Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 14, 2021

Kerem Shalom is still partially closed, I'm not sure why

The Kerem Shalom crossing, which is the main crossing for goods to and from Gaza, has not yet fully re-opened since the May mini-war.

This is a little surprising, because that re-opening is always one of the major pre-requisites for the cease fire.

Merchants and manufacturers in Gaza say that the goods they have ordered are stuck in the Ashkelon port, and they cannot get them transported to Gaza. (They are also charged for storage at the port.)

The Gisha NGO says that only food, animal feed, humanitarian aid, medication, and fuel for international organizations are allowed into Gaza - not even fuel for the Gaza power plant. Nothing is being exported, either.

Perhaps there is some sort of security concern, but I cannot imagine what it is.

I know that the PA wants to be in the loop on allowing reconstruction materials into Gaza so there may be some political infighting between them and Hamas in allowing imports to resume - they have argued over tax collection from imports in the past.

Not re-opening the crossing in the way it was before could provide an excuse for the rockets to resume.

06/14 Links Pt1: We must recognize Netanyahu's achievements despite his flaws; Senior Fatah official supports Hamas rockets “that put Israel in bomb shelters”

From Ian:

David Horovitz: Israel awakens to its most representative government ever, courtesy of Netanyahu

Israel awoke Monday to a new, post-Netanyahu dawn — to a fragile and phenomenally diverse coalition whose members chorused their determination to work for the good of the country. The sun rose as usual, just as Naftali Bennett had promised last week that it would, except he was now prime minister. “King Bibi,” it turned out, was not a monarch after all.

As they assembled for the traditional photograph with the president, there was no mistaking the breadth of Israel represented by the ministers in the government headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid. On one side of President Reuven Rivlin sat Bennett, Israel’s first Orthodox prime minister and the former head of the Settlers Council. On the other sat Lapid, the secular centrist who drew together the radically improbable eight-party mix that on Sunday unseated Benjamin Netanyahu after 12 years.

Among those arrayed behind them stood an Ethiopia-born minister (Pnina Tamano Shata), a former IDF chief of staff (Benny Gantz), Israel’s first openly gay party leader (Nitzan Horowitz), a minister from the Arab community (Issawi Frej), other ex-army officers, and immigrants from the former Soviet Union. In her wheelchair to Lapid’s left was Karine Elharrar (she has muscular dystrophy), the incoming energy minister.

For Rivlin, who publicly declared his discomfort when charging Benjamin Netanyahu with forming a government after the March 23 elections, but expressed no such reservations when transferring the mandate to Lapid in May after Netanyahu failed, Monday’s ceremony was a fortuitously timed delight. Rivlin’s seven-year term ends next month, and he relished this most significant of his final events, taking the time to shake hands with all, and embrace many, of the 27 ministers in the government that has ended Netanyahu’s rule.

Not only does Israel’s new government hail from diverse backgrounds, however, but its component parties are advocates of radically contrasting ideologies.

JPost Editorial: We must recognize Netanyahu's achievements despite his flaws

There is something ironic and yet symbolic about Israel entering the post-corona era this week with a new government – but one without Benjamin Netanyahu at its head.

As of Tuesday, Israelis will no longer be required to wear masks anywhere, thus removing the last public regulation of corona. Israel’s success in countering the pandemic is due to many factors, but one main one is certainly Netanyahu’s success in bringing sufficient vaccines to the country, which were then efficiently and effectively distributed via the country’s health fund system.

Netanyahu probably thought that this alone would be enough to enable him to be reelected to the position he has held for 12 straight years (in addition to his first term between 1996 and 1999.) But he underestimated the mood of the country, and certainly the political forces that were intent on replacing him.

As Netanyahu moves out of the Prime Minister’s Residence and takes over the position of leader of the Opposition, we must look back at his term in office and say thank you for his achievements.

Netanyahu’s last few years in particular have been very divisive, with unbridled attacks on the justice system, the media, the police, and anybody he considered a political rival.

Moreover, Netanyahu is leaving the premiership under a cloud of corruption, standing trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Like any citizen, he should be considered innocent until proven guilty; but this does not allow him the right to actively undermine the institutions that make up Israel’s delicate democratic fabric. It is this rhetoric that many Israelis will now remember.

Nevertheless. there is a Jewish tradition of hakarat hatov – expressing gratitude. Netanyahu is a human being with faults and failings, but he is also someone who has dedicated his life and career to the Jewish state, and has achieved an impressive list of accomplishments.

Fmr. Ambassador Michael Oren on Netanyahu, New PM Bennett

Honest Reporting: Benjamin Netanyahu: A Political Timeline

Netanyahu: The Early Years
Benjamin Netanyahu, referred to by many as “Bibi,” was born in Tel Aviv in 1949. By 1963, his family had moved to Pennsylvania, where he attended high school.

At the age of 18, Netanyahu was drafted into the Israeli military, serving in Sayeret Matkal, an elite special operations unit. Over the next few years, he took part in several counter-terrorism missions, notably aiding in rescuing a hijacked plane at the Tel Aviv airport in 1972.

From 1972-76, Netanyahu attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture and a Master’s in Business Management.

After his brother, Jonathan, was tragically killed in action while rescuing hostages from German leftist and Palestinian terrorists in Entebbe, Uganda in 1976, Netanyahu started an anti-terrorism foundation known as the Jonathan Institute. By 1982, Netanyahu had become a well-known public figure, serving as Israel’s deputy chief of mission in Washington, D.C. He became Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in 1984.

In 1988, Netanyahu was elected to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, for the first time as a member of the right-wing Likud party. He served as deputy minister of foreign affairs until 1991, when he became deputy minister in then-prime minister Yitzhak Shamir’s office.

Continuing to gain traction, Netanyahu was elected chairman of the Likud party in 1993.

Commentary Magazine Podcast: Bibi Goes Bye-Bye

Bret Stephens joins the podcast crew today to discuss the change in Israel’s government—and the complex legacy of Benjamin Netanyahu. Then we talk NATO, Biden, and the end of the pandemic. Give a listen.

Jewish woman visits UAE mosque. Arab media says she "desecrated" it.

Are Jews allowed to visit mosques under sharia law?

Sura IX, Repentence, verse 17-18 states: "It is not for the idolaters to tend Allah's sanctuaries... He only shall tend Allah's sanctuaries who believes in Allah and the last day and observes proper worship,

pays the poor-due and fears none save Allah"; verse 28: "O ye who believe! The idolaters only are unclean. So let them not come near the inviolable Place of worship."

Since Jews (and Christians) are dhimmis, not idolators, these verses do not apply to them, and they should be allowed to visit mosques. In the early days of Islam, they could.

Under the Ottoman empire, though, additional restrictions were placed on Jews and Christians, and they were not allowed to visit the Tomb of the Patriarchs or the Temple Mount. These are not based on Islamic law.

Last week, a Saudi journalist tweeted this:

Vanesa, a Jewish Israeli lady expresses how welcome she feels inside Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque 🕌

This is what my great religion Islam promotes, and these are the values of the UAE 🇦🇪♥️ pic.twitter.com/guISS9HWGz
— Loay Alshareef لؤي الشريف (@lalshareef) June 13, 2021

Loay Alshareef was already considered very bad in some Arab circles for having participated in a Chanukah ceremony last year. Here, the Egyptian-born, Bahraini citizen is taking a Jewish Israeli woman on a tour of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. She really enjoyed her visit.

But Arabs who saw this video are upset.

Saudi news site El Dorar's headline says that Loay "desecrated" the mosque by bringing the Jewish woman there.

So do sites in Yemen. and elsewhere.

The issue isn't that she is Israeli - if she was an Israeli Arab she would not have been condemned this way. And the mosque welcomes visitors from around the world no matter what religion.

No, the only part that upsets these Arab sites is that she is Jewish.

Evyatar is a new outpost that some Israelis have set up recently with caravans, in response to the murder of Yehuda Guetta in early May. It was originally created in memory of Evyatar Borowski who was murdered at that location by Arab terrorists in 1982, but Israel has not allowed building there since it was first attempted to be built in 2013.

Israel has not legalized this settlement, and it has banned bringing building materials into the area, but there is pressure to allow it to be built. Israel is studying whether the area of Evyatar should be considered state land which would be a first step on legalization.

Palestinians are keenly watching what happens with Evyatar, which they call Jabal Sabih. There have been major riots over the outpost and one Palestinian teen was killed on Friday during one riot.

On Sunday night, Ma'an reports that Palestinians set fires in areas near the outpost, burning tires and setting off fireworks, and in fact they have been doing this every night.

In an apparent move to force new Prime Minister Bennett into a difficult situation, Bibi Netanyahu instructed defense minister Benny Gantz not to demolish the outpost, which means if Bennett changes that order he will look like a "leftist." Gantz said that he will evacuate the outpost today, and only Bennett can stop that. Yet his coalition will not want to legalize it.

Netanyahu, of course, had legalized very few new settlements during his time in office, and had slowed down new construction in existing, legal settlements. This is all politics.

Bibi did something similar with pushing the Jerusalem flag march to tomorrow, making it Bennett's headache as well.

It is difficult enough being a prime minister in Israel without having landmines purposefully planted there.

When politicians put their own interests and childish vendettas ahead of what is best for the country, everyone suffers.

Washington Post apparently has no idea why Israel bombed parts of Gaza, and doesn't bother asking

The Washington Post has an article about the damage done to Gaza by Israeli airstrikes, based on satellite imagery of before and after the mini-war in May.

According to the UN, 459 buildings were destroyed or damaged. Forty impact craters were detected on roads.

The destruction, which can be seen across the entire 25-mile strip was concentrated in the north, around Gaza City, and the southeast.

Rights groups decried the targeting of Gaza, which is one of the most densely populated places in the world.

Tensions boiled over in May after Hamas fired rockets into Israel in response to Israeli police cracking down on Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem. Israel responded with airstrikes, setting off nearly two weeks of hostilities.

You see? Hamas rocket fire didn't set off two weeks of hostilities - Israel's response is what started the war!

We saw the same dynamic in 2008: Hamas announced the name of the war and shot hundreds of rockets at Israel, but only when Israel responded was when the media declared that Israel started a war.

That isn't the worst part of this article, though.

The article goes in detail on the damage caused, almost all of it by Israel, but not once does it describe why Israel might have performed over a thousand airstrikes. It does not describe what Israel's targets might be, with the exception of "militants" and Hamas' offices in the Al Jalaa media building.

The word "tunnels" is not mentioned once, even though Israel described during the war that they were considered a major target and Hamas' most important strategic asset. Chances are very good that the reason Wehda Street was so heavily targeted is that the bustling commercial center was sitting on top of critical Hamas tunnels.

Why has no reporter asked the IDF that question?

The Washington Post could have easily looked at what Israel targeted in previous wars - command and control centers, major terrorist leaders, rocket launchers, arms and explosives caches. But it didn't even consider that Israel might have had excellent intelligence and good reasons for choosing the targets it did, even sometimes with the knowledge that innocent civilians might get killed because the target is that important.

Instead, the vague impression that one gets from the article is that Israel just randomly chose arbitrary targets and bombed the hell out of them.

The reporters didn't even bother asking the IDF to comment on why the damage is what can be seen. Meaning, the only people in the world who know exactly why Israel chose its targets weren't asked that question in the preparation for this article.

In the end, this is a one-sided article that only discusses damage and doesn't even speculate on why a professional army would choose its targets, or why Hamas chooses to place military targets among civilian objects and infrastructure.

The Washington Post's slogan is "Democracy Dies in Darkness." Yet the article doesn't illuminate - on the contrary, it purposely obscures.

And one can only imagine why such an article gets approved to begin with.

When Chaim Herzog submitted the Biblical story of Abraham's purchase in Hebron as an official document to the UNGA

Chaim Herzog, the former Israeli representative at the UN and father of the just elected president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, sent this letter in 1976 to then UN-Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, to counter an Arab submission that denied any Jewish connection to Hebron.

(h/t Irene)

06/13 Links: Richard Landes: Lethal, own-goal war journalism; David Collier: Gaza, Sky News and the Islamist march on London; PA continues its “Pay-for-Slay” policy in breach of the US Taylor Force Act

From Ian:

Richard Landes: Lethal, own-goal war journalism

The month of May 2021 taught us Israelis many unfortunate things—things we hoped were not true (and continue to hope are not true)—about the sad straights of Israeli democracy; the relentlessly authoritarian nature of Palestinian or, for that matter, Arab and Muslim political culture; the troubled relationship between Jews and Arabs in Israel; the rising strength of religious hatred in the region and the world; and, at least for me, the most senseless yet persistent phenomenon that crops up every time open conflict between Israelis and Arabs breaks out: namely the own-goal, lethal war journalism of the Western media and the wave of hatred it predictably unleashes around the world.

A brief preliminary discussion about the three types of unethical forms of “war journalism” is in order. There is patriotic war journalism: reporting as news your own side’s war propaganda; lethal war journalism: reporting as news a foreign belligerent’s war propaganda; and own-goal war journalism: reporting your enemy’s war propaganda as news.

Modern, professional journalism considers patriotic war journalism unethical, a prostitution of its high calling. While reporters sometimes sympathize with one “side” in a foreign war, lethal war journalists systematically give credence to one belligerent’s narratives, depicting the other side as an atrocious enemy. The third category seems wholly improbable, since why would anyone do something that stupid?

And yet, in the 21st century, the land “between the river and the sea” has given birth to a peculiarly virulent case of both lethal and own-goal journalism among Western news providers. From 2000-2002, a wave of the most ferocious and provocative lethal journalism in the history of modern, professional journalism came from Western journalists who published dishonest Palestinian claims about Israeli evil-doing (targeting kids, massacring civilians) and ran them as news.

When those claims were disproven, as they all were, these news outlets did nothing to correct their errors. In the spring of 2002, when lethal journalists filled the global public sphere with reports of Israeli massacres in Jenin (just like the Nazis in Poland), progressives in Europe protested by wearing mock suicide belts in solidarity with an enemy about to attack their own countries. Own-goal journalism scored a massive blow for an enemy whose viciousness was embodied in those very suicide belts that these demonstrators, inebriated with virtue, wore so proudly.

Democrats must require Palestinian leaders to do better

In early June, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin wrote a letter to Sen. Jim Risch, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, asking him to remove a temporary hold on restoring Palestinian aid. That hold was put in place only until the United States can verify, with any sense of certainty, that the recipients will not directly or indirectly funnel the money to terrorists. Releasing it before that happens would be a terrible mistake.

The letter, which was signed by a group of Raskin’s Democratic colleagues, was misleading and generally reflective of a failed Middle East approach that they desperately need to abandon.

The letter was misleading because it is full of partial omissions and false promises. For example, it notes that this “humanitarian and development aid was passed in FY20 with bipartisan support and signed by the former President,” but completely fails to mention that there was also overwhelming bipartisan and executive support for the very limitations that Risch is trying to uphold.

Raskin claims that the money “is to be provided in full accordance with U.S. law. It is administered and overseen by our government and by trusted and vetted partners …. Hamas and other terrorist groups will not benefit from our humanitarian assistance.” The truth, however, is that during a May 24 special briefing, a senior State Department official publicly admitted that while the U.S. would be “working in partnership with the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to try and channel aid there,” at the end of the day “there are no guarantees” it would not end up with Hamas.

It is also problematic and unlawful even to pretend (while noticeably declining to mention them by name) that the PA has suddenly become a “trusted and vetted partner” that the U.S. can work with on distributing aid in the region.

Setting aside the fact that as recently as May 19, during the conflict in Israel, the PA released a public statement calling for a unity government with none other than Hamas, the PA itself consistently calls for violent uprisings and intifada. The PA also doesn’t stop at merely glorifying violence; it literally pays for it by guaranteeing convicted murderers a monthly salary for life, with amounts increased according to the number of victims and the severity of the harm. It spends hundreds of millions annually incentivizing terror, much of it from international aid. (h/t Yerushalimey)

David Collier: Gaza, Sky News and the Islamist march on London

In fact, I went back six months on the Sky Twitter feed and there is not a single tweet, not one, about the persecution of Christians.

Instead there is an endless stream of demonising, anti-Israel propaganda.

The BBC, the Guardian all have similar issues and a similar focus. When these news outlets publish a story against Israel, it goes viral. Their advertisers pay more, their subscriptions increase. But they are chiefly speaking to the Islamist crowd who use the material as fodder for new recruits and they are egged on by the same Islamist mob screaming ‘what about Palestine?’

Where is the front cover of the New York Times displaying rows of Nigerian children who have been lost? There isn’t one. Nobody cares.

Muslim footballers hold aloft the Palestinian flag and everyone takes this as a sign that ‘Palestine’ is the real humanitarian issue of our age. It is nothing of the kind and it is a disgrace that the FA took no action. This is people like Liverpool’s Sadio Mane turning it into a religious conflict and publicly using their fame and football clubs to do it. This isn’t about human rights – it is about their ‘brothers’, ‘Islam’ and the ‘Ummah’. Black Lives Matter is being co opted by the Palestinian cause – like the Palestinian cause co-opts every cause. But when it comes down to it – look at those people in Africa who are really suffering that nobody wants to talk about. Black lives don’t seem to matter at all.

People like the Sky News journalist Mark Stone get to feel important. His following increases, people begin speaking his name. The fool even thinks this somehow means he is doing the right thing- so he does it more often and more loudly. The growing applause confirms to him he is on the right track. After all, there are only 1.8 billion Muslims in the world and truth is a numbers game. The level of the man’s stupidity is only beaten by the size of his ego. A sad combination for a journalist.

We are being let down. There is no excuse for the Israel obsession – none. It is part of an Islamist narrative – and it is what these Islamists want to talk about – all the time. Our media have followed these Islamists down the anti-western, anti-Israel, rabbit hole. They run scared of the Islamists in the newsroom. Our police run scared of them on the street. The government knows that if it takes action – it will be labelled Islamophobic. This is a train heading for a crash – and the sooner we stop it – the less damaging the impact will be.

Hate is hate.

Except when that hate targets Jews.

Then it's legitimate complaint.

Like when you try to burn down a synagogue because you're angry at Israel.

And don't you dare call it antisemitism!

We saw that a few years ago when a German court affirmed a ruling that synagogue arson is not anti-Semitic. The case was about 3 men "of Palestinian descent" in July 2014. After the end-of-Ramadan celebration, they threw Molotov cocktails at a synagogue, resulting in minimal damage and no injuries.

The 3 men testified they were high on marijuana -- apparently they were just a little ahead of their time. But as it turned out, they did not have to claim diminished capacity. The court ruled there was no antisemitic motive because the men claimed they were taking out their anger on Israel because of the war with Gaza and didn't intend to hurt anyone.

Considering what has been going on in Jewish communities these past weeks, maybe these men were a little ahead of their time with this excuse as well.

Now, last month, Jewish houses of worship were again targets for vandals who ostensibly are reacting to events in the Middle East. On May 12, it was reported that Israeli flags were burned in front of 2 synagogues in Germany and the words "Free Palestine" were spray-painted on a synagogue in Spain.

Meanwhile, in the US, the words "Free Palestine" were sprayed outside a synagogue in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during protests against the police shooting of Jacob Blake in August 2020. An excuse offered this time was that the synagogue brought the attack upon itself by "blurring the lines" when it flies an Israeli flag.

Jews just have to be careful how they express themselves.

Jewish -- and only Jewish -- identity has to make sure it does not draw attention to itself.

And that goes for their synagogues too.

What about other synagogues?

Did they "blur the line"?

Did the Jews of the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh blur the line between acceptable and non-acceptable expression of Jewishness and invite that massacre?

How about the Poway Synagogue shooting?

Should we check to make sure there was no Israeli flag outside the synagogue, egging the shooters on?

A 2019 article in Haaretz lists these and other attacks on synagogues:

- Attempted arson at the Anshe Sholom Bnai Israel congregation in Chicago

- Similar attacks on Chabad Houses in Massachusetts

- An arson attack in the West Rogers Park section of Chicago (where 2 visibly Orthodox Jews were shot dead the previous year, possibly by the same gunman)

But if synagogues should not display Israeli flags with Jewish stars, is it at least OK for Jews to wear Jewish stars?

Not if they want to be normal.

Romance novelist Casey McQuiston has a line in her 2019 novel "Red,White & Royal Blue" where the president jokes that the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations “said something idiotic about Israel, and now I have to call Netanyahu and personally apologize.”

And that one sentence got McQuiston in trouble with the Twitter mob:

A handful of Twitter users wrote that even mentioning Israel in fiction “normalizes” the occupation of Palestine. Their complaints were amplified by a fan account of the book, which prompted McQuiston to say the line would be changed for future printings. McQuiston has a new book coming out this year. [emphasis added]

So while the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco normalize relations with Israel, Israel cannot be mentioned in polite company, lest it be considered like other countries?

And even Jews cannot be accepted as normal unless they remove anything identifying them as Jews -- and therefore identifiable with Israel.

Remember that rally Sarsour organized last year, inviting everyone except Zionists and cops?

On the one hand Jews are being told they are not welcome if they identify openly with Israel.

On the other hand, we have to be careful about identifying too openly as Jews.

Jews have to worry that they may be singled out and attacked

For:

wearing a Star of David
wearing a kippah
speaking Hebrew

Having mezuzahs

The "progressive" left has been working overtime to define what Israel is.

They are also working on 'helping' Jews define themselves.

Are they undermining Jews in order to undermine Israel?

Or are they undermining Israel in order to undermine Jews?

Last week, Youssef Munayyer wrote a piece in Jewish Currents claiming that the Palestinian expression "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" is not at all antisemitic, and not a call fo rethnic cleansing of Jews, and is only a yearning for a state where Jews are treated equally with Arabs. It is, as he quotes, “part of a larger call to see a secular democratic state established in all of historic Palestine.”

This is gaslighting on a massive scale.

Saddam Hussein was explicit when he said, "Palestine is Arab and must be liberated from the river to the sea and all the Zionists who emigrated to the land of Palestine must leave."

Shiite scholar M. Da'ud wrote about the Muslim messianic Mahdi:

Google Books references to the phrase before 1990 are mostly snippets, but they are very clear that the phrase means ethnic cleansing of Jews.

From Record of the Arab World: Yearbook of Arab and Israeli Politics (1970):

From a 1970 Egyptian radio broadcast, captured by the CIA:

Or from the 1980 Near East/North Africa Report - Issue 2130 - Page 12:

INTER - ARAB AFFAIRS TRIPOLI REPORTS RESULTS OF PALESTINIAN CONFERENCE LD291504 Tripoli Domestic ... of keeping the Palestinian revolution ablaze until all the territories of Palestine -- from the river to the sea -- are liberated .

Hamas leaders have used the term - and they are quite explicit in their desire to replace all of Israel with an Islamist state where Jews do not have equal rights.

Hell, even Osama Bin Laden used the term, and I don' tthink even Munayyer would pretend that he meant equal rights for Jews.

Even this past month, when Palestinian Arabic media reports on Israeli objections to the phrase, they never say that the meaning of the phrase is any different than what Israel says it is. Only in English do we see such apologetics.

No one, when speaking to an Arab audience, even pretends that the phrase means anything but ethnic cleansing of Jews.

And even far socialist media understands this, as this November 2012 Workers Liberty article shows:

Everyone knows that the phrase is indeed a call to ethnic cleansing Jews from the region and the full replacement of Israel with a Muslim/Arab state.

Biden about to throw Israel under the bus with nomination of anti-Israel (and anti-America) lawyer to CERD

The Biden administration has nominated a known anti-Israel, anti-American figure to promote the lie that Israel is an apartheid state and the US is a racist nation.

CERD is the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. It monitors compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, also known as CERD, a treaty which the U.S. and Israel have ratified along with 180 other countries.

There are 18 members of the Committee, who are nominated by countries that are parties to the treaty, but once elected are supposed to be “independent experts” who do not have to adhere to what the nations that nominated them desire.

The "State of Palestine" became a member of CERD in 2014, over the objections of Israel, and it quickly used CERD to make a very rare "state to state" complaint accusing Israel of racial discrimination and apartheid. This is the only active state-to-state complaint in the United Nations human rights treaty system with nine treaties and ten human rights treaty bodies. Obviously, the Palestinians didn't join CERD to adhere to its provisions but to use it as a weapon against Israel, which is how they are subverting the entire international human rights system. (We've discussed before how the Palestinians have shown no interest in adhering to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women which they signed in 2014.)

When the Palestinian case against Israel came up in 2019, the CERD Committee asked the UN Office of Legal Affairs for an opinion about whether or not it had jurisdiction in this case. The UN’s own Office of Legal Affairs responded in writing by stating that the CERD Committee did not have jurisdiction to take up the “State of Palestine” complaint (because of Israel’s formal legal objection to Palestinian ratification and to the attempt to change the bilateral legal relationship unilaterally.) Yet CERD ignored the legal advice it sought and decided it did have jurisdiction.

It was a highly contentious decision. Six of the sixteen Committee members dissented. The Arab nations on the committee voted that the Palestinian complaint against Israel should be allowed - and so did the US member, Gay McDougall.

Gay McDougall, a law professor at Fordham, has a history of being very anti-Israel.

She energetically defended the antisemitic 2001 Durban Conference, , accusing Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos – a Holocaust survivor – of narrow-minded parochialism in his concern about antisemitism at the global forum.

She wrote a paper for the UN Human Rights Council in 2008 about citizenship rights. She criticized Israel for not allowing Palestinians from becoming citizens but she didn't say a word about every Arab country that specifically doesn't allow Palestinians to become citizens of their states.

At CERD, she went against longstanding US policy (see here, appendix E) in opposing Palestinians joining international forums and committees as the "State of Palestine," instead supporting their complaint against Israel to move forward. Her pushing of the anti-ISrael aenda occurred as she was the Vice-Chair of the committee.

She championed the Palestinian complaint that Israel is guilty of apartheid.

McDougall was originally nominated to CERD by the Clinton Administration in 1997 for her first four year term, and she was re-nominated by the Obama Administration in 2015. The Trump administration did not re-nominate her when her term ended, and did not name anyone to replace her.

But the Biden administration is nominating her again, even knowing her viciously anti-Israel record.

Proud to nominate Gay McDougall for the @UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Her expertise in human rights law and racial equity will help #CERD monitor implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) March 3, 2021

This means that as the Palestinian complaint against Israel goes forward, a major UN committee will say that Israel is guilty of apartheid with the guiding hand of the nominee of the United States - and instead of the US defending Israel, the US-nominated member will join in with the Arab states and dictatorships that enthusiastically support that lie.

With this nomination, the Biden Administration is knowingly pushing the agenda in a major human rights committee that Israel is guilty of apartheid.

This is much worse than Human Rights Watch or B'Tselem making that slanderous and false accusation. This is a major UN treaty body.

The Biden administration has said that it will defend Israel, but in this case they are knowingly throwing Israel under the bus with their own nominee to CERD.

It gets worse. Gay McDougall isn't only anti-Israel - she is even anti-America!

McDougall led the campaign to have the notoriously biased UN Human Rights Council single out and condemn the United States for racism after the murder of George Floyd. The US fought against this resolution, Gay McDougall fought for it. ]

Gay McDougall wrote about the United States as far back as 2004: “hypocrisy lurks at the core of our moral identity as a nation, undermining our claims to global leadership.”

Similarly, in 2017, McDougall proudly used CERD as a platform to claim the US was not against white supremacy.

Why would the US want to nominate someone for such an important position who actively works against the interests and positions of the United States?

The official date for her election to CERD is June 24th.

This nomination must be fought, if for no other reason than Gay McDougall is anti-Israel and anti-United States. It is unconscionable for the US to nominate someone who actively works against the best interests of the United States as well as Israel in international forums.

Biden Not Going To Let Pesky Thing Like Iran's Genocidal Ambitions Get In Way Of Deal (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jen Psaki Washington, June 10 - A representative of the current presidential administration assured reporters today that they will do whatever possible to reach an understanding and arrangement with the Islamic Republic over the latter's pursuit of atomic weapons, spread of international terrorism, and goal of destroying the home of six million Jews, no matter how formidable the obstacles to facilitating that arrangement.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki informed reporters at a Thursday press conference that some issues fall by the wayside when larger values come into play, as in the current situation where preservation of Jewish sovereignty and safety must cede priority to the overarching objective of cementing Iran as the hegemonic power in the Middle East by means of genocidal campaigns across the region and a bevy of puppet states and terrorist groups that target opponents of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's regime.

"There are more important values than keeping a Jewish homeland safe," explained Psaki. "One of those is allowing Iran to ethnically cleanse Syria of non-Shiite populations with its multiple militias and colonizers, a similar process to what's been going on in Yemen for the last decade or so. In Lebanon, as well, Iran's proxy Hezbollah has spent the better part of the last forty years cementing Tehran's control over that once-idyllic country and sowing violent discord. These are the values that animate this administration, and that animated the Obama administration, before Trump and his cronies disrupted everything with their peace deals between Israel and Arab states. We decided upon assuming office this year that such irresponsible foreign policy could not continue."

"The point is, Iran might not be the most righteous regime on the planet, but who is, really?" she continued. "We all have our faults to one degree or another. Some people accuse China of doing nothing to curb carbon emissions, which is like the worst thing that country has done in the last hundred years, I think. So we're not talking about nations with pristine reputations in the first place. I'm not comfortable with the way Iran treats women or homosexuals, but every progressive knows that empowering repressive, homophobic, misogynistic regimes takes precedence over getting them to improve their behavior. If we're not going to let those repressive policies get in the way of a deal that legalizes, normalizes, and smooths Iran's path to nuclear weapons, what makes anyone think that the far-less-pressing issue of Jewish safety and sovereignty has any importance whatsoever?"

06/12 Links: Anti-Israel rhetoric has always been about the Jews; US to aid UNWRA on condition of new curriculum; Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu, thank you for your service

From Ian:

Anti-Israel rhetoric has always been about the Jews - opinion

The fact that anti-Israel antisemitism is embedded in the halls of power should come as no surprise. When reason abandons the debate, the crazies on all sides feel empowered. Hatred for the Jewish people and Israel is the one thing that the alt-right and the woke Left agree on.

Gaza was just a convenient tripwire for this most recent explosion of rancor. The anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda that has exploded on the allegedly monitored platforms of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube recalls the most horrific expressions of hate not seen since the pages of Nazi Germany’s Der Stürmer, or sadly, the type of educational incitement that can be found in a Palestinian Authority first-grade textbook. Social media has spread the three Ds of anti-Israel antisemitism faster than a radioactive release from the burning Chernobyl nuclear reactor. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the words “Hitler was right” were posted more than 17,000 times in just seven days in May. Extremist hashtags against Israel and Jews were trending wildly. The vile knows no bound. Even Lily Ebert, a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor who educates the world about the horrors of hate on social media, was overwhelmed on her TikTok account by the most disgusting messages, including countless posts that praised Hitler.

Minimizing the horrors of the past promises that they’ll become part of our future. Synagogues were desecrated last month, and Jewish businesses vandalized. Jews around the world now think twice before wearing a kippah in public or having a mezuzah on their front door. But let’s not kid ourselves: Facebook and Twitter are monopolist businesses, and they’ve made billions off of this latest round of malignant incitement. The social media platforms did not stop designated anti-Israel terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah from recruiting and fund-raising online, so why should calling for the extermination of the Jewish people be any different? As the founder of an NGO that battles terrorists in court and who warned anyone who would listen that hatred on social media would lead to bloodshed, this handwriting was hash-tagged on the wall years ago.

In the hate business, antisemitism was always an easy sell and business is really good now. If hatred can’t be stopped and decency won’t win out over wokeness, perhaps legal liability – even criminal culpability – might be one way of getting the social media behemoths of Silicon Valley to stop their detestable practices. It isn’t a vaccine for the hatred, of course, but it will limit the spread of the contagion. Until then, it’s a certainty that social media will promote more anti-Israel and antisemitic hate. Terrorists will be emboldened and, in the process, many more innocent Jews will have to pay the price in broken bones and shattered lives.

The Biden administration’s half-hearted fight against antisemitism

Sometimes, what leaders don’t say, or do, echoes loudest. President Joe Biden’s response to May’s upsurge in antisemitic incidents is a prime example.

The president has been widely praised by major Jewish organizations and many individuals concerned about antisemitism for his May 28 statement, which said, among other things, “These attacks are despicable, unconscionable, un-American, and they must stop.” That was a good sentence.

However, the widely ignored thorn relates to the next sentence: “I will not allow our fellow Americans to be intimidated or attacked because of who they are or the faith they practice.” What matters here is the follow-up. And that’s where people would be wise to pause the cheering until there’s proof that this administration is committed to backing up that promise.

For starters, we’re past the point where lofty words are sufficient. The time to try beating back antisemitism with statements alone was early 2019. At that point, the still new Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, had three antisemitism scandals in quick succession, as she repeatedly violated the taboo against open antisemitism and brazened out censure. Biden chose to remain silent, as did many congressional Democrats. Now, more than two years of shattered norms later, American Jews are living with the very real and dangerous consequences of that collective shrug.

During May, American Jews were assaulted for walking while wearing a kippah in Manhattan and being Jewish while eating sushi in Los Angeles, among numerous nationwide attacks on synagogues and Jewish individuals. Notably, Biden announced no acts of solidarity against this anti-Jewish discrimination.

Consider, for example, that when Germany’s antisemitism commissioner announced in 2019 that he couldn’t recommend Jews always wear a kippah, a German newspaper printed a cut-out kippah that non-Jews could wear in solidarity with Germany’s Jews. In that spirit, Biden could have announced he would wear a kippah for a week and encouraged other Americans to do likewise. Biden could have invited Jewish hate crime victims to the White House for an event. The president could have publicly urged Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to send him antisemitic hate crime legislation to sign. As the head of his party, Biden also could have declared that Jew hate has no home in the Democratic Party. He has done none of those things.

The progressive imperialism of Keir Starmer’s Palestine policy

Sir Keir’s motives are probably an amalgam of cynicism and idealism, but the latter is where the trouble comes in. Progressives may see unilateral British recognition of a Palestinian state as a century-late penance for the Balfour Declaration — Emily Thornberry said as much in 2017 — but it is in fact a continuation of the same map-carving mindset. Britain knows best and if the natives can’t see it’s for their own good, they will eventually come round. It is progressive imperialism, but imperialism all the same.

There is an enduring myth, fashioned by Arabist historians and naively echoed by Zionist advocates, that Britain has always been the great champion and protector of Zionism. There have been aspects of Zionism to British governments, policies and intellectual traditions but for the most part Britain has been either uninterested in or hostile to Zionism. Even when philo-semitism and proto-Zionism were at their height in Britain in the 19th century, arguments made for Jewish self-governance in the Land of Israel were utilitarian or patrician.

The Spectator was advocating Jewish settlement of Palestine 15 years before Theodor Herzl was born, advising the Ottoman Empire that it would be ‘a gainer in every way were it to invite the immigration of such colonists’ because ‘the Jews would form the nucleus of an industrious, orderly population; consisting of men who have been trained to live as citizens — who know the value of domestic peace assured by laws’. Yet Palestine, it argued, was not to revert to being a sovereign Jewish polity; the settlers would merely be granted ‘considerable immunities’ by the Ottomans and England.

Thirteen years after Herzl’s death, the magazine was still at it, with a 1917 editorial titled ‘Palestine for the Jews’ predicting ‘a little Jewish State in Palestine would serve as a rallying-point for Jews all over the world, and it would confer a benefit also on the Christian and the Moslem worlds, which are equally interested in the Holy Land and its undying religious memories’. Again, even as The Spectator spoke of ‘the revival of Palestine as a Jewish land’, it was at pains to say Jewish settlement must be ‘under the supervision Great Britain, our Allies, and America’ with order ‘maintained by some form of international control’. Far from Zionism, the motive was more strategic:
“‘From the British standpoint, it is essential that Palestine should no longer be in Turkish or German hands; but it is neither necessary nor desirable that we should become solely responsible for the administration of the country.’

Palestine needed a little Jewish state not because it was the homeland of the Jews but because it was a headache for the Brits.

I don’t draw attention to these articles to scold The Spectator for espousing the attitudes of the day, or for advocating exactly the sort of protectorate early Zionists envisioned. That the magazine editorialised, and editorialised so early on, for a Jewish return to Eretz Yisrael is to its immense credit. I simply observe — marvel, really — at how little has changed in the intervening years. Then as now, right as left, Britain speaks about Israel in a proprietorial tone.

06/11 Links Pt2: Journalists Against Truth; AP Snubbed as Al Jazeera Wins Hamas Prize for Gaza Coverage; Has the American mainstream been 'Corbynized'?

From Ian:

Noah Rothman: Journalists Against Truth

The very notion that the news media is somehow unable to “accurately reflect the plight of the Palestinians” is so solipsistic that one has to wonder what reality these reporters inhabit. The Palestinian territories and East Jerusalem are routinely described in the press as “occupied,” though that’s oversimplified to the point of being misleading. In Gaza, every Jew was forcibly relocated by the Israeli government in 2005, and much of the territory presently under “occupation” would be ceded to Israel according to the terms of the many proposed resolutions to this conflict. The American press frames military offensives by Hamas as a response to American diplomatic overtures to Israel, such as moving the U.S. embassy to Israel’s political capital, which ignores the conspicuous failure of the Fatah-led West Bank to similarly erupt. We are routinely treated to soft-focus profiles of the long-suffering Palestinian people who languish under oppressive regimes that devote more of their money and energy to making war against Israel than serving their people. And yet, the villain of this rather straightforward story is always the same and almost never the true malefactor.

Indeed, the hunger to promote Palestinian narratives is so all-consuming in the press that they seem willing to fall for anything. At the end of the conflict in May, Sarah Leah Whitson, a veteran of the group Human Rights Watch, which produced the odious “apartheid” report, publicized a claim alleging that an “Israeli pilot revealed that the destruction of residential towers in #Gaza Strip was ‘a way to vent the army’s frustration.’” This admission of a war crime was promoted breathlessly, including by some whose names grace this open letter. The notion that the strategic planners and IDF attorneys who select targets were overruled in the air by overzealous pilots would be shocking, and surely the IDF’s MAG Corps’ General Staff Mechanism for Fact-Finding Assessments will be outraged by this development. Either that, or this never happened, and it could only be believed by those with a burning prejudice against Israel that precludes the potential for anything resembling rational thought.

But perhaps rationality has been subordinated to emotion. After all, as Vox.com reported, progressives in government and the press have come to view the Palestinian cause as an extension of the Black Lives Matter movement. They use BLM’s campaign against police violence as a heuristic to navigate a conflict they don’t understand and which they don’t seem to want to understand. Rather, they want it to comport with a childishly simplistic, Marxist-flavored narrative about how power dynamics explain the world.

Call that what you will, but you can’t call it reporting. What these alleged journalists want isn’t journalism. They are on a “sacred” mission to promote “contextualized truth.” Another way to say “contextualized truth” is “lie.” It even makes for pithier copy, which is what real reporters strive to produce.

Another Militant Operative Identified on New York Times List of Children Killed During Gaza Conflict: Report

A second Hamas military operative was among the New York Times list of children killed during last month’s clashes between Israel and the terror group, according to findings released Tuesday by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC).

The ITIC identified 16 year-old Muhammad Sabar Ibrahim Suleiman, who was killed on May 11 in an attack in the eastern part of Jabalia along with his father, a commander in the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades, the Hamas’ military-terrorist wing.

A video released after the end of the 11-day hostilities in May shows Muhammad Sabar Ibrahim Suleiman wearing an Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades uniform learning to shoot a machine gun and train other weapons, according to the report.

“The instructor next to him is also wearing an Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades uniform. Thus despite his young age, he had been recruited by Hamas to its military-terrorist wing,” the report read.

The Times‘ front page “They Were Only Children” May 26 article featured the pictures and names of 67 children under the age of 18 who were killed, two in Israel and 65 in the Gaza Strip.

Since publication, the paper has issued several corrections on the article, and reported that Khaled al-Qanua, listed in the article as a 17-year-old, was a fighter in the Mujahedeen Brigades, a group allied with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and close to Iran. The Tuesday ITIC report claimed that al-Qanua was in fact a 20 year-old terrorist operative, based on a mourning notice issued by the Mujahedeen Brigades, the military-terrorist wing of the Mujahedeen Movement. Al-Quanua was killed on May 13 in an aerial attack on a Palestinian terrorist squad near Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.

AP Snubbed as Al Jazeera Wins Hamas Prize for Gaza Coverage

Earlier this week, Qatari news network Al Jazeera accepted an award from Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization with which it used to share office space in Gaza City. The terror group praised the "high professionalism" of Al Jazeera's coverage during the recent clashes between Israel and Palestinian terrorists, as well as its demonstrated "affiliation with the cause of the oppressed Palestinian people."

The network's Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh, was photographed receiving the award from Khalil al-Hayya, deputy head of Hamas in Gaza. Terror officials praised Al Jazeera's coverage, while also denouncing "the barbaric behavior of the occupation soldiers." According to the Hamas website, the event was "part of a series of continuous visits carried out by Hamas media relations to honor the media."

The decision to award Al Jazeera for its favorable coverage of anti-Semitic terrorism was a humiliating rebuke to the AP's hard work on this same front. For example, the Atlantic reported in 2014 on the AP's extensive efforts to ensure that its coverage did not conflict with the Hamas goal of eradicating Israel.

When the power trio's shared office space was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike last month, AP executives insisted (unconvincingly) they had no idea they were working next to terrorists. National security expert Noah Pollak reported, however, that the office building contained "multiple Hamas operations and offices including weapons manufacturing and military intelligence" and the AP's local reporters "knew about it."

It's possible that Hamas was aggrieved by the AP's out-of-character decision to rescind its job offer to Emily Wilder in response to media reports about her radical anti-Israeli activism in college. The AP has an otherwise impressive record of employing anti-Israeli activists, such as Gaza bureau chief Fares Akram, who previously worked as a consultant for the radical left-wing Human Rights Watch and has said he finds it "difficult to distinguish between what the Israelis call terrorists and the Israeli pilots and tank crews who are invading Gaza."

Did you know that the world never condemns Israel?

That's the message from the Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs.

In a press release today, the ministry issued a statement saying that "countries' fear of being accused of anti-Semitism gives immunity to the Israeli occupation authorities for committing crimes, and makes them above criticism and accountability."

The ministry expressed its astonishment that some countries "express concern" or ask both Israel and Hamas to stop unilateral steps, because that is "equating the victim and the executioner" and that the reason countries use that language is to avoid accusations of antisemitism.

I had missed where the world community avoided criticizing Israel.