Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, June 11, 2021

A third Gaza child soldier is uncovered

After the New York Times published its list of child victims of the May mini-war, it was discovered that one of the "children," Khaled Imad Khaled al-Qanua, was in fact a member of the Mojahaden Brigades. According to some reports he was 20 years old, but the Palestinian Ministry of Education said that he was in 12th grade.

Another of those listed, Muhammad Sabar Ibrahim Suleiman, 16, was in fact a Hamas member and trainee.

Now, DigFind has uncovered a third likely child soldier.

Bashar Ahmad Samour, 17, was hailed by Fatah as a "hero martyr" - language reserved for fighters. His funeral was festooned with Fatah flags, which never happens in Gaza unless the funeral is for a fighter or someone closely associated with the Al Aqsa Brigades.

That's more and more dead Gazans on the "terrorist" side of the ledger, and three fewer on the "civilian" side.

06/10 Links Pt2: We Are Entering a New Phase of Discrimination Against Jews; The Palestinian ‘battle flag’; The Tikvah Podcast: Matti Friedman on How Americans Project Their Own Problems onto Israel

From Ian:

We Are Entering a New Phase of Discrimination Against Jews

We are seeing, in the West, the beginning of a new phase of discrimination against Jews. Many cannot openly identify as Jews without fear of being assaulted, which is happening all too often in Europe, the United States and now Canada.

Much of the animosity is related to the support of Jews for Israel and its historical/philosophical foundation, Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish People in their ancestral homeland.

The very word “Jew” comes from the membership in the tribe of Judah which, about 3,000 years ago, became a kingdom, with Jerusalem as its capital, under David and Solomon.

Many Jews today grow up proudly learning about this astonishing history that uniquely binds the past to the present. However, Jews are now increasingly assailed by hostile, mania-driven campaigns, foremost at universities, bent on erasing this history altogether.

There are ever-mounting efforts underway, including by people who consider themselves part of a “progressive” movement asserting human rights for minorities — a noble aim in principle — to single out only one country, Israel, and its national movement, Zionism, for vilification. Delegitimizing rhetoric seeking to portray Israel as a “settler-colonialist” enterprise imbued with “white supremacy” is hurled with feverish abandon unhinged from fact and history.

We’re in the realm here not of reason, but of a quasi-religious cult of incantation.

Almost 100 years ago, writing at another moment of great danger in Jewish history, Albert Einstein saw the re-creation of a Jewish homeland as “the embodiment of the reawakening corporate spirit of the whole Jewish nation.” In his day, Einstein was a progressive who abhorred violence and cared deeply about the human rights of the Palestinian Arabs. Nonetheless, he recognized the great moral need for Zionism.

Einstein urged that “we Jews should once more become conscious of our existence as a nationality and regain the self-respect that is necessary to a healthy existence. We must learn once more to glory in our ancestors and in our history.” To that end he called for “reconstruction of our native land.”

One doesn’t “colonize” one’s native land. One returns home.

Tracy-Ann Oberman: I will not be silenced on antisemitism

And their fears were justified when the actor and performers union Equity decided to use its membership base to condemn Israel. Its President and General Secretary called on members to demand sanctions and join the march in Hyde Park. A similar march a week earlier had seen multiple antisemitic placards, including one with Jesus nailed to a cross with the words: “Do not let them do the same thing today again”.

Equity has a duty to look after its members at a time when most haven’t earned a penny in 18 months. It also doesn’t routinely make pronouncements on anything. Do you know how many times Equity, its President and General Secretary have issued statements, let alone called for sanctions, against China, Turkey or Syria? Or offered support to the Kurds, the Yazidis or the Russian LGBTQ community? Zero. Do you know how many times they’ve made a statement on Israel and Palestine? Twenty-eight times.

So much for promoting my work. I found myself pulling different factions together to push awareness of what was happening. I was invited onto Newsnight to talk about the many performers who had sent me their resignation letters from Equity, including the incomparable Dame Maureen Lipman, who said she was putting her subs toward helping victims on both sides of the conflict. Where the Dame walks, people follow.

Murray Hecht, a long-time Equity union leader and activist, joined me in the outrage and led a delegation of angry Jewish and non-Jewish members who ripped up their union cards.

Many Jewish performers feel they must pass a political loyalty test — a purity exam to weed out any Zionistic tendencies. I hope my fellow Chinese, Iranian, Turkish, Russian and Pakistani performers aren’t put under equal pressure about countries they do not live in and are not citizens of.

I have promoted Palestinian rights; I think Israel must be brave and lead talks to forward a two-state solution and coexistence.

I am overwhelmed by how much love and support I have received from so many fellow actors, directors, musicians, producers, casting directors, writers and others. It is heartening to think this message really impacted. But I won’t allow myself and my fellow performers to be lectured by people whose only understanding of the situation is what they’ve read on Instagram.

I won’t be told to tone it down by fellow actors who are unable to call out antisemitism for fear of looking “pro-Zionist”. And I won’t stay quiet when my industry’s union exacerbates this mindset.

The Tikvah Podcast: Matti Friedman on How Americans Project Their Own Problems onto Israel

In 1958, the American author Leon Uris published Exodus, the novel about Israel’s founding that became an international phenomenon. Its hero, though an Israeli kibbutznik, was portrayed as a blond, blue-eyed man of culture and elegance, a portrayal reinforced by the film version of the novel, which starred Paul Newman. Whether or not this was his point, by portraying Israelis as racially white and as Western in their sensibilities, Uris was making it easier for most Americans to identify with Israel and its cause. This week’s podcast guest, the frequent Mosaic contributor Matti Friedman, argues that Americans still see themselves in Israel-just not always in the way that Uris hoped. In a recent essay, Friedman finds in the American reaction to the Jewish state’s recent confrontation with Hamas the same mythology that once animated Uris’s writing—only in reverse. Where in Uris characters are portrayed with distinctly Western sensibilities so as to attract Americans to Israel, contemporary portrayals of Israelis are now advanced by those who wish to distance Americans-and the world-from Israel.

Stop Comparing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict to the Black Lives Matter Movement

Assuming that global conflicts can be navigated and understood via American history and the present tensions in American society concerning race is total nonsense. The Jewish people have been victims of thousands of years of displacement, expulsion and discrimination, and in the last century, we have faced war and terrorism in backlash to our indigenous right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland.

As someone who grew up in South Africa, I can proudly report that Israel is definitely not an apartheid society. Israeli Arabs are an enmeshed part of Israeli society, including the myriad who serve in the Israel Defense Forces and work as doctors, lawyers, scholars, ambassadors, and politicians.

In the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, gender-based violence and discrimination against the LGBTQ community and minorities are prevalent. There is widespread detention without charge or trial by the Palestinian Authority, while in Gaza, military courts rule the day and capital punishment is prevalent. Hamas violently took over Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in 2007, murdering hundreds of Palestinians in their quest for power.

U.S. tax dollars given to Israel must be used to purchase goods from the U.S., keeping many Americans employed. The Palestinian Authority used U.S. tax dollars to make payments to the families of persons imprisoned for acts of terrorism against U.S. citizens, including to the families of suicide bombers.

The Palestinian people are not the enemy of Israel; Hamas is. Israel is not the barrier to peace; Hamas extremism and terrorism are. It is inappropriate and tone-deaf to use the Black Lives Matter movement to give credence to anti-Israel rhetoric. Israel is a democratic, multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-cultural society with every right to defend its sovereignty and civilians against Jihadi terrorists.

After outcry, Omar insists she wasn’t equating US, Israel with terror groups

Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar on Thursday hit back against criticism from Jewish colleagues who accused her of equating the US and Israel with Hamas and the Taliban.

“It’s shameful for colleagues who call me when they need my support to now put out a statement asking for ‘clarification’ and not just call,” Omar tweeted. “The Islamophobic tropes in this statement are offensive. The constant harassment & silencing from the signers of this letter is unbearable.”

Her post linked to a statement signed by 12 Jewish Democrats who said Ilhan’s grouping of the US and Israel with the Taliban and Hamas in remarks about pursuing war crimes prosecutions gave “cover to terrorist groups.”

In a subsequent statement on Thursday, Omar said: “On Monday, I asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken about ongoing International Criminal Court investigations. To be clear: the conversation was about accountability for specific incidents regarding those ICC cases, not a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the US and Israel.

“I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems,” she added. She did not tweet the statement.

A brief explainer on the repetitive drama of @IlhanMN: pic.twitter.com/UqQZpgGstq
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) June 10, 2021

ZIM Comix for #BlockTheBoat blockheads

AnarchoZionist put up some of these comics I made around the Port of Oakland, where the "Block the Boat" protesters are trying to block Israeli ZIM shipping boats from loading or unloading.

The #BlockTheBoat blockheads have been spending all week at various ports to stop ZIM - one of the world's largest shipping companies - from loading and unloading. As far as I can tell, Oakland was the only place they were successful, with cooperation of the dockworkers union. But it is hard to know the truth because the activists lie a lot.

They also went to other ports, waved signs, and didn't stop anything.

Bild (German) has a report on incitement and antisemitism in Palestinian Authority textbooks that has been suppressed by the EU:

Why is this report still under wraps?

The EU Commission is still keeping an investigation report it commissioned into Palestinian textbooks under lock and key. From the report it becomes clear: Palestinian children are brought up in class with anti-Semitic agitation and incited to violence - financed by the EU!

BILD has seen the full report.

In 2019, Federica Mogherini, then the EU foreign affairs representative, commissioned a large study to clarify what is actually taught in Palestinian schoolbooks. The Georg Eckert Institute was commissioned for international textbook research, but its report has still not been published.

︎For their almost 200-page report, the researchers examined 156 textbooks and 16 teaching instructions published by the Palestinian Ministry of Education between 2017 and 2019. Since ongoing changes were made in school books from 2016 onwards, 18 other books that were published in 2020 were examined, the researchers write in a preliminary remark.

A “narrative” of “resistance” would be used in the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.

What this "resistance" looks like can then be seen in numerous examples.

So there are always times in which the “Palestinian liberation struggle” is referred to as “jihad”. Both killed Palestinian civilians and terrorists are referred to as “martyrs”.

The report goes on to describe antisemitism, support for terrorism, idolizing terrorists, and erasure of Israel, all of which we've seen numerous times in other reports on Palestinian textbooks.

When the EU Commission will publish the report is still unclear. The results should reignite the discussion about EU funding: because both the EU and the individual EU member states largely finance the Palestinian educational institutions and the staff there.

(h/t Josh K)

06/10 Links Pt1: Will Israel's new government get off the ground?; US-funded Palestinian NGOs introduced children to convicted terrorists; GOP Seek FBI Investigation Into Terror-Tied BDS Charity

From Ian:

David Singer: Will Israel's new government get off the ground?

An amalgam of eight leaders trading insults and denigrating each other - whilst their parties have adopted policies that are totally irreconcilable on critical issues – is not the foundation for any stable Government – especially in Israel – whose enemies will become increasingly emboldened following the announcement of a cobbled-together Israeli Government comprising very different bedfellows.

A vote of confidence first needed from 61 members of the Knesset before this dysfunctional Government even begins operating is certainly not a foregone conclusion.

Either an Islamic-Arab party – Ra’am (4 seats) – or an extreme left wing party – Meretz (6 seats) which includes two Israeli Arabs – possess the ability to drag Israelis to a fifth election in 3 years.

This Government could implode in making decisions involving such issues as:
- Hauling Israel before the International Criminal Court (ICC)
- Authorising future building in Judea and Samaria (aka 'West Bank')
- Extending Israeli sovereignty into Judea and Samaria
- Preventing the renewal of violent protests by Israel’s Arab population that saw synagogues burnt and attacks on Jews and their property during last month’s Israel- Gaza conflict

Fractured relations and policy differences abound:
- Meretz leader - Nitzan Horowitz - has adopted the position that the ICC has grounds for investigating Israel for suspected war crimes.
- Gideon Sa’ar – leader of the New Hope party - said that he would not include Meretz in any coalition he led for holding that viewpoint. “Horowitz can’t join the government with positions like that,” the MK who is only consistent in his personal hatred of Netanyahu..
- Yamina MK Ayelet Shaked, equally consistent – echoed Sa’ar’s sentiments: “Anyone who talks like that will not be with us in a coalition,”

Sa’ar and Shaked – and it seems, the 10 other members of New Hope and Yamina parties – are ready to sit with Horowitz in coalition as the ICC probe continues and Israel’s Government has to formulate its responses.

US-funded Palestinian NGOs introduced children to convicted terrorists

USAID-funded Palestinian NGOs introduced children to released convicted terrorists, Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor wrote in a report released Thursday.

The NGOs presented the terrorists as role models while publicly demonstrating “support for terrorists and US-designated terrorist organizations,” whether via social media, statements, events or protests, the report said.

The terrorists were imprisoned for various acts, including shooting attacks, stabbings, arms-smuggling, funding terror organizations, kidnapping and murdering of Israeli citizens, a minister, IDF soldiers as well as tourists.

NGO Monitor worked off public information that was readily available to USAID while it vetted secondary-grantees to implement the US-funded projects in the Palestinian territories.

“Between the years 2015-2019, USAID allocated approximately $500 million on programs in the West Bank and Gaza,” NGO Monitor said. “As detailed in this report, the agency awarded $7.2m. to six Palestinian NGOs whose activities are inconsistent with American values and policies.”

Some activities available to the youth organizations included the meetings with convicted terrorists, protests or events organized with “umbrella” organizations for various Palestinian terror groups and other events that incited children to advocate for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel – who are either known cells of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas or other similar terror organizations.

One such youth organization was observed chanting: “We are with the prisoners until death... We are behind you until liberation... Resist until death... Intifada until death,” at a recent event.

Spokesperson for the State Department, Ned Price, is asked if the revelation that UNWRA textbooks are promoting incitement and antisemitism will impact American taxpayer funding.

He claims there’s zero tolerance regarding racism. Then he says UNWRA will continue to be funded. pic.twitter.com/8vDLxwzzKs
— The Conspiracy Libel (@ConspiracyLibel) June 10, 2021

PMW: PA rejects “any conditional funding by any source that targets our Palestinian curricula”

The recent disclosure by the German newspaper Bild of the unpublished EU report on Palestinian textbooks, confirms what Palestinian Media Watch has been reporting for years: The Palestinian curriculum and entire education system is full of incitement to hate and violence, glorification of terror, and denial of Israel's right to exist in any borders (See schoolbook examples below). Accordingly, the EU is being urged to demand a change in the PA’s educational messages to Palestinian children and youth and to reconsider its funding of PA text books and PA teachers’ salaries.

In this context, the following recent statement by PA Minister of Education Marwan Awratani is particularly significant because it proves in all clarity the PA’s uncompromising stand and unwillingness to change any of the contents in its schoolbooks. In fact, the PA doesn’t want any funding for education if it comes with conditions or demands from the donors regarding the content:
Headline: “The [PA] minister of education: We are rejecting all conditional funding that targets our Palestinian curricula”
“[PA] Minister of Education Marwan Awratani emphasized that the [PA] government and Ministry of Education oppose any conditional funding by any source that targets our Palestinian curricula, which constitute a sovereign matter of the highest order (refers to international demands to remove incitement from PA schoolbooks as a condition of funding -Ed.).
He said that his ministry is working to find ways of national self-funding in order to build the schools.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 15, 2021]

In order to avoid pressure from donor countries to take out the hate and terror promotion, PLO Executive Committee member and Secretary-General of the Palestinian People's Party Bassam Al-Salehi repeated the PA’s rejection of “all foreign aid that imposes conditions on the education.” Instead, Al-Salehi said, PA education should be paid “only from the [PA] budget, from the PA’s income.”

This is of course a meaningless distinction since not only is money fungible but western donors also fund parts of the PA’s general budget, so either way, donors would still be paying for promotion of terror.

GOP Lawmakers Seek FBI Investigation Into Terror-Tied BDS Charity

Several Republican lawmakers are calling on the FBI to launch an investigation into a charity group that serves as a central cog in the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement and that allegedly has ties to multiple terrorist organizations.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R., Tenn.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, asked the FBI on Thursday to investigate the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), an anti-Israel organization that acts as a central coordinating hub for the BDS movement and its supporting organizations, according to a copy of Burchett's letter exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

PACBI is a founding member of the BDS movement and operates under the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), "which serves as an umbrella organization for designated terror groups like Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ)," according to Burchett's letter, which was also signed by committee members Greg Steube (R., Fla.) and Maria Salazar (R., Fla.). The lawmakers say the charity group could be running afoul of U.S. anti-terrorism laws due to its reported links to Hamas and PIJ. A copy of the letter was also sent to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Burchett's letter to the FBI is just the latest salvo in an expanding congressional probe into PACBI, which initially came under the microscope in March after the Free Beacon reported that the charity was partnered with ActBlue, the online donation platform that primarily works with Democrats and party-aligned groups. ActBlue's relationship with PACBI sparked concerns that donations made through the platform could be benefiting designated terror groups.

Burchett petitioned the Treasury and Justice Departments later in March to investigate the ActBlue-PACBI relationship, citing concerns the online charity platform could be violating anti-terrorism statutes. Burchett's office confirmed to the Free Beacon that the Treasury Department declined to investigate the relationship, prompting Thursday's letter to the FBI.

"Forest Jihad:" Arabs have been setting Jewish forests and fields on fire for at least a century

From Times of Israel:

Fire authorities increasingly believe several large wildfires that broke out on the outskirts of Jerusalem and in the West Bank were deliberate acts of arson, likely set by Palestinians, Hebrew media reported on Wednesday night.

Blazes that broke out in forested areas west of Jerusalem during the afternoon prompted the Israel Fire and Rescue Services to evacuate dozens of residents in the area.

Later in the afternoon, several more fires were ignited in the northern West Bank, including large blazes near the settlements of Ariel and Shavei Shomron.

Arabs have been setting fires to Jewish fields and forests for as long as Jews have been in the land.

From the Palestine Post, May 22, 1936:

I've documented many other 1936 arson attacks by Arabs, and there were incidents in the 1920s as well. They continued into the 1980s and 1990s.

On May 21, CNN had a story by Arwa Damon about 4 year old Sarah al Matrabeae who was injured in Gaza in what they call an "airstrike."

She may be paralyzed for life.

Based on what the family and doctors are saying, she was almost certainly injured by one of the many rockets shot by a terrorist group in Gaza that fell short of their intended targets in Israel.

Her doctor says that there are multiple pieces of shrapnel lodged in Sarah's spine and spinal cord. Gaza rockets are built to explode with hundreds of pieces of shrapnel to maximize injuries to people. As we have shown previously, those rockets show spray patterns with lots of tiny holes that end up lodged in walls and people, while Israeli missiles aimed at buildings do not exhibit those kinds of characteristics.

The family says there was no advanced warning before the strike. Unless there is a terrorist who is the target of the strike, Israel always warns families to leave their homes before a strike on a tunnel or other military target.

Her brother describes how she was injured: "Suzu was sitting on the floor. Suddenly the rocket hit above our apartment and the roof of the room fell on us." If this was an Israeli missile, the rest of the family would be injured or dead, but Gaza rockets - especially the ones from smaller terror groups like the DFLP, Fatah and others - tend to cause damage more in line with what he is describing.

The other possibility to consider is that Israel targeted a terrorist in the apartment above. However, in those cases where the IDF targets a specific apartment, the missile enters horizontally and the floor doesn't tend to collapse. There would be very little shrapnel reaching an apartment below. By contrast, terrorist rockets come from above, leave large holes in roofs and ceilings, and explode into lots of shrapnel.

Although CNN does not directly blame Israel, the use of the word "airstrike" and the headline "Why did they do this to me?" heavily implies that CNN assumes that Sarah's injuries were the result of an Israeli missile. There is no evidence of that.

A real journalist would have dug a little bit behind the story and exposed the many pieces of evidence that could shed light on what happened - taking video of the damaged apartment, noting the direction of the rocket, asking the doctor directly what kind of shrapnel was lodged in Sarah's spine. By the time the story aired there were already plenty of examples of Gaza children killed by terror rockets.

This is irresponsible reporting by CNN.

(h/t Nevet)

A group of 200 journalists - including reporters for the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times - signed a letter demanding that news organizations be even more anti-Israel than they are.

The letter is almost outlandish in the number of lies and reckless disregard for facts:

Finding truth and holding the powerful to account are core principles of journalism.
Yet for decades, our news industry has abandoned those values in coverage of Israel and Palestine. We have failed our audiences with a narrative that obscures the most fundamental aspects of the story: Israel’s military occupation and its system of apartheid.

For the sake of our readers and viewers — and the truth — we have a duty to change course immediately and end this decades-long journalistic malpractice.

According to these people who supposedly care so much about "finding truth," Israel is guilty of apartheid - and anyone who disagrees is a Zionist fanatic.

An Arab party is about to be part of the latest government. An Arab has been acting president of Israel. But counterexamples that disprove apartheid are not the "facts" that these jokers want to talk about. No, when they say "apartheid," they mean that they will twist the facts they can to support that position and ignore anything that contradicts it.

The exact opposite of what journalists are supposed to do.

This letter is a perfect example of the "journalistic malpractice" that they pretend they are opposed to.

Take, for example, the language used in the recent coverage of East Jerusalem neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah. Media outlets often refer to forced displacement of Palestinians living there — illegal under international law and potentially a war crime — as “evictions.”
This term misleadingly implies a real estate “dispute” between tenant and landlord, an inaccurate depiction of the state of affairs. The United Nations considers East Jerusalem occupied Palestinian territory, meaning Israel’s territorial claims there are not recognized.

Let's pretend that part of Jerusalem is occupied. Does that mean that the legal owners of a property cannot demand rent? These so-called journalists pretend that the Sheikh Jarrah events are Israel trying to evict Arabs from their homes, but the government of Israel has nothing to do with it. It really is a real estate dispute - one where one side has shown, over decades, that it is the legitimate owner of the land, and the other side has failed to do so.

That's the truth that these journalists want to hide from you.

During the last few days of Ramadan, Israeli forces violently attacked worshippers at the Al Aqsa mosque compound with tear gas and rubber-tipped bullets. Journalists didn’t call this an “attack” or “assault” on Palestinians, but rather a “clash,” as if both sides shared equal culpability and agency in the escalation.

Wikipedia, linking to Haaretz and wire services, summarizes the events this way:

On 7 May, large numbers of police were deployed on the Temple Mount as around 70,000 worshippers attended the final Friday prayers of Ramadan at al-Aqsa. After the evening prayers, some Palestinian worshippers began throwing previously stockpiled rocks and other objects at Israeli police officers. Police officers fired stun grenades into the mosque compound.

The journalists who claim that they want to report the truth are lying.

When Israel attacked Gaza, media outlets framed it as a “conflict” between two equal entities, ignoring the total asymmetry in power. Under the guise of objectivity, rockets fired at Israel — which caused significantly less damage than Israeli airstrikes — were covered just as much as Israel attacking medical facilities and leveling entire residential buildings, clouding the nearly one-sided scale of violence and destruction.

So 4,300 rockets aren't news? Millions of Israelis being forced into shelters isn't news? Here we have journalists not only saying that there should have been more coverage of Gaza - and there was - but that there should have been less coverage of Israeli suffering!

Also, there is the small fact that these journalists want to hide: Hamas started the war. They gave advanced notice that they intend to shoot rockets to Jerusalem and then they did it. To suggest that this news shouldn't be covered is the real journalistic malpractice.

The human toll caused by Israel’s bombardment is indisputable: Hundreds dead, more than 65 of them children. While statements made by Israeli officials and their defenders justifying the killing of civilians went unchallenged, Palestinian civilians had their humanity interrogated: Journalists asked whether they support violence or Hamas rockets.

Hamas' health ministry claims, and claims from Gaza NGOs saying that people killed were civilians or were killed by Israeli missiles when they were killed by Hamas rockets, went unchallenged. But these journalists support that.

The hyperlinked example given of Palestinians "having their humanity interrogated" is worth looking at. Richard Engel gives two Gaza girls the chance to say what they want, unchallenged, and they do indeed support the rockets, and are able to say exactly why. This interview is as pro-Gaza as can be.

Young women in Gaza tell me how it feels to live in an open air prison, that they too want to live in peace, and see the rockets as “self defence.” pic.twitter.com/SLHvkcTVx3
— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) May 25, 2021

Troubling still, reporting wanes considerably when Israel halts its airstrikes. Palestinians are ignored in so-called times of “peace” despite attacks and other hostile aspects of life under occupation continuing after the ceasefire.

That is completely false. The Richard Engel piece was done on May 25, days after the ceasefire. Western reporters who could not enter Gaza during the fighting streamed in as soon as they could afterwards and submitted hundreds of articles since then.

As journalists, we are entrusted with a profoundly important mission in a free and democratic society, the power to inform the people and guide the national conversation, from the family dinner table to Capitol Hill.
We are calling on journalists to tell the full, contextualized truth without fear or favor, to recognize that obfuscating Israel’s oppression of Palestinians fails this industry’s own objectivity standards.
We have an obligation — a sacred one — to get the story right. Every time we fail to report the truth, we fail our audiences, our purpose and, ultimately, the Palestinian people.

What exactly is a journalist's job - to tell the truth objectively, which is something that these people clearly oppose, or to "guide the national conversation" and support the Palestinian people? The two contradict each other, and from this letter, it is obvious which of these two competing values are considered more important.

And this letter should be enough to tell every fair media outlet that those who signed it have absolutely no ability to be objective, and they look at journalism as a crusade and a propaganda mission.

Why would any news organization want to employ people who knowingly lie, and who openly advocate reporting lies?

The New Government Will Soon be Tested (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

Unless something very unexpected happens, Israel will finally get a government this coming Sunday.

I’m conflicted. I voted for Naftali Bennett and I’m happy that he will be Prime Minister, albeit in rotation with Yair Lapid, of whom I am less fond. But many elements of the agreements that the eight parties that will be in the government have signed with each other are troubling. Although they have not been officially made public, a TV news program released what it said were the details.

One of the provisions is said to be that any PM who serves eight years will have to take a four year hiatus before running again; and during this period he can’t even run for the Knesset. I am in favor of limiting the term of the PM, but it can’t be done in a retroactive way – that makes it a “personal” law aimed at one specific individual. And we know who that is.

Another provision is that if the government falls as a result of a vote of no confidence, Naftali Bennett will not be permitted to be a minister in the succeeding government. Apparently this aims to prevent the scenario in which Netanyahu persuades some members of one of the ruling parties to vote against the government, bringing it down, and then Bennett jumps to join him in a right-wing government.

These provisions require changes to the Basic Laws that serve Israel for a constitution. One of the “interesting” things about Israel’s system is that they can be changed by a simple majority of the members present in the Knesset. It’s almost as if the Democrats in the US could amend the Constitution so that nobody whose initials were D. T. could run for President.

And of course I am irritated by the fact that the government will have 28 expensive ministers and 6 Deputy Ministers, far more than are needed to run the country.

I’m very bothered by Mansour Abbas (not related to Mahmoud Abbas of the PA). The so-called “change government” – “change” meaning “without Netanyahu” – couldn’t get 61 mandates without support from one or more of the Arab parties. Mansour Abbas represents Ra’am, an Arab Islamist party that shares the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood (as does Hamas). His coalition demands have been mostly pragmatic – that is, he wants money for Arab communities. That in itself is not bad, but part of the deal is that he will receive half a billion shekels (about $154 million) that he can direct to “special projects.” That’s called a slush fund, and will be used to build a patronage empire to make him the most powerful Arab politician in the country.

He also received promises that laws against illegal building in the Negev will be frozen, and fines levied on such construction will be canceled. In recent years, Bedouin tribes have been increasingly squatting on land that belongs to the state or to private Jewish owners. There has also been a sharp increase in agricultural theft (of crops and equipment) and other crimes – especially the theft of weapons from IDF Bases – committed by Bedouins. Reducing enforcement will encourage more violations, which some say rise to the level of challenging Israel’s sovereignty in the Negev.

This government will be the first one in Israel’s history that does not include a single explicitly religious party – except Ra’am! Historian Efraim Karsh, in a recent talk, noted that neither Jordan nor Egypt allows representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, which wishes to overthrow their states, in their governments. Why should Israel?

Many promises have been made to the left-wing parties that are part of the coalition. One of them requires a special note: there will be a “Department of Jewish Renewal” within the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, whose function will be to aid the Reform Movement in Israel. The likely Diaspora Affairs Minister will be Gilad Kariv, who is a Reform rabbi. I don’t have a theological objection to non-Orthodox Judaism; my problem is political: the Reform Movement in Israel is controlled and subsidized by the movement in the US, which doesn’t hide its desire to remake Israel in the image of a leftist America. Israel is not well-served by an organization that pushes the fantastic and dangerous idea of a two-state agreement with the PLO, or that appears to believe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is like the American civil rights movement. It’s also waste of resources – the Reform movement has never gained traction in Israel, and is unlikely to do so even with government help.

There is a lot of very heated rhetoric coming from the Right – that Bennett and Lapid are traitors who have sold out the country because of their overweening ambition. That is clearly not the case. I do think they have the best interests of the state in mind. It should be noted that Bennett in particular has burned his bridges. If this government does not succeed, he is dead in politics.

At the same time, I don’t trust Mansour Abbas, the extreme-left Meretz party, or the only slightly less extreme Labor party. There are already rumors that representatives of the left-leaning parties have been in contact with American officials about resuming the “peace process.” It’s impossible to forget the way Shimon Peres and his associates blindsided Yitzhak Rabin with the Oslo process.

If you look at the ideologies of the various parties that ran in the recent election, it is clear that the great majority of Israelis prefer a right-wing government. If it were not for the question of Netanyahu, we would have a solid right-wing coalition of 70 to 80 mandates. Instead, we are getting a “unity” government that includes Meretz and Ra’am.

Israel is facing some serious tests now: last month, Arabs gangs in cities with mixed Jewish/Arab populations, incited by Hamas supporters on social media, went on a rampage that can only be called a pogrom, burning synagogues, cars, Jewish businesses, and Jewish homes, and beating (and even murdering) Jews. This accompanied the Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli cities. While news outlets tend to describe these events as “Jewish-Arab clashes” the Jewish part consisted mostly of attempts at self-defense where the police were unable to respond, and a comparatively small number of violent incidents perpetrated by Jews against Arabs. There are a huge number of illegal weapons in the hands of Israeli Arabs, including criminals, terrorists, and even ordinary citizens. Will the government have the courage and persistence to collect them?

The Biden Administration is pressuring Israel to limit the right of Jews to live in eastern Jerusalem. Will the government have the spine to resist the pressure?

Hamas is demanding the release of more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned for terrorism in Israel in return for two captive civilians and the bodies of two soldiers killed in a Gaza operation in 2014. Will the government give in and release those with blood on their hands, as it did in the exchange for Gilad Shalit?

We’ll know soon enough.

06/09 Links Pt2: For American Jews, the honeymoon is over; Psychologist: Antisemitism may be an illness; HonestReporting Investigation Exposes Vice’s Israel Hatred

From Ian:

For American Jews, the honeymoon is over

For the past few decades, America’s Jewish community has been on a honeymoon of sorts.

Jews have been a part of the United States since the 1776 War of Independence when approximately 2,000 Jews lived in the country. Jewish emigration to America began in the early 1800s, primarily to the South, to cities such as Charleston and Savannah, expanding in the 19th century to New York and elsewhere around the nation. The first mass emigration to the United States, however, took place during the last two decades of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th. Almost 3 million European Jews came to America during this period.

There was discrimination aplenty, and the future of the Jews in this country was still unknown. Then came the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel in our ancestral homeland, followed by massive and miraculous military victories for the nascent Jewish state, which propelled Jewish pride and identity around the globe. Little by little, America’s Jewish community found its place. Some of it was the result of changes to the law, and some the result of the change to the sociological landscape. In a way, we’ve always been a part of the fabric of American life.

Unfortunately, we’ve also allowed this era to soften us as a people. We let our collective guard down. We began intellectualizing away our identity in an ill-fated attempt to fit in.

From the comfort of our American-style homes, we spent the last few decades losing our connection to our roots, our Jewish history, our peoplehood, our religion, our land and our identity. Many have simply forgotten who we are. But for what it’s worth, you can always count on the anti-Semites to remind those of us who need to be reminded. While the anti-Semites say this with disdain, I say it with pride: No matter how successful, how connected, how Americanized you think you are, you are always a Jew.

This past decade, we’ve all seen anti-Semitism appear in places that we never expected. On college campuses, in houses of worship, state legislatures, city councils, Congress, at right-wing rallies, left-wing rallies, anti-Israel rallies, in Arab communities, black communities and white communities—anti-Semitism is back.

Prof. Phyllis Chesler: Psychologist: Antisemitism may be an illness

The task at hand is daunting because Israel and the Jews are trying to defend themselves from outrageous lies and slanders.

Israel is accused of being a settler, colonial, imperialistic, Jewish supremacist aggressor; a Nazi apartheid state that perpetrates ethnic cleansing and that has erased the history of the only indigenous people of the region – the Palestinian Arabs. Demands to boycott Israeli products and Israeli academics and to shame, harass, and attack Jewish students and professors who refuse to sign on to such genocidal propaganda have been underway for nearly 20 years.

As Israel won war after war in self-defense, Jew haters funded a lethal propaganda campaign, one in which Israel would increasingly find itself totally surrounded by ill-deserved hatred, not only in the Sunni and Shi'a Muslim worlds but also at the United Nations,, among celebrity artists, academics, in the media, the internet, and among student social justice activists on campus in the West.

Like so many, I had assumed that the hatred and persecution of the Jews had ended, that Jewish history would never again repeat itself.

I was wrong.

In 1990, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Theodore Isaac Rubin suggested that antisemitism is an illness – a madness – a virus, a plague, infectious, something evil that is not caused by Jews.

We must shed our illusions permanently as we search for the antidote.

Journalist and Author Bari Weiss Talks Antisemitism, ‘Sacrifices of Our Ancestors’ in Jewish History

Journalist and author Bari Weiss urged the public on Tuesday to have “moral courage” to act against the rising tide of antisemitism, and explained how looking back at Jewish history can provide the guidance needed to do so.

“Small groups of people, often from the fringes of Jewish society, have bent reality and changed the world,” said the former New York Times editor. “Oftentimes Jewish leadership, Jewish visionaries and Jewish moral courage does not come from people that have the name ‘president’ or ‘CEO’ by their name, it comes from people often at the fringes of Jewish life.”

Weiss, who penned the book “How to Fight Antisemitism,” was a featured guest at the 2021 AJC Virtual Global Forum and appeared alongside New York Times op-ed columnist Bret Stephens and AJC Europe Director Simone Rodan-Benzaquen in a session titled “The Mainstreaming of Antisemitism: How Should We Respond?”

She highlighted how Jewish history serves as a “lighthouse” and “a moral manual of how to live” because it puts “whatever sacrifices that are asked of us right now into unbelievable perspective.”

The Columbia University graduate spoke about resigning from The New York Times last year over of what she called “unlawful discrimination,” saying that her experiences pale in comparison to the challenges faced by others, such as human rights activist Nathan Sharansky and Hannah Senesh, a volunteer paratrooper with the British Army who joined a 1944 mission to rescue European Jews during the Holocaust.

Weiss said, “Every one of those people had to sacrifice so much so we could have the privilege, frankly,” to be the target of social media backlash. “Consider it a privilege and a badge of honor that that’s what’s being asked of us right now.”

DFLP terrorists hold a parade in Gaza. No one watches.

The DFLP's National Resistance Brigades held a military parade in Gaza.

Based on the photos they released, no one came out to watch them.

The story of the first Miss Iraq 1947, who was Jewish

Albawaba shares a colorized photo of Renée Rebecca Dangoor, the first Miss Iraq in 1947 - and a Jew.

Dangoor was born in Shanghai where her father was doing business but she came from an illustrious Jewish family in Iraq; her grandfather was chief rabbi of Baghdad.

She won the very first Miss Iraq competition, and it does not appear that there were any more competitions until 1962.

She married her cousin, Dr. Naim Dangoor, who became a successful businessman in Iraq, first making windows and then becoming the first Coca Cola bottler in Iraq, as well as other industries.

But Iraq started to oppress its Jews, forcing the family to leave in 1959 to England, where Naim had studied engineering. He kept trying to keep his businesses in Iraq afloat but by 1963 the nation seized all his companies.

Naim rebuilt his life in England, becoming a very successful businessman and philanthropist. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2015.

The Albawaba article claims that the Dangoors "refused" to move to Israel, but they clearly felt close to the Jewish state. Naim founded the The Sir Naim Dangoor Centre for Universal monotheism at Bar Ilan University.

(After I wrote this, I found out that the first Miss India was also a Baghdadi Jew!)

06/09 Links Pt1: Why Cutting off Aid to Hamas Is Insufficient; EU study finds incitement in Palestinian textbooks, kept from public; Break Hamas’ “Gaza-Jerusalem” Equation

From Ian:

Why Cutting off Aid to Hamas Is Insufficient

Hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid is pouring in from around the world to rebuild Gaza after the recent war between Israel and over a dozen Palestinian terrorist groups. But rebuilding a territory that is controlled by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, is complicated. American laws place conditions on the flow of funds. But it’s not that simple. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN agency tasked with aid distribution to the Palestinians, doesn’t consider Gaza’s violent extremist groups to be terrorist organizations. Not even Hamas.

Despite this, donor countries promise to prevent the aid from going to terrorists. It’s noteworthy that many of these donor countries—including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have also designated Hamas entities under their terrorism laws. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the United States would “work with partners to ensure that Hamas does not benefit from these reconstruction efforts.” UNRWA is one of those partners. It is currently slated to receive $150 million of U.S. taxpayer funds this year. Unless the State Department makes funding to UNRWA contingent on the agency’s compliance with U.S. terrorist designations, U.S. taxpayer funds could flow to any one of the fifteen Palestinian terror groups that launched rockets indiscriminately into Israel during the course of the recent war.

Indeed, Hamas is not the only concern. At least three groups that the United States formally regards as terrorist entities participated in the Hamas-led campaign against Israel: Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), according to Joe Truzman of FDD’s Long War Journal.

UNRWA’s procurement contracts suggest that funds are already flowing to PFLP affiliates. As recently as March, UNRWA was funding the Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC), a Gaza-based entity with extensive links to the PFLP. Earlier this month, Israel charged several staff members from UHWC’s partner organization with funneling funds to the PFLP. Like Hamas, the PFLP receives financial backing from Iran. The PFLP’s “political and military wings” have been receiving financial and logistical support from Iran since at least 2013, according to a Gaza-based Palestinian journalist. Iran’s financial support for both Hamas and PFLP is well-documented in official Iranian government media.

Question of the day from @SenatorHagerty to @SecBlinken on Iran's funding of Hamas. pic.twitter.com/fypvLs5cKZ
— Len Khodorkovsky (@MessageFromLen) June 8, 2021

EU study finds incitement in Palestinian textbooks, kept from public

Palestinian Authority textbooks encourage violence against Israelis and include antisemitic messages, according to an unpublished report commissioned by the European Union in 2019 and obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

The European Commission kept the report under wraps after receiving it from the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research earlier this year. Brussels directly funds the salaries of teachers and the publication of textbooks, which, the report indicates, encourage and glorify violence against Israelis and Jews.

The report, which is almost 200 pages long, examines 156 textbooks and 16 teachers’ guides. The texts are mostly from 2017-2019 but 18 are from 2020. Excerpts from the report were published in German newspaper Bild earlier this week.

The report’s executive summary glosses over the many examples of antisemitism and incitement in the textbooks, claiming that they “adhere to UNESCO standards” though they “express a narrative of resistance within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and they display an antagonism towards Israel.”

However, the report includes dozens of examples of encouragement of violence and demonization of Israel and of Jews.

The report says the textbooks present “ambivalent – sometimes hostile – attitudes towards Jews and the characteristics they attribute to the Jewish people.... Frequent use of negative attributions in relation to the Jewish people... suggest a conscious perpetuation of anti-Jewish prejudice, especially when embedded in the current political context.”

PMW: Jerusalem Arab activist’s role model is terrorist murderer of 37

Abbas’ Fatah party promotes a terrorist who led the murder of 37, 12 of them children, as a “role model” for young adults.

Fatah highlighted a picture of “rebel Muna Al-Kurd” holding her cell phone adorned with an image of Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist murderer who led the most lethal terror attack in Israel’s history, known as the Coastal Road massacre, in 1978. She and other Fatah terrorists hijacked a bus on Israel's Coastal Highway and murdered 37 of the civilian passengers, 12 of them children, while wounding over 70.

Fatah wished Al-Kurd a life in “defense” of Jerusalem “like your role model Dalal Mughrabi”:
Posted text: “The occupation forces arrested rebel Muna Al-Kurd at her home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood [of Jerusalem].
May you live as a rebel defending our Jerusalem, like your role model Dalal Mughrabi.”

[Official Fatah Facebook page, June 6, 2021]

Al-Kurd is an Arab activist and resident of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, which since mid-April has been the center of Arab protests against the eviction of Palestinian families living illegally in properties owned by Jews (see further details below).

For decades, the PA and Fatah have promoted murderer Mughrabi as a role model especially to youth, as exposed by Palestinian Media Watch. Be it by naming schools, streets, sports tournaments, and summer camps after her, celebrating her birthday, or glorifying her in school books, the PA has brainwashed Palestinians to see this terrorist murderer as the epitome of Palestinian pride and achievement.

As the cover adorning Al-Kurd’s cell phone clearly shows, the PA’s brainwashing has succeeded in turning a child murderer into a Palestinian role model.

Canadian Imam blames Israel for attack that killed a Muslim family, at memorial service

On Sunday, there was a horrific attack in London, Ontario, where a man deliberately ran over a Muslim family, killing four of them and seriously injuring a fifth.

Not much is known about the attacker.

In a memorial service on Tuesday night, Munir El-Kassem, imam of the Islamic Centre of Southwest Ontario, outrageously blamed Israel for the attack, saying that the deaths are linked to "whatever is happening in Jerusalem and Gaza."

The Muslim audience cheered this assertion.

B'nai Brith Canada tweeted, "Deeply disturbing to hear a speaker at tonight's vigil for the London hate attack victims claim that the tragedy is linked to 'whatever is happening in Jerusalem and Gaza.' Linking this horrible crime to Jews or Israel is an irresponsible and inflammatory act. Dr. Munir El-Kassem must retract his remarks. In times of tragedy, community leaders should be bringing us together, not dividing us."

Almost certainly the attacker is a white supremacist, who would happily have run over a Jewish family. There in fact was such an attack, luckily not fatal, in Brooklyn two months ago.

To link this attack to Israel is to add one type of hate on top of another.

From the Peninsula Clarion:

Seward City Council member Sharyl Seese issued a public statement of apology on Tuesday for comments she made during a council work session in which she referred to negotiating a price down as “Jew them down.”

The comments were made at the end of an almost two-hour work session during which the council discussed with city administration how to best spend $1 million given to the city by Norwegian Cruise Lines.

City administration and the council agreed to reconvene with further details about using $500,000 for developer reimbursement and $500,000 to expand child care options in the city at a later date. It was to those figures that Seese said the city could continue to negotiate.

“Maybe they can get other stuff to pay the difference to get the building and maybe we can Jew them down,” Seese said.

“You mean negotiate them down? Is that what you meant to say?” Seward Mayor Christy Terry asked.

The comments were met with awkward laughter by some council members, while Seward Vice Mayor Tony Baclaan put his head in his hands. The work session was almost immediately adjourned after the comment was made.

In the statement of apology issued Tuesday, Seese said she was “embarrassed” and “very sorry” for the comments.

“Please accept my sincere apology for what I said last night during my comments at the work session,” Seese wrote. “I would never want to hurt or offend anyone, and my mouth got the best of me. I had a sleepless night worrying about hurting people.”

If you look at the video, the reaction from the council members is almost more offensive than the statement itself. Practically all of them laugh; the mayor's correction "You mean negotiate them down?" is said with a big smile, as if Seese said a naughty word that everyone says but that shouldn't be said publicly.