Friday, December 11, 2020
Elder of ZiyonContinuing our tradition of bringing you brand new Chanukah music videos each night of the holiday....
Plus, here is Azi Schwartz singing a number of Chanukah songs to different popular tunes.
Friday, December 11, 2020
From Ian:
Raphael Ahren: A rich Jewish past, and present: Why Israel’s deal with Morocco is so resonant
Raphael Ahren: A rich Jewish past, and present: Why Israel’s deal with Morocco is so resonant
Thursday’s surprise announcement about Morocco agreeing to establish diplomatic relations with Israel was not a Hannukah miracle, as many Israeli politicians gushed when they lit their holiday candles, though the timing was indeed brightly appropriate. Rather, it had been a long time coming, as the North African kingdom has deep cultural and religious ties with the Jewish state, and had long been expected to join the current wave of Arab countries normalizing ties with Israel.Seth Frantzman: Are Morocco-Israel relations a surprise, or natural next step? - analysis
As opposed to Egypt and Jordan, which signed peace treaties with Israel decades ago, and in contrast to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, three Arab nations that normalized relations with Israel this year, Morocco and Israel have a profound and ancient Jewish connection, and the Moroccan Jewish community, though small, still thrives today.
Moroccan Jewry’s origins date back 2,000 years, to the destruction of the Second Temple and exile. In the modern era, the community reached a high of some 250,000 in the early 1940s, when Sultan Mohammed V resisted Nazi pressure for their deportation. Numbers dwindled with the establishment of Israel, and today only some 2,000-3,000 Jews remain, but hundreds of thousands of Israelis are proud of their Moroccan origins. US President Donald Trump’s senior envoy Jared Kushner on Thursday put that number at “over a million.”
The mimouna party, which the community traditionally celebrates right after Passover ends, has become a fixture on the Israeli cultural calendar, with countless people barbequing in parks and politicians rushing to as many mimouna celebrations as possible, eating mufletot and other Jewish-Moroccan delicacies.
While Israeli tourists have begun discovering the Gulf only very recently, they have been flocking to Rabat, Marrakech, Casablanca, Tangiers and Fez via third countries for many years. Once the two countries establish diplomatic relations and open direct air-links, that number can be expected to increase dramatically.
Following the 1995 Oslo Accords, Morocco and Israel opened mutual “liaison offices,” but they were closed a few years later after the Palestinian Second Intifada broke out in 2000.
Both Moroccan King Mohammed VI and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited the long and deep ties binding Morocco and Israel in their statements on the historic agreement.
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump is gambling here because President-elect Joe Biden is supposed to take office in a bit over a month. It’s one thing for the US to push peace, because peace is always good, but recognizing Western Sahara will likely anger Team Biden, which is for preserving some of these international multilateral status quo issues.Moroccan Jews laud peace deal as 'Hanukkah miracle'
The general feeling in the UAE and other states in the region, which have been watching peace deals closely, was that when Trump lost the election, many states would wait on peace. The theory was that had Trump won, then Oman, Qatar, Morocco and other states could follow suit. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised eyebrows when he went to Saudi Arabia in November and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi spoke via video at the Manama Dialogue Conference this year.
However, comments by Saudi Arabia’s Turki al-Faisal, a key figure in the kingdom, were critical of Israel at the Manama conference. Was that due to daylight with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or due to a perceived slight by Ashkenazi? The crown prince of Saudi Arabia has appeared keen on warmer relations with Israel for years but has wanted something in return – and is cognizant of Riyadh’s role in the region, the Saudi initiative, the Iranian threat, the changes in the US and also the position of his father, King Salman. These are complex webs of relations and realities that mean one change can lead to a domino effect that leads to peace with countries like Morocco.
These deals can be tenuous. Israel is supposed to send an agriculture delegation to Sudan, but it wonders if Israel and the US are serious. Abu Dhabi also wants Israel to take the Palestinian issue seriously. Morocco will still want more from Israel on the Palestinian issue and its civil society will pressure the government on this issue.
Nevertheless many things are happening in the region. US B-52s have flown to the region as part of a show of force to Iran. Tehran is building tunnels at its Natanz nuclear facility to hide centrifuges. The US is withdrawing from Somalia and the Senate has not blocked the F-35 sale to the UAE.
It’s almost natural that breaking news from Morocco could mean one more deal before the US administration changes.
President Donald Trump's announcement that Israel and Morocco have agreed to normalize relations may have astounded the world, but the news comes as no surprise to the Jewish community in the north-African country.
"There was a lot of talk about this subject last year," says Kobi Yifrach, an Israeli who has lived in Morocco for the past five years and runs a local museum in Marrakesh.
"There used to be an Israeli Embassy here between 1995 and 2000, and even after that, the relationship between Israel and Morocco remained friendly. Time has finally come to build the relationship [between the two countries]. Until now, it was behind the scenes, and now it's time to bring it to the forefront, with pride and love.
"My Muslims friends have been calling me for hours to congratulate the Jewish community on the announcement," says Jacky Kadosh, leader of the Moroccan Jewish community. "We heard the news immediately after lighting the first Hanukkah candle. It's a Hanukkah miracle."
Ilan Hatuel, an Israeli businessman in Morocco who is close to André Azoulay, senior adviser to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, added that the news was accepted in Morocco with "great excitement."
"The royalty has preserved Jewish history in Morocco for over 500 years. We have worked very hard to reach this moment. From now on, there will be direct flights from Marrakesh to Casablanca and Rabat. The Jewish community is in the seventh heaven, and the Moroccans are very excited too," Hatuel said.
Orin Avraham, a local yeshiva student, also spoke of the joyful celebrations that followed the announcement. "The decision will lead to the strengthening of the Jewish community in Morocco." He added that there is no anti-Semitism in the country, saying that "everyone [in Morocco] says 'hello' to the Jews and loves them.
Friday, December 11, 2020
Elder of Ziyon
As you might expect, they (and similar groups) are a bit unhappy today.
Members of the Moroccan National Working Group to Support the Palestinian People’s Struggle hurried to hold an emergency meeting, immediately after the Royal Court announced the decision to resume official contacts and diplomatic relations with Israel,
The head of the Moroccan Observatory against Normalization, Ahmed Wehman, declared that the National Action Group "categorically rejects any form of normalization with the usurping Zionist entity, which is plotting against Morocco's territorial integrity and social cohesion and is working to break it up on ethnic grounds into 6 entities."
That's a new one!
A 2018 poll showed that 41% of Moroccans favored normalization with Israel - third among Arab countries with no relations at the time, behind Iraq with 43% and the UAE with 42%. Tunisia ranked fourth with 32%, Saudi Arabia behind it with 23% and Algeria with 21%.
- Friday, December 11, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
Remember when Jeremy Corbyn was exposed saying what the problem was with British Zionists?
As related in a Guardian op-ed:
Yesterday the Daily Mail showed footage of Corbyn addressing the [Palestinian Return Centre] conference, on the topic of British Zionists. He mentions an impassioned speech made at a meeting in parliament about the history of Palestine that was “dutifully recorded by the thankfully silent Zionists who were in the audience” (audience members he presumably knew nothing about). So far so bad. But it gets worse. He goes on to say that these unnamed Zionists in the audience “clearly have two problems. One is they don’t want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either … So I think they needed two lessons, which we can perhaps help them with.”
This year, Jeremy Corbyn tweeted Chanukah greetings:
Corbyn, whose hate for Israel and Zionism is uncontested, doesn't seem to know what Chanukah actually celebrates.
 |
| NYT, January 2, 1911 |
Because Chanukah is the most Zionist of holidays, celebrating the recapture of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel by the Jewish people and the defeat of their antisemitic enemies so Jews could rebuild their nation and rededicate their Temple.
Does Corbyn really support that message today?
Apparently, Jeremy Corbyn is the person who has the two problems he claimed British Jews have: he doesn't want to study history and he is clueless how ironic his statement is.
Perhaps we can help him learn those two lessons.
I made a cartoon last night about this:
- Friday, December 11, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
Palestine Today has an article about how some Arabs are extraordinarily upset over seeing Stars of David and Chanukiahs as Facebook wallpaper backgrounds during Chanukah.
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.
Here's what the "offensive" wallpapers look like:
This person called for a boycott of Facebook over these "Zionist" symbols (autotranslation to English)
This one issued a warning to his readers about accidentally promoting the "symbol of Knesset" and Star of David:
The Palestine Today article notes that it is not easy to see the details of the wallpaper and its horrible Jewish symbols until after one posts on Facebook, which causes great embarrassment to the antisemitic posters.
It takes roughly three seconds to edit a post and change the background, but if someone gets a screenshot in the meanwhile, the shame of promoting a Jewish holiday might be too much for some people to stand!
- Friday, December 11, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
Trump Lame Duck Test
The test I proposed to Hen Mazzig to see if Donald Trump would continue to help Israel while a lame duck President (which would indicate his support for Israel is sincere) continues, and I believe I am winning handily.
Israel and Morocco have agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations, US President Donald Trump announced Thursday, marking the fourth Arab-Israel agreement in four months.As part of the announcement, Trump said that the US would recognize Morocco’s claim over the disputed Western Sahara region.As his time in office winds down, Trump said Israel and Morocco would restore diplomatic and other relations, including the immediate opening of liaison offices in Rabat and Tel Aviv and the eventual opening of embassies. US officials said it would also include joint overflight rights for airlines.
A year ago, just the announcement of allowing the overflight rights would have been front page news. Now it is practically a footnote.
Previous rounds:
Can Oman be round 7?
Thursday, December 10, 2020
- Thursday, December 10, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
IfNotNow, Bend the Arc and Jewish Voice for Peace made a very big deal over the second anniversary of the Pittsburgh Tree of Life massacre, October 27.
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.
But were they really mourning for Jews killed in antisemitic attacks, or were they more interested in using these Jewish lives as puppets to attack the Right and Trump?
Based on their tweets from that day, they spent a bit of effort making sure that their message was at least as much about white nationalism and Trump as it was about the actual victims.
But surely they care about the Jewish victims of all hate crimes, don't they?
Sadly, the answer appears to be no.
Today was the first anniversary of the Jersey City shootings at a kosher grocery store, where 3 of the victims were gunned down simply because they were in a Jewish store.
Neither Bend the Arc, nor Jewish Voice for Peace, nor IfNotNow, nor Peter Beinart's Jewish Currents, tweeted a single word about the antisemitic Jersey City shootings.
There is only one reason why: because the murderers were not white nationalists. In fact, they were Black.
These supposedly Jewish groups keep insisting that the only antisemitism that exists comes from white nationalists.
These socialist Left groups care more about pushing their political narrative than they care about Jewish lives. They don't give a DAMN about Leah Mindel Ferencz and Moshe Deutsch, gunned down because they were recognizably Jewish.
And their silence about Jersey City shows that their supposed outrage over the Tree of Life massacre is fake, too. They care as little about the victims in Pittsburgh as they do about the victims in Jersey City. To them the martyrs of the Tree of Life synagogue are nothing more than props for their politics. The victims are merely ammunition for these fake Jews to cynically use to attack anyone who doesn't share their socialist politics.
To these amoral Leftist groups, dead Jews fall into two categories: , whether they are useful or useless to their cause. Either way, they aren't mourning dead Jews - they are using or discarding them based on who their murderers are and if they can leverage the bloody bodies for their sick politics.
It is difficult to overstate how gross this is.
If you care about antisemitism, you care about all victims of antisemitism. The far Left Jewish groups fail that test, miserably.
From Ian:
Arsen Ostrovsky: Religious freedom as a universal message of Hanukkah
Jews are asking for protection from their universities from antisemitism. David Feldman’s ‘All Lives Matter’ response is not helpful
Arsen Ostrovsky: Religious freedom as a universal message of Hanukkah
On Thursday evening, Jews around the world will begin the eight-day celebration of Hanukkah, one of the most beautiful and meaningful holidays in Judaism.Western Wall Hanukkah candle lighting to continue amid COVID-19 pandemic
Although Hanukkah is a uniquely Jewish story, its lessons about the importance of preserving our religious freedom are universal, irrespective of individual faith or background.
The ancient story of Hanukkah itself occurred more than 2,000 years ago, around the 2nd century B.C., when the Jews, led by Judah Maccabee, successfully repelled their Greek-Syrian oppressors, led by the tyrant, Antiochus, who ruled the Land of Israel at the time.
Prior to the rebellion, Antiochus sought to forbid the practice of Judaism, and ordered the Jews to turn instead to the Greek gods and pagan-worship, the very antithesis of the Jewish faith, which gave birth to monotheism. Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicate by email and never miss our top stories
In a miraculous victory against all odds, the Jews fought back, defeating Antiochus’s army—restoring their right to worship, and rededicating the Second Temple in their ancient capital, Jerusalem.
But what does this struggle for religious freedom teach us today?
The lighting of the large hanukkiah (candelabra) by the Western Wall will take place this year on Thursday with a small gathering of rabbis and public figures due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, rabbi of the Western Wall and holy sites Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Jerusalem Affairs Minister Rafi Peretz and Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel will take part in the Hanukkah candle lighting. The event will take place according to Health Ministry guidelines.
Tours of hanukkiot in Jerusalem will also take place throughout the holiday, both in person according to Health Ministry guidelines and online. More details are available at the Western Wall's website or by calling *5958.
It is still unclear if the government will impose new restrictions and what those restrictions could be, so tours and other activities during the holiday may be affected. The government is set to convene on Thursday to discuss tightening restrictions over the Hanukkah holiday.
The lighting of the Hanukkah candles by the Western Wall will be livestreamed Sunday through Thursday on the Western Wall's website, YouTube channel, Facebook and other media platforms.
The bronze hanukkiah used at the Western Wall is two meters high and about two meters wide, weighs about a ton and took about seven months to make. The candles will use olive oil and will be in special wind and rain resistant vessels in order to stay lit throughout the night.
Jews are asking for protection from their universities from antisemitism. David Feldman’s ‘All Lives Matter’ response is not helpful
This is a response to an article by David Feldman, ‘The government should not impose a faulty definition of antisemitism on universities’, published by The Guardian on 2 December 2020. David Hirsh is author of Contemporary Left Antisemitism (Routledge 2018). This opinion piece first appeared at the Engage blog and is reproduced here with thanks to David.CUNY Professors Attempted to Bar Orthodox Jewish Professor from Meeting, Report Says
After recently co-writing a decent article on antisemitism, David Feldman, the Director of Birkbeck’s Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, has now reverted back to the politics that drove his meek complicity with the Chakrabarti whitewash of Labour antisemitism in 2016. And he didn’t even get a seat in the House or Lords.
The Union of Jewish Students and other institutions of the Jewish community, as well as the government’s independent advisor on antisemitism John Mann, have been campaigning for universities to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism. They say that the adoption of IHRA would give Jewish students and members of staff some confidence that they could hope for protection if they experienced antisemitism on campus.
And such antisemitism is commonplace in UK universities. Last week I was contacted by a student whose lecturer taught that IHRA was a pretext to silence criticism of Israel and by another whose Masters dissertation was failed because she wrote in the ‘wrong’ framework about Israel and Palestine. This kind of antisemitism is harder to sustain in institutions which have adopted IHRA.
In the Guardian article, Feldman characterises the universities which make a point of not allowing IHRA to be part of their official armoury against antisemitism as ‘refusenik’.
The refuseniks were overwhelmingly Jews in the Soviet Union who were refused permission to go to Israel, although there were others too who were refused permission to leave. They were denounced as Zionist agents of imperialism, they were purged from their jobs, they were deported to Siberia, they were imprisoned, murdered and tortured. The refuseniks were victims of antisemitism at the hands of a totalitarian state which called itself ‘Marxist’ and which demonised Zionism as the enemy of mankind.
Feldman turns this upside down. Today, for him, the refuseniks are the ideological descendants not of the Soviet Jews but of their oppressors, the apparatchiks and Party men who denounced Jews as particularist, pro-apartheid and privileged.
The New York Post has obtained a report providing evidence that a group of progressive professors at the City University of New York’s (CUNY) Kingsborough Community College (KCC) attempted to bar an Orthodox Jewish professor from attending one of their meetings.
The December 7 Post report stated that the Orthodox Jewish professor and head of KCC’s department of business, Jeffrey Lax, filed a complaint in March 2018 claiming that the Progressive Faculty Caucus (PFC) on campus intentionally scheduled a meeting during Shabbat so Lax would be unable to attend. The KCC proceeded to hire the Jackson Lewis law firm to investigate the matter and produced a report in June; it is this report that the Post obtained.
According to the Post, three witnesses said in the report that the PFC attempted to schedule the meeting during Shabbat because Lax tended to be critical of the PFC during these meetings. The PFC also disliked Lax because, according to a witness in the report, “he was pro-Trump, pro-Israel, he’s a Zionist, conservative American,” although he does have some progressive stances on social issues.
“Although the primary objective was to exclude Lax, the PFC’s decision to schedule the meeting at a time that [Lax] could not attend due to his religious observance had the potential of creating a disparate impact on other Jewish faculty who observe the sabbath who wanted to attend the PFC meeting,” the report stated. “Allegations that respondents discriminated against them based on their religion can be substantiated in part…Observance of the Jewish Sabbath was at least part of the reason for the PFC to schedule a meeting on a Friday night.”
Ultimately, the meeting was canceled following backlash over the matter.
- Thursday, December 10, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
Here's an original song and tune for Chanukah from Daveed Diggs, for Disney.
And here is a Chanukah song just released today in Israel with Bibi himself singing with Eden Ban Zaken!
- Thursday, December 10, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.
Check out their Facebook page.
Boston, December 10 - A Massachusetts silversmith admitted chagrin today following an incident last night in which he misinterpreted a Jewish festival ritual as a signal that he must warn fellow patriots of the route, destination, and purpose of an incoming British body of troops.
Paul Revere, 41, of this seaside colonial city, acknowledged this morning that he caught sight of Chabad of Boston's candelabrum from his window Thursday evening and mistook the flames for a prearranged sign from a lookout that Redcoats had begun boarding vessels to take them up part of the Mystic River, as opposed to route that followed only roads. Only this morning did Revere discover he had erred, and that the two flames he espied came not from the North Church overlooking the harbor, but the Chabad House menorah and the two candles that Jews kindle on the first night of Hanukkah - one to mark the first night and the other as an auxiliary flame.
"Oops," he muttered. "Awkward."
Chabad House Rabbi Mendel Kahan chuckled at the confusion his ritual had sparked. "Wouldn't be the first time people have confused some Lubavitch activities with Christian institutions," he observed with a wry smile, referring to a prominent sect of the movement that maintains the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, that last leader of the movement, who died in 1994, is the Jewish Messiah.
Colonist espionage efforts include an elaborate messaging system to alert inland strongholds of impending British military action, in this case a move against a significant stockpile of militia weapons and ammunition at the town of Concord, and including an effort to apprehend separatist leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock. The candlelight signal - "one if by land, two if by sea," i.e. the river - is designed to set off a chain of couriers to sound the alarm throughout the Massachusetts colony, summoning thousands of volunteers to grab their muskets and converge on the anticipated battle sites. A chagrined Revere confessed to reporters Thursday morning that his reaction was unjustified and careless, and that he vowed to apply a better sense of topography and geography henceforth.
"I also hope I didn't prickle any British Army regular intelligence antennae," he allowed with a sheepish grin. "If the wrong people become aware of this alert system we have in place, a few well-placed roadblocks could foil the whole operation. I could get arrested and interrogated, and that might compromise everything I've worked for."
From Ian:
Israel, Morocco Agree to Normalize Relations in Latest US-Brokered Deal
Trump Administration Plans to Release List of BDS Groups
Israel, Morocco Agree to Normalize Relations in Latest US-Brokered Deal
Israel and Morocco agreed on Thursday to normalize relations in a deal brokered with the help of the United States, making Morocco the fourth Arab country to set aside hostilities with Israel in the past four months.
As part of the agreement, US President Donald Trump agreed to recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara, where there has been a decades-old territorial dispute with Morocco pitted against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, a breakaway movement that seeks to establish an independent state in the territory.
Trump sealed the agreement in a phone call on Thursday with Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, a senior US official said.
Morocco is the fourth country since August to strike a deal aimed at normalizing relations with Israel. The others were the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
Under the agreement, Morocco will establish full diplomatic relations and resume official contacts with Israel, grant overflights and also direct flights to and from Israel for all Israelis.
“They are going reopen their liaison offices in Rabat and Tel Aviv immediately with the intention to open embassies. And they are going to promote economic cooperation between Israeli and Moroccan companies,” White House senior adviser Jared Kushner told Reuters.
“Today the administration has achieved another historic milestone. President Trump has brokered a peace agreement between Morocco and Israel — the fourth such agreement between Israel and an Arab/Muslim nation in four months.
Another HISTORIC breakthrough today! Our two GREAT friends Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco have agreed to full diplomatic relations – a massive breakthrough for peace in the Middle East!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2020
Trump Administration Plans to Release List of BDS Groups
The Trump administration plans to release a list of organizations that support the anti-Israel BDS movement, a senior Trump administration official told JNS.Norwegian Parliament Endorses Cutting Aid to Palestinians Over Antisemitism and Incitement in Educational Materials
The groups are still in the works and being decided this month, according to the official.
The move follows US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement last month in Israel that America would withdraw funding from groups that support the BDS movement, which he called “anti-Semitic.”
In a statement released by the State Department afterwards, Pompeo said he has instructed the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, led by Elan Carr, “to identify organizations that engage in, or otherwise support, the Global BDS Campaign” in which Carr’s office “will consider whether an organization is engaged in actions that are politically motivated and are intended to penalize, or otherwise limit, commercial relations specifically with Israel or persons doing business in Israel or in any territory controlled by Israel.”
He continued: “To ensure that department funds are not spent in a manner that is inconsistent with our government’s commitment to combat anti-Semitism, the State Department will review the use of its funds to confirm that they are not supporting the Global BDS Campaign. Furthermore, the State Department will conduct a review of options consistent with applicable law to ensure that its foreign assistance funding is not provided to foreign organizations engaged in anti-Semitic BDS activities.”
The Norwegian parliament has endorsed cuts in aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in response to racism, antisemitism and incitement to violence in Palestinian educational materials.
The cuts would amount to 30 million Norwegian krone, equivalent to $3.4 million.
The Progress Party led the push to cut the aid funds, with MP Himanshu Gulati saying, “Not a single krone should go to Palestinian education until this is clarified and they have stopped” using educational materials containing hate speech.
He added that he “regrets that it has taken us so many years to take a strict line against these things. It is very good that it is now happening.”
MP Sylvia Listhaug, deputy leader of the Progress Party, said, “The Palestinian school curriculum abounds with calls for violence and hatred against Israel and for martyrdom to be glorified. It is quite clear that Norway cannot support this, therefore we want to cut this item.”
Foreign Affairs Committee member MP Geir Toskedal of the Christian Democrats remarked, “We have long been uneasy about both textbooks and teaching programs in the Palestinian territories. It is very important that the school focuses on peace and cooperation.”
- Thursday, December 10, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
UNRWA tweeted:
Palestine refugees did not choose to be refugees.
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) December 7, 2020
Until a just and durable solution to their plight is found, 5.7 million #PalestineRefugeesAtRisk will continue to need access to health care, education, protection and emergency assistance.
UNRWA must be there to provide it. pic.twitter.com/H48TWmuBEF
There are a lot of layers of propaganda in this short tweet.
"Palestine refugees did not choose to be refugees."
And the reason many of them are stateless today is because of Arab bigotry against them - and UNRWA helps keep that status quo in place by its very existence.
"Until a just and durable solution to their plight is found..."
UNRWA tells its dependents that the only solution is for them to "return" to Israel. Even the ones with Jordanian or Palestinian citizenship. Which means UNRWA will continue to exist as long as a Jewish state exists.
"5.7 million #PalestineRefugeesAtRisk"
How did 650,000 displaced Arabs become 5.7 million "refugees"? Because UNRWA is a self-perpetuating bureaucracy that has no rules to take anyone off the "refugee" rolls - ever. And no one in the UN is pressuring Arab nations to naturalize Palestinian residents who would love to become full citizens of the nations they were born in.
"will continue to need access to health care, education, protection and emergency assistance. "
Comparing UNRWA's and UNHCR's work is always enlightening.
UNHCR protects over 20 million actual refugees and tens of millions of other internally displaced and stateless people who do not fit the definition of refugee.
Those millions of people also need health care, education and protection. But UNHCR doesn't run a network of schools or medical centers like UNRWA does.
It partners with governments and NGOs to coordinate and provide services.
UNRWA gives Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority an excuse to avoid their national responsibilities of providing services towards non-citizen residents. So instead of helping the so-called refugees, UNRWA hurts them by keeping them in limbo - and not lifting a finger to help find a permanent solution.
"UNRWA must be there to provide it.."
- Thursday, December 10, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
48 delegates from the European Union visited Gaza yesterday for a short time, meeting with "civil society" organizations.
In the press conference held by the delegation before they left, the representative of the European Union in the Palestinian Territories, Sven Kohn von Burgsdorf, said, "We are here for two reasons. The first is to show solidarity with the Gaza Strip after 13 years of siege, to identify its problems and provide it with all support in the name of the European Union." .
The second reason is to provide support for fighting COVID-19 and to ensure that Gazans have access to a vaccine.
According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, since last March, the number of COVID-19 cases is over 26,000, including 169 deaths.
It is unclear whether the Palestinian Authority will provide adequate numbers of vaccines to Gaza. They have withheld medicine and medical equipment over the past decade.
The delegation did not meet Hamas, which welcomed the visit. Not that they don't want to. Sources told Safa news that the Europeans didn't want to stir controversy by meeting with Hamas or other terror groups.
The only government official to meet the delegation was the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, Yusef Abu Al-Rish, to speak about the health situation.
On previous occasions, EU representatives have met with Hamas, but they preferred that the meetings are informal and away from the media. Sometimes they speak to Hamas through intermediaries.
The only EU countries that meet directly with Hamas are Switzerland and Norway.
- Thursday, December 10, 2020
- Elder of Ziyon
Amnesty International has spent untold thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of time to attack Airbnb because that company decided not to discriminate against Jews in Judea and Samaria.
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.
Today, Amnesty issued yet another press release attacking Airbnb, this one right before its public offering at Nasdaq. The excuse they used for this was that Airbnb didn't include the reputational risk of allowing Jews to rent out properties - according to the so-called human rights group, only Arabs should be allowed to host Airbnb.
How many other corporations does Amnesty attack?
Outside of arms manufacturers, and mining/energy companies, I found very few, certainly none with the zeal that Amnesty has attacked Airbnb.
Specifically, Amnesty has never investigated the manufacturers of cranes that Iran uses to hang gays.
Other groups have, as far back as 2010. They publicized the names of the manufacturers and contacted them. As a result, some crane manufacturers stopped selling equipment to Iran.
But Amnesty has been silent.
And Amnesty is even aware of these campaigns - it mentioned one of them in their death penalty report of 2011. Yet it decided not to use its power to go after the remaining crane manufacturers who sell in Iran, including Atlas.
Why would Amnesty decide to incessantly attack a company like Airbnb with no connection to any human rights violations and ignore the companies whose names are literally on weapons of murder?
Because when it comes to Israel, the rules are completely different than in the rest of the world.
Wednesday, December 09, 2020
From Ian:
Natan Sharansky’s real-life Hanukkah fairy tale - opinion
Natan Sharansky’s real-life Hanukkah fairy tale - opinion
Sharansky’s story counters the lie our foes – and some fellow Jews – peddle about Judaism, Israel and Zionism today. Those who claim that Judaism is “just” a religion have to acknowledge the power of peoplehood, of national pride, that courses through that story, just as those secular types who say the religion is meaningless, should admit the tale’s spiritual, theological magic.Remembering Hanukkah 1917 and the Liberation of Jerusalem
In fact, the entire holiday refutes all these false choices. Try telling the Hanukkah story without any religious dimension, or while pretending the Jews are not a people with a national consciousness, or while claiming we have no ties to the land. The fight was about our freedom of religion. The Maccabees were nationalist warriors. And the Temple that had to be purified was in Jerusalem in Eretz Israel, the land yearning to be liberated.
Similarly, try telling the Hanukkah story as an either-or fanatic, choosing only freedom or only identity, only liberalism or only nationalism. Hanukkah reminds us that we need freedom just as we need the air we breathe; it represents the world of possibilities and open doors. But we also need our own particular identity, just as we need the substantive food that sustains us, just as we need guardrails and milestones, maps and a sense of mission, in the journey of life once the doors swing open.
And through it all, we feel blessed by that sense of Jewish national consciousness, that Zionist sense of peoplehood, that reminds us that wherever we are, whatever challenges we face, when we are part of this amazing network called the Jewish people we are never alone.
NATAN TOLD his story as we filmed an episode of “Drinking with Adam” (Bellos) for Wine on the Vine. I noted how remarkable it is that despite my never having suffered, spending the 1980s studying history at Harvard, and Natan’s having spent much of the ’80s suffering in the gulag, we remain ideologically on the same page.
Natan wondered: “Who really suffered most?” He quipped: “In the gulag, I had moral clarity; at Harvard, there was moral confusion.”
How sad that our universities so often fail to stand for moral clarity – or for open, critical inquiry. And how unnerving that the problems transcend partisanship, as cancel culture on the far Left oddly parallels the bullying totalitarianism of the far Right.
But how lucky we Jews are to have this holiday of freedom, along with freedom fighters in our own lives who stand up for personal liberty, for national identity, for the constructive, creative confusion of both – and against the false choices so many wish to impose on us. Happy Hanukkah.
On December 9, 1917, British forces accepted the Turkish surrender of Jerusalem. Two days later, British forces officially entered the walls of the city.Germany sorry for snubbing Aboriginal protest at persecution of Jews
As the world was engulfed in brutal armed conflict of an unprecedented scope, fighting raged in the Holy Land between Allied troops and the Ottoman-Turks (allied with the Central Powers) who had ruled the land for most of the past 400 years. On October 30, the strategic city of Be’er Sheva fell to the allies who then drove towards Jerusalem.
A London dispatch, on November 24, reported that the mosque containing the tomb of the prophet Samuel was bombarded. The ancient site of Mitzpeh, 5,000 yards west of the Jerusalem-Nablus road, was stormed by the British. The major battle for Jerusalem was in full swing. British cavalry ferociously fought their way into Jerusalem.
On December 11, the second day of Hanukkah, British troops marched into Jerusalem. British commander General Edmund Allenby respectfully entered its walls by foot through the Jaffa Gate.
Excited crowds lined Jerusalem’s streets to welcome the city’s liberators. Their very presence signified an end to the terrible suffering the people of Jerusalem had endured during the war.
One British officer described his entry into Jerusalem and the reception by its residents this way: “Swarms of children, Arab, Jew, and Christian, ran with us as we marched along, and the populace clamored to any point of vantage, waving and clapping their hands, cheering and singing. Jews clad in European dress came running up, singled out any one of us, wrung him by the hand, and — talking excitedly in broken English — said that they, the people of Jerusalem, had been waiting for … two and a half years.”
The German government has officially apologised after its consulate in Melbourne refused 82 years ago to accept a letter of protest from the Australian Aborigines' League about the Nazi persecution of the Jews.
On Sunday Felix Klein – the Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Anti-Semitism – issued the historic apology via video link on behalf of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government.
The apology was screened at an event marking the anniversary of the 1938 delegation of the Australian Aborigines’ League – led by Aboriginal spokesman William Cooper [Yad Vashem] – to the German consulate in Melbourne.
According to The Argus newspaper, the delegation wanted to convey a resolution voicing "on behalf of Aborigines of Australia, a strong protest at the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government of Germany, and ask that this persecution is brought to an end".
The Australian Aborigines' League, which used Mr Cooper's home in Footscray as its meeting place, drew a parallel between the treatment of Aboriginal people and a pogrom against Jews carried out by the paramilitary wing of the Nazis on November 9-10, 1938, that became known as Kristallnacht.
The league felt moved to protest at the violence from the other side of the world, and a delegation walked from Footscray to the German consulate in Melbourne on December 6, 1938.
But the consulate refused to admit the delegation.
"Officially, on behalf of the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, we are sorry that the 1938 Consul General in Melbourne would not accept the letter of the Australian Aborigines' League, nor forward it onto the political leadership here in Berlin as would have been the right and morally correct thing for a consulate official to do," Dr Klein said on Sunday.
Yorta Yorta activist and educator Lois Peeler said she was happy to accept the apology on behalf of her people.
"It’s a long time coming but we accept the apology," she said.
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