Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, May 02, 2021

05/02 Links: A Hasidic singer, a dozen boys and teens, a father of 11: All 45 Meron victims; Wikipedia – the most active spreader of antisemitism on the planet; HRW chairman invests in Israel as he calls it ‘apartheid’

From Ian:

A Hasidic singer, a dozen boys and teens, a father of 11: All 45 Meron victims

The identification of all 45 victims from the Mount Meron tragedy has been completed, Israel’s Abu Kabir Forensic Institute said Sunday morning.

The victims, all male, included brothers, children as young as 9, young fathers, and rabbis. At least two families lost multiple children.

Among the victims of the fatal crush caused by overcrowding in a narrow walkway were 10 foreign citizens: six Americans, a British national, two Canadians, and an Argentinian.

The incident, which happened early Friday during celebrations of the Lag B’Omer festival, is the country’s deadliest-ever civilian disaster.

Police on Sunday said a man who took part in the pilgrimage was still missing and asked the public for help in locating him: Icht Haim Yitzhak, 39, was last seen at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday at Mount Meron. He is 6 foot 1 (185 centimeters), thin and bearded.

Dozens were buried Friday, but funeral services ceased during the Sabbath, from Friday evening until Saturday nightfall.

The Abu Kabir Forensic Institute said in a statement Sunday morning that by midnight it had completed the grim task of identifying all 45 victims.

By the morning 44 of the bodies had been released for burial and the last, at the request of the family, was to be released later in the day, the statement said.

High Court of Justice Torpedoed Government’s Attempt to Renovate, Secure Mt. Meron Site

In response to the State Comptroller’s warning in 2007, the state appointed a committee of five members to investigate the situation and make recommendations. By the end of 2011, the Israeli government decided to embrace the committee’s recommendation and nationalize the site, removing ownership from the trusts and transferring it to the state. This was met with a fierce struggle that was waged by some in the Haredi community, who feared losing control on the character of the site, and of their sources of income through the charity collections.

At the end of 2013, the new Minister of Finance Yair Lapid, who served in a Netanyahu coalition government without the Haredi parties, signed an order expropriating the ownership of the place from the trusts, and transferring it to a new governmental company. But in January 2016, the government decided to dismantle the new company and transfer its responsibilities to the Holy Places Administration.

The Haredi associations petitioned the High Court of Justice, which issued an interim ruling that sent the parties to negotiations in order to reach an experimental model, instead of letting the government carry out the expropriation.

An attorney representing the Haredi trusts told Calcalist at the time that the High Court considered nationalizing the site an extreme measure, which should only be used after all the other measures had been exhausted.

Let’s hope that the High Court would consider the death of 45 Jews to mean that those less extreme options have been sufficiently exhausted and that no additional Jews need to lose their lives before the government is allowed to make the site less lethal.

The proposals that have been bandied about in the Israeli media on Sunday involve D9 bulldozers that would raze all the many decrepit structures surrounding Rashbi’s tomb, to create a plaza reminiscent of the wide-open area in front of the Kotel, where hundreds of thousands have been able to crowd together (in the years without a pandemic) without being crushed.

Calls Grow for State Commission of Inquiry into Mount Meron Tragedy

The History of Israel's Mount Meron

110 years ago, 100 people fell from a balcony at Mt. Meron; 11 were killed

The deadly crush in which 45 ultra-Orthodox pilgrims were crushed to death at Mount Meron on Thursday night was not the first safety-related disaster to occur there during Lag B’Omer celebrations. Exactly 110 years ago, 11 people were killed, and more than 40 were wounded, when a balcony railing collapsed at the holy site.

On May 15, 1911, Lag B’Omer night, at the gravesite of the second-century sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, at least 100 people fell some seven meters from a balcony after the railing surrounding it collapsed.

Bar Yochai is reputed to have died on Lag B’Omer. The date, poignant in the era of COVID-19, also commemorates the end of another plague some 2,000 years ago, which saw the deaths of 24,000 followers of Rabbi Akiva.

Back in 1911, almost four decades before the establishment of the State of Israel, there were no emergency medical forces present. The event was being secured by the Ottoman Safed police unit, the Walla news site noted in a report Saturday on past disasters and alerts at the northern Galilee site, which has become the second most-visited holy place in Israel after the Western Wall.

The railing on the balcony, along with part of the roof in an area where a large number of worshippers were present, broke apart, sending dozens plunging downward. Nine died in the immediate aftermath, and two more died the next day in the Rothschild Hospital in Safed, now known as the Bnai Zion Medical Center.

Fears of further disaster at the annual celebrations were frequently raised over subsequent decades, along with numerous reports that underlined the sense of relief when tragedy didn’t strike.

1921 Jaffa riots 100 years on: Mandatory Palestine’s 1st ‘mass casualty’ event

Israel last month marked its 73rd Independence Day, observed as always directly after its Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. The latter event carried a bittersweet distinction: For Israelis, the preceding year was by far the least bloody in their history — only three died in violent attacks — and the year before was second-calmest — with 11.

That these figures should be cause for celebration is an illustration of Israelis’ resignation to living in an environment with no parallel in the developed world — a reality that one of their preeminent novelists and peace activists calls, bleakly, death as a way of life.

For there is no education like experience, and in its nearly three quarters of a century of existence, this country has known three wars with multiple neighbors, two more in Lebanon, three in Gaza, two intifadas and innumerable individual hostile acts. But to make sense of the conflict today it is instructive to look further back still to the events of exactly a century ago, before there was a Jewish state or even a Palestine Mandate.

On May 1, 1921, in the interlude between Britain’s conquest of the land and the League of Nations’ ratification of its mandate, riots shook Palestine. It was the first time since the Crusades that civilians in the Holy Land had experienced what would later be termed, with grim sterility, a mass-fatality incident. And it was, for the Zionist movement, a turning point in its perception of the “Arab question” and its own relation to armed force and retribution.

The Balfour Declaration, the British conquest of the Land and the end of the Great War had produced euphoria in the Yishuv movement — that is, the Jews living in pre-state Israel — convincing it that dreams of sovereignty in Palestine were on the brink of fulfillment. But, as Israeli historian Benny Morris writes, the “massive violence of 1921 left an ineradicable impression on the Zionists, driving home the precariousness of their enterprise.”

The necessity of a strong defense — a conviction previously limited to a few diehards — now began trickling into mainstream Zionist thought.

Hi @TwitterSafety @Twitter: Why are you allowing this hashtag #الجسر_المقدس on your platform? These sinister tweets directly violate your “hateful conduct policy” by expressing astonishing hatred in the wake of human tragedy on Mount Meron. Remove this hashtag! #EndJewHatred pic.twitter.com/k7ojlLTpTx
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) May 2, 2021

The Arabs in the WWII British Army didn't exactly distinguish themselves

From The Arab war effort, a documented account, written by the American Christian Palestine Committee.

Desertions from the armed forces of Middle East countries—both by high ranking Arab officers and by soldiers-form a chapter of their own. Desertion was repeatedly urged in Nazi radio and leaflet propaganda and by the Fifth Column in each country.

The Arab leaders in Germany vigorously propagandized against enlistment of Arabs in the British Army. This, as it happened, was hardly necessary. So few Palestine Arabs joined the Army that Syrians, Lebanese and Transjordanians were encouraged to cross into Palestine and enlist as Palestinians, to fill the quota fixed for Palestine Arab units. It will be recalled that Jewish enlistment in parallel Jewish infantry units was held down to the Arab rate-a rather peculiar service to the war effort on the part of the Palestine Administration. It took the steadily · worsening military situation in the Middle East and the continued pressure by Jewish volunteers to break down this attempt at "equality.” In all, as the Secretary of State for War stated in the 18 Al-Bilad of May 28, 1941, House of Commons on April 2, 1945, 25,714 Palestinian Jews served in the British Forces and 9,041 Arabs.

Many Arab soldiers from Palestine went over to the enemy. The Germans had some success with the help of Arab leaders in mobilizing recruits for their Arab brigades from among Palestinian Arab prisoners of war. In the liberation of Europe Allied forces took prisoner a number of Arabs in German uniform, who had formerly been soldiers in the British Army.

Apart from desertions to the enemy, there were many hundreds of cases of ordinary desertion by Arab soldiers, some of whom left their units with their arms. At least half the Arab soldiers who joined up in Palestine disappeared from the ranks of the British Army through desertion or through discharge on the ground that they were unfit for service.

I was unaware that initially Britain actually limited the number of Palestinian Jews who could volunteer for the army to keep things "equal."

The Palestine Post quotes some of the arguments in British Parliament for and against allowing Jews to fight for the Allied war effort in 1942, with some pre-emptively blaming Jews fighting with the British for Arab support for Nazi Germany.

(h/t Daniel)

The International Middle East Media Center, which pretends to be an independent and objective media outlet, "reports" about the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood that was ethnically cleansed of Jews in 1948:

Israel is planning to build and establish more than 540 colonialist units in the area, and is currently building 54 units, in addition to the ongoing efforts to link them with the Police Command in Sheikh Jarrah and the French Hill settlement in addition to the Hebrew University, as part of the so-called “Jerusalem Belt” colonialist plan linking the colonies with different Palestinian areas in al-‘Isawiya, Rad al-‘Amoud, Wadi ar-Rababa and many other areas, and aim at connecting East Jerusalem with West Jerusalem with this belt of illegal colonies after displacing the indigenous Palestinians.

The Israeli colonialist plan, which is intended to be implemented in phases through many years, was put forth by the government, the Jerusalem City council, the Israel Antiquities Authority and various colonialist organizations in Israel and other counties [sic], and has a budget of 537 Billion Israeli Shekels.

NIS 537 billion is a really specific sounding number! Where did that come from?

It was made up by "activist" Fakhei Abu Diab, whom we have seen both recently and in the past as being obsessed with telling journalists that Jewish history is all a lie.

How absurd is the NIS 537 billion ($165 billion)?

It is higher than the entire budget of the State of Israel which is NIS 426 billion!

The entire budget of the municipality of Jerusalem was NIS 11.2 billion in 2020. The entire budget of the Israel Antiquities Authority is less than half a billion shekels.

The IMEMC, which criticizes the Palestinian Authority freely but never says anything bad about Hamas, is often quoted by Electronic Intifada and other anti-Israel outlets as a reliable news source.

Which goes to show how thoroughly dishonest the entire "pro-Palestinian" media empire is.

Fighting racism does not help fight antisemitism - and Durban IV will prove it yet again

A mantra of the anti-Israel Left is that the only way to fight antisemitism is to throw Jew-hatred into a pile of other bigotries and fight them at the same time.

It is a serious mistake.

The people who style themselves as anti-racist are often antisemites themselves.

We saw it in the British Labour party. Every member of that party would swear that they are anti-racist, anti-bigotry - and yet the private message boards of that same Labour Party were filled with antisemitism that was straight out of Nazi Germany.

We saw it with the Black Lives Matter movement, whose original platform accused Israel of "genocide."

We saw last year a spate of Black celebrities who started pushing antisemitic messages on social media, with little pushback from the "anti-racists." The anti-Jewish incidents during the "anti-racist" riots last year also were swept under the rug by the activists.

Jews are expected to act in solidarity against racism, but "anti-racists" are not expected to show any similar solidarity against antisemitism.

Which means that the premise of the idea that fighting racism will fix antisemitism is clearly incorrect - more often than not, the opposite occurs.

Now it looks like there might be another case of antisemitism being excused in the name of anti-racism. As I reported last week, the Biden administration embraced the 20th anniversary of the antisemitic Durban "anti-racism" conference - which was the worst example of Jew-hatred being openly accepted in the name of anti-racism in this century.

The upcoming UN-sponsored "Durban IV" conference is attempting to marginalize the antisemitism of the 2001 Durban conference by concentrating on "people of African descent" (notably, not African people - nothing about the slave trade or other atrocities happening to Black people in Africa.)

The UN resolution on the Durban IV conference is titled, "A global call for concrete action for the elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and the comprehensive implementation of and follow-up to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action."

The first half of that phrase is praiseworthy. The second half is antisemitic, because the Durban Declaration included language that singled out Israel as being guilty of "racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia [or] related intolerance."

Here's what will happen: Some Jewish groups will object to Durban IV, and "anti-racists" who claim that the battle against antisemitism and racism are the same will tell those groups that if they do not support Durban IV, then they are racist as well.

Calling Jews "racist" is the new antisemitism.

The "anti-racists" will accept every other minority group as having legitimate grievances - but not the Jews. Unless Jews are attacked by skinhead neo-Nazis, their concerns are minimized and ignored.

Unless there is a major campaign to pressure the Biden administration to boycott the Durban IV conference as Obama did for Durban II and III, there is a significant danger that Biden will assume that the anti-racist message outweighs the historic antisemitism of Durban.

Jews, the biggest victims of bigotry in history, are being systematically excluded from conversations about bigotry. It is not an accident.

05/01 Links: Jerusalem's Old City lights up in solidarity with Mount Meron victims; Cotler-Wunsh: 'Canceling' Human Rights; Abbas Wants to ‘Annihilate Jewish State,’ Warn 1,800 Retired Israeli Generals, Officers

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Iran – where Biden and Israel's legal fraternity converge

Consider past efforts. According to a 2012 exposé by Israel's investigative journalism program Uvda ("Fact"), in 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the IDF and Mossad to prepare plans to attack Iran's nuclear installations. Then-Mossad director Meir Dagan and then IDF chief of general staff Gabi Ashkenazy refused to follow the order. They claimed that Netanyahu and Barak lacked the legal authority to give such an order. At the time, current attorney general Avichai Mandelblit served as the IDF's Military Advocate General. In a posthumously broadcast interview, Dagan insisted that Netanyahu's determination to destroy Iran's nuclear program was driven by "political" considerations.

In 2016, Uvda broadcast an interview with Leon Panetta. In 2010, as Obama's CIA director, Panetta was Dagan's counterpart. In the interview, Panetta revealed that after refusing Netanyahu's order, Dagan travelled to Washington and informed Panetta about the order – thus alerting the US to Israel's plans.

Dagan's move was arguably treacherous, but more to the point, the fact that in 2010 he had faith in the Obama administration's commitment to Israel's security than he had in Netanyahu shows that at a minimum, Dagan had no understanding of international politics. The year before, at his address at the American University in Cairo, Obama declared before the world his intention to realign US policy away from Israel and the US's traditional Sunni Arab allies and towards Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. Dagan clearly failed to grasp the implications of the speech. Netanyahu and Barak clearly understood them.

As Attorney General, the same Mandelblit who claimed in 2010 that Israel's elected leaders lacked the authority to determine strategic policy has even more aggressively eroded the governing powers of Israel's political leadership, while arrogating those powers and authorities to himself and his office. Just this week, Mandelblit took his legally ungirded efforts to new heights by declaring illegal a legal vote of the government which approved the appointment of a justice minister that Mandelblit didn't want.

In this state of affairs, with elected leaders hamstrung by unelected lawyers devoid of international political awareness or accountability to the voting public, the likelihood that Israel's elected leaders will be capable of conceiving and carrying out a policy to block Iran's rise as a nuclear power is not high.

The Israeli public discourse about legal reform generally focuses on the domestic implications of the legal fraternity's seizure of the political powers of elected officials. But as the episode from 2010 makes clear, the current power imbalance between unelected lawyers and elected politicians has acute strategic implications. Until Israel's elected leaders seize back their powers from the government attorneys, they will be unable to contend with the strategic challenge posed by the Biden administration's embrace of Iran and gutting of the US-Israel alliance.

Michal Cotler-Wunsh: 'Canceling' Human Rights

After decades of "Israel apartheid weeks" on campuses around the world, the HRW report is a final nail in the coffin of the "apartheid" narrative. It is vital to identify and expose it for what it is—yet another manifestation of a systematic strategy to replace bullets with words, still intent to destroy the state of Israel. As the report indicates, the war rages on. There is, after all, zero legitimacy for a true apartheid state to exist. It cannot be repaired and must be dismantled. And erasing Israel from the map is the ultimate goal of the "industry of lies," perversely done in the name of human rights.

However, this war gnaws away not only at Israel's legitimate existence, but at the very foundations upon which democracy, international law and human rights rest. It is therefore not only the right and responsibility of Israel, but the imperative of all guardians of international law and human rights, to identify, expose and address the abuse and double standards that enable and empower this damaging process. Among its damaging lies, the HRW report strips Palestinians of agency; ignores the existence and responsibility of the Palestinian Authority; inserts the Oslo Accords, which merited Nobel Peace recognition, into the apartheid narrative; and erases the identity other minorities in Israel, referring to Druze, Bedouin and Circassian all as Palestinians. Overall, the report constitutes not only an obstacle, but an outright impasse to peace.

Robert Bernstein z''l, founder and CEO of HRW, understood the power of the tools he had championed in order to uphold, promote and protect human rights. He recognized that they were being weaponized to turn Israel into a pariah state. In his important New York Times 2009 article, titled "Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Middle East," he wrote: "Only by returning to its founding mission and the spirit of humility that animated it can Human Rights Watch resurrect itself as a moral force in the Middle East and throughout the world." He continued: "If it fails to do that, its credibility will be seriously undermined and its important role in the world significantly diminished."

How right he was. Much like what happened with Albert Einstein, the powerful tools Bernstein had helped develop, intended to be used as a force for good, have destructive potential and threaten not only the continued existence of Israel, but the foundational principles of democracy, international law and human rights. Left unchecked, these tools may end up empowering the continued culture of impunity toward the most truly egregious violators of human rights.

The HRW report can, and should, serve as a wake-up call. It underscores the imperative and collective responsibility of all trustees of real international law and real human rights. It requires we identify, expose and address the lies and double standards, demanding equal and consistent application of expectations and law, ensuring these powerful tools are not utilized to undermine peaceful coexistence. It necessitates an understanding that this is a war for our very collective survival, one that we can and must fight—together.

JPost Editorial: Israel needs a Diaspora Affairs Ministry and Diaspora Jewry needs Israel

These programs are important, but they are not the only reason why a Diaspora Ministry is needed. An office dedicated to the Jews of the world sends a message to those Jews that Israel cares about them and that they have an address to come to discuss issues that concern them.

As two distinct Jewish communities, the Jews of Israel and the Jews of the United States – the largest Jewish community outside of Israel – are never going to agree on everything. The simple fact that both communities live in different parts of the world and face different daily challenges will mean that they will almost always view situations differently and will have different perspectives on those experiences.

Nevertheless, the majority of Jews in the world recognize that there is more that connects them than there is that divides. A 2019 study by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that a third of Israeli Jews view US Jews as siblings; a third of French Jews consider Israeli Jews to be siblings and only a minority of French Jews (16%), and a minority of American Jews (28%) say they do not regard Israelis as “family.”

Studies like these show that the situation is far from being lost. Work is needed, but there is common ground that can be built upon to establish even stronger relations.

Since its inception 73 years ago, Israel has taken pride in being the state which all Jews can call their home. For this to happen, Diaspora Jews need to be made to feel that they have a home here, and that there is someone listening to them and thinking about them.

We understand the need to cut spending and establish a government with less ministries. But the Diaspora is not something to be sacrificed. Israel needs a Diaspora Affairs Ministry and Diaspora Jewry needs a strong Israel. Keep the ministry open.

Jerusalem's Old City lights up in solidarity with Mount Meron victims

The Jerusalem Municipality illuminated the walls of the Old City on Saturday evening in a show of solidarity with the families of the victims of the Mount Meron disaster in which 45 were killed and 150 were injured in a stampede during Lag Ba'Omer ceremonies. Speaking about the tragedy at Mount Meron, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion said "this is the largest civilian disaster that the State of Israel has ever seen. The City of Jerusalem embraces the families of the victims and wishes all the injured a fast recovery." This is not the first time that messages of solidarity have illuminated the walls of the Old City. In 2018 they lit up with a message to the Jewish community of Pittsburgh following a deadly synagogue shooting. Other occasions that the walls have been illuminated include both Remembrance Day and Independence Day of this year.

04/30 Links Pt2: Inclusivity, Sure. But Not for the Zionists; The Jew-Hatred Elephant in the Room; The dangerous immorality of Human Rights Watch; Iran banned from international Judo till 2023 over Israel

From Ian:

Inclusivity, Sure. But Not for the Zionists.

Two years ago, I wrote about a scandal involving Williams College’s student-led Council’s decision to vote against recognizing a club because, student comments suggested, it was pro-Israel. Ultimately, the college administration stepped in and approved the club anyway.

Now in Southern California, another prestigious small college, Pomona College, may be headed down a similar road. Not content to make the usual symbolic statements against Israel, Pomona’s student government, the Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) voted unanimously to boycott, as far as its internal spending is concerned, companies said to “support the occupation of Palestine.” The resolution not only draws on a blacklist found on the website of the notoriously Israel-obsessed U.N. Human Rights Council but also promises to cooperate with the anti-Israel club, Students for Justice in Palestine, in monitoring compliance.

At the same time, ASPC adopted the “end goal” of banning, across the five-college consortium of which Pomona is a member, individual clubs from violating the boycott. Clubs found in violation would be defunded. In other words, ASPC and other student governments in the consortium may recognize a Jewish group; but they won’t fund one unless it goes along with the boycott.

When the resolution was first discussed without a word of objection, the outgoing senior class president explained that it was “a great concrete example of how we can stand in solidarity with all students.” The mission of ASPC to foster an “inclusive campus climate” has room for everyone, except for Zionists, who may feel less than included by the ASPC’s use of an anti-Israel litmus test to allocate money it takes in from mandatory student fees.

As Janie Marcus of the Claremont Progressive Israel Alliance, a pro-Israel student group that operates across the consortium, puts it, the resolution “marginalizes Jewish students who view Israel as the Jewish homeland and directly targets these Jewish students.” Her own organization could be defunded if the ASPC achieves the goal it has just endorsed.

Melanie Phillips: How Biden is smashing America’s moral compass and dragging the West behind it

Durban 2001 indelibly marked the moral collapse of the United Nations. It was the point at which the “anti-racist” and “human rights” movement turned itself into a propulsive motor for anti-Semitism, serving as the launching pad for the campaign of demonization, delegitimization and destruction of Israel that has continued ever since.

The countries that in 2011 boycotted the Durban process held the line against this bigotry. That was then. Now, shockingly, the United States has obliterated that line. Last month, it reversed the Obama administration’s Durban position.

Having just rejoined the U.N. Human Rights Council, America promoted a statement of commitment to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance linked to “recalling the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action.”

Obama had repudiated this declaration on the grounds of its unjust demonization of Israel and the “hateful and anti-Semitic displays” around its creation. The Biden administration has embraced it.

Now there is to be a yet further attempt to re-weaponize Durban. In September, the United Nations plans to hold a 20th-anniversary meeting where the original declaration will be reconfirmed.

As the blogger “Elder of Zion” has observed, given America’s endorsement of Durban at the Human Rights Council, it’s entirely possible that the Biden administration will attend the September meeting—and thus associate the United States with what the Obama White House condemned as a commemoration of the “hateful and anti-Semitic displays of the 2001 Durban Conference.”

Shocking as all this is, it makes perfect sense in light of the Democrats’ embrace of intersectionality and identity politics. Intersectionality holds that Jews and the State of Israel are “white privileged” oppressors (even though most Israeli Jews are brown-skinned, coming from regions of the Middle East).

According to this dogma, Israel can’t be the victim of Iran or the Palestinian Arabs (although it indubitably is), and no people of color can be anti-Semites (which some indubitably are).

Is Spain a Champion of the “Zionism = Apartheid” Campaign of Durban IV?

The Madrid-based NGO, ACOM (Action and Communication on the Middle East), has charged the Unidas Podemos party as, reportedly, funded by Iran. Its leader, Pablo Iglesias, has, until last month, been Spanish Deputy Prime Minister and is now candidate for the Community of Madrid Presidency.

Iglesias was on the staff of HispanTV, Iran’s mouthpiece to Spanish language viewers across Latin America. He has called Israel. “a criminal state… an illegal country…” and apparently stated, “Wall Street is almost all in the hands of Jews… the Jewish lobby supports initiatives against the peoples of the world.” He is a leading figure in the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) campaign and a close friend of British Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Podemos has declared regions of Spain accepting the boycott, as “zones free of Israeli apartheid,” reminiscent of “Judenrein” (cleansed of Jews) areas of the Nazi programme.

Another Podemos leader, Sonia Vivas, claimed at an international aid conference that, “Jews should be held accountable for supporting Israel.”

During the March 2021 session of the Geneva Human Rights Council, the Wiesenthal Centre addressed a letter to European and other democracies that had either voted against or abstained on participating in Durban II and III, both opened by then Iranian President Ahmadinejad, spewing Jew-hatred. We had urged that the recipients boycott the 20th anniversary of the Durban antisemitic hatefest.

Our letter to the Spanish government reached the centre-right opposition Partido Popular (PP), who raised the issue in Parliament. The response of the present left and extreme left government coalition has rendered Spain as a leader of an opposite campaign in Europe and Latin America, calling to support Durban IV at the UN in September.

This represents the ideology of Podemos, which would have likely led the Inquisition and expulsion of the Spanish Jews in 1492… Today, they apparently seek a second expulsion of the Jews, this time, from the Land of Israel.

Caroline Glick: The Jew-Hatred Elephant in the Room

The key to the world's prolonged success in ignoring the Palestinian elephant of Jew-hatred is the widespread denial that anti-Zionism, and using a double standard to judge Israel, are forms of anti-Semitism. In a world where it is unacceptable to say that the Jews alone among the people of the earth are to be denied self-determination in their ancestral homeland, it would be similarly unacceptable for the Palestinians to define their national identity through their rejection of the Jews and co-opting of Jewish history.

In a world in which Israel is judged by the same standard as its fellow democracies, it would be impossible for the U.S. embassy or The New York Times to hide the plain fact that for the past two weeks, Arabs have been senselessly beating Jews in the streets of Jerusalem.

The thing about hatred is that when it is not confronted, it grows. Now that everyone feels comfortable turning a blind eye to Palestinian hatred and everyone is getting away with blaming the Jews for Palestinian assaults against Jewish Israelis, others are enthusiastically joining. On university campuses throughout the United States, for instance, Jewish students are subjected to anti-Semitic ostracism, boycott and harassment. The anti-Semites discriminating against Jewish students know that all they have to do to get away with their hateful conduct is to couch their rhetoric as "opposition to Israel." And instead of being punished or expelled for their bigotry, they are embraced by others who like the anti-Semitism exception and seize the license to hate Jews while ironically spouting their commitment to fighting all forms of discrimination.

In France, when Palestinians in Gaza or Judea and Samaria open a new terror campaign against Israel, Muslim extremists often attack Jews. And since they do so as a means of "protesting" Israel, they get a free pass for vandalizing synagogues and Jewish schools and beating Jews in the streets.

With the rise of Senator Warren's fellow progressives to leadership in the Democratic Party, we are likely to see more tales about how "U.S. military aid," "the Benjamins" and, of course, "the occupation" are the "elephants in the room." This disingenuous rhetoric will be geared toward achieving two goals—supporting the Palestinian war against Israel and protecting the real elephant in the room.

The Caroline Glick Show: Episode 3 - The rising specter of Middle East War

The Biden team's rush to appease and empower Iran is increasing the prospects of a major war breaking out in the MIddle East. In the third episode of the Caroline Glick Mideast News Hour, Caroline and guest host Dan Diker, a political warfare expert from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs discuss the impact of the Biden administration's tilt against Israel in light of the rise in Palestinian violence against Israeli Jews through street beatings and missile strikes; and Iran's growing confidence that it can attack Israel directly and through its terror proxies.

s Israel's prolonged political instability and the growing chance tht Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will soon be replaced by an inexperienced successor, anti-Semitism is also playing a larger and more dangerous role in global affairs.

Antisemite CJ Werleman claims Israel deliberately kills Muslims on Ramadan

CJ Werleman, the obsessively anti-Israel author and journalist, gives a master class in how to lie with facts in this article in Inside Arabia:

Israel Has Made a Habit Out of Bombing Gaza During Ramadan

Four days after the start of the holy month of Ramadan this April, Israeli warplanes began pounding the encaged and blockaded Palestinian enclave of Gaza, carrying out multiple bombing raids over two consecutive days against what it claimed without evidence to be “terror targets.”

“We strongly condemn Israel’s airstrike on Gaza during the [Muslim] holy month of Ramadan,” said Turkey’s presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin on April 16, echoing similar calls from leaders throughout the Muslim world.

In a world filled with unpredictable and unforeseeable events, Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip during Ramadan has reached the level of predictable certainty,

Somehow, Werleman fails to mention that those attacks came as a direct response to rocket fire from Gaza on both days.

Even Al Jazeera admits that!

Werleman would say "you cannot find a single lie in my piece." Maybe. But misleading readers by withholding context is just a more sophisticated lie. And this is no oversight - he is deliberately framing Israeli responses to attacks as being driven by Jewish bigotry.

Let's use Werleman's own techniques to "prove" the converse to what he says - Palestinian Muslims love to attack Jews during Ramadan.

The double suicide bombings on Ben Yehuda Street in 2001, killing 11.

The Haifa Bus 16 suicide attack, killing 15.

The Kiryat Menachem bus bombing in 2002, killing 15.

The 2004 Carmel Market bombing, killing 4.

The Hadera Market bombing in 2005, killing 7.

4 killed in a shooting attack in Kiryat Arba, 2010.

August 20, 2011, one killed Beersheva during a barrage of 70 rockets from Gaza.

This is only some of the fatal attacks, and a tiny percentage of total attacks.

It sure sounds like Palestinians love to attack Jews on the holy month of Ramadan, doesn't it?

Except that it is not true. They attack whenever they want, Ramadan included. It may be statistically more likely that attacks happen during Ramadan, but it is far from obvious - if someone is seeking to report the truth.

But what is clearly true is that Muslims are no less likely to attack during the holy month of Ramadan. After all, Egypt calls the Yom Kippur War that they started the "Ramadan War." They are quite proud of that fact.

Werleman - who brags that he used to be an anti-Muslim bigot before he saw the light - is as bigoted as he ever was.

04/30 Links Pt1: 45 crushed to death, over 150 hurt in stampede at mass Lag B’Omer event in Meron; Abbas delays first Palestinian elections in 15 years, blaming Israel; John Kerry’s anti-Israel stance speaks for itself

From Ian:

45 crushed to death, over 150 hurt in stampede at mass Lag B’Omer event in Meron

At least 45 people were crushed to death and more than 150 people hurt, including many in critical condition, in a stampede after midnight Thursday at a mass gathering to celebrate the Lag B’Omer holiday at Mount Meron, medics said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the incident “a terrible disaster,” promised a thorough investigation, and said that Sunday would be declared a day of national mourning.

Army Radio reported that children were among the dead and injured.

The event is believed to be the worst peacetime tragedy in modern Israeli history, with a death toll higher than the 44 who lost their lives in the 2010 Mount Carmel forest fire.

The wounded were taken to the Ziv hospital in Safed, the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, Rambam hospital in Haifa, Poriya hospital in Tiberias, and Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem. By Friday afternoon, 21 people were still in hospitals, several of them in serious condition.

Several hospitals opened hotlines for people to search for family and friends who may have been injured; Galilee: 04-9850505, Ziv: 04-6828838 and Poriya: 04-6652211. Police could also be contacted at 110. Efforts to identify all the victims and contact all the families were expected to be protracted, with some living overseas.

The Magen David Adom rescue service said the tragedy was caused by a crush and overcrowding.

A police official said the incident was centered on a slippery walkway, with a metal floor, where crowding was at a height. (The harrowing videos below show some of the unfolding tragedy.)

Director of Medical division, United Hatzalah - April 30

Netanyahu: National Day of Mourning to Be Held Sunday for Victims of Mount Meron

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country will observe a national day of mourning on Sunday for the victims of Mount Meron shortly after departing from the scene of the tragedy.

“The Mount Meron disaster in one of the heaviest disasters to befall the state of Israel,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.

“We mourn the victims, our hearts are with the families, and also the wounded whom we wish a full recovery. There were heartbreaking sights here, people crushed to death, including children,” he continued.

After congratulating rescue and medical units for their speedy response, Netanyahu added that “I would like to declare a national day of mourning on Sunday. Let us all unite with the grief of the families and pray for the peace of the wounded.”

Netanyahu arrived earlier in the day at the site of a stampede that killed at least 44 people and injured another 150, including many in critical condition, in one of Israel’s deadliest recent disasters.

Rivlin Lights 45 Candles in Memory of Mount Meron Stampede Victims

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin lit up 45 candles on Friday in memory of those killed in the stampede on the Mount Meron compound earlier in the day.

“I send my heartfelt thanks to those working without a break since last night to rescue and give medical treatment” to those injured, Rivlin said in a statement.

“This is the time to embrace the families, to help all those looking for their loved ones, to take those injured to our hearts. To weep together.”

Rivlin’s office opened a hotline for those seeking assistance with finding their close ones in the wake of the tragedy.

Late on Thursday, thousands arrived at the religious site to celebrate Lag B’Omer, a holiday when many Jews make a pilgrimage to the grave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.

A narrow, slippery and severely overcrowded walkway in the area worked as a bottleneck for the revelers, media reports say, with several people slipping and knocking others off their feet, resulting in the stampede that killed at least 45 people and left about 150 injured, including critically. Other available accounts suggest that the tragedy unraveled differently.

The disaster amounts to Israel’s worst peacetime tragedy, the second-worst one being the Mount Carmel forest fire of 2010.

In the movies about epidemics, a standard subplot -- from Outbreak to World War Z, -- is the attempt to identify and locate patient zero -- the first documented case of the condition.

With that in mind, it may be possible to identify victim zero, one of the earliest victims of the cancel culture that is ostracizing those that do not fall in line with Black Lives Matter on the one hand and the uncovering of white supremacy and racists who support it on the other. The doctor and essayist Theodore Dalrymple wrote about him in 2002 in an essay, The Man Who Predicted the Race Riots, which is included in his 2005 book Our Culture, What's Left of It.

The complete essay is also available online.

Dalrymple discusses the case of Ray Honeyford, the headmaster of a British middle school, who in 1984 was "branded a near-murderous racist and ultimately drummed out of his job." Given the stories today of the excesses and intimidation of the cancel culture, the issues and accusations Honeyford and Dalrymple describe sound familiar, even though they are from over 35 years ago.

The trouble started when Honeyford submitted an article that was originally turned down by the Times Educational Supplement before it was accepted and published by the conservative Salisbury Review. He wrote about what he saw as the flaw in multi-culturalism being used to address the problems of multi-racial inner cities and the reactions of those who were determined to close down debate on the issue. In the article, Honeyford wrote about how:

the race lobby has so managed to induce and maintain feelings of guilt in the well-disposed majority, that decent people are not only afraid of voicing certain thoughts, they are uncertain even of their right to think those thoughts...The term ‘racism’, for instance, functions not as a word with which to create insight, but as a slogan designed to suppress constructive thought. [emphasis added]

Back in 1984, Honeyford did not have recourse to the term "intersectionality" that was coined in 1989, but he was aware of the tactic of uniting minorities as one persecuted group against white 'supremacists':

The word ‘black’ has been perverted. Every non-white is now, officially, ‘black’, be he Indian, Pakistani or Vietnamese. This gross and offensive dichotomy has an obvious purpose: the creation of an atmosphere of anti-white solidarity. [emphasis added]

The use of labels extended beyond the use of the word "racism" in the effort to smear opponents. Also like today, violent riots were peaceful protests and the police were considered the enemy:

And there are other distortions: race riots are described by the politically motivated as ‘uprisings’, and by a Lord of Appeal as a ‘superb and healthy catalyst for the British people’ — and the police blamed for the behaviour of violent thugs

Honeyford quotes a lecturer at the University of London on the need for violence:

Blacks will fight with pressure, leaflets, campaigns, demonstrations, fists and scorching resentment which, when peaceful means fail, will explode into street fighting, urban guerrilla warfare, looting, burning and rioting.

Similarly, back then the attacks on Honeyford took accusations of "racism" to the next level. There was a 'cancel culture' in effect as well. A group of black people wrote in the Caribbean Times:

All teachers, especially those like Mr Honeyford, should be compelled to attend massive [sic] in-service training courses to bring them up to date with modern education theory, and practice, and to purge them of their racist outlook and ideology. Teachers who refuse to adapt their teaching and go on in-service training courses should be redeployed or retired off [sic] early. School books with a racist content... should be scrapped. Racist teachers should be dismissed. [emphasis added]

Dalrymple writes that the abuse and threats thrown at Honeyford were so bad that he required police protection. The intimidation prevented fellow teachers and potential allies, who privately supported him, from coming out publicly on his behalf. Still, attempts at the city council to have Honeyford dismissed failed for lack of legal cause.

In the end, however, Honeyford took early retirement.

Dalrymple makes a point of clarifying Honeyford's position against multi-culturalism. Honeyford felt strongly about the importance of integrating students of different backgrounds, of ensuring their proficiency in British history and the English language -- but he did not support complete uniformity at the expense of the student's native culture or religion.

According to Dalrymple, Honeyford's model for integrating into British society was the Jewish community:

Within a generation of arrival, Jews succeeded, despite the initial prejudice against them, in making a hugely disproportionate contribution to the upper reaches of national life as academics, cabinet ministers, entrepreneurs, doctors and lawyers, writers and artists. The upkeep of their own traditions was entirely their own affair, and they relied not at all on official patronage or the doctrines of multiculturalism. This was Honeyford’s ideal, and he saw no reason why the formula should not work again, given a chance. [emphasis added]

Maybe that was the problem with Honeyford's ideal -- what must be given up to have that success.

In another essay, When Islam Breaks Down, in the same book, Dalrymple writes:

The devout Muslim fears, and not without good reason, that to give an inch is sooner or later to concede the whole territory...The Muslim immigrants to these areas were not seeking a new way of life when they arrived; they expected to continue their old lives, but more prosperously. [p. 287]

Along with the integration that Honeyford believes provides the potential for success, can come a degree of assimilation, and not all minorities are willing to concede their culture.

Assimilation is a major issue for the Jewish community in the US. But in that regard, it may be worth pointing out a key difference between the Jewish communities in Great Britain and the US.

An article in Haaretz in 2016 reports on the stronger sense of Jewish identity in Great Britain:

The current intermarriage rate among self-identifying Jews in Britain (a figure put at about 290,000 people), according to the report, stands at 26 percent. This is the highest level for a generation in Britain: yes. And it reflects an upward trend, yes. But the rate has been rising very slowly since the late 1980s, and remains significantly and consistently lower than the equivalent intermarriage figures in the USA.

With some 5.4 million Jews, the United States has by far the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. It also has the highest intermarriage rates: The most recent figures there, collected in 2013 and published by the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, show intermarriage rates to be 58 percent. [emphasis added]

An explanation for this difference in the intermarriage numbers is suggested by Dr. David Graham, a senior research fellow at the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research:

American society has a more open and fluid approach to identity, where the focus is on the individual’s right to choose their religion. In addition, Britain’s Jewish community is more religious than the U.S.’s, which of course means less intermarriage.

That stronger sense of Jewish identity has helped British Jews, most recently in uniting against the threat of Jeremy Corbyn.

Maybe Jews in the US can forge a similar solidarity based on their Jewish identity.

Yesterday, it became official: The Palestinian Authority has "delayed" the planned legislative elections, as the ruling Fatah party has split into three different lists and Hamas is poised to win the plurality of seats.

Mahmoud Abbas is trying to spin this as a victory for...democracy!

“Faced with this difficult situation, we decided to postpone the date of holding legislative elections until the participation of Jerusalem and its people in these elections is guaranteed,” Abbas said. “There will be no concession on Jerusalem and no concession on our people in Jerusalem exercising their democratic rights.”

Sure - stop millions of people from voting because a few thousand might have to travel a few miles to cast their votes!

Even mainstream media sees the Jerusalem issue as a mere pretext, but the official Palestinian Authority news agency is spinning like a top.

Abbas, when he made his announcement, added something to ensure that he can avoid elections forever: "We emphasized that holding the elections must include all Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem, including candidates, voting and electoral campaigning."

Israel has never allowed Palestinian campaigning in Jerusalem, and the Oslo accords do not require that. Abbas is adding a poison pill to the elections, in case Israel (on its own or under pressure from Europe) officially announces that it will allow ballot boxes in post offices as in the past. Abbas can point to the lack of campaigning in Jerusalem as a reason to cancel the elections altogether.

Abbas appealed for "unity" while telling other parties that if he can't win, he'll take away the ball.

Abbas also added, "It is Jerusalem the basis of our existence and the jewel of our crown, for which thousands of martyrs, wounded and prisoners have fallen, and for which we will not give up a grain of dust from its pure soil."

Funny, the Palestinians were OK with Jordan ruling Jerusalem before 1967. No Palestinian Arab ever referred to Jerusalem as "Palestinian" during those 19 years.

Meanwhile, the secretary of the Fatah movement in Jerusalem, Shadi Mutour, said that the Arabs celebrating Israel removing the barriers at Damascus Gate were really making a statement that they don't want elections at all unless they can vote. "Everyone came out to say no elections without Jerusalem, because elections without Jerusalem are the embodiment of the occupation’s policy of Judaizing it."

One more illustration of @HRW's propaganda methods

I made another alternate version of a Human Rights Watch graphic. It is worth comparing the two.

HRW:

First of all, HRW regards a great portion of Jerusalem to be "east Jerusalem." Neighborhoods with tens of thousands of Jews are all around the city, and many ignore the artificial armistice line that HRW wants to make into a border dividing a great city in two.

Calling the Jews who live in Ramat Shlomo or Pisgat Ze'ev "settlers" is absurd. In no universe would those neighborhoods end up in an Arab Palestine. HRW, by using the word "settlement," is saying that many parts of Jerusalem should be Judenrein.

How liberal!

Regarding their first point: As long as an Arab doesn't commit a terrorist attack or move away for years, he or she will remain a permanent resident of the city. The exact same laws apply for any non-Jew who isn't a citizen.

But Arabs can become citizens if they know Hebrew, renounce foreign citizenship, and take an oath of loyalty to Israel - the same conditions most nations use to become citizens.

Those "Maybe nots" have a lot of caveats, but in the end, it is the difference between being a citizen of a state or not. Zeid can apply and if he is loyal to Israel, he almost certainly would become a citizen - and there would be no difference between him and "Noa."

Actually, that's not true. There would be some differences, which I demonstrate in my version of this infographic:

Zeid can visit the entire land from the river to the sea - even when not a citizen of Israel. Noa can't - there are plenty of areas off limits to her. I'm not sure what kind of apartheid Human Rights Watch considers this, but it sure isn't against Arabs!

Here is how HRW's propaganda works: Emphasize things that support your politics, whether true or not, and ignore or lie about everything that contradicts them (which I freely admit to doing in my graphic as well.)

HRW and its fans never actually bother to answer the many criticisms of the report. They see the word "apartheid" and lots of footnotes, and that is all they need. Anyone disagreeing is a Zionist, and therefore unfit to say anything.

04/29 Links Pt2: The HRW Apartheid Report: Does It Matter?; No Justice for Jews in France; Ramadan reminds me how lucky I am to be a Jew living in the Gulf

From Ian:

The HRW Apartheid Report: Does It Matter?

It's a drill Israel knows all too well. A well-known NGO writes a report blasting Israel. The Foreign Ministry slams it as agenda-driven, anti-Israel drivel. The media runs a few stories. And the issue fades - until next time. How important is a report accusing Israel of apartheid by a veteran anti-Israel activist who was deported from Israel because of his BDS activities, even if that report is put out by one of the world's better known, but wildly imbalanced, human-rights organizations?

It doesn't matter that much anymore in the corridors of power in Western democracies. One Israeli official said the halo of the human-rights organizations has come off over the years and they don't command the same respect or influence among leading governments as they once did.

Where it does matter is among young people who do not have a good grip on the history of the conflict. It will provide ammunition for anti-Israel activists, primarily on campuses and the streets, but also in parliaments. A two-state solution won't be enough for those who view Israel as an apartheid state. For them, it will be necessary to cancel apartheid, which - in their view - means Israel.

The ‘Apartheid’ Smear, Antisemitism and the Unending Battle to Destroy the Jewish State

On December 14, 1979, the UN would apply a libel that Jews would be quite familiar with — that of seeking to control the world. In resolution 34/103, titled “Inadmissibility of the policy of hegemonism in international relations,” the UN declared that “racism including zionism and apartheid are all forces which seek to perpetuate unequal relations and privileges acquired by force and are, therefore, different manifestations of the policy and practice of hegemonism.” It went on to condemn:
imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, racism including zionism and all other forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination and interference, as well as the creation of spheres of influence and the division of the world into antagonistic political and military blocs.

You see, not only are Jews the ultimate racists, they are also seeking to manipulate and dominate the world.

Still, it did not stop there. A few years later, on May 4, 1982, the UN’s Economic and Social Council adopted resolution 1982/18 on the “Situation of women and children in the occupied Arab territories,” in which it:
Consider[ed] that international co-operation and peace are threatened by colonialism. neo-colonialism. fascism, zionism, apartheid and foreign occupation, alien domination and racial discrimination in all its forms.

Not only are Israelis the purveyors of racism and intent on world domination, they’re also fascists, too. Why not compare Jews to Nazis? They’d gotten away with the labels of apartheid and seekers of world domination.

The progression was not accidental. To understand this, one need only look at a 1974 speech at the UN by the head of the PLO’s political department, Faruq al-Qadumi. While boasting about a resolution that told the Palestinians they could use “all means” to achieve their “right of return,” as well as a second resolution that gave the PLO permanent observer status at the UN, Faruq said:
We did not come here to reconcile terrorism with Zionist usurpation. We came here to bear witness to the historic difference between us and the Zionists. We regard diplomatic activities as a part of our activities on the battlefield.

You see, Arab League Secretary-General Azzam Pasha’s 1948 “war of extermination and momentous massacre” had failed. Days before the Six-Day War, PLO founder Ahmad al-Shukeiri famously said of the upcoming war that “[t]hose who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.” He was wrong, too, as were the invading Arab armies in 1973.

Knowing they could not defeat the Jews in conventional war, they still refused to accept the right of the Jewish people to live in their own state in their ancient homeland in peace. They instead chose to continue the battle in other ways, namely terrorism, and, as we see with HRW today, antisemitic libels that won’t end with the “apartheid” label.

The existence of Muslim Only water fountains at the Temple Mount shows that Apartheid does exist.https://t.co/2KoCqBJykK
— Joe Burns (@Joe_Burns_Irish) April 29, 2021

Noa Tishby: A member of ‘The Squad’ is slandering the Jewish state — again

Contrary to Tlaib’s claim that “the violence was not stopped by” the government, a strong police force was present at the LEHAVA protest to curb potential violence, according to The New York Times, a paper not exactly known for its sympathy for the Jewish state.

Police arrested both Israeli and Palestinian agitators, though most of the detained were Jews from West Jerusalem. Plus, Israeli security forces created a buffer on both Thursday and Friday night in an attempt to isolate the two warring camps.

LEHAVA staged an unjustifiable, indefensibly racist demonstration. However, in all the coverage up to that point, I didn’t see a single outraged post or tweet by the Squad or other left-wing heroes condemning Hamas or the many live-streamed hate-crime attacks against Israeli Jews.

The hypocrisy, the double standards, the constant instinct to blame only one side in a complex and nuanced cycle of cause and effect — these amount to dangerous propaganda with immediate and lasting repercussions.

Tlaib and her fellow activists, especially those who hold elected office, should broaden their frame to get the full picture of what’s going on in Israel and the wider region. If they had done so, they might have seen that while a fringe group was representing the worst of Israeli society, another group of Arabs and Jews led by the organization Peace Now were marching jointly in Jerusalem, calling for calm.

Israeli peace marches, unfortunately, get fewer clicks and retweets.

The Tikvah Podcast: Christine Rosen on the New Crime Wave and Its Consequences

The United States is undergoing a spike in violent crime. Murder rates have increased drastically in big cities across the country, from Atlanta and New York to Milwaukee and Seattle. For the roughly 7 million Jews in the United States, four out of five of whom live in cities, incidents of violent crime can’t be ignored. The cities where most American Jews live are the very places that are growing more dangerous.

American Jews aren’t the only ones affected by rising urban crime, of course. Hate crime directed against Jews is very high, but as Christine Rosen wrote in the March 2021 edition of Commentary, “the vast majority of these homicides were black Americans, including many children, 55 of whom were killed in Chicago last year alone.” Here’s a case where two of America’s most urban populations, black people and Jews, are together imperiled by the return of urban disorder.

On this week’s podcast, Rosen joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to discuss her essay, and how different ways of looking at law enforcement reveal different philosophical understandings of the human condition.

From i24News:

The European Parliament on Wednesday adopted a resolution condemning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) for teaching hate and violence in Palestinian Authority (PA) schools.

The resolution expresses concern "about the hate speech and violence taught in Palestinian school textbooks and used in schools by UNRWA" and insists that financial aid be conditioned on the removal of educational materials that promote hatred and incitement to violence.

The facts are incontrovertible. UNRWA teaching materials, with UNWRA's logo, praised violence and "martyrdom" and erased Israel from the map, time and time again, like this one encouraging the "sword" to "free the motherland."

Or this exercise encouraging violent jihad:

Jihad is one of the doors to Paradise.
The Palestinians have become an example of sacrifice.
(Find the verb) in the sentence “The resistance fighter attacked the Enemy’s position”
The Palestinian died as a martyr to defend his motherland.
We shall defend the motherland with blood.
The scent of musk emanates from the martyr.
To redeem their motherland with their blood, for it is the most precious thing they own.

Instead of apologizing and committing to fixing the problem (which was UNRWA's usual method in the past,) this time they are just brazenly denying what anyone can see for themselves.

Adnan Abu Hasna, the media advisor to the Palestinian Refugee Relief and Works Agency [sic] in Gaza, denied the accusations of the European Parliament’s decision, which relates to the Palestinian educational curricula and textbooks inside its schools.

Abu Hasna confirmed on Thursday, that the adoption of this decision was based on false allegations and political motives, pointing out that it did not rely on facts that actually occur in UNRWA schools, "which the whole world praised."

He said that the decision was surprising, because "the European Union is one of the most important investors in the Agency's education system, and it can be proud of this investment in the field of human development."

Abu Hasna said, "It is not true. UNRWA does not teach hatred, violence or discrimination, and we do everything that promotes a culture of social tolerance and non-discrimination."

Even Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh lobbied for UNRWA in the face of these facts.

This episode shows not only that Palestinians teach their kids violence and hate, but they they are very comfortable lying directly to their funders in the West.

This is something that the Western donors to UNRWA and to the Palestinian Authority should keep in mind.

Foes OK With US Aid To Israel If 'Israel' Means 'Palestinians' And 'Aid' Means 'Paying Terrorists' (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

USD denominations Washington, April 29 - Congressional opponents of the Jewish State clarified today that they do not seek to eliminate American funding to advance that country's defense capabilities, but merely to tweak the provisions of that defense package to the minimal degree necessary for the funding to instead reach the violent criminals who want to cleanse Jews from the region between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.

A cadre of progressive legislators explained the reporters today that their continued, vociferous criticism of US defense aid to Israel - currently averaging more than three billion dollars per year - rests not on unequivocal disqualification of such allocations, but on the specifics of the aid package, and that with some minor adjustments, such as replacing "Israel" with "Palestine" and "defense" with "terrorism," their opposition to such funding will all but disappear.

"It's the particulars of the aid to Israel that pose the problem," explained Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN). "It's not the aid per se that I find objectionable. I'm sure that with enough good-faith dialogue among Congressional representatives on both sides of the aisle, we can arrive at some rephrasing of the aid terms that will satisfy the conscience of numerous Americans wary of underwriting Palestinian suffering, while at the same time keeping the aid package intact, and possibly not even reducing it by one penny - provided that we give the money to Palestinians who blow up Israeli buses, dig invasion tunnels into Israeli farming communities to sow mayhem, or have been imprisoned for such actions by a brutal Israeli regime intent on defending its own citizens."

Representative Betty McCollum, also a Democrat of Minnesota, elaborated further on her group's principled stance. "I have proposed oversight of the finds we give Israel, with full knowledge that strict oversight is already in place and none of my stated concerns are real," she noted. "The point here is less to ensure adherence to a robust control mechanism for this funding that's already in place, and has been for decades, and more to signal to Jews that we hate them, with Palestinian rights a convenient pretext."

Experts observed that the technical regulations governing the aid package will also require addressing. "As it stands, US military assistance to Israel isn't simply the US giving Israel money with conditions that it be spent on defense," explained Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA). "No money actually moves from the US Treasury to any Israeli accounts. It's just that the US allows Israel's Ministry of Defense to purchase American products and services, and then, following a periodic review of such purchases, reimburses Israel for those expenses. We will have to address, circumvent, or ignore numerous antiterrorism provisions for our desired adjustments to take place, but it can be done."