Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 07, 2021

Cartoon of the Day: Those Jews from Brooklyn

Islamic Jihad hands out awards to journalists in Gaza

Last week I reported that Hamas had an awards gala to recognize journalists in Gaza who did everything the terror group wanted them to.

Today it was Islamic Jihad's turn.

The awards show was held at the luxury Reef Al Madina restaurant.

Islamic Jihad honored media professionals for "reporting Israeli crimes."

06/07 Links Pt1: The West’s Nauseating “Post-Truth” Over the Gaza War; PA pays $42,000 to family of terrorist who killed 2 Israelis; Hamas and Iran Turned Gaza into Cemetery for Children

From Ian:

The West’s Nauseating “Post-Truth” Over the Gaza War

In the wake of the Israel-Gaza conflict in May, an American author was suspended by Twitter for comparing a Boston Globe cartoon to Nazi propaganda. New York Times writers who, in expressing their sorrow over the fact that “most of the children who died were Arabs,” are in fact admitting that they would be happier if most of the children who died were Israeli Jews.

The NYT story did mention that “Hamas and other militant groups fired more than 4,000 rockets at Israeli towns and cities indiscriminately.” It also correctly stated that the Israeli air defense system had managed to stop about 90% of the rockets.

The article also noted that at least two of the children killed in Gaza may have been killed when Palestinian militants fired a rocket that fell short, and that one of the children killed in Israel, Nadine Awad, was Palestinian. “The low toll on the Israeli side also reflected an imbalance in defensive capabilities,” NYT concluded.

All the same, the paper’s pro-Hamas propaganda was deeply problematic in its evasive language. The authors of the op-ed, in expressing their sorrow over the fact that “most of the children who died were Arabs,” in fact covertly confessed that they would be happier if most of the children who had died were Israeli Jews.

Would the West’s underdog-nation romanticists feel better if Israel’s Iron Dome had failed, and Hamas rockets had killed 500 Israeli children instead of two? Is it really too hard to understand that 500 Israeli children were spared not because Hamas did not want to kill them, but because, as the NYT article pointed out, there is an imbalance in defensive capabilities? Is it Israel’s sin to have built the Iron Dome to minimize casualties when it is threatened by thousands of rockets flying over its skies?

If this is the precedent set by the “cradle of democracy,” the lesser democracies of the world will find it much easier to call for more Jewish blood.

Palestinian Authority pays $42,000 to family of terrorist who killed 2 Israelis

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday ordered that the family of a Palestinian terrorist who murdered two Israelis be paid more than $40,000 and be given new housing, the Kan public broadcaster reported.

Ramallah Governor Laila Ghannam, an Abbas appointee, met with the family of Muhannad Halabi and gave them some 30,000 Jordanian Dinars ($42,000), reportedly to help them cover housing costs since their home was destroyed by the IDF following the killings, Kan said.

Ghannam also told the family that Abbas had instructed his security services to help them find permanent housing. Home demolitions are a controversial policy that the IDF says helps deter future terror attacks.

The payments are the first high-profile payments to terrorist families since the Biden administration took office, despite claims that the Palestinians were willing to rethink the controversial policy as part of an effort to improve relations with Washington.

Halabi killed two Israelis, Rabbi Nehemiah Lavi and Aharon Banita, and injured Banita’s wife, Adele, and their 2-year-old son in a stabbing attack in the Old City of Jerusalem on October 3, 2015.

Muhannad Halabi, 19, the terrorist who killed two Israelis on October 3, 2015 in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Old City. (Israel Police)

He was shot and killed by Israeli security forces.

Ahead of Biden’s inauguration, senior Palestinian officials told The Times of Israel that Ramallah was willing to alter the way it pays stipends to Palestinian security prisoners, as well as the families of terrorists and others killed by Israelis, in a bid to improve ties with Washington and Europe.

Because the PA hands out more money for longer sentences in Israeli prisons, those incarcerated for the most brutal terror attacks receive more funding from Ramallah.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Arabs: Hamas and Iran Turned Gaza into Cemetery for Children

The Arabs are aware that Hamas's only interest is to appease the mullahs in Tehran for the sake of milking them for more money and weapons. The Arabs understand that this just is another farce by Hamas and particularly Iran.

It is... refreshing to see how many Arabs are aware of the dangers of Iran's involvement with Palestinian terrorist groups that seek the elimination first of Israel, then of them.

"The Hamas militias in the Gaza Strip belong to Iran.... Iran wants to use the Palestinian issue as a winning card at the Vienna negotiations..... to force the US to lift the sanctions on Iran in return for ending the security escalation which threatens Israel.... Iran's weapons are for destruction, not construction." — Amjad Taha, prominent Arab journalist, Twitter, May 27, 2021.

"The more killing and destruction, the more Hamas's income increases while the Palestinians continue to suffer from siege and poverty." — Saeed Al-Kahel, Moroccan writer and political analyst, Assahifa, May 29, 2021.

"Iran exploited Hamas and the Islamic Jihad for its own benefit only, and if it wanted the interest of the Palestinians, it would have contributed to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.... Tehran has not contributed or made donations for humanitarian or reconstruction projects in Gaza...." — Samir Ghattas, former Egyptian parliament member and head of the Egyptian Middle East Forum for Strategic Studies, Al-Arabiya.net, May 26, 2021.

The Egyptian expert [Muhammad Mujahid Al-Zayyat, a consultant at the Egyptian Center for Thought and Strategic Studies]... is joining other Arabs in warning the Biden administration and the Western powers against allowing Iran to be rewarded for Hamas's war of terrorism against Israel.

It now remains to be seen whether the Biden administration and the Western powers will heed this warning or continue to bury their heads in the sand, pretending that the mullahs in Iran, in exchange for massive bribes from the US, will magically change their savage stripes. They did not last time; what will happen to the region if they again do not?

Jews attacked, arrested in Arab countries in wake of Six Day War

Here are some New York Times articles about how the few remaining Jews were jailed, threatened and killed in Arab countries in the wake of the 1967 Six Day War.

Even as these abuses were happening, the Arabs were insisting that they weren't anti-Jewish, just anti-Zionist.

The years between 1964 and 1967 tell you all you need to know about Palestinian goals

On this anniversary of the Six Day War, it is worth a reminder of what the original PLO Charter said about its goals. Articles 22-24:

Article 22. The people of Palestine believe in peaceful co-existence on the basis of legal existence, for there can be no co-existence with aggression, nor can there be peace with occupation and colonialism.

Article 23. In realizing the goals and principles of this Covenant the Palestine Liberation Organization carries out its complete role to liberate Palestine in accordance with the fundamental law of this Organization.

Article 24. This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the Gaza Strip or the Himmah area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

Article 22 shows that the PLO considers all of Israel to be "occupied." And Article 24 shows that the PLO did not consider the West Bank or Gaza to be part of the Palestinian state that they said they wanted.

Here's a photo of a PLO meeting in Gaza before 1967, with a map of "Palestine" in the backdrop showing that they didn't consider the West Bank and Gaza to be the same as the part of Palestine they sought:

Only after the Six Day War did the PLO decide that the West Bank and Gaza were part of the Palestinian state they sought.

To summarize: The PLO only wants the parts of Palestine that are controlled by Jews.

(We've discussed many times that "historic Palestine" includes parts of Lebanon and Jordan which the PLO never claimed.)

Another interesting fact is that the Palestinian claim on Jerusalem started well after 1967!

The 1968 PLO Charter does not mention Jerusalem once.

Have you ever noticed that Palestinian officials love to put a photo of the Dome of the Rock as a backdrop in all their offices? Here's Mahmoud Abbas with Secretary of State Blinken last month.

There were no photos of the Dome of the Rock that the PLO associated with itself before 1967 - because Jordan controlled it. In fact, I cannot find any photos of PLO leaders featuring the Dome of the Rock as a background decoration until roughly 1991, when Yasir Arafat placed it in his office in Tunis.

Palestinian claims on Jerusalem seem to have been carefully coordinated with other Arabs (for example, in an Arab meeting in 1982) but it seems that only after 1988 when Jordan renounced its claim to the West Bank did the PLO make Jerusalem a key demand.

As anti-Israel activists try to bring Sheikh Jarrah back in the forefront of the world's attention, a simple question comes up.

According to Israeli legal rulings, if the residents of the homes that are in the news would just pay rent to the Jewish owners, they cannot be evicted, ever.

If people are really concerned about three families perhaps becoming homeless, then why doesn't anyone just pay the rent?

The reason: Honor. By paying rent, it would be admitting that Jews own the homes, which has been proven time and time again over four decades of legal rulings.

But the people who are making the decision not to pay the rent don't appear to be the residents. According to a Jewish Press article, the entire case has been taken over by the PLO and they are the ones who are deciding what is best for the residents - meaning, no compromise, no accepting deals, no paying rent.

To the PLO, it is more honorable for the residents to be homeless than to admit that Jews own the homes.

Of course, Palestinian leaders don't have to pay the price for making a decision like this. They are forcing the hapless residents to adhere to the Higher Principle of Palestinian Honor: Sacrifice yourself for our principles.

This is a pattern.

If you point out that Israel has offered many peace deals that were rejected by Palestinian leaders, the apologists for the Palestinians say "the offers weren't good enough." What does that mean? Does it mean that perpetual statelessness is better than a statehood that falls short of the demands?

As always, the leaders - whose lives are not affected by the lack of a state one bit - are forcing the people to adhere to their false sense of honor, to the people's detriment.

Palestinians are told not to buy from Israeli markets - because of "honor." Instead of returning stolen Israeli cars to Israel, they are crushed - because of "honor." Jews are not supposed to walk and pray on the Temple Mount - because that violates "honor." International incidents are threatened if Jews march around their capital with flags - because that is an affront to "honor."

You know what is really honorable? Peace! A peace where Palestinians can raise their families in dignity. A peace where they have autonomy. A peace where they work together with their Jewish neighbors, instead of acting as if the Jews don't belong on the land that was Jewish 1500 years before any Arabs ruled there.

The misplaced sense of honor is the single biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East. It is obvious that this honor is misplaced because we see that the UAE and Bahrain and Morocco have not sunk into an abyss of shame after normalizing relations with Israel. On the contrary, they are expected to reap huge benefits from peace - which is the most honorable thing possible?

Palestinian leaders cannot fathom that.

As long as they cling to their fake honor, they will remain in a state of shame.

Hamas leader admits that many terror headquarters are in civilian buildings

The IDF tweeted this:

Hamas hides in civilian buildings in Gaza. Don’t believe us?

Hear it for yourself from the Head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar: pic.twitter.com/rcFPSmEfRZ
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) June 6, 2021

Sinwar admits that Hamass has been putting its military headquarters among high rise buildings and residential buildings.

Of course, this was done deliberately, so the only reasons that Hamas might be saying it is moving them now is that it is being pressured to - either quietly from Hamas-friendly NGOs, or Arab states, or perhaps even from Gazans themselves who are homeless because Hamas chose to use them as human shields.

When Israel exposed Nasser and King Hussein as liars in 1967

On June 6, 1967, Egypt (and Jordan) accused the United States and Britain of being behind the airstrikes that destroyed the Egyptian air force.

The United States emphatically denied it.

Egypt was clearly embarrassed that the Jews could have been winning the war in such a dominating fashion, and this lie was to save face in the Arab world.

This backfired. Badly.

Two days later, Israel played a phone conversation between Egypt's President Nasser and Jordan's King Hussein where they hatched the story.

Israel played the message to the Arab world over and over aain:

Jordan, embarrassed, issued a statement admitting that it did not see any American or British planes:

This intelligence coup was also an embarrassment for the Soviet Union, which supplied the communications equipment to Egypt and Jordan that should not have been able to be intercepted. This leak seemed to also be designed to let America know that Israel is a valuable intelligence ally.

06/06 Links: UNRWA finds attack tunnel under one of its Gaza schools; Ben Shapiro: Here’s THE TRUTH About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

From Ian:

Jake Wallis Simons: The problem with the New York Times’ Gaza coverage

That’s where the New York Times comes in. It goes without saying that it’s impossible to report objectively on any story when your editorial line has been decided in advance. The latest Israeli campaign was more accurate than any recent war, with combatants accounting for the vast majority of the dead. All of this is lost when you sacrifice the facts for emotive photographs of children.

Don’t get me wrong. Emotive photographs have their place, and we must never lose touch with the tragic cost of war. But from the point of view of the victims, there is a certain indignity in the fact that they have been used to further a political agenda. And from the point of view of the Times, it is troubling that its journalists have participated in doing so.

When the front page was published, Brad Parker, a representative of the NGO, Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP), tweeted his thanks to the Times for ‘reaching out to us at @DCIPalestine to help make this front page’.

This was revealing. As was evident from his Twitter name, to which he had appended the hashtag #SaveSheikhJarrah, Mr Parker was not an entirely dispassionate observer of the conflict. And a quick look at the DCIP website shows that it is hardly objective, either. What exactly did the New York Times expect when it asked them for ‘help’?

It has long been an aphorism of journalism that if one man says it’s raining and another says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both, but to look out of the window and see for yourself.

If the Times journalists had followed the basic tenets of their profession, America’s paper of record would not have become a pawn in the chess game of Hamas. To have the Gray Lady contribute towards Hamas' war aims was a major boon for the terror group – and another dark day for journalism.

I am a Jew and I am scared. Will I be the last one in Britain?

The most worrying sign is that the Jew hate obsession has opened up a new front. Having long ago penetrated our universities and created a febrile and intimidating environment, intensely hostile to Jews and Israel, the disease is now infiltrating our schools. The Jesuit dictum was ”Give me the child until he is seven and I’ll give you the man”. Children are now being exposed to the vicious doctrine of Jew hatred. Some would call this brainwashing.

In a Leeds school the police were called to protect a head teacher, Mark Roper, after he referred to an incident where a pupil brought in and waved a Palestinian flag. He is quoted as saying during a school assembly that “some might interpret this action as a call to arms and feel threatened and unsafe”. On social media, an avalanche of cries of Islamophobia echoed and demands that heads must roll trended. Apologies were demanded and meekly given.

This represents a stunning victory for the many Jew haters. It signals that it is acceptable to migrate anti-Semitism from the mosque to the classroom. It legitimises the slanderous and libellous lies underpinning the ever-growing Jew hatred movement, no matter whether those Jews are in Leeds or Jerusalem.

Had the Israeli flag been brought in by a Jewish pupil, then that individual would almost certainly have suffered verbal abuse and also probably physical assault. Further the media would have almost certainly have chosen to question his/her patriotism, asking where their primary loyalty lay? Was it to the UK or Israel? But nobody dared question the loyalties of the pupil who provocatively waved the Palestinian flag. Conclusion? Jews have dual loyalty. Plucky pro-Palestinian Muslims are being discriminated against and insulted because they are a minority. This despite the fact that Muslims outnumber Jews in Leeds by 7 to 1. (ONS)

No matter how much of worth Jews have contributed to humanity, it counts for nothing to the Jew haters. They close their ears to any facts that detract from their unquestioning world view that Jews are evil.

Lest we forget: throughout history anti-Semitism has been the norm, with relatively short periods of calm between pogroms. What is happening today in most parts of the world is likely to be merely a reversion back to that norm. Fortunately, unlike earlier times Jews now have somewhere that will always welcome them no matter how bad things become in their country of residence. An attack on Israel is therefore an attack on all Jews everywhere.

Over recent years the number of my Jewish friends has steadily decreased. Gladly the grim reaper has not claimed them. Rather they have “made aliya”, that is moving to the “Land of Israel”. In practice this proves to be a complex and bureaucratic process for Jews, contrary to popular perception.

I wonder, how long will it be until I am the last Jew left In Britain? Will I be the one that turns the lights off?

Ben Shapiro: Here’s THE TRUTH About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (A Comprehensive History)

From biblical times to today, Ben takes us through time to explore the long history of Israel and explains the many conflicts along the way. (h/t Yerushalimey)

I guess Biden Admin is all about free speech and expression, and all that jazz ... except when it comes to Israeli Jews in our capital, #Jerusalem? https://t.co/gpwORxgesW
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) June 6, 2021

Arab pride: Egypt told the world it was winning the 1967 war

From the New York Times, June 6, 1967:

And because Egypt wanted to maintain that fiction, it refused a cease fire demand from the UN - ensuring that it would lose far more territory:

From Times of Israel:

Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Saturday said he will demand a right-wing nationalist parade through Jerusalem’s Old City be called off if it “requires extraordinary security measures and endangers public order and diplomatic processes.”

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Hebrew media earlier on Saturday that police would make the final call on whether the march would be held. “Israel has returned to routine, there are no current restrictions and Jews are visiting the Temple Mount,” the official said.

Leaders of the left-wing Labor, Meretz and Joint List parties warned earlier Saturday of the potential negative consequences of the march and indicated they believed it could be a deliberate attempt to thwart the formation of the so-called “change government.”

Police chiefs were set to hold a meeting Sunday to decide whether to approve the march. According to Channel 12, the parade was likely to be approved, though possibly with changes to its route, including a refusal to allow participants to pass through the volatile Damascus Gate area that was at the center of unrest in the capital last month.

Haaretz has a headline: Biden Administration Fears Jerusalem Flag March May Reignite Tensions in Gaza

It hardly needs to be said that in a democracy, protests and rallies should be allowed unless they endanger innocent people. But that danger must come from the demonstration itself, not from people reacting to the demonstration who disagree - if any demonstration could cause others to react violently, then it is the responsibility of the police to protect the protesters.

Otherwise, people who oppose the demonstration have full veto power on freedom of speech by threatening violence.

Yet when it comes to Israel, those rules don't apply to right-wing demonstrations. If Palestinians say that Jews walking peacefully around their capital waving flags will "provoke" them, somehow their feelings are now considered more important than the basic democratic principle of freedom of assembly.

Where are the liberals who are defending freedom of speech and freedom of assembly?

On Friday, thousands of people marched through Jerusalem for the annual Pride Parade, which many conservative and religious Jerusalemites oppose. If the opponents had threatened violence, can anyone imagine that liberal politicians would call to cancel the parade?

It appears that the Israeli police are being the sanest people in this case - leaning towards allowing the march but changing the route, which would be in line with other democracies in allowing demonstrations but with restrictions.

Obviously, if the marchers become violent or incite violence, it should be shut down as well. The police have the responsibility to maintain order.

One does not have to agree with the marchers to support basic democratic principles. If freedom of assembly is subject to a veto by Hamas, then that freedom has disappeared, and that is something every liberal person should strenuously oppose.

Yet so far, the Israeli and Western liberals are on the side allowing Hamas and Fatah threats of violence to curtail basic freedoms.

Where are the true liberal voices defending freedom of assembly for a cause they disagree with?

Jordanian anti-Israel "turn off lights" demonstration seems to have fallen flat

Jordanian activists have been pushing a nationwide effort to have Jordanians turn off their electricity from 10-11 PM Saturday night in protest of Jordan buying natural gas from Israel.

Roya News tried to get dramatic footage of the great electricity turn-off - and it doesn't look like very many Jordanians listened.

Jordan imports nearly all of its fuel for energy, and stopping Israeli natural gas would have big repercussions.

06/05 Links: Six Day War: When Israel reclaimed Jerusalem, its eternal capital; State Department Shuns Term ‘Abraham Accords’; Apartheid libel is a cover to target Jews; Does Google really understand racism?

From Ian:

Six Day War: When Israel reclaimed Jerusalem, its eternal capital

It was Begin who set in motion the final act. He had been overruled in the cabinet the night before when he called for an immediate attack on the Old City. Waking from a troubled sleep, he tuned into the BBC. The lead news item was about a Middle East ceasefire that the Security Council was planning to call this day. Begin telephoned Dayan and said “we can’t wait anymore.”

Dayan agreed. At 5:30 a.m. Narkiss was contacted by Dayan’s deputy, Gen. Haim Bar-Lev. The paratroopers were to attack the Old City as soon as possible. The cabinet had not yet approved, he said, but there was no doubt that it would in a telephone poll. Any lingering ambiguity had been cast aside by the fast-moving developments.

The departure of Haza’a’s force spared the paratroopers who broke through Lion’s Gate at 10 a.m. a bloody fight. (Two Israelis would be killed inside the walls in skirmishes with a scattering of Jordanian soldiers who had remained behind.)

When Dayan arrived on the Temple Mount he ordered that an Israeli flag raised by soldiers on the Dome of the Rock be taken down. He would shortly order de facto control of the Temple Mount returned to the Muslim religious authorities.

At the Western Wall, Dayan read a statement to the press: “We have returned to the holiest of our sites and will never again be separated from it. To our Arab neighbors, Israel extends the hand of peace; and to the peoples of all faiths we guarantee full freedom of worship and of religious rights. We have come not to conquer the holy places of others, nor to diminish their religious rights, but to ensure the unity of the city and to live in it with others in harmony.”

Though generous and statesmanlike, Dayan’s words meant that the Old City would not be relinquished.

A committee consisting of senior civil servants and a general was appointed to draw up Jerusalem’s new eastern boundary. Three weeks after the war, the Knesset adopted their recommendations, annexing 28 square miles that included land belonging to two dozen Arab villages.

Overnight, Israeli Jerusalem tripled in size and Jordanian Jerusalem ceased to exist. The annexed area was carved out primarily on the basis of security, not sanctity. Choosing high ground, the planners created a buffer to serve – militarily and demographically – should war threaten again from the east.

What had been Jordanian Jerusalem, including the half-mile square Old City and the Mount of Olives, constituted only 6% of the land taken. But the walled entity, with its ramparts and holy places, would remain the heart of Jerusalem, harboring narratives capable of inspiring both sublime contemplation and rocket wars. Jerusalem’s Arabs and Jews would begin praying in proximity while jostling for position at the gateway to heaven.

Israel’s raid on Osirak, 40 years on

The pilots, along with Israel Air Force Maj.-Gen. David Ivri and IDF chief of staff Rafael “Raful” Eitan, clustered at Etzion Air Base prior to the strike, dubbed Operation Babylon (also known as Operation Opera). It was the eve of Shavuot. The pilots were briefed. The six F-15s and eight F-16s flew the complex mission over Saudi Arabia, entering Iraq from the miles of open desert that form the boundary between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. They had to fly low, some 100-150 feet from the desert landscape. While the F-15s used radar and electronic counter-measures, the F-16s continued their bomb run to the reactor southwest of Baghdad.

There were other obstacles as well. Jordan’s King Hussein, according to reports, saw the F-16s pass over and a warning was sent to Iraq according to a 2012 Air Force Magazine report. It was just after 4 p.m. and the reactor was to be struck at sunset. Radio silence had to be maintained and the pilots had to avoid Saudi early warning systems operating to the south. There was a larger context here. At the time, controversy had grown in the US over sales of F-15 enhancements to Saudi Arabia and AWACS radar planes. Such advanced aircraft were not in the hands of Riyadh yet.

The mission’s success not only gave Israeli additional military respect around the world, it also aided deterrence. It once again proved its capabilities for using the latest aircraft. Ford notes that “the IAF used the F-15, designed for long-range detection and air superiority, in its optimal role: protecting strikers as they dropped their munitions. Similarly, the IAF used the F-16 in its optimal role as a strike fighter against heavily defended targets. Israel was the only nation in the region that possessed these aircraft and tactical knowledge about their optimal use.”

Today Israel is pioneering uses for the F-35, having received two dozen of the aircraft in two squadrons, with the plan to acquire up to 75 of the planes.

The raid on Osirak was a watershed moment. It changed the region and ushered in a new era of Israeli dominance. Where once Israel’s military abilities were contested by conventional militaries like Egypt and Syria, by the 1980s and 1990s Israel would possess the strongest most capable military in the region.

But that hasn’t changed the equation when it comes to non-conventional weapons, such as nuclear weapons or Iran’s missiles and drones, the kind Hamas has used recently. Israel’s use of advanced warplanes, such as the F-15 and F-16 and now F-35, isn’t a magic wand to win wars.

Dangerous facilities, such as Syria’s nuclear reactor that was destroyed in 2007, can be stopped – but more threats will emerge.

Apartheid libel is a cover to target Jews

WHAT DOES it mean when someone libels Israel by comparing it to the abject evil of South African apartheid? It does a few things simultaneously: it legitimizes opinions hostile toward Israel’s existence that would otherwise be unacceptable in popular discourse regarding other liberal democracies, appropriates actual oppression under apartheid in South Africa, whitewashes and justifies violence against Israelis in the name of “self-defense,” and contributes to the widespread sense of perpetual victimhood found throughout Palestinian communities.

This claim to violence as a defensive measure is particularly dubious. The legitimacy of violence as a form of protest has long been disputed as it undermines democracy at the altar of the mob. In some contexts, it’s been used to justify attacks on police in the US, in others, to weaponize children against Israel. Of course, the immorality of indiscriminate violence poses a big problem for proponents of this kind of political expression, but in the context of Palestinian “armed resistance,” something else is at play. If a group justifies its use of violence as an act of defense, but lies about what prompted said defense, all that’s left is the violence.

One example of such a false claim belongs to Khulood Badawi, one of the researchers who contributed to the currently circulating HRW document. In 2012, Badawi, a staff member of the Jerusalem branch of the UN Office of Coordinated Humanitarian Affairs at the time, posted a picture on social media of a deceased and bloodied Palestinian six-year-old girl being held by her father accompanied by a caption: “Palestine is bleeding. Another child killed by Israel.” As it turned out, the picture was taken six years earlier than claimed, and the cause of the heart-wrenching tragedy was an accident entirely unrelated to any Israeli military action.

However, this type of dishonesty did not stop Mohammed Merah from murdering three Jewish children under the age of 10, and their father at Ozar Hatorah school in France a week later. He claimed to have been partially motivated by the fact that “the Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine.” While there’s no exact causal link between Badawi’s lie and Merah’s actions, Merah’s chilling words underscore that incitement can be a motivating factor for violence in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict. This tragedy epitomizes most, if not all, lies told about Israel. It’s no surprise that Badawi has found a home at HRW and had a hand in crafting their piece about Israel’s non-existent apartheid.

THIS KIND of dishonesty was not lost on me as I attended a Students for Justice in Palestine rally at Colorado College. It was May 15, the same day Hamas was raining down its many murder-attempt rockets at dense population centers on and around Tel Aviv. For 40 minutes, I listened to SJP members parrot the apartheid libel and others like Badawi’s to a small, enthusiastically empathetic crowd of students and professors. I was given a QR code to a resource page filled not only with links to organizations that have been unmasked as dishonest instigators of violence against Jewish people inside Israel and out, and a handful of organizations that have a history of working with US-designated terrorist groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), but also encourages activists to proclaim that “There is only one solution: Intifada, Revolution.”

All this while the frequency of attacks on Jewish people from self-proclaimed “pro-Palestine” activists worldwide in places like NYC, Toronto, and basically all of Europe have risen dramatically in the past few weeks. I’m reminded of the push to have a plane hijacker speak directly to students at SFSU last year and the effect that such an environment has on its Jewish students. I wonder how long it will be until Jewish Coloradoans are targeted, considering SJP promulgates violent ideologies on their campuses unabated. Colorado College, is this what you want for your Jewish students?

Thank you @RepRitchie for standing with Israel!

“Israel is held to a double standard. I ask people, ‘ask yourself a simple question, if you and your neighbors were the target of 4,000 rockets, what would you expect your government to do?’”https://t.co/QjUa8OQSgB
— AIPAC (@AIPAC) June 5, 2021

06/04 Links Pt2: Bobby Kennedy’s Admiration for Israel; Melanie Phillips: Facing a tsunami of antisemitism, diaspora Jews cling to their bubble

From Ian:

Bobby Kennedy’s Admiration for Israel

In the months between his graduation from Harvard in the spring of 1948 and his enrollment in the University of Virginia Law School in the fall of that year, Bobby Kennedy embarked on an overseas trip at the urging of his father. Through the elder Kennedy’s Boston connections, the 22-year-old aspiring attorney landed a reporting job with the Boston Post. There, Kennedy convinced his editors to let him report from the Middle East on the Arab-Israeli war.

Kennedy arrived in early April and spent a few weeks in war-torn Palestine. From there, he wrote four very vivid and wide-ranging articles. He left Palestine before Ben-Gurion’s May 14th declaration of Israeli statehood and returned through Europe to the United States.

In early June, after Israel was established and diplomatically recognized by the major powers, the articles were published in a series under the byline “Robert Kennedy, Special Writer for the Post.” In the first article, under the headline “British Hatred by Both Sides,” RFK labored mightily to present the arguments of both Arabs and Jews. “There are such well-founded arguments on either side,” Kennedy wrote, “that each side grows more and more bitter toward the other. Confidence in their right increases in proportion to the hatred and mistrust for the other side not acknowledging it.”

In the subsequent three articles, however, RFK and his Boston Post editors no longer attempted to convey an objective view of the competing claims of Jews and Arabs. As the headline on his June 4th article indicates, RFK chose a side: “Jews Have a Fine Fighting Force—Make Up for Lack of Arms With Undying Spirit, Unparalleled Courage—Impress the World.” The article gets directly to the point: “The Jewish people in Palestine who believe in and have been working toward this national state have become an immensely proud and determined people. It is already a truly great modern example of the birth of a nation with the primary ingredients of dignity and self-respect.” Many similar articles appeared in the American press of the day. The surprising thing about these Boston Post articles was not their pro-Zionist sentiments, but the fact that they had been written by Joseph P. Kennedy’s son.

Melanie Phillips: Facing a tsunami of antisemitism, diaspora Jews cling to their bubble

The problem isn’t just the appalling number of Jews who believe the lies about Israel. The deeper issue is the desperate desire of Diaspora Jews to “fit in” with the surrounding society.

In Britain, missing the point that the country’s entire establishment is running scared from Islamist extremism, they are now shocked to find the police standing by when Muslims publicly scream for the murder of Jews.

In America, terror of being thought Islamophobic, anti-Black Lives Matter or anti-Palestinian—thus alienating the Democratic Party and the all-powerful liberal cultural elite—has similarly paralyzed most of the Jewish community in their response to the attacks. They, too, are behaving like rabbits caught in the headlights.

The correct response by Jewish community leaders to the anti-Semitism onslaught would be to call out the factors driving it. Jewish leaders should be pointing out the lie that Israeli residence in Judea and Samaria is illegal. They should be producing the copious evidence that exists of Palestinian Nazi-style anti-Semitism. They should be accusing anyone who supports the Palestinian Arab cause of supporting genocidal, racist fanaticism.

Yet from Diaspora Jewish community leaders, there has been on these crucial matters only silence.

The problem isn’t just the appalling number of Jews who believe the lies about Israel. The deeper issue is the desperate desire of Diaspora Jews to “fit in” with the surrounding society.

They refuse to acknowledge the full enormity of what’s happening because it would force them to confront what they have constructed an entire social framework to deny—that they will always be regarded as “the Jew” in society, as the ultimate outsider. And the toleration of them will always be conditional.

This was recently spelled out with brutal clarity when Aaron Keyak, the Biden administration’s “Jewish engagement director,” told American Jews: “It pains me to say this, but if you fear for your life or physical safety, take off your kippah and hide your Star of David.”

The majority of American Jews have bought into liberal universalism and rejected Jewish nationhood. For British Jews, minhag anglia (“English custom”) means never rocking the cultural boat. These trembling Diaspora Israelites don’t even realize that they are feeding the beast that intends to devour them. Their Jewish identity will not survive the experience.

British Actor Stephen Fry Praises ‘Brilliant’ Essay Calling Israel an Embarrassment to Jews

Jewish British actor and comedian Stephen Fry shared on Thursday what he described as a “brilliant” essay that bashed Israel and described the country as an embarrassment to Jews.

“It’s hard for me to think of the State of Israel as anything but a shanda fir di goyim … a Jew that embarrassed the Jews, and thus justified Gentile persecution and hate,” wrote 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning author Benjamin Moser in an essay published on his Substack newsletter on Tuesday, titled “A trip to Hebron.”

Fry posted on Twitter on Thursday a link to the essay and wrote, “This is quite brilliant, as Benjamin Moser so often is. Aside from being a wonderful piece of writing in itself, it has clarified so much for me.”

Moser, who is Jewish, started his essay by recalling a trip to Israel five years ago for the Palestine Festival of Literature and his visit to Hebron. The Houston-born author said that when his parents were growing up, “Jim Crow was the law of the land in our state,” referring to the laws that enforced racial segregation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the US.

“Yet Hebron felt worse to me than anything I’d read about Jim Crow. Worse than apartheid — a word that is now, finally, being applied to Palestine,” he added. “The restrictions on Palestinian life — starting with the simple ability to walk down the street — are so suffocating that you can’t quite believe you’re not in some grotesque movie. The Palestinians have no citizenship, and nowhere to go: if they leave the Occupied Territories, they become stateless refugees. And if they stay — well, their lives are restricted in ways that are very hard to imagine. Imagine the COVID lockdowns, but for your entire life, generation after generation, and with no vaccine on its way.”

Jewish Palestine's competing political parties, 1921

One hundred years ago The Hebrew Standard of June 3, 1921 published in its weekly British Jewish news column the details of the various Jewish political parties in Palestine.

They were as diverse as the ones in Israel today.