. I doubt that Mr. and Mrs. Pekar ever "promised" little Harvey that Israel was perfect. His book is a dreary regurgitation of standard anti-Israel nonsense that Pekar thinks he uncovered after shaking free of the shackles of his mother and father.

His initial "enlightenment" came via a "Jewish Trotskyist friend" who revealed that Israel is "racist." That was soon followed by some uncle at a Passover seder making remarks "against gentiles." Pekar turned that into a one-sentence summary of the Israeli-Arab conflict: "A lot of Israelis came from Eastern Europe, where they had been abused for centuries. They thought turnabout on gentiles was fair play."

The rest of the book drips with resentment at "Chauvinist Orthodox Jews" and demonic Jewish settlers. One is actually shown holding a saw and telling an equally villainous cohort, "Hold that board steady, Chaim Yankel!" I kid you not.

Can you tell the difference between Stormfront and anti-Israel sites?

It looks like the neo-Nazi National Vanguard site hasn’t been too interested in Israel over the last couple of years, but before that its article about “Palestine” look exactly like articles one would see in far-Left sites.

Just more proof that the far-Left and fat-Right have a lot in common when it comes to Jews.

The Protocols in Arab media this month

While there are occasions here and there where the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are called out as a hoax in Arab media, most of the time they are accepted as fact.

At Ad Dustour, in an article entitled “Who Rules the World?,” Rashad Abu Dawood gave an account of the Bilderberg annual meeting and says that it appears to be an annual Elders of Zion meeting.

The Saudi news agency has an article by Mai Khaled where she says, matter of factly:

The first book I read completely from cover to cover besides children's books was a book that I found in the Abi Library entitled: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The color of its cover is red, with a poor picture of a black hand, holding a fist on the globe, tattooed under the six-pointed star, and written in small script: the Jews are behind every crime.

I remember thinking after reading the book: Why do we also not have protocols against the Zionists, why do they plan our occupation for decades and we are not planning anything?

The most absurd article of the month goes to Ammon News’ Odeh Odeh:

Since the establishment of Israel 72 years ago, and until now, it has not negated what was stated in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which affirms the efforts of the world's Jews to establish a “Jewish state” between the Nile and the Euphrates ..
There are no internationally recognized borders for the Israeli enemy state, they are moving borders since its establishment in 1948 and after The 1967 war…
It makes no difference whether the land captured is Palestinian or Arab, so here it occupies the Golan Heights, which is Arab Syrian land, and on top of that, the Israeli cabinet holds one of its meetings there…
The Israeli flag says all this: the two blue lines are the Euphrates rivers in Iraq in the east and the Nile River in Egypt in the west.

The Protocols hoax began in 19th century Russia, was enthusiastically accepted by Henry Ford and the Nazis, and now are believed by the Arabs. There are many kinds of antisemitism but they all feed off each other.

08/04 Links Pt1: David Singer: Green light on Judea and Samaria is key to Trump’s re-election; The Siren Song of ‘One State’; Joint List MK participates in celebration for released terrorist

From Ian:

David Singer: Green light on Judea and Samaria is key to Trump’s re-election

American Jews merging their Jewish identity with their non-Jewish partner’s identity over the last 50 years has seen their families increasingly vote for the Democratic Party - safe in the knowledge that strong bi-partisan support for Israel existed between Democrats and Republicans.

However this bipartisan support has been fractured following President Obama’s post-election sell-out of Israel at the United Nations on 23 December 2016 - followed now by stringent criticism of Trump’s Peace Plan by:
- Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, Chris Murphy and Independent Bernie Sanders.
- 191 Democrat Members of Congress
- The Democratic Party’s Draft 2020 platform – which proclaims:

“Democrats oppose any unilateral steps by either side — including annexation — that undermine prospects for two states”

The Democratic Party now opposes Israel unilaterally reconstituting the Jewish National Home in Judea and Samaria – a legal entitlement vested in the Jewish People for the last 100 years but unattainable until now under Trump’s Peace Plan.

Many Jews who voted for the Democratic Party in 2016 would be alarmed at seeing their previous bilateral comfort zone collapsing. The choice they thought they would never have to make has now arrived.

Trump can help regain his high 2016 Evangelical Christian vote while increasing his very low 2016 Jewish vote by green-lighting Israel’s immediate application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria -considerably boosting his prospects for re-election.

Bret Stephens: The Siren Song of ‘One State’

Anyone who demands that Israel withdraw from part or all of the West Bank needs to be equally forceful in demanding that Palestinians abandon this so-called right. One-state advocates achieve the precise opposite: They foster a crippling fantasy that the right of return need never be conceded because eventually Israel will be pressured into dissolving itself. That will never happen, but chances for peace will be missed in the future, as they were in the past, so long as the fantasy survives.

The final bit of damage is to the American Jewish community. For decades, the opinions and advice of American Jews mattered to Israel. But if the views of a significant segment of American Jewish opinion are soon to harden into a moralizing anti-Zionism, it will only persuade Israelis to reciprocate with indifference and contempt. Whatever else advocates of a one-state solution think they are doing, they are withdrawing from any meaningful dialogue with Israelis about the future of a Jewish homeland.

It used to be that Israelis depended on a secure and thriving American Jewry to help stand up their fragile state. Today it is American Jewry that is fragile, threatened by dwindling cultural influence, stagnant demographic trends, increasing alienation from the Democratic Party and abiding discomfort with the G.O.P., and rising anti-Semitism — sometimes masked as anti-Zionism — from across the political spectrum.

Should American Jews start looking for the exits — just as every other Diaspora community in history has done, and continues to do — they will be grateful to find a Jewish state that resisted the siren song of “one state.”

Beinart ignores inconvenient truth on the reality in Israel – opinion

In reality, while the commentariat class resigns itself to one state — maybe — the Palestinians have been building a state.
It is imperfect, and the path to Palestinian statehood remains fraught. It is very much a work in progress. And yes, its leaders often disappoint.

And yet, on June 22, I saw it almost coming to fruition. The Palestinian Authority’s Jericho rally against annexation bore all the markings of a classic Middle East summit — brusque security agents, rows upon rows of plastic chairs, blistering heat, lofty words and clusters of tall, besuited diplomats.

About 50 diplomats, in fact, including the Russian and Chinese ambassadors, who addressed the crowds in fluent Arabic, and the Canadian ambassador, who arrived in a Beast-like vehicle flying a gold-trimmed maple leaf flag.

One thing was missing: There was not an American or an Israeli emissary as far as the eye could see.

I asked a couple of European ambassadors what they were doing at a political event, and they replied that a rally in favor of the two-state solution was policy, not politics.

Veteran peace negotiator Saeb Erekat took to the stage and hailed what truly was “an unprecedented event.”

“Today,” he said, “the world came to us. The international community came to us, and they told us we are not alone. It is about freedom, independence, dignity and justice.”

In the past, Netanyahu has easily managed to scuttle diplomatic initiatives having a whiff of Palestinian statehood. But the June rally was, without doubt, the most momentous diplomatic event ever hosted on Palestinian land, by Palestinian leaders, and it was a slap in Netanyahu’s face.

On the ground, however haltingly, a two-state solution is coming into being. We saw a glimpse of it in Jericho, alongside a foretaste of a future regional realignment in which the United States and Israel are relegated to the status of observers.

Biased article in Foreign Policy: “Israel Can’t Hide Evidence of Its Occupation Anymore”

Zena Agha, is a writer and a policy analyst at the Palestinian Policy Network Al-Shabaka, tries to fool Foreign Policy’s audience.

The upshot is that a US regulation that ensured that a 1996 law saying that high resolution satellite images of Israel are prohibited by American satellite companies has been changed to allow those better images – from 2 meters per pixel to 0.4 meters per pixel:

It is the difference between seeing the broad outline of a large building and being able to see individual vehicles parked outside. It is possible to identify substantial changes in land use (for instance, the building of city-size settlements or the bulldozing of Palestinian structures) at the two-meter limit, but subtler changes—such as the growth of outpost settlements or small military emplacements—are harder to discern. For 24 years, the legislation obfuscated the damaging effects of the Israeli occupation by literally hiding them from view.

The censorship over Israel and the occupied territories has had negative archeological, geographical, and humanitarian implications. Arguably the most glaring of these has been its effects on monitoring the decades long Israeli occupation—including documenting home demolitions, territorial disputes, and settlement growth. Lower-resolution imagery has forestalled efforts to challenge and verify human rights violations, especially in hard-to-reach areas such as the Gaza Strip, which has been under siege since 2007.

One of smallest settlements by population, with less than 150 residents, is Mechora in the Jordan Valley. Here’s what it looks like in Google Earth:

Is it remotely possible for Israel to “hide” even one house there, let alone the entire community? And when hardline rightists put a couple of trailers on land that was never settled before against Israeli law, they brag about it – they don’t try to hide it. Anyone from Peace Now can drive there and see it for themselves in much higher resolution than any satellite.

The thesis is even more absurd than that. No one in Israel is hiding any settlement activity anyway. Every building in the territories goes through multiple stages of approval, all of which are public.

Realizing that her main argument doesn’t hold water, Agha tries to scattershot other reasons why accurate satellite photos are important that also don’t withstand ten seconds of scrutiny. For example:

When it comes to climate change, high-resolution imagery will enable the more accurate detection of changes in vegetation, crop conditions, further spread of desertification (a key impact of climate change in the region), changes to water distribution, overuse of fertilizer, and pollution dumps—changes which are substantially harder to discern and record with low-resolution satellite imagery. For disciplines such as archaeology, it will help identify sites and monitor damage.

Somehow Israel managed to reverse desertification without the rest of the world peering at it in higher resolution.

More importantly, Zena Agha is implying that Israel wouldn’t be concerned with these issues on its own – that it needs Europeans or Americans to pore over these images to find evidence of pollution or overuse of fertilizer. It clearly doesn’t – Israel is perhaps the most environmentally aware nation on the planet, and any concerned scientist or activist can simply drive anywhere in Area C or put an inexpensive drone in the air to see everything in much more detail than even the best satellite image.

The security concern, which is downplayed by Agha, is that the higher resolutions can identify targets for Hamas and Hezbollah rockets more effectively. For example, they might be able to identify populated areas without adequate rocket shelters to target, or the higher resolution can help them discern chemical plants from other factories that would not be as damaging if bombed.

In the end, this is not that big a deal because other nations were already taking the higher res images and selling them. That’s the reason the US decided to change the regulation; it no longer made sense. It isn’t great but it was inevitable. The real problem is that this Foreign Policy article is using this story as an excuse to bash Israel gratuitously, for example:

Significantly, the reversal empowers humanitarian groups working to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law, including unlawful killings and settlement construction (which, under the fourth Geneva Convention, constitutes a war crime).

The satellite images cannot help for forensics work when Israel kills a terrorist. But Agha wanted to publish the phrase “unlawful killings” so she pretended they could.

However, higher resolution images can help show illegal Palestinian building all over, as they place new haphazard buildings in places they have no permission for, as I once documented in Google Earth images of an illegal Palestinian “settlement” near Kedar growing from 2004 to 2016:

This article that pretends that somehow the higher resolution images isn’t a security threat – but asserts that the new images will definitely show heretofore unknown Israeli war crimes – is a perfect example of media bias.

(It is also unethical for Foreign Policy to publish this article without noting that the author was personally involved in getting the regulation changed.)

For the past week, Islamic Jihad has been saying that they will release a major film showing how they damaged the Israeli security apparatus.

The film, “The Spider’s House,” was just released. Here’s an excerpt:

It documents how over the course of several years, Islamic Jihad members pretended to be “collaborators” with the Shin Bet so they could see how Israel recruits and trains spies.

They seem to have taken some hidden camera videos in Israel, and the Shin Bet gave them a cell phone that hides its apps that can be used to securely communicate with their handler.

As far as I can tell, that was it. I see no evidence that Israel acted on any of their bogus tips. It seems that Islamic Jihad used their knowledge to help them find a real collaborator in Gaza, so in that sense they gained something, but this is hardly worth a 38 minute documentary being shown on Al Mayadeen TV.

The real reason for making such a big deal over this appears to be to scare real collaborators in Gaza and convince them to become double agents. Islamic Jihad leader Daoud Shihab said, “The path of return is open and everyone who fell into the trap as a result of some weakness can turn into a mujahid and a hero who serves his religion, country and people.”

What if there was no “occupation?” The anti-Zionists of the 1950s provide the answer

Laura Adkins writes on Twitter, “The most wild thing about the @Sethrogen controversy, to me, is not that his remarks were stripped of context or that everyone's jumping to make his words fit their own narratives (those are par for the course.) What's wild is that the organized Jewish community spends tens of millions trying to reach Jews like [Seth] Rogen (liberal, unaffiliated, under 40, no kids, upwardly mobile) who hold generally similar views about Judaism and Israel. And yet, he's been widely vilified. Quite a recruitment strategy!”

She has a point, and a discussion on how to reach out to Jews who don’t know the first thing about the reality of Israel (or Judaism) is one that needs to happen.

But IfNotNow adds: “What if - just hear us out - they stopped supporting and upholding the Occupation? Taking a strong stand for freedom and dignity for all, instead of putting our ostensibly shared progressive values through a woodchipper, would appeal to so many young Jews. “

How would left-wing anti-Zionist groups act if Israel would forcibly remove 600,000 Jews from their historic homeland? Would groups like IfNotNow wither and die?

Of course not. The “occupation” is an excuse, not a reason, for rabid anti-Israel hate. And the easiest proof is to look at the anti-Zionists of the 1950s – before “occupation.”

The most prominent anti-Zionist group then was the American Council for Judaism, led by reform Rabbi Elmer Berger. He fought against Israel before 1948, and fought against Jewish Holocaust refugees settling in Israel. After Israel became a state he kept going, just changing his arguments. The ACJ spent much of the 1950s arguing that Israel’s Right to Return law somehow made American Jews automatically disloyal to the United States.

In a pamphlet entitled “Four Articles on the Law of Return,” Berger wrote, “The thesis of the American Council for Judaism is that the Zionist-lsrael axis imposes upon Jews outside of Israel, Americans of Jewish faith included, a status of double nationality.”

This argument is laughable and the only people who use it today are fringe Arabs. But the ACJ, like IfNotNow and other anti-Zionist Jewish groups, aren’t interested in logic – just in finding whatever arguments they can to help destroy Israel.

Alfred Lilienthal was another prominent anti-Zionist. His 1953 book “What Price Israel” twists the “dual loyalty” argument not as if it is a fact but that it is a weapon that antisemites can use against American Jews – and he used his supposed concern over how antisemites would act as a reason to end Israel.

He then went on to engage in his own antisemitic tropes, as this book review in Political Research Quarterly writes:

According to Lilienthal, the creation of Israel was “executed by a strategy board of immense international influence” which resorted to intimidation and underhanded methods. The “American master minds” were Joseph Proskauer, Robert Nathan, and David Niles, assisted by Bernard Baruch, Drew Pearson, A. A. Berle, Jr., Harvey Firestone, and the late Senator Robert F. Wagner. With such an array of influence, it was no wonder, Lilienthal charges, that the American press was completely subverted to the side of Jewish nationalism and that political candidates were frightened into supporting the partition of Palestine.

We recognize this today as an antisemitic conspiracy theory, just as thinking people today realize the same about many of the arguments of today’s anti-Zionists.

And just like today’s Jewish anti-Zionists, Lilienthal blamed Israel for Arab hate:

United States policy favoring partition of Palestine and its support of Israel, Lilienthal exclaims, played squarely into the hands of the U.S.S.R. and alienated the Arab countries. Peaceful relations between Israel and the Arab countries hinge, not on both sides settling their disputes by treaty and co-operating afterwards, but solely on Israel’s changing her ways. Completely ignoring the existence of an Arab boycott of Israel, Lilienthal declares: “To assume a trusted place in a peaceful Middle East, Israel must settle down to peaceful and mutually beneficial trade with her Arab neighbors.”

Lilienthal’s ridiculous arguments didn’t end there. He stated that if US aid to Israel had instead gone to the Arab world, the Arabs would make tremendous strides in democracy. Since then, of course, the Arab world has received trillions of dollars in oil revenues – and democracy is just as distant as it was 70 years ago.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that IfNotNow’s and Jewish Voice for Peace and other groups’ political ancestors’ arguments were either ridiculously false or literally antisemitic. But their arguments were just excuses, hooks to hang their hate hats on.

That hasn’t changed.

08/03 Links Pt2: Celebrity Antisemites Can’t Be Absolved Through Private Apologies; Seth Rogen’s Ignorance Spread by Uncritical Media; Ze’ev Jabotinsky remembered 80 years after his death

From Ian:

Antisemitism on the Internet

Antisemitic tweets – European countries with the most

France (9,150) is followed by Germany, Spain, Belgium, Ireland and Austria.

Diaspora Minister Omar Yankelevich presented the EU Ambassador with data regarding antisemitism on Twitter, as collected by the Diaspora Ministry’s Internet monitoring system. Omar and the EU ambassador agreed to cooperate in order to keep Jewish communities in Europe safe and to monitor online antisemitism.

Over the last two months (June and July 2020) 14,210 antisemitic tweets have been posted in European countries. The largest number of antisemitic tweets was recorded in France – 9,150 tweets uploaded by 3,000 web “surfers;” followed by Germany – 2,470; Spain – 2,080; Belgium – 220; Ireland – 168; and Austria – 93 tweets.

This data was collected by the monitoring system of the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs. In total, the monitoring system identified 14,210 antisemitic tweets posted by 4,680 users in these six countries, out of 266,200 posts uploaded by 114,600 users.

Diaspora Minister Omar Yankelevich presented the data at a meeting held last weekend with the EU Ambassador to Israel, Emanuel Joffre, in which they agreed to cooperate in protecting Jewish communities in Europe, monitoring online antisemitism and preserving the religious freedom of European Jews. According to Yankelevich, the difference in the number of tweets between states illustrates the importance of extensive legislation and decisive enforcement against incitement to hatred.

In view of the data presented, the Minister sought to increase cooperation with the EU and streamline funding that communities receive from the EU for security measures. This is to ensure the security and safety of the Jewish communities in Europe. The ambassador expressed his willingness to work in close cooperation with Israel, against the phenomenon of increasing antisemitism on the Internet and “on the ground.” The two also discussed creative ways to connect Jewish communities in Israel with communities across Europe.

Minister Yankelevich: “European Jews are experiencing a difficult period during the Corona crisis. Over a thousand Jews have died of the virus, including rabbis and community leaders. Especially during this period we must work in full cooperation with the EU to maintain the safety and existence of Jewish communities in Europe. I thank the ambassador for his willingness to assist with this issue as well as to monitor anti-Semitism on the Internet and to preserve the religious freedom of the Jews in the EU countries. This is our shared responsibility.”

HONESTREPORTING AT THE KNESSET

The normalization of hate speech is a result of hate on social networks being improperly defined, @gipperschutzpah told the Knesset last week. pic.twitter.com/e9IxTrRaRt
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 3, 2020

Protected hate - Arsen Ostrovsky

French Antisemitic Agitator Dieudonné Permanently Banned From Facebook for ‘Dehumanizing Jews’

A little over a month after he was booted from YouTube for consistently posting antisemitic content, the French comedian and agitator Dieudonné has been permanently banned from the Facebook and Instagram social media platforms for the same offense.

A Facebook spokesperson on Monday confirmed that Dieudonné had used “dehumanizing terms against Jews” in several of his posts.

“In line with our policy on dangerous individuals and organizations, we have permanently banned Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala from Facebook and Instagram,” the company said in a statement. “Banning a person permanently from our services is a decision that we always weigh carefully, but individuals and organizations that attack others on the basis of what they are do not have a place on Facebook or Instagram.”

The prohibition means that Dieudonné has been cut off from his 1.3 million followers on Facebook, in addition to the 400,000 users he lost when his YouTube account was shut down on June 30.

Banned from the UK, Canada and Belgium among other countries, Dieudonné has been convicted numerous times in France for violating laws against hate speech and Holocaust denial. He often collaborates with Alain Soral, a French neo-Nazi, and was an energetic promoter of the late Holocaust denier, Robert Faurisson.

One of Dieudonné’s songs, titled “Shoananas” — a word that combines “Shoah,” the Hebrew word for “Holocaust,” with “ananas,” the French word for “pineapple” — pokes fun at the six million Jewish victims of the Nazis. The comedian is arguably best known for inventing the “quenelle” — an inverted Nazi salute that went viral in 2013.

Facebook’s decision was welcomed by politicians, anti-racist groups and Jewish organizations, some of whom called on the company to close down all similar accounts.

“I welcome Facebook’s decision and hope there will be more,” Elisabeth Moreno — France’s minister for equality — said in a statement. “All forms of speech inciting hatred and racism must be banned from social networks.”

Iran continues to send money to Hezbollah as its economy falls apart

Al Arabiya, quoting the Ava Today website, reports that while the Iranians are suffering from a deteriorating economic situation , and Iranians are protesting, the Revolutionary Guards are continuing to export huge amounts to terror groups that are loyal to it, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon.

While opinion polls conducted by the Iranian Student Foundation revealed that more than two million Iranian families did not eat red meat at all during the year, due to declining purchasing capabilities and high poverty rates in the country, the IRGC, in cooperation with the Central Bank, exploited the national identity number of citizens and issued forged passports in their names. Since citizens are allowed to bring a certain amount of foreign currency out of the country for travel, this is apparently how Iran is hiding its transfer of funds to Hezbollah, by pretending that the smugglers are just tourists visiting Lebanon or Syria on Mahan Airlines using names of people who have no idea they officially went out of Iran.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

From The National (UAE):

Mohamed Hadid has shared a photograph of himself wearing a face mask by Palestinian fashion designer, Noor Subeh.

The mask is made with keffiyeh fabric, the black-and-white checked cloth that is traditionally used for Arabian head dresses.

The Palestinian-American property developer tagged Subeh in the Instagram image and captioned it: "Stay safe for others to keep yourself safe from others."

If it is made from keffiyeh fabric alone it is not really a very good COVID-19 mask.

But there is another reason why people might want to think twice before buying these:

It really looks a lot like women’s genitalia.

Once you see that, you can’t unsee it.

08/03 Links Pt1: International Law, Not Terrorism, Must Be the New Paradigm; China’s Emerging Middle Eastern Kingdom; Israelis have more in common than not with one another

From Ian:

International Law, Not Terrorism, Must Be the New Paradigm

What must occur to alter the course of this perpetual cycle of violence, terror and violation of law and rights is a fundamental shift in the paradigm applied. Israel and the international community must transcend and move away from terms rooted in terror, and hold the violators accountable to the language and terms of international law and human rights.

In practice, what this means is that negotiations anywhere must not take place on the terms determined by genocidal terrorist regimes and their supporters, and that the price paid must conform to agreed-upon international standards. It means a system of "monetary for humanitarian," where only when the humanitarian needs of Israel are met does the cash flow.

For example, instead of allowing Hamas to set the negotiation terms, the international community must acknowledge that holding four Israeli citizens captive is a standing violation of international law, and humanitarian aid is therefore at risk of being embargoed if the Israelis are not returned and if the law is not upheld. The fact that one of the Israelis being held captive for six years nearly to this day—Hadar Goldin—was killed during an internationally brokered humanitarian ceasefire only further strengthens the international legal and moral argument. The concept of a "prisoner swap" prescribed by terrorist thought and rhetoric as the tool to use in such a scenario must be denounced; instead, international law must be upheld.

Similarly, the financial support—known as "pay-for-slay"—that the Palestinian Authority provides to terrorists, must cease, or their humanitarian aid and the provision of international aid by United Nations agencies must be limited. Announcements that Israel is now seizing these terrorists' salaries form a necessary first step. The international community also must make difficult choices of when to restrict aid in order to uphold international laws and human rights norms. If it fails to do this, these laws and norms risk losing their very meaning.

This new paradigm of international law, human rights and norms means that Israel too must move away from the old paradigms or prisoner swaps and cease allowing the "pay-for-slay" payments to take place. The global community and Israel together have the potential of leading by example, utilizing the language of rights and expecting consistency and reciprocity from the international community in return. Only then can the cycle of violence begin to unravel, and a renewed "world order" be built on a profound commitment to uphold, promote and protect human rights.

Michael Doran and Peter Rough: China’s Emerging Middle Eastern Kingdom

If the Russian-Iranian alliance should die, or become weak and ineffectual, China will not step in directly to build it back up—because Beijing fears a direct confrontation with the United States. The first priority of American policy, therefore, is to remove the sword from China’s hand by crushing the Russian-Iranian alliance. The domestic American political climate will not permit the use of large numbers of American troops in this project, but four other tools do exist:
1) Economic sanctions. The Trump administration has been imposing these effectively. The Iranian economy is in perilous condition, and the economic situation of Iran’s allies, the Assad regime and Lebanese Hezbollah, are equally dire.
2) Clandestine operations. In recent months, Iran has experienced a wave of mysterious fires and explosions at industrial complexes and military installations. One of these events, at the nuclear fuel enrichment site at Natanz, reportedly set back the country’s nuclear program significantly. A foreign hand is suspected in at least some of these episodes, and the finger of suspicion points most often at Israel. But the sabotage could just as easily be the result of a joint American-Israeli operation.
3) Direct military action by allies. The Turks and the Israelis have both carried out very effective operations in Syria that have significantly degraded not just Iranian but also, in the case of the Turks, Russian capabilities.
4) Selective and judicious use of American military capabilities. The killing of Qassem Soleimani in December did more to shake the Iranian regime than any step the United States has taken in the last 30 years, with the possible exception of the invasion of Iraq. It not only removed from the game an indispensable player, but it boosted the morale of America’s allies and demoralized its enemies.

These tools, taken together, can effectively remove the Russo-Iranian sword from the hand of China. They are already being used. Are they the result of a conscious Trump administration strategy, or have they simply materialized as a set of ad hoc responses to the president's insistence that his national security team contain Iran aggressively, yet with an economy of force? Whatever the answer, they point the way forward. The goal of American policy should be to use them separately and in coordination so as to increase their lethality.

The greatest advantage that the United States has in its competition with China and, indeed, with any of its adversaries, is hard power. In the realm of trade and investment, Washington simply cannot compete with China and hope to win. If it is to contain China successfully, then it will win with its sledgehammers: military power and economic sanctions. In the Middle East, what America’s allies crave most is the security that comes from the might of the American military. Nothing does more to encourage allies to hedge their bets and cozy up to Beijing than the fear that the United States has decided to abandon military competition as a tool of statecraft.

As China works to make the Middle East a factor in the Western Pacific balance of power, the United States should respond by bringing the Pacific to the Middle East. China’s energy supply lines and its aspiration to become the dominant power in the Persian Gulf should become a regular and significant part of America’s discussions with its Pacific partners and India. The goal of this dialogue should be to arrive not just at a shared picture of the threat but also at strategies for assuring that China’s supply lines remain highly vulnerable. China’s partners and potential partners in its plan to become a Middle Eastern military power—Iran, Djibouti, Pakistan, Iraq, and others—should be put on notice that the days of harmonic convergence are over. Support for Chinese hard-power aspirations must come at a steep price. The U.S. must bury harmonic convergence as an organizing principle, or risk ceding control of the international system to a hostile, anti-democratic power.

Israelis have more in common than not with one another - opinion

If there is a large protest, the media will – as it must – interview the protesters and then the politicians. The protesters are protesting because they are angry, and that anger comes out in their words. The politicians are looking for someone to blame, and that anger comes out in their words.

Both Transportation Minister Miri Regev (Likud) and MK Moshe Ya’alon (Yesh Atid-Telem) – on opposite sides of this country’s pro- and anti-Netanyahu divide – sound as if they are about to blow a gasket every time they talk about the other side. Interviewee after interviewee sound angry, mad and full of hate.

But there is another Israel out there. It’s the one that quietly goes on with its life in these uncertain times, perhaps not agreeing – and perhaps even strongly disagreeing – with the political outlook of their neighbors or co-workers, but not hating them, not wanting to wage an all-out war against them. In fact, there are many who feel a great deal of sympathy for their countrymen’s suffering as a result of the pandemic.

The problem is that right now, that does not attract attention and does not get air time. What attracts attention is extreme rhetoric. What attracts attention is comparisons to dark periods of history. What attracts attention is saying that the other side are a bunch of fanatics hell-bent on destroying the country: anarchists to the left of me, fascists to the right.

And since that is what attracts attention, that is what is shouted out from the megaphones, picked up by the press and amplified on social media. So one wakes up and believes that is the reality.

Except it’s not. It might be a slice of this country’s reality, but only a slice.

There is another reality out there,reflected in that meeting of those reservists, of an Israel where not everyone hates the other side, and where – though it might sound corny – what binds really is greater than what divides.

Which is not to say that the atmosphere is not charged, and that in a charged atmosphere someone may commit an act of political violence. But civil wars – the type some are warning of now – are not made of individuals on the fringes taking extreme action, but rather, brother taking up arms against brother because the hatred in their hearts overflows.

Walk the streets of the country beyond Balfour Street during one of the nightly protests – or step away from Twitter for a day – and chances are that you won’t encounter that overwhelming hatred, but rather, a reality that, while contentious, is softer and far less toxic and hate-filled than what you come across every time you turn on a computer, radio or television set.

Most people are not inhabiting the hate-permeated reality being portrayed in the media and online. There is another Israel out there.