Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, March 29, 2021

03/29 Links: As Passover begins, Jews feel unwelcome in the EU; Almost all remaining Jews in Yemen deported; Yet another attempt to sanitize anti-Zionism; Winston Churchill in Palestine – 100 years on

From Ian:

As Passover begins, Jews feel unwelcome in the EU

Passover, which commemorates the Hebrews' liberation from enslavement in ancient Egypt, begins this weekend. But many European Jews don't feel like celebrating. Many feel that their religious freedoms are being eroded.

Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican's foreign minister, recently said pandemic safety measures had curtailed religiou freedoms. In his video, published to coincide with the 46th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Gallagher said state public health policies are infringing peoples' ability to exercise their human rights.

Gallagher's statement struck a chord: Religious communities across the world have changed the way they worship during the pandemic. Alas, restrictions of the fundamental right to religious freedom are not a new phenomenon.

In some case, the coronavirus pandemic has served as a pretext to restrict worship. Jews in the European Union are deeply troubled by this development.

'United in diversity?'
For over a decade, the European Union has been preoccupied with itself and in permanent crisis mode, seemingly forgetting its much touted motto "united in diversity." The United States, in contrast, is much more outward looking. Speaking at an OSCE expert summit last month, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Kara McDonald gave an outlook regarding President Joe Biden's agenda on tackling Anti-Semitism.

The good news is that Biden plans to intensify the US's fight against anti-Semitism in accordance with the definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Much more surprising, however, were McDonald's observations concerning Jewish life in Europe today. Europeans should take her concerns seriously.

McDonald said Jewish communities in numerous countries were confronted with planned and actual bans on religious practices such as ritual animal slaughter and circumcision of male babies.

Almost all remaining Jews in Yemen deported - Saudi media

The last three Jewish families in Yemen were deported by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, leaving only four elderly Jews in the country, the London-based Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported over the weekend.

The move marks the virtual end of a 2,600-year-old Jewish community in Yemen.

The families, totaling 13 people, told Asharq Al-Awsat that they were now searching for a new home. The families had resisted leaving, but finally agreed after the Houthis made their departure a condition for the release of Levi Salem Marhabi, a Jew who was captured by the rebels about six years ago.

“They gave us a choice between staying in the midst of harassment and keeping Salem a prisoner, or leaving and having him released,” one of the deported Jews told Asharq Al-Awsat. “History will remember us as the last of Yemeni Jews who were still clinging to their homeland until the last moment.”

Marhabi was arrested by the Houthis for helping a Yemeni Jewish family move an old Torah scroll out of the country. Despite a court ruling that he was innocent and should be released, he was reportedly held as a bargaining chip, according to the daily.

Similar reports have been denied as false in the past.

Winston Churchill in Palestine – 100 years on

Two days later, he planted a tree at the site on Mount Scopus of the future Hebrew University, telling the assembled dignitaries, “My heart is full of sympathy for Zionism. The establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine will be a blessing to the whole world.”

The next day, Churchill received a delegation from the Congress of Palestinian Arabs whose 35-page protest against Zionist activity included a variety of antisemitic tropes: “The Jew is clannish and unneighborly. He will enjoy the privileges and benefits of a country but will give nothing in return.”

Churchill vigorously rejected their assertions, saying:
“It is manifestly right that the Jews should have a National Home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in this land of Palestine, with which for more than 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated.”

Churchill told the Jewish delegation which followed:
“The cause of Zionism is one which carries with it much that is good for the whole world, and not only for the Jewish people; it will bring prosperity and advancement for the Arab population.”

Before returning to Cairo the evening of March 30, Churchill visited the then twelve-year-old Jewish town of Tel Aviv, meeting with its Mayor Meir Dizengoff, and the agricultural settlement in Rishon LeZion. On his return to London, he told the House of Commons:
“Anyone who has seen the work of the Jewish colonies will be struck by the enormous productive results which they have achieved from the most inhospitable soil.”

Churchill hoped that the Jews of Palestine – and the Jewish majority state that he envisaged might someday grow out of it – would live in a peaceful and productive relationship with their Arab neighbors.

This aspiration has been partially realized in a cold peace with the major states with whom Israel fought three wars after 1948, and now a newly warmer one with the Gulf states. Nonetheless – one hundred years after his visit – he would find that peaceful co-existence between the peoples living within the borders of what was then Mandatory Palestine remains challenging and uncertain.

Chag sameach!

Wishing all of you a chag kosher v'sameach!

Being in the Diaspora, I will not be blogging, or tweeting, until Monday night. Wish me luck!

03/26 Links Pt2: Polish Catholic family, killed by Nazis for helping Jews, on path to beatification; Google Maps found to be hosting over 150 anti-Semitic reviews of Auschwitz

From Ian:

Polish Catholic family, killed by Nazis for helping Jews, on path to beatification

Early on March 24, 1944, a Nazi patrol surrounded the home of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma on the outskirts of the village of Markowa in southeast Poland. They discovered eight Jewish people who had found refuge with the couple and executed them.

The Nazi police then killed the pregnant Wiktoria, who was 32 years old, and her 44-year-old husband. As the couple’s children began to scream at the sight of their murdered parents, the Nazis shot them dead too: Stanisława, 8, Barbara, 7, Władysław, 6, Franciszek, 4, Antoni, 3, and Maria, 2.

It is thought that Wiktoria went into labor during the massacre as a witness later said that he saw a newborn baby beside her body.

Now, 77 years later, the sainthood causes of Józef and Wiktoria -- known as the “Good Samaritans of Markowa” -- are advancing.

Polish Catholics marked the anniversary of their deaths at a morning Mass in the parish of St. Dorothy in Markowa, in Przemyśl archdiocese. Archbishop Adam Szal of Przemyśl presided.

The liturgy also fell on the National Day of Remembrance of Poles Rescuing Jews under German Occupation.

The archbishop expressed delight at the progress in the causes of the couple, who are currently known as Servants of God, a title used at the start of canonization processes.

“We give thanks for the example of the Ulma family’s life. Their gift of life is a sign for us that sometimes we have to sacrifice our lives to save other people. Today we are asking for the gift of their beatification,” he said.

In his homily, Fr. Witold Burda, postulator of the causes, praised Józef and Wiktoria as a model for Christians.

“The Ulmas put God’s law in the first place every day,” he said.

Referring to surviving photos of the family, he said: “The smile of the children in the photos touches me. These children felt safe, loved by mom and dad.”

Google Maps found to be hosting over 150 anti-Semitic reviews of Auschwitz

Google was found to be hosting over 150 anti-Semitic reviews for the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp on Google Maps, according to a report by the Guardian on Thursday. The tech giant has since removed most of them.

The report said 153 anti-Semitic comments were found for the memorial site on Google Maps, 93 of them made anonymously.

Posts such as “Heil Hitler” and “It’s a shame the SS was disbanded so long ago,” had been hosted for months and in some cases years, the Guardian said.

For instance, “Showers were a great experience, Anne Frankly I’m glad I came” and “Good place to go if you want to lose weight fast” had been on the service for four and nine years respectively, according to the report.

Many of the reviews were left by accounts posing as infamous Nazi leaders, such as Adolf Hitler and SS commander Michael Wittmann.

The Guardian said it attempted to use Google’s “flag as inappropriate” function, yet more than 24 hours later, the majority of the 153 offending reviews remained online. After the paper contacted Google, all but two were removed.

There are nearly 7,500 reviews of the site on Google Maps. Most are respectful.

A spokesperson for Google told The Guardian that the company was “appalled by these reviews on our platform and are taking action to remove the content and prevent further abuse.

“We have clear policies that prohibit offensive and fake reviews and we work around the clock to monitor Maps. In this case, we know we need to do better and are working to evaluate and improve our detection systems,” Google added.

Canadians Who Exploit the Holocaust as a Rhetorical Cudgel Deserving of Contempt

In the wake of the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust against European Jewry in 1945, activists and educators around the world committed that “never again” would the world witness such an inhumane massacre of innocent civilians, regardless of their faith, ethnicity, colour, orientation or any other factor. In fact, even the term “never again” became a phrase widely associated with the Holocaust, imploring future generations to never let genocide re-occur.

And while, tragically, the 1994 genocide of nearly one million members of the Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda is a reminder of humanity’s failure to act on “never again”, here in Canada, even more fundamental lessons of the Holocaust have been forgotten, barely 75 years after it ended.

One of the most fundamental lessons of the Holocaust is, of course, the commitment to never let it happen again, but one of the key ways for that to happen is for the Holocaust to be trivialized, analogized and appropriated, efforts which serves to diminish what took place and dishonour the memories of those who perished.

Unfortunately, far too often, and in a number of recent incidents in Canadian political discourse, the Holocaust has been bandied about to score political points on a number of different political issues. In so doing, the sheer magnitude of the largest genocide of human beings – the murder of six million Jews – is reduced to false analogies.

On the Internet, Godwin’s law prevails when an online discussion plays out for a prolonged period of time, increasing the probability and likelihood that a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler becomes more likely.

In Calgary, Vancouver and elsewhere throughout Canada recently, COVID-19 protestors, wore yellow Stars of David with the words “mask exempt” and t-shirts were being sold online saying “COVID Caust”. The Nazis forced Jews to wear the Star of David to single out Jews from society and to easily identify them in a multi-pronged plan to systematic murder.

In early March, the Globe and Mail published a column originally titled “I’m channeling Anne Frank’s spirit in lockdown,” before it was changed to “Lessons in Living from Anne Frank,” where contributor Debra Dolan drew criticism for what some felt was a comparison of the difficult restrictions under semi-lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, to Holocaust victim Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl who hid from the Nazis in the Holocaust and who died in a concentration camp.

Soudia4 is a Saudi news site that seems to be oriented towards religious Muslims. It is most popular in Egypt and Yemen.

One recent article has a list of (probably fake) quotes from Adolf Hitler, treating him as if these sayings are words of wisdom.

It introduces the article with:

Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 AD, and he was the leader of Germany and defeated most of Europe with his special forces, and here we collected some of Hitler's statements.

Some of the quotes are anti-Jewish:

I discovered over time that there is no immoral act and crime against society that the Jews aren't involved with.

I managed to wipe out nearly all the Jews of the world, but I left some to understand the reason for their destruction.

This same list has been in other Arabic sites.

03/26 Links Pt1: Dore Gold: Recalibrating the diplomacy of Middle East peace; Pollard: 'I don't regret helping my people and my land'; Why is Biden indifferent to a UN celebration of anti-Semitism?

From Ian:

Dore Gold: Recalibrating the diplomacy of Middle East peace

THE MOST REVOLUTIONARY part of their proposals involve a recalibration of Palestinian national goals. They admit that chances of securing “hard” sovereignty,” on the basis of “full and complete control over land, borders and resources” is remote. They clearly have no use for the resolutions of the UN General Assembly that only reaffirm ideas based on the “self-defeating chimera of hard sovereignty.”

Their hope is that by moderating Palestinian goals in the direction of what they call “soft sovereignty,” other arrangements might become possible. They depart from the conventional notion of a two state solution but rather look to multilateral arrangements, such as a trilateral model for the West Bank.

The Abraham Accords open up a whole new model for discussing alternative solutions. It would not be far-fetched for Abu Dhabi to sponsor a discussion among relevant players about how federalism has worked for them in the United Arab Emirates. Federalism could be exactly the framework for the soft sovereignty that Agha and Khalidi propose.

What Agha and Khalidi don’t consider is how strategic military factors could shape this discussion. The Gulf states could embrace their model if they were persuaded it could affect the Iranian issue. Years ago, a Palestinian leader commented that when the US fully pulls out from Iraq, the new border between Iran and the Arab world will be the Jordanian-Iraqi border.

But he wondered whether Jordan had sufficient critical mass to block Iranian expansionism by itself. Jordan, in his analysis, would find itself in the position of postwar Germany facing masses of Soviet armor. Only it would have no NATO to back it up.

Given the growing role of pro-Iranian militias today in Iraq, the need to have a regional arrangement once the US goes has grown. If the Palestinians found their place in such an arrangement, undoubtedly the Gulf states would have a greater propensity to work with them in new federal schemes – diplomatically, financially and otherwise.

Agha and Khalidi’s important statement opens the door for a new political discourse in the Middle East. It can only be hoped that their path to a new political realism is seriously considered and not obliterated by those still clinging to worn-out concepts that plainly have not worked in the past.

Pollard: 'I don't regret helping my people and my land'

Q: Looking back, do you regret what you did?

Pollard says he thinks about that a lot but asks what he should regret – helping his people and his land? He says that at his synagogue, there were two flags: a US one and an Israeli one. "That's how I was raised."

Pollard says he does regret not being "more effective," and he regrets that the Israeli government treated him the way that it did, and that the American government used him as a "weapon" against Israel.

But he is not sorry for working for his people and his homeland. He says that given the information he had, he had no other choice. Israel was supposed to have received the intelligence from the US according to an agreement that was in place, but when Israel asked for it, the US said it didn't exist.

Pollard says that denying its existence was "much worse" than not handing it over.

The intelligence was "so critical to our existence," he says. It was intelligence that would win a war and something that could not be neglected.

Esther says, "The gas masks. I like to use this example because it's the easiest for people to understand. Before we had gas masks and chemical antidotes and secure rooms and sealed rooms, we were building bomb shelters, how did we suddenly know to start building bomb shelters and to start getting gas masks and chemical antidotes?

"Because Israel did not want to acknowledge Jonathan, they kept this very quiet. Nobody ever officially explained how we suddenly have gas masks or how we suddenly have security rooms. And if you go in the Education Ministry, and you go into the library and try to find [the] information they teach children in classrooms, there's not a word about him," she says.

Pollard: "There was an incident where Israeli defense officials came through the Pentagon and asked about a certain facility in Iraq that they heard was producing poison gas during the Iran-Iraq war. The Americans told them it didn't exist. We didn't have a satellite at the time, we weren't flying, because it was a war, we weren't flying Phantoms, RFEs over Iraq at the time. Okay, so you trust the Americans. So I was asked to find out before the delegation left. So I found out."

Pollard said he went to the safe house. "I walked in, and my team was standing there, there were three people standing there. A nice big floor. I asked them to move the furniture and I started pulling out evidence at putting it down. It covered the entire floor.

"Yossi Yagur looked at me, I'll never forget this as long as I live, looked at me and said, 'Jonathan, it's sometimes better to deal with reliable enemies than unreliable friends. We were told this doesn't exist.' I said, 'Well, you were lied to.'"

Likud made huge gains in the Arab vote this election (Ahron Shapiro)

Ahron Shapiro, Senior Policy Analyst for the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, noticed something amazing that got no coverage during the Israeli elections.

From his Twitter thread:

One of the remarkable stories of the Israeli election is the Likud achieving a historically high percentage of Arab votes. In one Arab city, the Likud soared close to 10x (!) higher than in past elections. In most areas, their vote at least doubled.
In the Beduin city of Rahat in the northern Negev, Netanyahu's vote improved by 896% (!!!) over the last election.
21st Knesset: 0.58% (93 votes)
22nd Knesset: 0.82% (160 votes)
23rd Knesset: 0.61% (136 votes)
24th Knesset: 6.08% (1,026 votes)
In Nazareth, Netanyahu's vote improved by 291%.
21st Knesset: 1.46% (328 votes)
22nd Knesset: 0.89% (283 votes)
23rd Knesset: 1.00% (348 votes)
24th Knesset: 3.91% (885 votes, only seven fewer than Meretz)
In the Jerusalem Hills village of Abu Ghosh, the Likud got a quarter of the total vote.
In Umm al-Fahm in the region known as the "Triangle", the Likud improved by 169%.
In the villages of Ka'abiyye-Tabbash-Hajajre, the Likud improved from 2.72% of the vote to 13.84% in a single election, a rise of 253%
In Abu Snan, Netanyahu saw a 204% rise in support.
21st Knesset: 2.98% (142 votes)
22nd Knesset: 3.99% (224 votes)
23rd Knesset: 3.15% (190 votes)
24th Knesset: 11.38% (577 votes)
In the northern Israeli village of Bu'eine Nujeidat, support for the Likud rose by 377%.
In Kafr Yasif, the Likud improved by only 92%.
21st Knesset: 2.26% (106 votes)
22nd Knesset: 1.79% (94 votes)
23rd Knesset: 1.75% (97 votes)
24th Knesset: 4.13% (186 votes)
But in Kafr Kanna, Netanyahu saw an increase of 266% over the last election.
21st Knesset: 0.79% (54 votes)
22nd Knesset: 1.01% (91 votes)
23rd Knesset: 0.71% (73 votes)
24th Knesset: 3.70% (267 votes)
The Likud in Baqa al-Gharbiyye? Up by 338%.
21st Knesset: 0.37% (29 votes)
22nd Knesset: 0.28% (30 votes)
23rd Knesset: 0.18% (21 votes)
24th Knesset: 1.51% (92 votes)
And in the Arab city of Tayibe, Likud was up by 231%.
You get the idea. The fact is, I couldn't find a single Arab town or village anywhere in Israel where the Likud garnered fewer votes than in the last round. This is particularly impressive given that Arab turnout was down and Bibi had a vote sharing pact with the hard right. /end

Netanyahu's Likud has prioritized infrastructure and investment in Israel's Arab sector, a very underreported story. But he was doing that before these elections. What explains this increase in support by Arabs for Likud? I can understand the Arab communities being upset at the Arab parties, but why wouldn't they go to a left-wing or centrist Israeli party?

I don't know the answer, but clearly Israeli Arabs do not have the same contempt for Bibi as their supposed supporters in the West.

We can learn a lot about the Biden administration position in Palestinian issue from what US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at the UN Security Council yesterday.

From the UN summary:

The representative of the United States, Council President for March, spoke in her national capacity, expressing Washington, D.C.’s, support for Israel. The Biden Administration stands by Israel, particularly when that country was singled out. Each month the Security Council meets to discuss this issue, but there are other issues of threats to international peace and security that deserve the organ’s attention. Warning against anti-Semitic rhetoric, she said her delegation will vigorously oppose one-sided arguments. Her country is also committed to finding a mutually agreed two-State solution to the conflict, with Israelis living in safety and security and Palestinians establishing a viable, independent State. Both sides should take concrete steps towards the two-State formula and avoid unilateral actions, including settlement, demolition, violence and incitement. The United States is taking steps to reopen diplomatic channels that were halted during the country’s previous administration. On economic and humanitarian assistance, she said Israel’s vaccination of Palestinian workers is encouraging, urging it to continue such cooperation, announcing her country’s contribution of $15 million in humanitarian aid to the West Bank and Gaza. “This aid is one piece of our renewed commitment to the Palestinian people,” she said.

The Jerusalem Post has some direct quotes and details. The humanitarian aid will come through USAID to Catholic Relief Services and other NGOs.

The US would “take steps to re-open diplomatic channels of communication that were halted during the last administration,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
Any “progress toward peace must be based on active consultations with both sides.”
Thomas-Greenfield called on both Israel and the PA to refrain from unilateral action, including settlement activity and IDF demolitions of Palestinian structures. She also spoke against the PA policy of providing monthly financial stipends to terrorists jailed by Israel as well as to their families.
“We call for an end to all acts of violence, including acts of terrorism, as well as incitement to violence and acts of provocation and destruction,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
In her brief speech Thomas-Greenfield said that her country would stand by Israel, “especially when it is unfairly singled out by one-sided resolutions and actions in international bodies.”
To often, she said, criticism of Israel “veers dangerously into antisemitism. Antisemitism, as with all forms of hate, works directly against the cause of peace,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

The good:

- She essentially said that the UN's focus on Israel is effectively antisemitic. This is an important message when the anti-Israel nations and groups insist that their hate has nothing to do with antisemitism.

- She called out Pay for Slay.

The interesting:

- USAID has generally been good in ensuring that its aid is audited and cannot go towards terrorism. The aid is not being paid to the Palestinian Authority. I have no problem with USAID support for needy Palestinians in line with what the organization does worldwide.

The not-so-good:

- The US push for a Palestinian state has traditionally come at the expense of Israel's security. The one viable plan that does not is Trump's Peace to Prosperity plan, but the US seems to have dropped that and gone back to the failed Oslo formula.

- Practically all "settlement" activity is in existing blocs that would become part of Israel in any theoretical peace plan. Lumping all of them together means that the US doesn't want any natural growth in existing settlements, which is the kind of unrealistic expectation that the Trump administration jettisoned.

- The idea that some areas of the world are off limits to Jews is abhorrent.

At first blush, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism does not seem very different from the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism that its framers want to replace.

Both of them stress that their examples of antisemitism depend entirely on context.

IHRA introduces its examples by saying, "Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:..."

JDA expands on this but in no way contradicts IHRA: "In general, when applying the guidelines each should be read in the light of the others and always with a view to context. Context can include the intention behind an utterance, or a pattern of speech over time, or even the identity of the speaker, especially when the subject is Israel or Zionism. So, for example, hostility to Israel could be an expression of an antisemitic animus, or it could be a reaction to a human rights violation, or it could be the emotion that a Palestinian person feels on account of their experience at the hands of the State."

This is all perfectly true.

The problem with JDA is precisely its context, namely, the reasons it was written. And the deeper you look, the worse it is.

The IHRA working definition was not written as a political document. It was not written by "right wing Zionists." It was meant to be the most accurate definition of antisemitism with an eye to identify all kinds of antisemitism, no matter the source. It covers far Right antisemitism, far Left antisemitism, Arab antisemitism, Farrakhan-style antisemitism - there is nothing the least bit slanted about it, no matter what its critics claim.

JDA, on the other hand, is supremely political. As the authors wrote in The Forward, "Though we do not underestimate the perniciousness of antisemitism from the left, it is clear that the most dangerous threat to Jews today comes from the extreme right and populist groups." A definition of antisemitism should not distinguish between the sources of antisemitism.

Context is indeed critical to determining whether a statement or action is antisemitic or not. IHRA says that "applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation" is a good indication of antisemitism, although not necessarily always. JDA says, "Criticism that some may see as excessive or contentious, or as reflecting a 'double standard,' is not, in and of itself, antisemitic." Again, they do not contradict each other - both definitions say that context is crucial to determining antisemitic intent.

The difference is that IHRA is trying to be as inclusive as possible in its definition, and JDA is trying to be as exclusive as possible. In all other contexts - when defining racism or misogyny or any other bigotry - the Left is as inclusive as possible, and the victim group is believed when they say that they were attacked. But in the case of antisemitism the JDA authors deliberately narrow the definition to exclude anyone they cannot associate with the Right.

Let's run a couple of examples through both definitions.

If someone who has no history of antisemitic statements comes out of the blue and says that Israel is acting like Nazi Germany towards Palestinians, is this antisemitic?

IHRA says "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" is an example of antisemitism.

JDA says, " Even if contentious, it is not antisemitic, in and of itself, to compare Israel with other historical cases, including settler-colonialism or apartheid." Nazism is a historical case and would presumably fall under this definition.

What about context? It is clear that any comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany is not meant to illuminate anything, but it is meant to hurt Jews by comparing them to their murderers. If Israel wasn't a Jewish state, the comparison wouldn't be made. Of course it is antisemitic. The fact that this example was excluded from the JDA definition, even though it is explicit in the IHRA, shows that the omission was deliberate - the JDA did not want to say that comparing the Jewish state to Nazi Germany is assumed to be antisemitic, which shows how far the authors would go in defending anti-Zionism as legitimate.

The "double standards" come into play with calling Israel racist or an apartheid state, or creating massive campaigns to boycott Israel when no remotely similar campaigns exist for any other state today. JDA descends into farce on this topic, saying, "Boycott, divestment and sanctions are commonplace, non-violent forms of political protest against states. In the Israeli case they are not, in and of themselves, antisemitic."

Commonplace? What other states are people boycotting with the amount of publicity that BDS has? And why is Israel singled out when by any calculation, even if you believe the most insane lies about Israel, it still doesn't approach the levels of human rights violations done by most states, including Western nations?

Similarly, the Left will discuss how to dismantle the Jewish state and replace it with another Arab state (falsely called "binational.") What other state based on a national group of people is ever told to destroy itself? What other state is constantly told it has no right to exist?

This JDA's subtext is that it is only a huge coincidence that the only nation on the planet that is boycotted, considered illegitimate, compared to South Africa, and told that its national ethos is racist, is also the only nation filled with Jews. Perhaps some people buy that argument, but most people don't - and there is a very good reason why the IHRA has been accepted or endorsed by 29 nations so far.

Anti-Zionism is obviously akin to antisemitism, simply because there is simply no comparable "anti" in the world. Plus, those two "antis" are very, very similar - the things that Jews have been accused of historically are now what the Jewish state is accused of, such as undue influence over governments. murdering children for sport and deliberately spreading disease. There is no difference between those who accuse Israel of poisoning Palestinian water, or of stealing Palestinian organs, and those who have historically accused Jews of poisoning the wells to cause a plague or the blood libel.

Another point that needs to be made: Antisemitism has historically seen Jews being accused the most heinous crimes of the age. Israel is accused of the most heinous crimes of this age - racism, colonialism, indiscriminate killing and imprisonment of children, apartheid, ethnic cleansing. The parallels are obvious to anyone with a passing knowledge of history, but the JDA doesn't acknowledge this aspect of modern antisemitism.

A definition that deliberately excludes most examples of what is claims to define is not a definition at all. It is propaganda.

Sure there might be rare outlier cases where rabid anti-Zionism is not antisemitic, but they are the exception. To exclude an entire category of antisemitism because of some theoretical exception is not fighting antisemitism, but enabling it. And notice how people who would never dream of limiting the definition of racism and finding boundary cases where racism is OK are spending so much effort finding ways to justify the irrational, deranged hatred of the Jewish state.

And when you look at the signatories of the JDA, you see someone like Richard Falk, whose antisemitic pedigree is long and varied, He likes this definition because, he believes, it takes him off the hook. And JDA proudly sought out and displays his signature, without even a hint of fear that it discredits the entire document.

JDA is not a serious definition. It is misdirection to ignore today's major manifestation of antisemitism. Leftist antisemitism may not be as deadly as that of the Right, but it is considered mainstream - and that makes it, in many ways, far more dangerous.

03/25 Links Pt2: Why Israel’s ‘Critics’ Can’t Help Being Antisemitic, and How They Can Stop; NGOs ask court to force Israel to provide vaccines for all Palestinians

From Ian:

Why Israel’s ‘Critics’ Can’t Help Being Antisemitic, and How They Can Stop

The problem that all anti-Israel liberals and progressives must face, however, is that Palestinian nationalism is not and has never been liberal or progressive. It has always been a racist movement that fundamentally dehumanizes the Jews. From the 1920s on, it has employed the pogrom and the slaughter of men, women, and children by knife, gun, and suicide bomber in order to achieve its aims. It glorifies war crimes and atrocities. It openly and enthusiastically collaborated with Nazism, to the point of encouraging and approving of the Holocaust. It spawned the PLO and Hamas, two of the most effective terror groups in history, both of which advocate ethnic cleansing. And it regularly engages in a crude antisemitism that is difficult if not impossible to distinguish from the right-wing antisemitism the left supposedly despises.

The Palestinian national movement, in other words, violates and has always violated liberal and progressive values, something that many leftists, however much they may advocate an end to the occupation and a Palestinian state, have always noted and thus opposed — which is much to their credit.

It presents the anti-Israel left, however, with a terrible dilemma: how can they support a movement that is contrary to all their professed principles?

The answer is a simple one: by embracing antisemitism. They have no other choice. They need to declare that Israel, Zionism, and the Jews are so evil that nothing is off limits. It is not so much that anti-Israel leftists are antisemitic, but that there is no way they cannot be antisemitic. There is simply no other way they can rationalize their adoption of Palestinian nationalism. Without antisemitism, they would be instantly revealed as hypocrites, racists, and genocidaires.

If anti-Israel antisemitism is to be overcome, then, anti-Israel leftists must at long last confront it within themselves. They must admit that it is perfectly possible to advocate a two-state solution or Palestinian self-determination without embracing a specific reactionary nationalism that rejects their most passionately held convictions.

Ironically, the best way for them to do so is by adopting the IHRA definition, which might prompt a moral struggle that could purge the left of the moral bankruptcy that has made criticism of Israel a racist endeavor.

Modified Definition of Anti-Semitism Sets a Dangerous Precedent

A new working definition of anti-Semitism unveiled last week by the Nexus Task Force is meant to challenge the 2016 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition as it relates to criticism of Israel. Nexus concludes that treating Israel differently than other countries is not in itself an act of anti-Semitism.

Before IHRA and before Nexus, the U.S. State Department's Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism released in 2010 its own working definition of anti-Semitism. What was conceptualized in 2003 by famed Israeli refusenik Natan Sharansky - demonizing, delegitimizing and holding Israel to a double standard - is defined as anti-Semitic.

Holding Israel - and only Israel - to a higher moral, behavioral and political standard not required by any other nation is plain wrong. Why is it OK for the only Jewish country to be disproportionally singled out and vilified for its actions? How is it not anti-Semitic to tell Jews to act differently than any other peoples because the world is watching their every move? History has taught us that giving others the authority to tell Jews how to think and behave has never ended well. The Nexus definition sets a dangerous precedent.

This ‘declaration’, signed by racists like Peter Beinart & Richard Falk, obscenely claims calls of ‘River to the Sea’, ‘One State Solution’, Rejection of Zionism, Double Standards against Israel, apartheid slurs and BDS are not Antisemitic. https://t.co/Ic35pPm9RM
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) March 25, 2021

Racists supporting racists 👇👇👇 https://t.co/cVDQpqSpvw
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) March 24, 2021

Palestinian law specifically excludes Israelis from voting. Apartheid!!!!!!

We've been told countless times this year that Israel is a racist, apartheid state because it doesn't allow Palestinians to vote, even though Israel has great influence over their lives.

It turns out that Palestinian law has a specific provision that anyone with Israeli citizenship cannot vote.

Israeli lives are very much affected by whomever is running the Palestinian Authority. If Hamas wins, it could mean rockets being shot from the West Bank that could reach every Israeli citizen. It could mean a new intifada, with terrorists streaming into Israel across sections where the security fence was never finished.

Yet Israelis have no say in who is elected to lead the PA.

By the standards of Israel's critics, isn't this apartheid?

It is actually worse. The law doesn't say that those with, say, Jordanian citizenship or Canadian citizenship are not allowed to vote. Palestinians in the US who want to travel back to Ramallah to vote seem to be, according to these laws, allowed to vote.

Only Israeli citizens aren't allowed to vote. The law is explicitly against Israelis and no others.

If Israeli laws saying that no non-citizens may vote is "apartheid," then what do you call a law where the only people who cannot vote are Israelis?

Woman Discovers Amulets Containing Heretical Text Just As Effective As Ones Containing Psalms (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

mini tehillim Jerusalem, March 25 - A customer at a cut-price chain retailer voiced her consternation today upon discovering not only that the miniature books of Psalms she had purchased as spiritual devices to ward off misfortune contained not the Hebrew poetry of King David and others, but portions of the Christian bible, but also that the idolatrous items offer the same level of protection against evil as do those with Psalms.

Haviva Azoulay, 30, came upon a clip making the rounds on social media last week, which showed that a package of small books of Psalms, each one about an inch in height, sold as amulets for good fortune or protection against mishaps and maladies, in fact contained small New Testament books - but even more disturbing, she discovered that, having bought the items and placed them in what she had deemed auspicious locations around her, in retrospect she had enjoyed the same level of protection as during a previous time in her life when she had used authentic Psalms amulets.

"I... I don't know what to think," confessed Ms. Azoulay, who sells artisanal candles and soaps, and who insists herbs and proper spiritual thoughts can boost the body's immune system to prevent COVID and other illness. "My first thought is I did something wrong in placing the charms, so that they are actually having no effect. No other explanation has occurred to me yet."

Azoulay has confided the situation to others in her meditation group, one of whom volunteered to remove the offending amulets and "detoxify" the apartment with "cleansing herbs" to "negate the long-term effects" the heretical texts might have on the atmosphere there. Medieval Jewish sources disagree on whether Christianity constitutes a form of idolatry considered a capital sin even for non-Jews, or whether the system has room for a "shared" godhead that at least some forms of the faith accept. For Jews, however, the sources remain unanimous that the fundamental tenets of Christianity render it a grave violation.

The Torah similarly forbids the use of magic, necromancy, divining, and other superstitious practices.

"I know I've been spared coronavirus because of my spiritual routine," insisted Azoulay. "Of course I'm not getting vaccinated when I have divine protection! Or so I thought, anyway. Could be I just got lucky. Or it could be my vegan diet. One neighbor mocked my situation and even implied the authentic items don't offer protection either! I can't deal with that kind of person."

03/25 Links Pt1: With near-final results in, Netanyahu appears once again short of majority; Iran fired missile at Israeli ship in Arabian Sea

From Ian:

With near-final results in, Netanyahu appears once again short of majority

With 4,429,518 total votes tallied — more than the original estimated turnout, which appears to have been an undercount — there are no changes in the results, and no candidate has an obvious path to the premiership.

According to statements from today by the Central Elections Committee, it appears that there are no more than 10,000 votes left to count, meaning further changes in the Knesset makeup are highly unlikely.

The only possible change is Meretz losing a seat to Labor, which wouldn’t change the blocs — but even that change would require a swing of over 900 votes.

Bibi on the Brink

Once embarked on his political career, Netanyahu was submerged in the relentless intrigues of Likud and coalition politics, but for his years as finance minister under Sharon. In that role his performance was downright phenomenal, as even his most bitter opponents readily concede. He inherited stalled growth, high cyclical unemployment, and much institutionalized underemployment in the overgrown, almost Soviet-style public sector.

Everything he did was predictably MIT Business School and Boston Consulting, everything he did from deregulation to privatization was bitterly criticized as the abandonment of the founding fathers’ socialism. It certainly did increase inequality. But Israel’s economy was launched on a boom of high-quality growth that continues still after 17 years, drastically reducing unemployment, eliminating most “socialist underemployment,” sharply improving the debt-to-GDP ratio, and allowing the country to pay for a health care system that takes care of all Arabs and Jews within its borders (that is, not Gaza or the West Bank), and that competes with the world’s best. Israel now ranks ahead of Sweden, France, Germany, and the U.K. in overall longevity, even as it invests heavily in education, science, technology, and of course, in very expensive armed forces. The country’s high-tech sector that now carries the rest of the economy could never have boomed and kept booming without Netanyahu’s reforms.

That is actually the ultimate irony of Netanyahu’s career. In contrast to his great managerial effectiveness as a reforming finance minister, his political performance as prime minister has consisted of a very long sequence of mediocre compromises, but for a few brilliant exploits: His commando raid on Pfizer has made Israel the most vaccinated country in the world; just before that, he was a protagonist—along with the oh-so-easy to underestimate Jared Kushner—of the “Abrahamic” diplomacy that diminished the Arab encirclement of Israel that began in 1947 to a few irrelevant holdouts, and the two fractured states of Iraq and Syria. It was not even by Netanyahu’s own decision that the Palestinians were never really on his agenda but for brief bouts of fighting to tame Hamas, and for constant jockeying with the Palestine Liberation Organization to preserve its security cooperation. It was automatically mandated by the only coalitions that would support him. As for Iran, Netanyahu was not the sole author of Israeli policy. It really was an institutional team effort with the Mossad at the center, but Netanyahu was certainly its eloquent advocate, at least most of the time.

All Israelis I know are sick and tired of Netanyahu, who is now bitterly opposed on the right as well as by the left, while centrists support the ex-officials and ex-generals who function as midstream “institutional” candidates. Even his core support among the least educated Israelis has shrunk. Last time, he pulled off a Houdini act to remain prime minister even after essentially losing the election. But a repetition is unlikely: Last time, his rival believed his promise to take turns in heading the government, a mistake no one will repeat. ’Tis a pity that Israel’s economy is not in crisis, for otherwise Netanyahu and his supporters might be seen off with the offer of the Finance Ministry once again.

Securing Peace in the Middle East

The Abraham Accords reversed the order of the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002: then, ending occupation came first and in return Israel got diplomatic recognition. Now, normalization comes first. Arab states have always put their interests first before the Palestinians, even if they elevated the Palestinian cause rhetorically.

What is different now is there is a loss of fear about the Palestinian ability to mobilize a threatening reaction against those Arab leaders who make the decision to normalize with Israel because it serves their interests. Israel offers not just security benefits but can help when it comes to health, water, and agriculture.

Building on the Abraham Accords won't just happen, it will require some active brokering by the Biden Administration. Passive support won't add to the accords.

What has stood in the way of Palestinian self-rule is not the fervor of Palestinian claims for which they had no realistic capacity of achieving, but rather the conceptual unwillingness to agree to anything that might involve genuine reconciliation with the existence of Israel. A struggle for liberation wouldn't have this problem, and indeed others haven't. But a struggle for elimination of another people does. The Palestinians have had to bear the burden of the Arab struggle against a cosmically evil Israel whose very existence was seen as a monumental crime that needed to somehow be reversed. The widening circle of normalization with Israel reduces the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a cosmic one to a territorial one, where the difference in the competing territorial claims is actually quite minimal.

Did Israel Expel Palestinian Arabs? | The Israeli-Palestinian Context

What’s the true story of the hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the Middle East? One of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s biggest hot potatoes is the idea that ethnic cleansing transpired against Palestinian Arabs in 1948. This week, we are zooming out to give you a wider perspective of the events that caused the removal of both Arabs and Jews from their homes in pre-and-post state Israel.

Israeli-American company developing COVID-19 vaccine - in a pill. Will BDSers boycott it?

From Medscape:

A coronavirus vaccine that could be taken as a pill may enter clinical trials in the second quarter of 2021.

The oral vaccine is being developed by Oravax Medical, a new joint venture of the Israeli-American company Oramed and the Indian company Premas Biotech, Business Insider reported.

So far, all vaccines in use are delivered by injection. One advantage of an oral vaccine is that people could take it at home instead of having the vaccine administered by medical personnel at a central location.

In a news release, Oramed said the vaccine being developed would also be easier to distribute because it could be shipped in a normal refrigerator and stored at room temperature.

"An oral COVID-19 vaccine would eliminate several barriers to rapid, widescale distribution, potentially enabling people to take the vaccine themselves at home," Nadav Kidron, CEO of Oramed, said in the news release. "While ease of administration is critical today to accelerate inoculation rates, an oral vaccine could become even more valuable in the case that a COVID-19 vaccine may be recommended annually like the standard flu shot."

The Oravax vaccine "targets three structural proteins of the novel coronavirus, as opposed to the single spike protein targeted via the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines," Kidron told The Jerusalem Post. That would make the vaccine more resistant to COVID-19 variants, he said.

The vaccine is yeast-based, which would make it cheaper to manufacture, the newspaper said.

The company said a pilot animal study proved promising. It's not known how long clinical trials on humans would take.

That would be a huge game-changer.

And something else for BDSers to boycott.

(h/t Irene)

Back in 2009, I took some religious Zionist commentary and made my own Haggadah. You can print it out and use it for the Seder (and I have indeed done that!)

Elder of Ziyon Haggadah 5769 by Eldad Tzioni

Last year, an EoZ reader asked if I could add transliteration on key parts of the Haggadah so his family could use it. Here is the result:

Please download and enjoy!