Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 15, 2021

The story that the media ignores: Palestinian leaders are against even being friendly with Jews

The New York Times published a feel-good story about how the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem has a program where ten year old religious Jewish kids play and learn along with ten year old Arabs who live in east Jerusalem.

As is often the case with the mainstream media, the real story is in what they choose not to report.

For the most part, Israeli Jews have always thirsted to be friends with their Arab neighbors, across the street and across the Middle East. There have been many such programs in Israel, some homegrown and some financed by the EU or the US - sports programs, support groups. scientific programs.

The Palestinians have always been dead-set against these programs. They regard them with the worst possible insult: "normalization."

Over this past weekend, there was an conference held by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean. Because Israel sent a delegation, the Algerian delegation quit the conference.

Palestinian groups praised the Algerians, saying, "Confronting normalization in all its forms is a moral, Arab and religious duty." Palestinian officials joined in.

Also this past weekend, there was a forum against normalization with Israel with participants from across the Arab world. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the PLO Central Council who is considered a moderate, said, "Normalization constitutes a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people."

Palestinians are planning later this month the " the first international conference to resist normalization with the Israeli occupation."

For years, the Palestinian leadership has been against any of the peace programs exactly as described by the New York Times - because they are "normalization."

Palestinian schools - including those operated by UNRWA - refused to participate in the "Seeds of Peace" program, a program that now-President Biden has endorsed. The reason? Because any joint Israeli-Palestinian project, unless it is designed to eventually destroy Israel, is considered "normalization."

And normalization translates to humiliation and shame, in Palestinian-speak.

Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah organization is against any sort of Palestinian/Israeli peace program. Yet it is funded by the EU.

There are numerous examples of how even the thought of friendship between Palestinians and Jews is anathema to most Palestinians.

The only people who oppose programs like the Bible Lands Museum's are Palestinians and their supporters. That is the real story - and it is a story that is rarely broached by the mainstream media.

Here's another news story that would have been literally unthinkable eight months ago.

From The Daily Tribune (Bahrain):

As Jewish life continues to flourish and grow in the Gulf, a first-of-its-kind association has been formed to boost their development.

On Monday, local Jewish communities from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar announced they had come together to form the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities (AGJC).

The AGJC is a network of Jewish communities from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries who are developing Jewish life in the region. While each community is independent, they share a common goal and vision: for Jewish life in the GCC to flourish for the benefit of both residents and visitors.

The organization includes Jews in countries that have no formal relations with Israel.

The webpage of the AGJC includes things we never thought we'd see:

Even though only two of the Jewish communities listed are from countries that have formal relations with Israel, none of this would be possible without the Abraham Accords - just another indication of the huge impact made by peace between Israel and the UAE/Bahrain.

The story is being reported in Arab media without any negative or antisemitic overtones - again, something that would be virtually unthinkable not long ago.

Stop Palestinian children being recruited as soldiers

Meet Anas and Saad Al-Skafi. They were twins who fought for Islamic Jihad.

Their obituaries on the Islamic Jihad military wing website today. You can see that they were born on December 5, 1996 - and they died on July 20, 2014.

Which means they were 17 years old.

They are only two of the child soldiers that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah routinely use. As recently as last month a 17 year old was killed as he attempted to stab an IDF soldier

There are dozens of examples of children who have been recruited to attack Israelis or to fight in Gaza terror armies.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad openly brag about their summer camp paramilitary programs.

This week is the second annual Palestinian Child Soldiers week, where petitions are sent to human rights groups to raise awareness on this illegal practice. As the PCS Week literature says:

● According to the 2007 Paris Principles, any use of minors (17 years of age or younger) in any military endeavours, by state or non-state actors, is rejected by the international community and is immoral. For decades, Palestinian minors have been used in varying military capacities, by groups that includes but is not limited to the PLO, Hamas, PFLP, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The military positions that have been held include but are not limited to: combat soldiers, suicide bombers, terrorists, military tunnel diggers, mules for IEDs and munitions, human shields, frontline skirmishers in mass organized riots, couriers of messages, and spies and lookouts.
● The goal of PCS Week is to bring awareness to and end the use of Palestinian minors in militancy. For decades, the systemic issue has been ignored or brushed off as unrelated individual incidents. Without pressure or consequences for using this practice, systemic Palestinian child militancy has flourished.

● The Coalition to Save Palestinian Child Soldiers calls upon UNICEF to demand that Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PLO, and PFLP to operate in accordance with the 2007 Paris Principles, and end the systemic use of Palestinian children in military efforts of any type.

You can send a letter to UNICEF at the site.

Cartoon of the Day: What would Ruffalo do?

02/14 Links: David Collier: Lies and more lies. PSC and the viral BDS fake news circus; Wanted: Christians to declare to the World Council of Churches 'not in our name'!

From Ian:

David Collier: Lies and more lies. PSC and the viral BDS fake news circus

I am just coming to the end of a project that has taken almost a year and had promised myself that I would not get distracted in the final stretch. But when this week highlighted just how badly anti-Israel activism is dependant on fake news and lies, I decided to take a slight detour to share it with you.

Divestment and the lies of BDS
The boycott movement against Israel is a complete failure. Israel’s hi-tech economy is booming (Covvid aside – tourism was booming too) and BDS has nothing to show for 16 years of effort but a few activists taking selfies next to avocados on a supermarket shelf.

Sure, in confined political student circles, 14 students can force through a pro-BDS vote whilst the 22000 non politically active students on campus are busy with their actual studies, but in the real world – all of these students use Israeli hi-tech to communicate with each other.

BDS is a noise that spreads antisemitism, demonises Zionism, and hurts Jews in the diaspora but it doesn’t actually do damage to Israel. Worse than this, where it does have some effect, it just ends up hurting Palestinians.

Because of this failure, what the BDS movement is forced to do is engage an absurd fake news strategy – any divestment of any Israeli stock or product for any reason – is promoted as a BDS victory.

For example – even when a football club changes kit supplier – something they all do every few years- if it is the brand of kit used by the Israeli team – BDS will falsely claim it is a ‘divestment’. In the end, the embarrassed club can even be forced to issue a statement rejecting the claim. This happened to Luton Town FC just last year. Think for a while how pathetic this all is.

And if the evidence is not even there, they make it all up anyway. BDS and toxic organisations such as the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign just love to spread lies. It is all they have.

The latest PSC fiction
This week provided a perfect example. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign ran with a story that the East Sussex Pension fund had divested from Elbit, a successful Israeli arms company.

The news went around. The official BDS movement bragged about it, the thugs at Palestine Action sang about it, and Middle East Monitor wrote an article in celebration.

Ben Jamal, the hapless director of the PSC followed suit. Incredibly, an industry magazine, ‘Pensions Age‘ ran with the story too, in an article written by Jack Gray, their Brighton-based ‘News Editor‘.

Except of course the story is simply not true.

Christian Post: Wanted: Christians to declare to the World Council of Churches 'not in our name'!

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has put on its theological anti-Semitic brass knuckles in its long-standing war against the Jewish State. The time has come for Christians to declare “Not in our name.” For their good, more than ours.

Rev. Frank Chikane, moderator of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, lost no time in a recent Zoom call to ask Christianity to revert to its worst medieval Jew-hatred. For those who will not work towards delegitimizing the entire system (aka the State of Israel) that facilitates daily “brutality” against Palestinians, he intoned a curse, “The blood of the people of Palestine will be upon them.” This was an obvious reference to Matthew’s “His blood be upon us and on our children!” These words were used for centuries to prop up the charge that it was specifically Jewish sin – not the sins of all humanity – that caused the Crucifixion. That charge of deicide was the most important source of violence against Jews, persisting till today. Rev. Chikane is not concerned that his words might inspire violence, since he regards the potential targets not as human but as “demons,” the same demons responsible for apartheid in his South Africa. And it’s worse this time, he said, because these demons have invited other demons to make the Palestinian struggle more difficult.

“Every day people get killed” – a blatant fabrication, unless he means those who are stopped in their attempt to thrust knives into Israeli civilians. He had not a single syllable of criticism for those, nor the ones who try lobbing rockets into Israeli kindergartens.

Rev. Chikane didn’t invent the WCC’s anti-Israel policy, he just upgraded and supercharged it with New Testament imagery. Just three years after Auschwitz, the WCC – which claims 500 million Christians in its affiliates – chose not support the establishment of the Jewish State in 1948, warning instead that its political complexity might invite more global anti-Semitism. In the decades since then, they have strived mightily to convert their analysis into prophecy. It’s reaction to the Jewish state’s astounding Six Day War in 1967, when it defeated surrounding armies whose announced intention was to drive the Jews into the sea, was to blame Israel for the immediate threat of annihilation by its neighbors, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Israel was faulted for allegedly inspiring the fears of its neighbors because of Israel’s “dynamism and possible expansion.” If those darn Jews hadn’t been so successful in nation-building, their neighbors wouldn’t have to murder them…

New report by human-rights group responds to anti-Israeli bias perpetuated at UNHRC

Geneva-based independent human-rights group UN Watch published a detailed report in advance of the 46th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is scheduled to open this month on Feb. 22 in Geneva and run until March 23. The study debunks more than 20 different major accusations leveled by numerous different countries—accusing Israel of violating Palestinians’ religious freedom, damaging their health and practicing racism.

In its first-ever report that thoroughly fact-checked and responded to the UNHRC’s anti-Israel claims, UN Watch released its 58-page “Agenda Item 7: Country Claims & UN Watch Responses” examining 23 accusations made by various countries under Agenda Item 7 against Israel in the period covering the six UNHRC sessions held in 2019 and 2020.

According to report researcher and writer Dina Rovner, legal adviser of UN Watch, the paper sets the record straight regarding distorted statements, including: “Israel hinders the Palestinian fight against COVID-19;” “Israel has occupied Palestinian territory for 70 years;” “Israel commits apartheid against the Palestinians;” “Israel damages Palestinian holy sites” and “Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal.”

“The truth is very different from what is being put on the record at the United Nations,” she told JNS. “When Israel is accused of hindering the Palestinian fight against COVID-19, it is actually helping and coordinating with the Palestinians. When Israel is accused of violating the rights of Syrians on the Golan, the opposite is the case—the Golan Syrians have more rights and freedoms than their counterparts in Syria, and are flourishing economically. Israel damages Palestinian holy sites? No. History shows that only under Israeli control are the holy sites of Jews, Muslims and Christians fully protected.”

According to Hillel Neuer, UN Watch executive director and editor of the report (with contributions from managing editor of UN Watch Simon Plosker), it is being sent to all U.N. ambassadors in New York and Geneva “to make clear to all delegates who tell lies that, from now on, their countries will be called out by name before the international community and refuted with the facts.”

UN Watch has also submitted several written statements that will be circulated to delegates as official U.N. documents of the session, calling out the lie that Israel’s vaccination campaign—one of the best-run in the world—is “racist”; exposing UNRWA teachers’ incitement to terrorism and anti-Semitism; and documenting the Palestinians’ illegal use of child soldiers.

.@UNRWA contradicts itself on what a "refugee" is in a single slide

UNRWA tweeted out a series of slides about what they call "Palestine refugees."

The main slide shows how UNRWA lies.

The first paragraph is the UNRWA definition of "Palestine refugees," not the actual definition of "refugees" which is defined by the Refugee Convention and is universally accepted as the only definition of refugee. But let's leave that aside for now and assume that the first paragraph is an accurate definition of what UNRWA calls "Palestine refugees."

The second paragraph goes on to say that UNRWA provides services to people who meet the definition and who register. "Palestine refugees" who moved to the Gulf or Europe might still be considered "refugees" but they are not eligible for services since they live outside areas that UNRWA operates.

It says that in order to receive UNRWA services one must fulfill three conditions: meet the definition, register with UNRWA and show need for assistance.

(This is false too - UNRWA never did a census of who was an actual refugee, and it provided services to whoever said they were refugees. Beyond that, there are hundreds of thousands of "registered Palestine refugees" in Lebanon who have moved out of Lebanon and yet UNRWA still counts them. But again, we'll leave that for now.)

Then it says that descendants are also eligible for registration.

At this point, someone reading this would think that descendants aren't considered refugees themselves - because they clearly do not meet the definition in the first paragraph - but UNRWA provides services to them as well as actual, defined refugees. The last sentence in paragraph 2 supports this interpretation.

But then the final, highlighted paragraph contradicts everything said beforehand. Suddenly, the descendants are considered "refugees" themselves - even though they do not meet any definition of refugee!

The number of refugees according to the definition can only decrease - through death, through becoming self-sufficient or seemingly from becoming citizens of other countries.

Yet UNRWA is saying that the number of "refugees" has grown by a factor of over seven - and it can only increase!

This one slide shows how UNRWA lies, with its own words, by changing the definition of "refugee" at their whim, whichever one will get them more money and sympathy.

Here we have proof positive that the agency is built on lies, and continues the lies to this very day.

Last week, there were more articles claiming that Israel is withholding vaccines from Palestinians.

None of them mentioned whether Palestinian health authorities actually requested vaccines.

Because when they do, Israel complies. As it should under the Geneva Conventions.

Walla today reports that the Palestinian Authority requested that Israel transfer tens of thousands of vaccines and it is expected to be approved:

Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi and Defense Minister Bnei Gantz are expected to approve in the coming days a request submitted by the Palestinian Authority for the transfer of tens of thousands of vaccine doses to the Gaza Strip.

According to senior IDF officers, thousands of doses have so far been transferred. Now, the request that was sent to Israel a few days ago refers to vaccines that the Palestinian Authority purchased with its own money or vaccines that it received as a donation from the World Health Organization, the European Union and Russia.

"Israel has approved and assisted in the various waves of the corona to transfer medical equipment to hospitals in the Strip," said senior officers involved in the details. They added that "corona vaccines are no different from regular drug or flu vaccines."

Last week, Israel provided vaccines for hundreds of Palestinian workers in another little-reported story.

Poor antisemitic James Zogby

James Zogby whines:

I’ve been a victim of this sick conflation of criticizing Israeli policy w/ antiSemitism. I’ve condemned antiSemitism here & at forums in the ME. Still, Foxman called me antiSemitic cuz I’m Arab American & opposed Israel’s cruel occupation. He tried to block my presidential app’t
— James J. Zogby (@jjz1600) February 12, 2021

Here is a video of Zogby speaking to Jordanian state television saying that American Jews "define themselves as more intelligent than we, more competent than we, more able to win than we [Arab Americans.] ...We have broken through that myth. we have shown that Arab Americans are every bit as intelligent as Jewish Americans, every bit as competent as Jewish Americans. every but as able to win at politics as as Jewish Americans. ...Today they have control of the Hill. But even their control of Capitol Hill is rather flimsy. hey have big money that they spend and have fear on their side. Some politicians are afraid of them, but while they have fear on their side we have friends on our side. ...We are breaking through the fear that they have used to control the Hill for too many years."

Not once did he use the word "Zionists."

This is pure antisemitism about American Jews controlling politics by instilling fear into politicians who are afraid of Jewish money being used against them.

You can see the entire interview here. Notice how Zogby nods when the interviewer rails about how Jews control American media, politics and press at the 12:00 mark.

Now, when do you think Zogby is being more honest - speaking with a fellow Arab on a program that he doesn't think any westerner would ever watch, or in front of liberal audiences?

Zogby now claims to be against antisemitism? The video shows quite the opposite - he is a leading purveyor of antisemitic slurs.

(h/t Claire, kweansmom)

A new Twitter account immediately gets followed by a who's who of Israel haters (UPDATE)

Someone who just joined Twitter has immediately been followed by a Who's Who of anti-Zionists.

The person calls him or herself "Rav Aaron Samuel Tamares" (d. 1931) named after an Orthodox rabbi who embraced pacifism after becoming disillusioned with Zionism.

The account has tweeted only three times, and the tweets may be translations from some of the real rabbi's writings which were published in English only last year.

As of this writing, the account has only 28 followers - but they are almost all very prominent in Jewish anti-Zionist circles: Mondoweiss, Peter Beinart, Eli Valley, Jewish Voice for Peace, and many more.

This is clearly something that was set up to provide a supposedly Orthodox Jewish anti-Zionist voice, to shield anti-Zionists from accusations of antisemitism.

This is a new twist on an old trick, as anti-Zionists love to quote religious anti-Zionists who lived in the early part of the twentieth century. However, after the state of Israel was born, the halachic framework on how to deal with Zionism changed - it was no longer a theoretical political movement but an actual home for a significant proportion of the Jewish people, ruled by Jewish people.

We don't know what Rabbi Tamares would have thought about Zionism after the Holocaust, or about the State of Israel after its founding. Outside of some extremist sects, most Orthodox Jewish thinkers accept and support Israel since the question of how to deal with it is much different today than the questions that Rabbi Tamares grappled with from 1900 to 1931.

For example, the pinned tweet "Political Zionism, as developed this far, clearly imperils the character of Judaism, which has survived so many centuries free from the defilements of nationalism" may have seemed true in the 1920s to some Orthodox rabbis. Yet today, Israel is the center of Jewish thought, and Orthodox Judaism is more dynamic in Israel than anywhere else. The leading halachic authorities today live in Israel and the most forward-thinking Jewish education is happening in Israel.

Tamares' prophecy was proven false.

This Twitter account is being set up to criticize a state that the real Rabbi Tamares may very well have supported.

Ironically, the entire purpose of this account and of those who support it is to politicize Tamares' words - when the rabbi himself was against the politicization of Judaism.

UPDATE: I made a major mistake - these are accounts that "Tamares" follows, not that follow him. (h/t Bob.) I regret the error.

02/13 Links: Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Jew Who Ran Away; Pfizer CEO shares his family's tragic story during the Holocaust; Don’t stop JNF from doing its job;

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Jew Who Ran Away

Forty years ago this month, a small movie was released in England by the name of Chariots of Fire. One year later, it won the Oscar for Best Picture, defeating the out-and-out favorite, Warren Beatty’s Reds. Both were about real people; Reds tells the story of leftist journalist John Reed while Chariots is a portrait of two British runners who competed in the 1924 Olympics. Strikingly, the Academy ultimately honored a film that celebrates Christian faith and religious liberty rather than Beatty’s multi-hour tribute to a famous American Communist.

The two runners we see in Chariots are a Jew named Harold Abrahams and a devout Christian named Eric Liddell. Abrahams is a Cambridge student angered by the subtle anti-Semitism he experiences; he determines that he will “take them on, one by one, and run them off their feet.” Liddell, in contrast, competes in adherence to the advice of his missionary father: “Run in God’s name, and let the world stand back and wonder.” The two are set against each other in the hundred-yard dash to determine who will be “the fastest man on earth,” but the qualifying heat is on a Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, and Liddell refuses to run.

I have long been obsessed with the film; I have read what I can about its historical background, corresponded with its producer, and attended a staged 2012 version in the London theater. The recent death of Ben Cross, who played Abrahams, inspired me to return to it again. And the more I watch it, the more I have come to understand the terrible Jewish irony that lies at its heart.

In the film, Abrahams’s response to anti-Semitism is not Jewish pride but assimilation. We see him ebulliently belting out lyrics from the ultimate British musical, HMS Pinafore: “In spite of all temptations / to belong to other nations / he remains an Englishman.” When he is confronted at Cambridge by anti-Semitic dons who accuse him of interest only in his own glory, Abrahams indignantly insists: “I am a Cambridge man first and last, I am an Englishman first and last; what I have achieved, and what I intend to achieve is for my family, for my university, and for my country.”

All this accords with the real life of Harold Abrahams. In an interesting doctoral dissertation on “Jews and British Sport,” David Gareth Dee notes that “Abrahams claimed the most important factor in Jewish sporting success was a willingness to ‘Anglicise’ and to move away from one’s religion.” In the 1920s, the precise moment in which the film is set, Abrahams wrote an article in an Anglo-Jewish publication encouraging English Jews to ignore Jewish Sabbath restrictions in order to compete.

Pfizer CEO shares his family's tragic story during the Holocaust

Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla joined the Sephardic Heritage International on January 28th for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, where he shared his Greek Sephardic family's story of tragedy and survival during the Holocaust.

"It’s a story that had a great impact on my life and my view of the world, and it is a story that, for the first time today, I share publicly," said Bourla during the January 28 virtual event. "Many Holocaust survivors never spoke to their children of the horrors they endured," he added.

Bourla's parents were of 2,000 survivors from a community of 50,000 nearly eradicated by the Holocaust in Thessaloniki, Greece where he was born. He began by retelling the story of his father.

"My father's family, like so many others, had been forced from their homes and taken to a crowded house within one of the Jewish ghettos," recounted Bourla. "It was a house they had to share with several other Jewish families. They could circulate in and out of the ghetto as long as they were wearing the yellow star."

"But one day in March 1943, the ghetto was surrounded by occupational forces and the exit was blocked. My father and his brother (my uncle) were outside when it happened. Their father (my grandfather) met them outside, told them what was happening and asked them to leave the ghetto and hide because he had to go back inside as his wife and two other children were home. So later that day, my grandfather, Abraham Bourla, his wife Rachel, his daughter Graziella and his youngest son David were taken to a camp outside the train station and from there, left for Auschwitz. My father and uncle never saw them again," Bourla recounted.

Coronavirus: Infection down, vaccination up - cabinet to meet Sunday

The coronavirus cabinet will meet Sunday to discuss the next phase of the country’s exit strategy, as the infection rate continues to decline, and the number of people vaccinated is on the rise.

The next phase of the exit strategy is expected to include street shops, as well as a number of other arenas that could be open only to people who have been vaccinated or recovered from coronavirus.

Those areas include shopping malls, cultural and sporting events, hotel (rooms only) and gyms.

“If all goes well, we hope we can open street shops and malls, and start carefully opening cultural shows for which entry will only be allowed for green passport holders,” Health Ministry Director-General Chezy Levy said in a weekend interview with KAN.

The Health Ministry has targeted February 23 as the start of the next phase of its plan, requiring a staged exit as was hoped for in the past, so that the impact of reliefs can be monitored. Levy said that the country will only fully understand the results of the various reliefs rolled out last week in about 10 days.

“I would recommend continuing to open carefully and thoughtfully,” he said.

This is very, very concerning:

WOW: @PressSec refuses to say that Israel is an American ally.

There is literally no excuse for this. And might explain why Biden hasn't called Netanyahu yet. pic.twitter.com/EfMJNN9Ssh
— John Cooper (@thejcoop) February 12, 2021

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki gave a vague, rambling answer Friday when asked at a briefing to reporters whether the Biden administration considers Saudi Arabia and Israel to be “important allies.”

“Can you please just give us a broad sense of what the administration is trying to achieve in the Middle East?” a reporter asked — in follow-up to an earlier question asking why President Biden has yet to call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“For example,” the reporter asked, “does the administration still consider the Saudis and the Israelis important allies?

Rather than saying simply, “Yes,” Psaki gave this answer, according to a White House transcript of the late-afternoon briefing.

“Well, you know, again, I think we — there are ongoing processes and internal interagency processes — one that we, I think, confirmed an interagency meeting just last week — to discuss a range of issues in the Middle East.

“We’re — we’ve only been here three and a half weeks, and I think I’m going to let those policy processes see themselves through before we give, kind of, a complete laydown of what our national security approaches will be to a range of issues,” she added.

On two consecutive days, Psaki said that the US has an important relationship with Israel. On Thursday:

The President looks forward to speaking with Prime Minister Netanyahu. He’s obviously somebody that he has a longstanding relationship with. And obviously there’s a important relationship that the United States has with Israel on the security front and as a key partner in the region

And on Friday:

It is not an intentional diss. Prime Minister Netanyahu is someone the President has known for some time. Obviously, we have a long and important relationship with Israel, and the President has known him and has been working on a range of issues that there’s a mutual commitment to for some time.

I don't think that it is a big deal that Biden hasn't called Netanyahu, but the inability to say that Israel is an ally is mind-boggling. Even if she didn't want to answer the same question about Saudi Arabia so she avoided answering about Israel, it is a big deal, because this points to Biden as being the third term of Obama, and the idea that the White House believes that a tilt towards Iran and away from US allies is a good idea is a very bad harbinger for the next four years.

Note also that even President Obama had no problem saying that the US was a strong ally of Israel.

I fully expect Psaki to walk this back on Monday but that will be looked upon as firefighting, not policy.

02/12 Links Pt2: Overwrought Nazi Analogies for Me, but Not for Thee?; Why George Washington Is a Hero to the Jews; Three BDS resolutions defeated at FSU

From Ian:

Josh Hammer: Overwrought Nazi Analogies for Me, but Not for Thee?

More generally, the American Left has spent large swaths of the past four years hysterically comparing then-President Donald Trump, whose daughter is an Orthodox Jew and who is likely the most aggressively pro-Jewish president in American history, to Adolf Hitler. It would be trite, not to mention impossible, to enumerate all the examples. The armchair sloganeering and rote analogizing were truly ubiquitous across CNN, MSNBC and the other myriad bastions of progressive media or cultural clout. It became old hat to compare Antifa, properly understood as a domestic terror organization, to the valiant American patriots who stormed the beach of Normandy on D-Day—thus equating the Trump administration with the Third Reich.

But even more egregious was then-President-elect Joe Biden's post-Capitol riot comparison of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)—brilliant constitutional attorneys in their previous careers who, in challenging part of the 2020 Electoral College results, did something Democrats have done each time a Republican has won the presidency this century—to infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, a man who arguably has more Jewish blood on his hands than anyone besides Hitler and Heinrich Himmler themselves. Speaking two days after the Capitol riot, Biden expressly invoked Goebbels' name and accused Cruz and Hawley of helping to spread the "big lie." (Cruz, it should be noted, is by word and deed likely the single most philo-Semitic and pro-Israel member of either house of Congress.) The smear was quickly parroted by other national Democratic leaders.

Biden's slur was, in a nutshell, revolting. It is, or at least ought to be, far beneath the dignity of the leader of the free world to casually besmirch high-ranking political foes as active, literal Nazis. But Biden's remarkable Freudian slip did not occur in a vacuum; rather, it was the natural culmination of a years-long leftist campaign, which commenced in the pre-Trump era but rapidly accelerated during the 45th president's tumultuous tenure, to equate conservatism with Nazism. Perhaps some on the Left earnestly believe this, and some believe it to merely be tactically helpful. It is unclear.

What is clear is how deeply shameful the whole spectacle is. And not just shameful, but deeply hypocritical, to boot. Just ask Gina Carano, who was canceled for a post that was relatively subdued compared with Biden's abhorrent slander. Conservatives might be forgiven for wondering if Biden himself should be canceled next.

Seth Frantzman: Isi Leibler: Saving Soviet Jews and helping Israeli-Asian ties

There are many miracles that have helped propel the Jewish people through history. A look at the rise of Israel and the rescue of the Jewish people are current examples of miracles, says Isi Leibler, a central figure in modern Jewish history over the last six decades. “Nobody believed this could be possible,” Leibler, who was born in 1934 in Antwerp, said in a recent video interview from Jerusalem.

When he speaks about the impossible, he harkens back often to the rescue of Soviet Jews. “People said maybe we could get 10,000 out,” he recalls. “But over a million came out. It was a modern-day Exodus.”

For Leibler, who has been many things – businessman, activist, writer, personal statesman, campaigner for numerous crucial causes, intermediary – the rescue of the Jews of the Soviet Union was a key cause for decades. In 1964, he was given the opportunity to write about Soviet Jews for Arena, a left-leaning periodical, according to an account in Suzanne Rutland’s recent Lone Voice: The Wars of Isi Leibler. He was supposed to write only a few thousand words but instead wrote 30,000. Every writer knows the nightmare that comes next, having to cut down the manuscript. But Leibler plowed on and self-published the piece as Soviet Jewry and Human Rights.

The new biography of Leibler, which this interview is based on, took 20 years to complete and is the masterpiece of Rutland, a professor at the University of Sydney.

Why George Washington Is a Hero to the Jews

Even before the first president’s famous epistle to the Touro Synagogue, “to bigotry no sanction; to persecution no assistance,” the Jews of America knew that Washington was their man. He invited the rabbi of New York’s Shearith Israel Congregation to act as a formal clergyman at the first Inauguration. This marked the first time since the ancient fall of Jerusalem that a Jewish minister performed in an official capacity for a head of state.

In this vein, in August 1789, Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Shalome in Richmond, Virginia, opened the celebration of its new synagogue constitution with the toast: “The President of the United States, may his administration secure to the citizens of America the Liberty obtained by his valor.”

During the American Revolution, in the winter camps at Valley Forge, a Jewish immigrant from Prussia, Michael Hart, was a corporal in the Continental Army. His daughter wrote the following in her diary about her father’s wartime service: “Let it be remembered that Michael Hart was a Jew, practically, pious, a Jew reverencing and strictly observant of the Sabbath and Festivals; dietary laws were also adhered to, although he was compelled to be his own Shochet. Mark well that he, Washington … even during a short sojourn became for the hour the guest of the worthy Jew.”

So large has Washington loomed in Jewish hearts that this tale, absent details of the only kosher meal he is known to have had, morphed into folklore unlike any other. One iteration reads: “It is mid-winter at Valley Forge. Everyone is cold. Frostbite is widespread. Everyone has given up hope. George Washington is depressed. One night, looking for inspiration, George goes for a walk through the camp. He finds one Jewish member of the Continental Army lighting the haunkkiya … the soldier explains Hanukkah, Judah Maccabee, and everything to George, who re-finds his courage in the process — enough to stand up when the boat crosses the Delaware. Later, the first President sends our Jewish soldier a silver Menorah … as a gift of appreciation, along with a letter which says, ‘Judaism has a lot to offer the world. You should be proud to be a Jew.’”

The alert reader will note that the Delaware Crossing occurred a year before Valley Forge, one of many reasons to doubt the story’s veracity. But never mind that. This Monday, as we honor the man who has long been an inspiration to the Jews, let’s celebrate Washington’s life, legacy, and ideals. As Purim approaches with its account of the political fragility Jews have endured through the ages, let’s dedicate ourselves to the memory of that great statesman who reigns unparalleled in the annals of history for securing Jewish freedom, safety, prosperity, and the rights of all Americans. Happy President’s Day!

A number of newspapers had this story in the summer of 1920, which seems a lot like what happened in the UAE exactly a hundred years later.

Even more remarkably, in 1923 that same newspaper started issuing a weekly Hebrew supplement, "HsShofer." The newspaper said it "hopes thereby to create a better understanding and more friendly relations between the Jews and the Arabs."

02/12 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: The ICC's European puppet masters; Phillips: The absurd malevolence of the International Criminal Court; The “State of Palestine” remains a United Nations mirage

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The ICC's European puppet masters

More than 60% of the ICC's budget is funded by European governments. Germany is generally the ICC's largest or second largest funder. A German government representative quoted in a Reuters' report of Israel's request said that Germany "couldn't imagine" scaling back, much less defunding of the political court.

So without the actions of European governments like Germany, Holland, Switzerland, France, Norway, Britain and Sweden, and without the EU as a whole – the ICC would never have opened its bigoted proceedings against Israel, the purpose of which is to reject Israel's right to exist. At every point, the Europeans had the power to prevent or end the ICC's bigoted treatment of the Jewish state. And at every point, the Europeans took active steps to ensure that the targeting would continue. Indeed, by funding and directing the efforts of the likes of NGOs Breaking the Silence and Al-Dameer, (which is affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group), the Europeans were the puppet masters directing the passion play.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas criticized the ICC's ruling move in a statement he put out shortly after it was announced. Maas didn't condemn the immorality of pursuing fake war crimes allegations against an innocent nation. Rather, Maas's criticism focused on the fact that despite the efforts of the ICC and the UN, the fact remains that "Palestine" is not a state. "The court has no jurisdiction," he tweeted, "because of the absence of the element of Palestinian statehood required by international law."

This is, to be sure, the key legal problem with the ICC's ruling. But the much larger problem with the judges' decision is that the investigation is a politically motivated effort to cause material harm to Israel, as the Jewish state. Israel abides scrupulously by the rules of war, and everyone knows that. The reason German politicians like Maas should oppose the ruling is because the court's behavior is part of a larger effort to undermine international acceptance of the Jewish people's right to their state. But then, as a major funder of both the ICC and the NGOs behind the fictitious, libelous allegations, and as a state that failed to oppose the Palestinians' legally groundless bids for the status of state at the ICC and the UN, Maas clearly doesn't have a problem with the immorality of the enterprise. To the contrary, he is playing a key role in moving it forward.

In a way, the ICC's efforts to harm the Jewish state is a modern-day version of the Dreyfus trial. The Dreyfus trial was an anti-Semitic reaction against France's decision to grant the full rights of citizenship to French Jews in the framework of the Emancipation. Anti-Semitic officers in the French General Staff needed a scapegoat to blame for acts of treason they had committed. By choosing Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jew, for the role, the officers enjoyed the cover and support of powerful anti-Semitic clerics, anti-Semitic intellectuals and newspaper publishers, and anti-Semitic politicians. All of the figures involved realized that by framing Dreyfus "the Jew," they advanced their efforts to discredit the idea that Jews could be full partners in French public life.

The big difference between the people that produced and directed the blood libel against Dreyfus 125 years ago and the people that are producing and directing the blood libel against Israel today is that in France at the turn of the 20th century, people were proud to attack Jews openly. Today, their contemporary successors prefer a passive aggressive approach. They pretend to oppose the efforts to delegitimize and criminalize the Jewish state while they pay for and direct them.

Melanie Phillips: The absurd malevolence of the International Criminal Court

Yet western liberals maintain that the Palestinian cause is a worthy one. That’s why the US Secretary of State Tony Blinken says the Palestinians are “entitled” to a state.

It is in fact hard to envisage any group that’s less entitled than the Palestinians, who are not only bent upon colonial occupation of Israel but support the murder of Israelis and preach deranged hatred against Jews.

Meanwhile, the British government continues to peddle the legal fiction that Israel is in illegal occupation of the “Palestinian” territories.

The west’s support of such falsehoods and injustice has incentivised the Palestinians’ rejectionism, terrorism and war against Israel. It has further encouraged them to try to bring about Israel’s destruction through “lawfare,” the strategy of deploying international law as a weapon of destruction and of which their case before the ICC is a major offensive front.

But there’s a deeper issue still which will make both the British and the Biden administration reluctant to admit the fundamental nature of the ICC’s flaws.

This is their commitment to the ideology behind its foundation — the belief that crystallised after the Holocaust that there had to be a way of bringing to justice human rights abusers who were immune from redress in their own countries. This impulse fuelled the post-war development of international law and trans-national legal tribunals.

But laws draw their legitimacy from being passed by nations rooted in specific institutions, history and culture. Without the anchor of national jurisdiction, laws can turn into instruments of capricious political power.

The ICC has no such national jurisdiction but is made up of many nations. That’s why, from its inception, it was in essence a political court.

That’s why it’s an existential foe of Israel — the principal target of some of the world’s many human rights abusers who have grasped that international law provides them with a potent weapon.

And these make common cause with American Democrats and the western political establishment through their belief in liberal universalism, the doctrine that trans-national institutions trump the authority of national ones.

The legal and moral illiteracy of the ICC’s ruling is not a temporary blip. It follows from the campaign that lies at the very core of liberal universalist beliefs: to negate the authority of the sovereign nation.

As early opponents of international law realised, however, only a sovereign nation can properly defend itself. That’s why Israel knows it must always rely only on itself. It’s a lesson that many liberal western politicians have yet to realise.

David Singer: The “State of Palestine” remains a United Nations mirage

The International Criminal Court (ICC) Pre-Trial Chamber 1 decision that the ICC has jurisdiction to investigate alleged war crimes committed in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem has infuriated Israel – but should bring no joy to Hamas, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) or the United Nations which continues to support the PLO’s claim for the creation of a second Arab State in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan.

The ICC Prosecutor believes:
‘there is a reasonable basis to believe that members of Hamas and Palestinian armed groups […] committed the war crimes of: intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects (articles 8(2)(b)(i)-(ii), or 8(2)(e)(i)); using protected persons as shields (article 8(2)(b)(xxiii)); wilfully depriving protected persons of the rights of fair and regular trial (articles 8(2)(a)(vi) or 8(2)(c)(iv)) and wilful killing (articles 8(2)(a)(i), or 8(2)(c)(i)); and torture or inhuman treatment (article 8(2)(a)(ii), or 8(2)(c)(i)) and/or outrages upon personal dignity (articles 8(2)(b)(xxi), or 8(2)(c)(ii))’ (para 94)

The Prosecutor further concluded in para 94 that these potential cases would be currently admissible for prosecution once jurisdiction was established.

The Court noted:
“The identification of potential cases by the Prosecutor and her evolving investigation, which is likely to be protracted and resource-intensive, entails that the question of jurisdiction under consideration has concrete ramifications for the further conduct of the proceedings. The initiation of an investigation by the Prosecutor also means that States Parties are under the obligation to cooperate with the Court pursuant to part 9 of the Statute. It is, therefore, all the more necessary to place the present proceedings on a sound jurisdictional footing as early as possible.”(para 86)

The PLO and Hamas will be kept very busy answering the ICC Prosecutor’s enquiries regarding those Palestinian war crimes identified in para 94.

The Court further emphasised that:
“the present decision is strictly limited to the question of jurisdiction set forth in the Prosecutor’s Request and does not entail any determination on the border disputes between Palestine and Israel. The present decision shall thus not be construed as determining, prejudicing, impacting on, or otherwise affecting any other legal matter arising from the events in the Situation in Palestine either under the Statute or any other field of international law.”(para 60)

Any expectation Israel will return to the negotiating table after the PLO’s flirtation with the ICC is hard to visualise.