New York, October 1 - Educational and communal institutions continue to struggle to reach and attract young people, but one such organization has hit on a novel way to engage the youth in the liturgical aspects of Jewish tradition: a prayer book that contains concise the visual imagery of online chat media to convey what the ancient, sometimes abstruse, text means.
The Modern Online Jewish Institute (MOJI) introduced its Emoji Siddur today, aimed at late Millennials and "Generation-Z" youth whose twenty-first-century upbringing has rendered them more comfortable in the language of online communication than of the traditional printed variety. The book contains the liturgical text on one page, while the facing page features the same text rendered in emoji so that today's youth will find it more accessible and meaningful, a MOJI spokesman asserted in an interview.
"Each generation's needs are different," explained Rabbi Mendel Now. "Vernacular English was good enough for the last few editions of Jewish texts in America, but that's not the case anymore. Today's young Jews are more fluent in smileys, memes, and gifs than in the stodgy verbiage of the Birnbaum, Artscroll, Koren, or even Sim Shalom siddurim. With no disrespect to the august personages behind those volumes, we sensed the need to adapt our ancient prayers to a language more suitable for the emerging Jewish polity."
The Emoji Siddur is available in both hard copies and downloadable as an app; the hard copy opens from top to bottom in the manner of a traditional checkbook or notepad, instead of the typical right-to-left orientation of a siddur. This configuration allows the user to "scroll" with his or her finger to the next page, in the manner that one does on a device. Rabbi Now called the innovation one of a series of "enhancements" the product offers.
"Obviously the hard copy edition can't include animated gifs or emoji," he noted. "Still, the app even includes visual instructions, such as a smiley covering its eyes right before the recitation of Sh'ma, and a figure taking three steps back, then forward, before the Amidah, as is customary. One of the advantages of the emoji format is that a single image can convey a set of complex ideas, whereas even in a concise language such as Hebrew the same idea might take several words or sentences to communicate."
Rabbi Now also remarked that the emoji translation represents as much an advance as a return to the roots of human written communication, hieroglyphics.
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Over the course of a single summer in 2020, Jewish graves in Worms, Germany, were vandalised, an Austrian Jew was attacked in the street and a calendar published in the Czech Republic that glorified Nazi leaders. It came in a year during which Europe and the world marked 75 years since the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
Meanwhile, Belgium, Denmark and Poland have either proposed bans or actually banned ritual slaughter, the method by which millions of Jews and Muslims in Europe require their meat to be killed. In Iceland, Denmark and Norway, a furore has erupted over circumcision, with critics arguing that the practice is inhumane and should be banned for those under the age of 18.
“It is very frustrating, there is no question,” Rabbi Menachem Margolin, president of the European Jewish Association, told Euronews from his office in Brussels.
“You just think, [...] why do we have to [do this] again [...]. Three weeks ago it was the circumcision issue in Belgium [...]. Two weeks ago it was circumcision in Denmark, this week it is ritual slaughter in Poland, I mean what is next?”
Poland’s ban on kosher meat was pushed through by the governing Law and Justice Party (PiS) earlier in September against the objections of its two minority coalition partners, potentially bringing down the Polish government and paving the way for new elections.
The ban on kosher meat was part of a wide-ranging law on animal welfare, which will similarly outlaw Muslim halal slaughter and the production of fur. It is currently in a 14-day review period, but the fact that the PiS was willing to let its coalition collapse to pass it suggests it could stand.
Speaking to Euronews last week when the law was passed, Margolin told Euronews that the campaign for the animal welfare law had distinct antisemitic overtones, presenting the supporters of the law as "good Polish citizens" and its opponents, among them the Jewish community, as bad. But there will also be a practical impact on Europe’s Jewish community.
“Limiting the export of kosher meat from Poland will immediately impact Jewish people from all over Europe because many Jewish people from Europe consume kosher meat coming from Poland,” he said.
People who want to persecute Jews always have such moral arguments behind them - animal welfare, child safety, human rights, international law. Yet they all have in common the desire to punish and limit the rights of Jews.
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In my capacity as a minister in various Israeli cabinets, I dealt extensively with the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. I have come to know firsthand the bias and decades-long anti-Israel sentiment in the United Nations.
But despite this, I decided to begin my U.N. ambassadorship with a clear determination to fight for Israel’s reputation, to get rid of the hatred toward Israel there and to make sure that an automatic majority against it is no longer a preordained fate. I believe that now, with Arab countries embracing peace with Israel as a boon and Iranian brutality being exposed on a daily basis, there is a fighting chance at achieving this goal.
As soon as I arrived in New York, I began working alongside our friends in the Trump administration to restore the U.N. sanctions on Iran that had been lifted following the 2015 nuclear deal. Tehran’s windfall due to the sanctions relief has armed its terrorist tentacles in Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Gaza and of course in Lebanon.
One would think that the United Nations, as an institution that has championed peace and security, would join the struggle against the largest terrorist regime in the world, which has continued to openly call for the annihilation of Israel. Unfortunately, the Security Council has chosen excuses over actions.
While Iran executes protesters, including wrestler Navid Afkari, a majority of Security Council members have shamefully refused to join the U.S.-led effort against Tehran, effectively choosing to reward such murderous action. There is no better proof for the disconnect between the theoretical ideas expressed by the U.N. Charter and their failed implementation in reality.
Germany has an anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, according to Uwe Becker, the commissioner to combat antisemitism in the German state of Hesse.
Following Germany’s abstention last week at the UN on an anti-Israel resolution, he told The Jerusalem Post: “Even in times of rapprochement between Israel and the Arab states, interested countries continue their smear theater at the United Nations and once again pillory the Jewish state. Now there must be an end to the ducking away. Germany’s abstention only strengthens Israel’s enemies at the UN and weakens the efforts for peace in the region.”
“I am very disappointed about Germany’s vote after a new resolution on the alleged violations of women’s rights by Israel,” said Becker, who is also president of the Germany-Israel Friendship Association.
“Germany is undermining solidarity with Israel if it does not finally take a clear and unequivocal stand at the United Nations against the politically staged permanent condemnation of Israel,” he added. “Neutrality is inappropriate when the moral verdict of guilt is passed on Israel.”
Becker is widely considered the most forceful German political advocate for the security of the State of Israel.
“Attitude and backbone are required, not passivity and diplomatic kowtowing,” he said. “If, at the end of a vote, Israel is the only country in the world accused of violating women’s rights, and countries decide to do so where women have virtually no rights, then the German side should finally wake up.”
Members of Belgium’s Jewish community this week expressed great concern at their country’s incoming government, saying some of its members are known for being extremely critical of Israel.
Even before the final cabinet lineup was set to be announced on Wednesday evening, friends of Israel familiar with the Belgian political scene predicted increased tensions with Jerusalem and the local Jewish community, pointing to what they said were several harsh Israel critics likely to be appointed to key positions in the government.
“Israel will find that this government will try to shut down all little dialogue left between both countries,” said Brussels-based Jenny Aharon, who advises Israeli officials and Jewish organizations on matters related to EU-Israel relations.
However, she added, the newly formed government, which will be sworn in by King Philippe on Thursday morning, “does not represent a Flemish majority. Therefore it would be inaccurate to consider its adopted anti-Israel policies as a sentiment shared by the Belgian people as a whole.”
Belgium is considered among Israel’s toughest critics in Europe, with Jerusalem and Brussels at odds over the Palestinian question.
In February, the Belgian ambassador in Tel Aviv was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for a dressing down over what Israeli officials called “a systematic campaign to demonize the Jewish state” after the country’s embassy to the United Nations invited a pro-Palestinian activist to address the Security Council.
Since 2014, the UN - in cooperation with Israel and the PA - put together a process called the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism, or GRM, which allowed construction materials to flow into Gaza after Operation Protective Edge.
The UN has a webpage showing, very transparently, how much cement and other materials go into Gaza and to which projects (all of which are approved by Israel.)
Since this is a point of cooperation between Israel and the PA, I was curious as to whether the PA's decision to stop coordination with Israel affected this work.
It did - quite a bit.
In the first two months of this year, 15000 tons of cement were imported into Gaza for approved reconstruction projects.
Over the past two months the amount of cement imported into Gaza has plummeted to less than 500 tons - a reduction of 97%!
We read a lot about how Israel's "siege" of Gaza is "strangling" ordinary Gazans, how it is collective punishment for the entire population, how utterly horrible it is.
Yet since May, the Palestinian Authority has done far more to hurt Gazans - not only in importing construction materials but also in helping patients leave the territory to get medical attention. Babies have died because of this negligence on the part of Mahmoud Abbas.
The "pro-Palestinian" voices are completely silent. The "fair" media isn't covering the story. Anti-Israel bias remains one of the bulwarks of NGOs and the international media.
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For many years, Lebanon has been refusing to negotiate with Israel over the maritime border between the two countries, leaving a swath of about 1000 square kilometers in dispute in the natural-gas rich Mediterranean.
Last year Lebanon made noises that it would allow the UN to help mediate the dispute, but that effort went nowhere.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri reportedly will announce the framework agreement representing the basis for the launch of indirect negotiations with Israel on demarcating the land and maritime borders, under the auspices of the United Nations and American mediation, al-Akhbar daily reported Thursday.
A high-ranking American delegation led by David Schenker will arrive in Beirut in mid October to start negotiations, it said.
The maritime border is fully within areas controlled by Hezbollah. This means that the main obstacle to these negotiations, Iran, is becoming less relevant in Lebanon in the wake of the public anger at the Beirut explosion.
Allowing the US to lead the mediation efforts is what is truly stunning, though. It indicates not only a weakening of Iranian influence over Lebanon bit a tentative willingness to acknowledge the US role in creating a new Middle East as seen by the US-brokered Abraham Accords.
There are obvious advantages to Lebanon to end this dispute. Any natural gas fields found in Lebanon's waters would be a bonanza for Lebanon's wrecked economy. That has always been true, but up until now Lebanon's position seems to have been that anything that also benefits Israel must never be done even if it is good for Lebanon as well - classic win/lose thinking of the honor/shame psyche. In the new Middle East, such thinking is quickly going from mainstream to distasteful.
Commenters on Naharnet are very cynical towards their Lebanese leaders:
phillipo
Direct, indirect, what difference does it make. In the end some agreement on the sea borders will be reached and signatures of Lebanese and Israeli officials will appear on the same document.
So why can't this happen on a land border agreement?
thepatriot
It is about time. The world is moving forward, our neighbors are moving forward, and we keep moving backwards, and towards darkness...
I pray that we demarcate those borders, and end up Ebola's [Hezbollah - EoZ] pathetic excuse of a "Resistance"..
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Western media darling and PLO spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi was the guest at a webinar hosted by the Arab America site last Saturday.
According to the synopsis of the discussion, Ashrawi was in rare form with lie after lie:
Israel is still taking land, Ashrawi reported, and she cannot even travel from her hometown of Ramallah to Jerusalem.[1] She further insists that Israel expects to get its own way without any words spoken between the two entities, while most of the rest of the world’s nations want a negotiated settlement.[2] Ashrawi reminds us, in any case, that “negotiations are just a means to an end.” The United Nations must be the place where peace is made, she suggested since that’s where international law prevails.[3]
1. The decision of not being able to travel from Ramallah to Jerusalem is from an agreement that the PLO signed. Before the first Intifada, under "occupation," Jews and Palestinians both traveled freely throughout the Land of Israel. Restrictions only started with Palestinian violence. Imagine that.
2. Israel had sought a negotiated settlement since 1993. The Palestinians refused to negotiate and tried to push the entire issue to the anti-Israel UN to avoid any compromise for peace.
3. She here seems to admit that she doesn't want negotiations, and that the situation should be unilaterally decided by the UN. She contradicted herself and no one even cares.
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I got up a few minutes before 0400 this morning to watch the American presidential debate. Things have changed a great deal since the previous campaign, because I can’t recall anything even close in verbal viciousness from the candidates themselves. Biden called Trump a clown, a racist, and a liar, and told him to shut up. Trump, for his part, continually interrupted Biden and talked over him, somewhat like political discussions on Israeli TV.
More immediately relevant for Israel is what PM Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly (text and video) in a ten-minute pre-recorded speech yesterday. There was a dramatic disclosure of the location of a Hezbollah missile depot or factory (in pictures and with GPS coordinates) in the middle of a civilian neighborhood in Beirut, next door to a gas company’s tanks. A similar installation in southern Lebanon exploded just last week, following the massive Beirut explosion, which was caused by explosives-grade ammonium nitrate kept at the port by Hezbollah. Bibi suggested that the folks who live around there might try to pressure Hezbollah to dismantle it before it, too, blows up. Unfortunately, nobody in Lebanon can stand up to Hezbollah.
Lebanon is a tragedy. It’s suffering from a rapidly growing outbreak of Coronavirus, although it is still behind Israel in serious cases and deaths. Its economy was already in flames before the explosion that destroyed its largest port, most of its grain reserves, and a third of its capital. Like Covid-19, Hezbollah is a parasitic organism that, in this case, is killing its host.
This parasite, however is controlled and nourished from Iran, as Bibi noted in his speech. It is the perfect remote weapon. By embedding its weapons in the midst of the population, the Iranian regime protects them from the IDF – and unlike Hamas, which also uses human shields, it doesn’t even have to endanger its own population to do so!
The other important thing that Bibi said was that in our estimation – and Israel’s intelligence in this area is quite good – Iran is expected to have enough enriched uranium in “a few” months to build not one, but two, nuclear bombs. Iran has been working on the rest of the technology for bombs for years, as well as missiles capable of delivering them. This is a real threat that must not be minimized, and – I must remind those who so strongly criticize Netanyahu – he has focused on this danger. We will not be taken by surprise by Iran.
The US under the Trump Administration has proven to be a valuable ally against Iran. By ending the JCPOA and re-imposing American sanctions, Trump has increased the pressure on Iran and made it harder for the regime to fund Hezbollah. Trump’s support helped enable the normalization agreements with the UAE and Bahrain, and perhaps others yet to come. Trump approved the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s “Quds Force.” Soleimani controlled Iranian operations around the world, and especially in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, as well as being active in suppressing internal dissent. His loss was very painful to the regime.
When I watched the debate this morning, with its insults and posturing, I wondered if the Iranian leaders were watching as well. I am sure they were. And I am sure that they are rooting for Biden, who has promised to re-enter the JCPOA, reduce sanctions, and engage in further negotiations with Iran (which made fools of Obama’s negotiating team). Worse, Biden will likely pick up some of the same advisors that guided the Obama Administration. Wendy Sherman and Jake Sullivan may be back talking to the Iranians. And of course Biden supports the failed two-state solution with the Palestinians, which guarantees that there will be no progress and continued terrorism on that front.
But maybe the Iranians are making a mistake. On the one hand, a Trump victory will probably see a continuation of the policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran. In the long term, it may succeed in weakening the regime enough that it can be persuaded to back down on its nuclear weapons project. Israel will continue monitoring Iranian activities and working with its new Arab allies to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran.
On the other hand, if Biden wins it may become clear to Israeli planners that there is a very short window of opportunity to pursue a military solution to the problem of Iranian nukes. Once Biden comes in, any Israeli actions would be off the table, just like in the days of the Obama Administration.
So either Trump wins, or the Iranians should expect a very warm November or December.
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This antisemitism was once, perhaps, an annoyance that could be swept under the rug with claims of academic freedom and diversity. It can’t be anymore. It has become pervasive, institutionalized, and systemic. And it is enforced by brutal means — both physical and psychological. The violence is bold and public, as it is intended to be, and could not possibly be sustained without the open collaboration of students, faculty, and administration. It has become something like a pogrom in slow motion — an intellectual pogrom, perhaps, but a pogrom nonetheless.
Jews have reacted to this in ways that are hardly unprecedented: surrender, apathy or defiance. In other words, they internalize the institutional antisemitism and become activists on its behalf, as have groups like Jewish Voice for Peace. Or they keep their heads down and try to go on with their lives. Or they become activists on behalf of the Jewish people and Zionism, despite the high cost of doing so.
I do not want to demean any one of these groups. We should admire, encourage and support the defiant ones, and reach out to the apathetic ones, but we should not demonize those who surrender. Most of them are young, impressionable, unsure of themselves and their identity, and most importantly vastly outnumbered by forces far more powerful than they are. And those forces are happy to engage in the most debased and sadistic exploitation of that power.
In many ways, the fault is our own. For decades, the Jewish community and Jewish leadership allowed the poison to fester, accepted the excuses of academic freedom and diversity, and left Jewish students to their own devices, which were very few. Until recently, when several organizations have thankfully emerged to address the problem, little attention was being paid to the horrors committed by the “Long Marchers” or the suffering of their Jewish victims. It was we who abandoned those Jews, and it is we who must make amends for it. They were left to face the beast alone, and they can hardly be blamed for sometimes choosing to feed it rather than fight it.
Ironically, however, because of the very emotional and physical violence the “Long Marchers” have used, the mere fact that some Jews have surrendered to antisemitism and anti-Zionism says absolutely nothing about the Jews or Zionism. This is because we do not and cannot know what these Jews really think, or what they would think if they were not subjected to the Long Marchers’ oppression and violence. What a person says under torture cannot be trusted, and what a person thinks while being abused is equally malleable. Should we succeed in rolling back the “Long March” and providing young Jews the freedom to make up their own minds without psychological coercion or physical violence, we would likely be pleasantly surprised. The truth is, we shouldn’t be worrying about the alienation of young Jews. We should be worrying about how to help them fight for that freedom they so desperately need.
AOC initially accepted the group’s invitation to help honor Rabin. However, once that became known, she received an avalanche of criticism from her allies on the intersectional left and immediately backed down. She later claimed that her hosts had misrepresented the nature of the event and withdrew from it.
To the party’s activist base, anything associated with Israel—even a program dedicated to the memory of a man who was assassinated by a right-wing extremist because of his efforts to make peace—is beyond the pale.
BDS supporters smear Rabin, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, as a war criminal because of his service during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence and as Minister of Defense during the First Intifada, when he is supposed to have urged the troops under his command to “break the bones” of those Palestinians committing violence.
Arguments about Rabin’s record are beside the point. Those who, like “The Squad” and their fellow travelers on the left, believe in intersectional canards about the Palestinian war on the Jewish state being morally equivalent to the struggle for civil rights in the United States see all Israelis as alike. If they think the one Jewish state on the planet has a right to exist or defend itself, in the eyes of the BDS movement, they are evil oppressors exercising “white privilege” over “indigenous people,” even if they are persons of color who are indigenous to the land of Israel.
AOC is someone who, as we have repeatedly seen these last two years, doesn’t blink an eye about defying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. That she thought it necessary to acquiesce to the demands of a Twitter mob—led in this instance by an anti-Zionist writer for the far-left Jewish Currents publication—speaks volumes not only about her ideology, but about the disciplined nature of the intersectional left when it comes to policing its adherents with respect to Israel. Her overt snub of liberal Jews sends a loud message that there is no place for them in the party base if they are not willing to renounce support for Israel’s right to exist.
This is yet another wake-up call for Jewish Democrats who may think Biden’s defeat of AOC ally Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ensured that their party is going to remain solidly in the pro-Israel camp. AOC and her allies can no longer be dismissed as noisy non-entities. Unless and until they are explicitly repudiated by Biden, rather than appeased and coddled, they can be forgiven for thinking the future of the Democratic Party belongs to them.
The Independent recently reported on the decision by US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) to back out of an Americans for Peace Now event commemorating Yitzhak Rabin following criticism by anti-Israel activists. The article (“AOC pulls out of memorial event for ex-Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin”, Sept. 27), by Matt Mathers, was notable in that, whilst quoting propagandists like Ali Abunimah agreeing with AOC’s decision, it failed to devote any space to the many voices critical of the New York congresswoman.
The article noted that AOC’s about-face seemed influenced by a tweet by pro-Palestinian voices, such as a contributor to the anti-Zionist Jewish Currents Magazine, who said that, for Palestinians, Rabin is “remembered [for] his brutal rule suppressing Palestinian protest during the First Intifada, [and] someone who reportedly ordered the breaking of Palestinian bones”.
The Indy failed to note, however, the prominent left-wing pro-peace voices who were highly critical of AOC, including officials from Peace Now Israel, the head of J Street, and Rabin’s granddaughter Noa Rothman.
Indeed, the demonisation of Rabin is especially inexplicable to the Israeli left given that the prime minister was murdered by a far-right extremist opposed to his peace efforts, and in fact is one of the few Israeli political figures lionized by those generally critical of the state. Those vilifying Rabin are in effect saying that all Israeli leaders are beyond the moral pale – suggesting that their problem isn’t with any particular Israeli policy or government, but with the country’s very essence.
Ilhan Omar Alleged Voter Fraud Funded by Anti-Israel Arab Businessman
We have been on top of exposing the evils of Ilhan Omar even before she was elected to Congress. It was actually Laura Loomer, the most banned woman on social media turned Congressional candidate, who was on top of exposing Ilhan Omar, and we helped promote Laura's videos exposing her.
Joe Biden, as we see him today, projects the image of a
twinkly-eyed grandfather. Which is a nice cover for the brain
damage, apparent in the nonsensical word jumble issuing forth from his
mouth. Everyone, after all, has senior moments, and loses words from time to
time. With Joe Biden, of course, the senior moments are not occasional. It’s
his regular state of being. It’s more instructive, perhaps, to look at who he
was when he was young and vital.
Looking at old clips of Joe Biden, what comes across is
someone who was/is not a very nice man. Lacking original thoughts of his own, Joe
Biden stole the thoughts of others and claimed them as his own. When caught out,
he said he forgot to attribute the quote just the once, but the fact is the
thievery, the stealing of other statesmen’s words, was systematic. You can see
it in this footage from Dinesh D’Souza:
Even when Joe Biden was capable of stringing words together
so that they made sense, he stole them from other people. Because he didn’t
care whom he stepped on to get ahead. Abuse of power is/was the only game Joe
Biden knows how to play. Especially, it seems, when it comes to Israel.
Witness the famous confrontation between then Senator
Joe Biden and Menachem Begin on June 22, 1982. Biden confronted Israeli
Prime Minister Menachem Begin in his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations
committee, threatening to cut off aid to Israel. Begin saw Biden for the snake
he is and told him off but good:
“Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not
work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of
civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas
chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our
country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our
principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them
again, with or without your aid.”
More recently, Joe Biden made a public statement to the
press upbraiding Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu because SHOCK AND
HORROR: it had been announced that 1600 new homes were to be built for Jews to
live in, in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem.
“I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to
advance planning for new housing units,” Biden said in a statement issued after
he arrived 90 minutes late for a dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.
He said the blueprint for Ramat Shlomo, a religious Jewish
settlement in an area of the West Bank annexed to Jerusalem by Israel,
“undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive
discussions that I’ve had here in Israel.”
But Ramat Shlomo is not a settlement. And it’s not in the
West Bank. It’s an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem. Then
Israeli Housing Minister Eli Yishai received the blame for Joe Biden’s
upbraiding of Netanyahu. But Biden wouldn’t have heard about the housing
project if it hadn’t been for far-left anti-Israel third column, Peace Now. It
was Peace Now that revealed that a Jerusalem municipal committee had approved
plans for 1600 housing units. That revelation was made just as Biden was
arriving in Israel for talks.
Peace Now made it sound as if Israel were breaking the terms
of the building freeze in Judea and Samaria, a measure insisted upon by the
Obama administration, an administration that was never friendly to the idea of
Jews building homes in Jewish indigenous territory. But Ramat Shlomo
is in Jerusalem, not in Judea and Samaria, where Obama had insisted on a
building freeze in preparation for peace talks that never happened.
Joe Biden didn’t have to listen to Peace Now, or accept that
Israel was guilty of wrongdoing. He could have checked the facts. But just as
Joe Biden has no original thoughts of his own and steals the words of
statesmen, claiming them as his own, Joe Biden doesn’t care about right and
wrong when it comes to Israel.
If Joe Biden cared about the truth, about Israel, he would
have checked the facts. He would have discovered that the project approved was for 1600 housing
units to be built in a Jewish Jerusalem neighborhood at some distant point in
the future. But Joe Biden didn’t check the facts. Instead, Joe Biden chose to
see Israel as the bad guy. Because Biden is a bad guy.
Which is part of why Joe Biden was Obama’s vice president.
Biden’s history with Begin made Biden fit to be part of the Obama administration. Cruel
to Israel? Okay, you can play with us.
And one need not doubt whether or not Hillary Clinton was in
on the fun. Back then, in 2010, when Biden expressed his public disapproval
with Netanyahu at Jews daring to build homes in Jerusalem, Hillary Clinton scolded Netanyahu in a phone
conversation, and in public, underscored Biden’s words with her own, “The
announcement of the settlements the very day that the vice president was there
was insulting."
Which of course, is a lie. There was no insult, no announcement of
settlements. There were no new homes being built in Judea and Samaria. Many of my friends, in fact, lost
money on stalled construction of homes in settlements in Judea and Samaria.
They couldn’t add a bathroom or a garage to an existing home, thanks to
Netanyahu’s attempts to appease an unappeasable Obama and his henchmen, Joe Biden
and Hillary Clinton.
These are not nice people and there is every reason to
believe that they hate Israel, and that includes Kamala Harris and anyone else who is working with them. So don’t be fooled by the twinkly-eyed, white-haired grandfather making adorable gaffes from his basement. Joe Biden is
not a nice person and he never was. Not when he was stealing others' words, and not when he was upbraiding two Israeli prime ministers.
Joe Biden doesn't like Israel. He doesn't think Jews have a right to build homes in or live in Jerusalem. He plays dirty with people and with words and he definitely plays dirty with Israel. So if you care about fair play and you love Israel, you most definitely should not vote for Joe Biden.
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Meanwhile, Saeb Erakat and leaders of Palestinian civil society groups met with EU funders in Ramallah to discuss EU laws that prohibit funding NGOs associated with known terror groups. Israeli groups like NGO Monitor have been exposing links between EU-funded NGOs and Palestinian terror groups, which has caused a curtailment of some funding.
Erakat wanted to work with the European NGOs to discuss joint action mechanisms to press the European Union to remove Palestinian political parties from list of terrorist groups, claiming that categorizing groups such as the PFLP as terrorist is a scheme by Zionist lobbies aimed at delegitimizing components of Palestinian society and targeting the Palestinian narrative. He wants to coordinate roles between the PLO and the anti-Israel European NGO funders to influence and change the European financing conditions for Palestinian civil society institutions.
Erakat stressed that he wants the group to reject any labeling of any Palestinian faction as terrorist. Presumably this includes Hamas and Islamic Jihad. He claimed that putting anti-terror conditions on these funds is "political blackmail to destroy the Palestinian national project."
One wonders how kindly the sympathetic EU will be to messages from the PLO that peace is bad and terror groups are legitimate.
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The signing of the Abraham Accords is an incredible achievement for the Trump administration. For the last three and a half years President Trump disregarded all conventional wisdom regarding the Middle East despite warnings from past presidents, State Department officials and diplomats around the world. Many thought that his new policies would end in death and destruction. How did he know what no one else did? How did he see peace when everyone else saw war? The answer lies with a concept called faith-based diplomacy.
President Trump looks at Israel from a biblical point of view. He understands how the base of his voters looks at Israel, and when Bible-believing Christians voted for him, they made it clear that they wanted him to improve relations with Israel. Trump changed the course of America’s policy toward Israel, drastically altering the trajectory set by past presidents. He used the fact that his base was behind him to implement major policy shifts. These shifts were not necessarily politically correct, but they were biblically correct.
Since former president Carter, the US’s Middle East policy had viewed Israel’s “occupation” as responsible for the absence of peace in the Middle East. The PLO’s aggression and refusal to either disavow terrorism or accept Israel’s right to exist were brushed aside. The Obama administration adopted the 1978 Hansell Memorandum, which condemned Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, as US official policy. This State Department document was based on an erroneous interpretation of the Fourth Geneva Convention from 1949 and had no basis in international law. But Obama’s acceptance of it enabled the UN Security Council to pass a resolution criminalizing Jewish communities beyond the 1949 armistice line.
The Trump administration recognized the false narrative, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the administration was replacing the Hansell memo with an accurate assessment of international law. “It is important that we speak the truth when the facts lead us to it. And that’s what we’ve done,” Pompeo announced in January 2020. President Trump’s policies expose the corrupted narrative of his predecessors’ policies toward Iran and Israel.
Trump ended the Obama doctrine on Israel. He stopped blaming Israel for the problems of the Middle East, and he started looking at how to strengthen the alliance between Israel and America. He refocused the story by seeing the situation as it is: that Israel is a small but flourishing democracy amid the hostile Middle East. This shift in perspective has allowed America and Israel to once again work together in harmony.
Entering the phrase “housing demolitions” in the EU’s official site yields a shocking result: 18 of the first documents to appear concern Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank. In other words, 80% of the EU’s reports on this worldwide phenomenon involve a population and an area less that one-tenth of 1% of the world’s population or landmass.
To fully absorb how warped this result is, one must recognize that housing demolitions and evictions are a global phenomenon that is sometimes carried out in accordance with deliberate policies to discriminate against minorities. A report by the EU itself, albeit from 2005, acknowledged widespread discrimination via housing demolitions and evictions within the Union against Gypsy, Roma, and Sinti populations in countries as varied as Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Portugal. These countries do not provide figures on the relative use of this tool between minority and majority groups.
Punitive or discriminatory housing demolition occurs around the world. India accuses Pakistan of the practice in Hindu areas in Pakistan’s Punjab, and Pakistan claims that India does the same to India’s Muslim citizens. Egypt has been criticized for evicting thousands of Bedouin to clear a path for housing projects for Egyptians outside Sinai in the peninsula. The Kurdish government has evicted Sunnis from Kurdish areas, and local newspapers in the US frequently report evictions and demolitions of the homes of minorities in the name of urban renewal. The list of countries that practice housing demolition is almost as long as the list of member states in the UN.
The difference is that one has to dig deep into the EU archives to find any mention of discriminatory housing demolition and evictions anywhere other than in Israel. The EU’s limelight focuses almost exclusively on the Jewish State.
Though the EU always claims it is impartial, a simple Google search demonstrates that this is a falsehood. The search produces long lists of links to pieces on housing demolitions in the West Bank or among the Negev Bedouin — pieces that are churned out by human rights groups supported either directly by the EU, by member states, or both. Thus, Google (and other new media) become tools with which the EU condemns Israel in a blatantly partial and unfair way.
Last Thursday, 24th September, the outgoing Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Palestine and MP for Aberavon, Stephen Kinnock, led a debate in the House of Commons on the issue of “annexation” vis a vis Israel.
Watching the debate, one could be forgiven for assuming that too many of the participants were simply unaware that there were two sides in this decades-old conflict and that the absence of its preferred resolution – i.e. a secure Israeli state alongside a peaceful and viable Palestinian state, is solely down to Israel and its settlements.
The UN is often referred to as the “theatre of the absurd” but last week’s Commons debate was worthy of that title too, thanks to Mr Kinnock and his allies. In Mr Kinnock’s world, the Israel-Palestinian conflict is all about the settlements and only about the settlements. The misrepresentation and obfuscation of facts, the obsessive focus and emphasis on just one of what in reality are many issues that define and contribute to this conflict from BOTH sides, as well as the disregard for historical and more recent international and legal treaties, was and remains a deeply troubling spectacle to have watched. It is simply beyond the bounds of this piece to touch upon all the issues, so its focus is on just some of what Mr Kinnock said, and didn’t say.
Mr Kinnock’s obsession with the settlements deserves some context here. It deserves mention and acknowledgement that the claims of illegality of Israel’s settlements in the disputed territories in Judea and Samaria / the West Bank are highly politicised and ignore previous internationally and legally ratified treaties such as the San Remo Convention and the League of Nations (LoN) Mandate for Palestine. The LoN Mandate for Palestine’s Article 6 testifies to the legality of Jewish settlement in Palestine and Article 80 of the United Nations’ Charter implicitly recognises the Mandate for Palestine, a Mandate which granted Jews the irrevocable right to settle in the area of Palestine, anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. These rights remain and no treaties, agreements or accords since have abrogated them. In fact, even the Oslo accords support construction by either side in areas of Judea and Samaria / the West Bank under their respective administrative control. That said, there are many Israelis, as well as Jews and non-Jewish supporters of Israel in the Diaspora, who are against the settlements and see them as an obstacle to peace. Being against the settlements does not make one anti-Israel. Not at all. Putting aside political charges and those historical treaties and agreements which refute such charges, the settlements ARE an issue in the conflict. But they are not the root cause of the conflict nor the biggest obstacle to peace as Mr Kinnock would like to have us believe. Not by far!
There have been a lot of headlines over the past day about the Columbia College student referendum supporting divesting from Israel.
The vote was meaningless. All it showed is that Israel-haters could get more people to vote than Israel supporters during a time that Jewish students were busy dealing with Jewish holidays. According to Jewish Insider, far less than half the students voted which means that this vote was as self-selecting as a an online (or Twitter) poll.
Not only that, but the language of the question itself was leading and misleading. It was, “Should Columbia University divest its stocks, funds, and endowment from companies that profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s acts towards Palestinians that, according to Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), fall under the United Nations International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.” This implies that Israel is an apartheid state under the UN definition, which it isn't.
“Overall, J Street U [at Columbia] did not support the referendum nor participate in the efforts by SSI and Aryeh to oppose it this fall,” Brit Zak, the chapter president of J Street U, told JI. “The purpose of our group is not to fight BDS on campus but to create a social and political climate for U.S. foreign policy that furthers Palestinian human rights and self-determination.”
Making a deliberate choice not to oppose BDS on campus is tacit support for BDS. It certainly shows that J-Street's official position opposing BDS is worthless.
(h/t Andrew P)
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
This October, the ILPS, its member organizations, country chapters, and allied networks will be launching a month-long campaign of Global Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
As part of the Month of Solidarity, the ILPS will deal with issues such as the recently announced Imperialist/Zionist annexation plan, the history of Israeli colonialism and apartheid, the rejection of agreements of humiliation and “normalization” between Zionism and some Arab countries, the global campaign to return to Palestine, support for the Intifada, the liberation of the Palestinian people, the unified capital of Palestine, the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine and so on.
We are inviting everyone to tune in to the launching of this campaign on OCTOBER 3, 11 PM Melbourne time. Our keynote speaker is no other than Palestinian woman activist Leila Khaled, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
For some reason, no Zionists are trying to "censor" this event. In fact, no one really cares. The problem with Khaled is when respectable institutions give her respect.
Interestingly, San Francisco State University specifically told the organizers of their Khaled webcast not to mention the PFLP, under the pretense that she was speaking in a private capacity, in their attempt to avoid violating US anti-terrorism laws. The ILPS, on the other hand, is proud to trumpet Khaled's active ties to terrorism.
In fact, the webinar registration form starts off with "The International League of Peoples’ Struggles (ILPS) stands in militant solidarity with the Palestinian people," leaving no doubt of their support of terror. To Khaled's fans, her terrorism and her support for violence is a feature, not a bug.
It would be a shame if Zionists would treat this webinar the way that Israel-haters treat pro-Israel events, by disrupting it and putting the organizers on the defensive. But if something like that should happen, it would be amusing to see if the ILPS response would be one that supports free speech.
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We've discussed before the strange phenomenon of so many philosophers through history who were also antisemitic.
It's hard to know why this is, but I pointed out that philosophers often think that they are smarter, better and have more insight into subjects than the dumb masses, and this hubris extends into the idea that they think that anything they come up with must be assumed to be correct.
Brian Leiter is a philosopher and legal scholar who is a Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School and founder and Director of Chicago's Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values. He wrote a pithy post on his blog, which he says is the "world's most popular philosophy blog."
The biggest threat to free speech on campus and academic freedom consistently comes from the pro-Israel interest groups. They are running scared because they realize that far too many of Israel's actions can not withstand public scrutiny.
He's referring to the Leila Khaled incident, of course.
Interestingly, any first year student of logic could see that his second sentence is not at all implied from the first. The idea that not wanting a PFLP terrorist to be honored by a university is somehow really a fear that she is going to say something damning about Israel that we cannot read in the newspaper (or philosophy blog) is absurd and doesn't stand even five seconds of analysis.
Not that his first sentence is true either. There is at least as much of a threat to free speech by the Left. Even Leiter writes about cancel culture which is primarily a Leftist phenomenon. How many campus Middle East Studies departments have hosted Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria? If free speech is the goal, then why is the only speech allowed on most campuses so tilted against Israel?
It is undoubtedly true that Jews living in their ancestral homeland are far more likely to have their speech suppressed on campus than Palestinian terrorists.
Two sentences. The first one has no basis in reality, and the second one does not logically follow the first. That's a pretty bad track record for a philosopher.
Leiter links to an article about the Leila Khaled event from Academe Blog. That article is not as bad, although it incorrectly refers to the incident as "censorship." It isn't.
Censorship is the suppression of speech because it is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient. Yet the objection to Khaled's talk wasn't about the content of her talk, but about her being an objectionable person - inviting an unrepentant terrorist whose support of violence against the innocent has not changed for five decades is as inappropriate as inviting a proud racist or rapist on campus. This is obvious because no one I am aware of objected to the other anti-Israel speakers at that webinar.
Moreover, Khaled has nothing original to say. Her words would have been the same socialist anti-Israel garbage that is said every day among the "woke" - it isn't as offensive as it is boring.
At least the Academe blog has enough intellectual honesty to point out that progressives engage in censorship as well:
For those on the left who demand that tech companies censor speech they think are wrong or offensive, this is a chilling reminder that censorship is a dangerous weapon that can be turned against progressives.
Leiter, with all his philosophy and legal credentials, flattens what could be a nuanced discussion of how different groups try to influence discussion into a very one-dimensional assertion of "Zionists bad."
And for someone who is such an opponent of censorship and advocate of free speech, it is curious that Leiter does not allow comments on his blog. Perhaps he has the fear of truth that he imputes to Zionists.
(h/t Dan P)
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Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday revealed a secret arms depot belonging to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah near Beirut’s International Airport, warning of another catastrophic explosion and calling on the Lebanese people to protest against the terror group and its Iranian sponsors.
“We all saw the terrible explosion at Beirut port last month,” he said in a pre-recorded statement broadcast to UN delegates, referring to August 4’s huge blast that devastated the Lebanese capital.
He pointed to the site of the blast on a map displayed next to his podium. “The explosion happened here. This is the Beirut port. Two hundred people died, thousands of people were injured, and a quarter of a million people were made homeless,” he said.
“Now, here is where the next explosion could take place. Right here. This is the Beirut neighborhood of Janah. It’s right next to the international airport. And here, Hezbollah is keeping a secret arms depot.”
The depot in the city’s Janah neighborhood, the prime minister said, is adjacent to a gas company.
“And it’s embedded in civilian housing here, [and] civilian housing here,” he said, pointing at the map.
He proceeded to display photographs of the entrance of the facility, which he said was a Hezbollah missile factory.
“I say to the people of Janah, you’ve got to act now. You’ve got to protest this. Because if this thing explodes, it’s another tragedy,” Netanyahu said.
“I say to the people of Lebanon, Israel means you no harm. But Iran does. Iran and Hezbollah have deliberately put you and your families in grave danger. And what you should make clear is that what they have done is unacceptable. You should tell them, ‘tear these depots down.’”
Full text of Netanyahu’s address to the 2020 UN General Assembly
Israel’s new ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan on Tuesday claimed the international body was at risk of “losing its right to exist” over its unfair treatment of the Jewish state and predicted it could be defunct by the end of the century.
“The UN is risking the loss of whatever relevance and legitimacy it has left. If the organization can’t take action against the worst regimes and continues to cling to the Palestinian obsession, in 75 years there will be no UN to mark its birthday, because it will simply lose its right to exist,” Erdan wrote in a column for the Israel Hayom daily.
He was referring to the UN’s 75th anniversary, which was marked earlier this month. Israeli leaders have taken a hard line against the UN in recent years, accusing it of disproportionately criticizing Israel while ignoring abuses by other countries.
Erdan, who took up the post in August, lashed the United Nations for turning a blind eye to abuses by Iran, and also singled out the secretary-general, Antonio Gutteres, for omitting mention of Israel’s normalization deals with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in his opening speech at the General Assembly last week.
The UN must “rechart its course” and make room for Israel in its institutions, said Erdan. “I will fight for this with all of my power and I believe that if the UN wants to remain relevant, it must treat Israel fairly and in a balanced way.”
Erdan’s column was published ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the UN General Assembly Tuesday evening.
Seated in the General Assembly hall, Erdan introduced Netanyahu, and in his opening remarks protested what he said was the failure of the UN “to encourage more countries” to follow the leads of the UAE and Bahrain in making peace with Israel. “Most states are missing this opportunity,” Erdan said.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Elder of Ziyon
New York, October 1 - Educational and communal institutions continue to struggle to reach and attract young people, but one such organization has hit on a novel way to engage the youth in the liturgical aspects of Jewish tradition: a prayer book that contains concise the visual imagery of online chat media to convey what the ancient, sometimes abstruse, text means.
