Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Poll of American Jews has Distressing Results (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

Most American Jews say they “support Israel.” But a recent poll casts serious doubt on this, or at least indicates that their idea of “support” is not what one might expect.

The poll was done by the Jewish Electorate Institute, described as a “group led by prominent Jewish Democrats,” and unsurprisingly some of the questions are clearly designed to elicit a desired result. For example,

Q.25 As you may know, the Trump Administration eliminated humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. The Biden Administration has recently reversed Trump's policy and has renewed humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. Do you support or oppose Biden renewing this aid?

Given the large preference for Biden over Trump by poll respondents (when scored on a scale of 0-100, Biden had a mean grade of 67 vs. Trump’s 19), and considering that the question did not discuss the reasons for Trump’s action – the Taylor Force Act and the use of aid money to pay terrorists – but only related the issue to Biden and Trump, it was foreordained that the majority would favor resuming “humanitarian” aid.

The distribution of poll respondents by denomination closely mirrors the American Jewish population:

37% Reform
31% No particular denomination
17% Conservative
9% Orthodox
2% Reconstructionist
3% Other
1% Not sure

85% of them said that their religion was Judaism, and 100% self-identified as Jewish.

I am not especially interested in their responses to the questions about aid to Israel, the two-state solution, and so forth. These questions are too general and do not supply enough information to enable the respondent to make a real choice. We already know that most American Jews favor a “two-state solution,” but what if the question were “do you support a two-state solution in which terrorists fire rockets at Ben Gurion Airport from within their state, a mere 7 miles away?” This is not usually how it is asked.

I do want to know how they see Israel in relation to themselves. What does the Jewish state mean to Jews who live in America?

The first question connected to Israel listed various political issues and asked respondents to choose two of them as top priorities for the administration. Israel came out close to the bottom of the list, with only Iran and abortion below it. Unfortunately the question did not ask what the respondents’ personal priorities were, only what they wanted the government to focus on. If I had answered the question, I too would have put Israel last. As Tevye said about the Tsar, the less attention paid to us the better.

Next, we got this: “How emotionally attached are you to Israel?” This question is too subjective. Who knows what each individual thinks it means? Do they visit Israel, have relatives here, donate to Israel-related charities? A better question would be “if Israel disappeared, would you be (a) desolated, (b) mildly unhappy, (c) unmoved, (d) mildly pleased, or (e), ecstatic. But they didn’t ask this. 29% said they were very attached, 33% somewhat attached, 25% not too attached, and 13% not at all attached. While I would like to know the answer, this really doesn’t help.

But some questions stand out, and the answers are not good. Only 9% agreed with the statement “Israel doesn’t have the right to exist,” and 67% said that the statement was antisemitic. But when asked if Israel is an apartheid state, 25% agreed. When asked if “Israel's treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the U.S.,” 34% agreed. And – probably the most incredible of all – 22% agreed that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.”

It is shocking to me that one out of four American Jews thinks that Israel is an apartheid state and is committing genocide against the Palestinians.

Genocide! Do they have the slightest idea of what the word means? I suppose they don’t know that the number of Palestinians between the river and the sea has increased by more than 2,710,000, a factor of 2.5, since 1967, but still – where are the concentration camps, the smokestacks? Where are the killing fields? Surely, if there had been such mass murder, the New York Times would have (joyfully) reported it.

And apartheid. Actual apartheid, the separation of races that was practiced in South Africa until the early 1990s, is well-documented, and there are plenty of people still around who experienced it themselves. It was absolutely nothing like the treatment of Arabs by the state of Israel, either within the Green Line or in the territories. There are no racially-based laws, no system of classification by race, no separate beaches or drinking fountains (except for the ones on the Temple Mount, which only Arabs are permitted to use). Only complete ignorance of both history and the facts about Israel could allow someone to believe this.

These results are inconsistent with one another. After all, does a state that commits genocide and practices apartheid have a right to exist? I think most people would say no. Should I add that the proposed state of Palestine, which will not permit Jews to live in it and whose heroes have always been the ones who killed the most Jews, fills the bill for a state that doesn’t have the right to exist?

I am not surprised that more than one out of three American Jews believe that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is like the American race problem, because they have been told this over and over, by national figures like Condoleezza Rice and Barack Obama, by many of their liberal rabbis, and of course by movements like BLM. I suppose they took the easy way out by choosing to analogize everything to their own experience rather than to actually think, but consider: Arabs were never slaves to Jews, the US is not surrounded by enemy states populated by blacks, blacks do not occupy Arizona and are not firing rockets from there into California, and … I could go on, but it should be obvious that it is not the same. Not even a little.

So despite the fact that this is technically a very bad poll, the results are still not encouraging. They are not good for anyone in Israel who thinks that American Jews might lobby for her in a pinch, and they are not good for the American Jews who appear to be prepared to believe the worst accusations imaginable about their own historic homeland.

07/14 Links Pt1: In first, US court rules Syria, Iran, IRGC, banks liable for Hamas attack; Hezbollah storing massive weapons depot next to a school; Iranian plot to kidnap New York journalist critical of Iran

From Ian:

In first, US court rules Syria, Iran, IRGC, banks liable for Hamas attack

In a landmark ruling, a US federal court ruled on Monday that Syria, Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and three Iranian banks were liable for the Hamas terror attack which killed Eitam and Naama Henkin in 2015.

The District of Columbia court ruled on two suits: one filed by the parents and siblings of Eitam and one filed by the Henkins' children and the Henkins' estates. The suits made claims governed by the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, alongside other claims.

The Justice for United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Act, which amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, established a fund to provide compensation to eligible claimants who hold judgments against state sponsors of terrorism.

In the suit filed by the Henkins' children, the plaintiffs claimed that Hamas relies on Iran and Syria for material support, including but not limited to training, weapons and financing. The children of Eitam and Naama Henkin filed the $360 million civil damages wrongful death lawsuit in 2019, shortly after then US president Donald Trump designated the IRGC as a terrorist group.

The plaintiffs said that Iran provides logistical and military support to Hamas through the IRGC’s Quds Force and other entities, and that Tehran funnels much of its financial sponsorship of Hamas through Bank Markazi, Bank Melli and Bank Saderat.

The Central Bank of Iran was sanctioned in 2019 for providing billions of dollars to the IRGC, the IRGC Quds Force (which supports Hamas) and Hezbollah. Bank Melli was sanctioned by the US in the past for providing millions of dollars to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and other groups through the Quds Force. Bank Saderat was also sanctioned in the past by the US for being a terrorist financier.

None of the defendants responded to the lawsuit.

IDF: Hezbollah storing massive weapons depot next to a school

The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday revealed the location of an alleged Hezbollah arms cache in central Lebanon, saying a large quantity of explosives was being stored in a building across the street from a school.

According to Israeli assessments, explosives with roughly half the destructive power of the massive blast that leveled huge swaths of Beirut last year were being kept in the building in the village of Ebba.

The military refused to elaborate on the nature of the weaponry it suspected was being kept in the building.

The IDF anticipated that following its exposure of the site, Hezbollah would quickly empty the structure and move any munitions inside elsewhere.

While this would deny the military a target for attack in any future conflict, the army said it was prepared to show its hand now, signaling to Hezbollah the depth of its intelligence-gathering and exposing to the world the terror group’s apparent endangerment of children.

The IDF said it had information about “thousands” more Hezbollah targets.

“Hezbollah intended to use this against IDF soldiers and citizens of Israel. This storehouse was located in the heart of a civilian population in Lebanon, mere meters from a school,” the IDF wrote.

“Like this target, there are thousands of similar ones belonging to Hezbollah, which endanger the lives of Lebanon’s citizens,” the military said.

IDF published image of the site in question with the madrasa in front of it. pic.twitter.com/MydJ7GhUEB
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) July 14, 2021

Israel always reveals the best archaeological finds before Tisha B'Av

In the days leading up to Tisha B'Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar that commemorates the destruction of the two Temples, there have been a number of stunning announcements of recent finds by archaeologists in Israel from the two periods.

Going in chronological order:

A painted pottery shard was found that dated to 1100 BCE, with the name Jerubaal on it. Jerubaal was the nickname of the Biblical judge Gideon, mentioned in the book of Judges.

“For decades, there were practically no inscriptions of this era and region. To the point that we were not even sure what the alphabet looked like at that time. There was a gap. Some even argued that the alphabet was unknown in the region, that there were no scribes, and that the Bible must therefore have been written much later,” polymath independent epigrapher and historian Michael Langlois told The Times of Israel.

“These inscriptions are still rare, but they are slowly filling the gap; they not only document the evolution of the alphabet, they show that there was in fact continuity in culture, language and traditions. The implications for our understanding of biblical history are vast — and exciting!” said Langlois, who was not involved in this current excavation.

A section of Jerusalem’s city wall built during the First Temple period that was mostly destroyed by the Babylonian army in 586 BCE has been uncovered by archaeologists in the City of David National Park, the Israel Antiquities Authority said on Wednesday.

The part of the wall that has been newly exposed was built to protect the city from the east on its eastern slope.

"The city wall protected Jerusalem from a number of attacks during the reign of the kings of Judah, until the arrival of the Babylonians, who managed to break through it and conquer the city,” said directors of the excavation, Dr. Filip Vukosavović of the Ancient Jerusalem Research Center and Dr. Joe Uziel and Ortal Chalaf on behalf of the IAA.

“The remains of the ruins can be seen in the archaeological excavations. However, not everything was destroyed, and parts of the walls, which stood and protected the city for decades and more, remain standing to this day.”

An enormous building that hosted public functions and perhaps city government meetings in ancient Jerusalem is reopening to the public some 2,000 years after its construction.

The newly excavated structure, located next to the Israeli capital’s Western Wall, consists of two identical, elaborately decorated halls where dignitaries may have gathered while visiting the city and the Second Temple, reports Rossella Tercatin for the Jerusalem Post.

“This is, without a doubt, one of the most magnificent public buildings from the Second Temple period ever uncovered outside the Temple Mount walls in Jerusalem,” says excavation leader Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah in a statement.

Two coins dating back some 2,000 years were found in the Binyamin region of the West Bank during an archaeological survey conducted by Bar-Ilan University, the university and the Binyamin Regional Council announced Tuesday.
The coins date back to the period of the Jewish revolts against the Romans.

One coin was discovered near Wadi Rashash, and another in a location known as Hirbet J’bait.
The artifact found in Hirbet J’bait was minted around 67 CE. It features a vine leaf and the Hebrew inscription Herut Zion (Freedom for Zion) on one side, and a goblet and the inscription “Year Two” on the other. Just three years later, in 70 CE, the Romans would destroy the Temple in Jerusalem. Several other remains from that period, including a ritual bath, have been uncovered in the area.

The second coin dates back to the time of the Bar Kochba Revolt some 70 years later. It bears a palm branch surrounded by a wreath and the inscription LeHerut Yerushalayim (Freedom to Jerusalem) on one side and a musical instrument and the name “Shimon” on the other – the first name of the rebellion’s leader Bar Kochba.

As usual, Israel haters get upset over these finds. Hamas released a statement about the discovery of the First Temple era city walls with the accusation that Israel was “falsifying and stealing history.”

(h/t Yoel)

How to - and how not to - fight antisemitism

This week there were two news stories that do not bode well for the American Jewish community.

The first was the sparsely attended "No Fear" rally against antisemitism in Washington. The second was the release of a survey showing that many American Jews believe that Israel is guilty of apartheid and even genocide.

Both of these events point to a catastrophic failure of the American Jewish community.

Lauri Regan, an experienced organizer, writes a scathing critique of the No Fear rally. While many of its problems were technical, the main reason it was so small was ironically because it wanted to include as many Jews as possible.

To be successful you need a focused message and a theme people can get behind. You need to attract a core of enthusiastic participants. But the organizers were more interested in signing up liberal Jewish organizations who are either apathetic or hostile to the Jewish state and who had demanded that the rally must not be overtly Zionist - organizations who deny the existence of antisemitism from their political allies on the Left.

If the organizations attending cannot even agree on the definition of antisemitism, the event is a failure before it even starts.

What does "No Fear" even mean? It is an empty slogan. Jews are being viciously attacked in the streets and online, and a kumbaya slogan does not blunt these attacks one bit.

When you water down the message to not offend anyone, you end up with a message that attracts no one.

The real reason the rally failed is seen in the Jewish Electorate Institute poll. Together with other polls of American Jews, it shows a community that has decreasing emotional ties to Israel - and few ties to Judaism. Young Jews show the direction that the community is going - less attachment to Israel, and less attachment to Judaism.

This graphic from Pew should frighten anyone who cares about the future of American Jewry:

Nearly half of US Jews have no interest in engaging in any Jewish activities or showing any link to Judaism altogether.

Their apathy about Judaism and about Israel are linked.

More committed Jews tend to be more committed to Israel. Antisemites hate Israel. American Jews who are conflicted about their Judaism as similarly conflicted about Israel. Denying the links between Judaism and Israel today is denying reality.

The solution for both is the same: knowledge and pride.

Most American Jews don't know the first thing about Judaism, and they don't know the first thing about Israel. Similarly, most American Jews have little sense of pride in either their Judaism or in Israel.

This is the root of the failure of the American Jewish community. It is a failure of the leaders, it is a failure of the synagogues, but even more it is a failure of the parents who have the primary responsibility of instilling pride in their children.

It took generations to bring us to where we are today. It is the product of decades of caring more about succeeding in America than in instilling Jewish pride in their children.

If Jews can't get our own act together, how can we expect non-Jews to support us?

Sadly, many of these Jews are already lost. And for too many of them, the only time they invoke their Judaism is to pretend to be heroic in their anti-Zionism.

But it is not too late for American Jewry altogether.

There are some great new groups that aim to educate and instill pride in Judaism, Israel or both. It in not necessary to be Orthodox to be a committed, knowledgeable Jew, and it is not necessary to support settlements to be a proud, enthusiastic Zionist (look at Hen Mazzig or Einat Wilf.)

Just as it took time to get to where we are today, it will take a long time to rebuild Jewish literacy and Jewish pride. It takes real commitment. It starts with your own family.

When Jews know our own history, we are equipped to defend themselves against the lies. When Jews have pride, though, we gain fans.

People are attracted to those who know who they are and who are unapologetic about it. Sure, Jews need to know enough to counter the lies, but that is only a small part of the job. We need to be proud of our Judaism and of Israel. We shouldn't be defensive - we should be enthusiastic. We should treat Jews in America and Israel as our family, whom we love and support even if they drive us crazy sometimes.

This is how to fight antisemitism. And it is critical to raise the next generation to know who we are: that we are Jews, we are proud, we are one people, and we are not going anywhere.

Palestinian human rights group Al Haq issued a report in 2018 about how poorly the Palestinian governments were following the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW.)

The first few pages blames Israel as the primary reason Palestinian women are discriminated against, which is what one expects from any and every human rights report that comes out from Palestinian organizations. But finally, in paragraph 10, we see that Al Haq accuses Mahmoud Abbas of prety much being a dictator, without saying it directly:

The on-going internal Palestinian political divide has had adverse consequences on the human rights situation. With the PLC ceasing to function, the executive branch of government has monopolised both legislative and executive functions. Transparency and public dialogue are largely absent in the law and policy-making processes. The justice system is also compromised by executive interference, leading to an absence of accountability and redress for victims. The executive has further placed increasing restrictions on civil society organisations, (CSO) such as restrictions on financial transactions, including where the salaries of CSO employees are only transferred following the approval of the Ministry of Interior. These restrictions are imposed without any legal basis.

Then it goes into details on the misogynist laws and practices of the Palestinian Authority, and how it made practically no progress in adhering to the convention that it signed, a point I have made in the past.

The body of Palestinian legislation in force in the West Bank and Gaza Strip do not contain a definition of “discrimination against women” as found under Article 1 of CEDAW. Operative Palestinian legislation also does not include any provisions to the effect of criminalising any form of discrimination specifically against women.

In matters relating to marriage and family relations, the provisions of the 1976 Personal Status Law effective in the West Bank and the 1954 Family Rights Law in force in the Gaza Strip are discriminatory against women and girls. These laws need to be amended and brought in line with CEDAW. Discriminatory provisions particularly affect marriage, divorce, eligibility to choose a husband, polygamy, guardianship, custodianship, adoption, inheritance, child support, common properties, and testimony.

Al Haq doesn't go into detail but in all of these areas women are explicitly given fewer rights than men, or no rights whatsoever. I once summarized it:

Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Chief Justice in the Sharia Courts and Advisor to the President for Religious Affairs [said] the Islamic Sharia takes precedence over international conventions. Al-Habbash affirmed that he would not accept or apply any amendments to relevant laws that contradict the Islamic Sharia, he further asserted that this would not be accepted by the Palestinian President, the PLC, and the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian Penal Law does not criminalise marital rape.

Palestinian penal legislation criminalises “consensual abortion.”

On June 13, 2018...a number of Palestinian women [protesters] were sexually harassed by Palestinian security personnel and aligned individuals in plain clothes. Al-Haq documented cases of these incidents, including where women were sexually harassed, beaten with batons, verbally abused, and sprayed with pepper spray.

These stories of systemic racism are always ignored or buried by the media. Far more often one sees Israel blamed for Palestinian misogyny.

07/13 Links Pt2: Are Jews really united against anti-Semitism?; Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Why Islamism became woke; British Jews to get apology 800 years after antisemitic laws that led to their expulsion

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: Are Jews really united against anti-Semitism?

Unlike in past generations when Israel’s peril was a source of Jewish unity, today it is a deeply divisive issue, with the politically and religiously liberal majority of the community adopting critical views of the Jewish state and the minority that are Orthodox, politically conservative or staunchly pro-Zionist more likely to support it enthusiastically against its detractors.

More to the point, many on the Jewish left are adamant about trying to detach concern about anti-Semitism from the rising tide of anti-Zionist invective coming from the base of the Democratic Party. They are opposed to the widely accepted definition of anti-Semitism promulgated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance precisely because it includes rhetoric and actions that seek to delegitimize Israel, to judge it by double standards applied to no other government and to compare the Jewish state to the Nazis among its examples of anti-Semitism.

That appears to be why Americans for Peace Now and J Street stayed away from the rally. The same applies to openly anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voices for Peace and IfNotNow—themselves a source of anti-Semitic incitement.

Unfortunately, the only instances of anti-Semitism that motivate many Jews to protest are those incidents that can be linked, however incorrectly, to their domestic political opponents, such as former President Donald Trump.

Along those same lines, some Jews refused to show up at the rally simply because it was an attempt at unity. For them, the partisan tribal culture wars of American politics are more important than a statement against Jew-hatred—so much so that they would prefer to skip it rather than to show up alongside conservative Jews who oppose critical race theory and the Black Lives Matter movement, which have been implicated in the targeting of Israel and the delegitimization of Jews.

It would be nice to draw from Sunday’s event the conclusion that Jewish unity is possible and that opposition to anti-Semitism, no matter its origin, is universal. But that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Opposition to anti-Semitism that doesn’t confront anti-Zionism and its prominent proponents, such as Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), is essentially giving a permission slip to hate groups and violent individuals to target Jews.

Until the fight against anti-Semitism can be said to include the entire Jewish community—meaning that Jews are willing to confront those on the left as well as the right—it’s no good pretending that Jewish unity is possible. So long as a significant percentage of Jews aren’t willing to stand up against such forces in theory, let alone show up at a rally against them, any talk of unity or a community that understands what it’s up against is deeply mistaken.

It’s not about Israel

Anti-Israel rhetoric and discriminatory initiatives are not really about Israel at all. They are certainly not about the Palestinians. They are not about justice or peace. They are in fact about American Jews and our place in American society.

In recent months, we have seen a large increase in bigoted, discriminatory, and slanderous statements about Israel’s alleged misdeeds. The anti-Israel campaign hijacks unsuspecting organizations – a city council in Raleigh, North Carolina; a teachers’ union in Seattle, the student government at Yale – to use as political shields for their campaign of hate. The campaign pretends to target Israeli crimes – some real, some exaggerated, some completely fictional – but it has no effect on Israeli policies and actions. The Israeli government really doesn’t care and likely hasn’t even noticed that Swarthmore College students called to boycott Sabra hummus (made in Virginia), a call the college president rejected.

Nor does the anti-Israel campaign help Palestinians. It was silent when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, and Lebanon. It has nothing to say about the Egyptian blockade of Gaza or the murder of a dissident by the Palestinian Authority security forces. Anti-Israel activists didn’t protest Assad’s forces gassing Palestinians in Syria, or Hamas using Gaza civilians as human shields for rocket attacks on Israel.

They remain mum regarding apartheid in Lebanon, which denies citizenship and civil rights to Palestinians, and don’t critique the UN agency that rejects resettlement of Palestinian refugees and condemns them to eternal dispossession. They didn’t care that the Palestinian Authority rejected COVID-19 vaccines from Israel. (The vaccines were sent to South Korea instead.) And they are oblivious to the harm their campaign against Israeli companies causes Palestinians, as when a Soda Stream factory relocated in response to the boycotters’ pressure, laying off hundreds of workers from the West Bank. (The pressure continued anyway.)

So if the campaign doesn’t hurt Israel and doesn’t help Palestinian, what is its point? The point is to condemn Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. (Grumbles about “ethno-nationalism” fall flat when applied only to Israel and not to other nation-states like, say, Norway and Japan.) Affinity and connection to the land and the people of Israel are core to Jewish religious tradition, ethnic identity, and cultural heritage. The right of self-determination and political independence is granted to indigenous peoples everywhere, challenged only with regards to the Jewish people. So an attack on Israel is, in fact, an attack on Jews everywhere. Singling out the Jewish state and the Jewish people is an expression of prejudice; prejudice against Jews is so ancient and so prevalent that it has its own word, “antisemitism,” or Jew-hatred. (h/t Yerushalimey)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Why Islamism became woke, Extremists are using progressive rhetoric to fool the West

To their credit, some on the Left refuse to countenance Islamism, as they become increasingly aware of the contradiction between supporting universal human rights (including women’s rights) and the demands of Islamists. In France, for example, the centre-Left former Prime Minister Manuel Valls courageously denounced Islamo-Leftism without the least hesitation.

In the United States, however, such vocal opposition from the Left is increasingly rare. Indeed, at the 2019 Netroots Nation conference — America’s “largest annual conference for progressives” — multiple panel discussions and training sessions reflected the Islamist agenda, frequently coalescing around a critique of Israel while neglecting the toxic role played by Hamas in perpetuating the conflict. Meanwhile, Linda Sarsour, a feminist organiser and co-chair of the “Women’s March”, has made her support for Islamism more explicit: “You’ll know when you’re living under Shariah law if suddenly all your loans and credit cards become interest-free. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

In government, too, Islamism’s capture of progressivism has become increasingly clear. Turkey’s Islamist President Erdogan might lead one of the world’s most brutal and repressive regimes, but that hasn’t stopped Ilhan Omar, the Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, from expressing support for him. No doubt she was inspired by Erdogan last year when he proclaimed that “social justice is in our book”, and that “Turkey is the biggest opportunity for western countries in the fight against xenophobia, Islamophobia, cultural racism and extremism”.

Erdogan, in effect, was explicitly using progressive rhetoric. It’s a move that’s since been mirrored in Iran. The Tehran Times — which describes itself as “a loud voice of the Islamic Revolution” — recently attacked former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his “deep-rooted Islamophobia”. And in March, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif “lauded the determination of Islamic countries to address Islamophobia as one of the main challenges facing the Islamic Ummah [community in the West]”. Islamists, in other words, are becoming skilled at wrapping themselves in a mantle of woke words, while engaging in systematic brutality and repression within their own countries.

To this new alliance between Islamism and progressive rhetoric, there is no simple response. Dawa, by its very nature, is inherently more difficult to fight than jihad. But those who believe, as I do, in a free, open, pluralist society need to be aware of the nature and magnitude of this new challenge. After two decades of fighting Islamist terrorism, we have a new and more subtle foe to contend with. Wokeism has long been regarded as a dangerous phenomenon — but only now are we starting to see why.

How Media/NGO Bias Against Israel Works (infographic)

This is, in some ways, a distillation of years of media and NGO critiques from this blog. I came up with it after reporting on the ignorance of American Jews, realizing that one reason is that they simply are not exposed to the truth - and this is quite deliberate.

The media and NGOs aren't the same as far as their motivations go but they are close enough, and they use each other.

Ilhan Omar's reputation for anti-Israel attacks and antisemitism dates back to 2019, when she made her famous accusations that defenders of Israel were guilty of dual loyalty. In her latest controversial comments, just last month Omar compared the US and Israel with the Taliban and Hamas, with accusations of "unthinkable atrocities."

Those latest comments created an unexpected pushback that led to Omar's supposed "clarification" of her remarks.

There are, though, some instances when Omar's criticism of foreign countries are not controversial at all.

In November 2019, Ilhan Omar condemned the Chinese government for the "ethnic cleansing of Uighurs:"

And Omar did not stop there.

Earlier this year, she doubled down on her criticism of China's treatment of the Uyghurs, with a vehemence she normally reserves for Israel:

And just last year, Omar went beyond mere words and took action that amounts to the equivalent of BDS -- against China. In her April 2020 press release, Rep. Omar Leads Letter to CEOs, including Apple, Amazon, and Google, Condemning the Use of Forced Uyghur Labor in China:

According to the text of that letter:

The treatment of Uyghur and other Muslim people by the Chinese government – which the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has determined may amount to crimes against humanity – has drawn fierce and sustained bipartisan condemnation. That American companies would be using forced Uyghur labor, intentionally or unintentionally, is profoundly disturbing.

...Among the acts that comprise crimes against humanity, Uyghurs have been allegedly subjected to enslavement, arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearance, and persecution against a collective group of people. Put simply, it is our strong belief that nobody should be profiting from these conditions. [emphasis added]

As you are well aware, American companies represent this country in your business abroad. It is essential that your values are in line with the basic principles of human rights.

She asks that those companies ensure that Uyghur slave labor is not used in the manufacture of their products.

Good for her!

Too bad she did an about-face

While in November 2019, Omar tweeted:

We must hold officials responsible for this fully accountable

And in February 2021 she tweeted:

Yes, politics and relationships shouldn't stop us from the pursuit of justice...Now is the time for full accountablility and justice. [emphasis added]

Suddenly, just 2 months ago, in May 2021, Politico reported that Ilhan Omar changed her tune, from a call for "justice' to a call for "justified criticism":

“We need to distinguish between justified criticisms of the Chinese government’s human rights record and a Cold War mentality that uses China as a scapegoat for our own domestic problems and demonizes Chinese Americans,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of a group of lawmakers pressing Biden and congressional leaders to take a more cooperative approach to relations with Beijing. [emphasis added]

What accounts for Omar's about-face?

In the article, Politico notes the concern that progressives have that in its eagerness for justice, the US attitude towards China's ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs may endanger the battle against...climate change.

According to Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.):

We won't be able to solve the challenges of the 21st century like the climate crisis and global health unless we have relationships that harness partnerships across the globe, including China.

Bowman is not alone. In May, Bowman and Omar were among "more 60 activist groups and at least four prominent lawmakers [who] are stepping up their criticisms as the Senate pushes through this week a package of anti-China bills that enjoy backing from members of both parties and the White House."

And the pressure on the Biden administration by progressive groups continued this month. In another article, Politico reports Biden’s new Cold War with China will result in climate collapse, progressives warn:

Over 40 progressive groups sent a letter to President Joe Biden and lawmakers on Wednesday urging them to prioritize cooperation with China on climate change and curb its confrontational approach over issues like Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong and forced detention of Uyghur Muslims. [emphasis added]

According to the letter:

...While we are encouraged by stated commitments from the United States and China to work together and with other countries to enact urgent climate policies, we are deeply troubled by the growing Cold War mentality driving the United States' approach to China — an antagonistic posture that risks undermining much-needed climate cooperation.

We, the undersigned organizations, call on the Biden administration and all members of Congress to eschew the dominant antagonistic approach to U.S.-China relations and instead prioritize multilateralism, diplomacy, and cooperation with China to address the existential threat that is the climate crisis. [emphasis added]

Where is that going to leave Omar, who has publicly accused the Chinese government of the ethnic cleansing, enslavement, torture, rape, forced sterilization and mass detention of Uyghurs?

It was recently reported that Biden wants to follow in Omar's footsteps in addressing Chinese products being allowed to enter the US:

In particular, the Biden administration has prioritized boxing products with ties to forced labor out of U.S. markets. On Friday, the U.S. added 14 Chinese entities to its economic blacklist that are believed to be complicit in human rights abuses and forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. The blacklist means American firms will have to obtain clearance from the U.S. government before doing business with those companies.

Will Ilhan Omar come out publicly in support of Biden's BDS-style measures against Chinese persecution of Uyghurs?

Omar claimed that one of her concerns was a mentality that "demonizes Chinese Americans."

Can we expect her to show a new concern not to add to a mentality that demonizes Jewish Americans?

Or is all of this just another round in the game of politics -- where both Chinese Uyghurs and American Jews get thrown under the bus?

07/13 Links Pt1: Israel Isn’t Going Anywhere; Solidarity with ‘Palestine’ Means Kalashnikovs for Kids; Czech Republic becomes ninth state to boycott Durban conference

From Ian:

The erasure from historical memory of Israeli statehood offers and Palestinian rejections is badly distorting today’s debate about Middle East peace

The erasure from our historical memory of Israeli attempts to achieve peace by agreeing to Palestinian statehood, and of the serial Palestinian rejections, is now standard practice. This erasure sustains the libel that Israel is an ‘apartheid state’ seeking ‘permanent occupation’ and underpins a ludicrously uncritical attitude to the Palestinian national movement, its leadership, and aspects of its political culture. From Human Rights Watch to Nathan Thrall, Peter Beinart to the Carnegie Endowment, the debate now proceeds as if those offers were never made and never rejected. Bringing those offers back in, and those rejections, we get a more realistic picture of the obstacles standing in the way of achieving two states for two peoples.

‘Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’ is the slogan of the fictional English Socialist Party led by Big Brother in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. Orwell understood that the erasure of history is a useful tool to control the present narrative and to influence the future. While perhaps an exaggerated analogy, there are Orwellian parallels in how anti-Israel organisations and thought leaders now treat some of the key historical elements of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

This is clearly evident in relation to the multiple offers of statehood made by Israel to the Palestinians in the 2000 to 2008 period (the ‘Statehood Offers’). These events do not fit the fictional narrative of those who portray Israel as a colonial-settler enterprise that seeks to dominate the Palestinians in an endless occupation that has been characterised by some as ‘apartheid’.

A central element of this viewpoint asserts that Israel’s control of the West Bank has always been designed to be permanent. (It also considers Gaza to be occupied, despite not a single Israeli being present in the area, but this topic is beyond the scope of this article.) Thus, the notion that the West Bank and Gaza are semi-autonomous entities that may eventually become a sovereign Palestinian state is a fallacy and the whole region between ‘the river and the sea’ must be considered one entity under two systems that by design discriminates against Palestinians.

The concept of ‘permanent occupation’ as Israeli policy is demolished once we undertake a full and honest accounting of the Statehood Offers. Over this period Israel, with the assistance of the Americans who facilitated negotiations in 2000 and 2001, offered the Palestinians a full independent state that according to most Western observers contained all the elements of what a final-status deal should look like. The Clinton Parameters were a set of core positions provided to the Israelis and Palestinians in December 2000 as a vast improvement over the statehood offer in Camp David during the Summer of 2000. The key elements of the parameters were:
- Creation of an independent Palestinian state with contiguity on nearly 100 per cent of the West Bank with land swaps, 100 per cent of Gaza and a dedicated link between the two areas.
- Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine divided under the principle that existing Arab areas would be Palestinian and Jewish ones Israeli. This would also apply to the Old City, which would also be divided.
- Palestinian control of the Temple Mount/Haram and Israeli control of the Western Wall.
- The ‘Right of Return’ for Palestinians would be allowed into the new Palestinian state.
- End of conflict agreement that would end all claims and satisfy all relevant U.N. resolutions.

Israel Isn’t Going Anywhere

For the first time since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the majority of the world’s Jews live in Zion.

Whether forced from Arab lands, fleeing persecution in Russia and eastern Europe before World War Two, or survivors of the Holocaust, these people and their children and grandchildren aren’t going anywhere. They are home. They have nowhere to go. Christian Europe and Muslim lands made it abundantly clear that they would suffer the presence of the Jews from time to time, but they would not hesitate to remind them, through expulsions, forced conversions, and pogroms, that they were guests in other people’s lands, and only sometimes welcome ones.

So they went to Israel, where there has been a continuous Jewish presence for 2,000 years, since the conquest by the Romans in 70 CE.

The Israeli novelist Amos Oz wrote that the graffiti in Europe before World War Two said “Jews get out. Go to Palestine.” The graffiti in Palestine said “Jews go back to Europe.” Oz concluded that if you can’t be here and you can’t be there, the clear message is, “Don’t Be.”

Well, the Jews are a stubborn lot and they refused to disappear, much to the consternation of many. Their mere existence is an affront. But this time, they aren’t going anywhere because they have nowhere to go.

The Sand Curtain Has Fallen

The Sand Curtain, like the Iron Curtain 30 years ago, has fallen. Israel and its “Abrahamic” partners are enjoying a lightning-fast peace bonanza. But some Westerners have difficulty rejoicing in the breakthrough. The Left assiduously seeks to poke holes in the Abraham Accords, and makes sourpuss faces whenever advances in Gulf-Israel ties are mentioned. The good news is that the accords easily survived the recent Hamas-Israel conflict. How a renewed JCPOA accord will affect ties remains an open and troubling question.

Falling in Love
The speed with which Israeli relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have taken off (and with Morocco and Sudan to a degree as well), and the genuine warmth experienced by every Israeli business delegation and tourist group to have visited these countries, is astounding. It is a speed of light peace bonanza, a whirlwind of almost Biblical proportions.

Venture capitalists from Tel Aviv and Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Manama are scouting out joint investment opportunities in cybersecurity, fintech, aggrotech, food security, educational technology, and healthcare. Bilateral business chambers have been established, including a Jewish-Muslim women’s business council and a youth council. One Emirati investment house executive enthused to The New York Times, “It’s like falling in love!”

Trade between Israel and the UAE already has exceeded $354 million. According to the Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Trade, Thani bin Ahmed Al-Zayoudi, the two countries have signed approximately 25 agreements in more than 15 sectors. Academics from the Emirates and Israel are participating in each other’s conferences. Israel’s two main strategic think tanks, INSS and JISS, each have signed research partnerships with leading Emirati institutes.

Tourist packages for Israelis and for Jews everywhere to the Gulf are sprouting like mushrooms, and Gulf tourists to Israel are coming soon too. Three Emirati and three Israeli airlines are operating or planning daily flights to Dubai and Abu Dhabi (slowed only by lingering effects of the COVID-19 crisis), as is Bahrain’s Gulf Air. Emirati Airlines times its flights from Ben-Gurion Airport to connect with Emirates flights from the Gulf to the Far East, giving Israelis new routes to China, Japan, Thailand and more.

Hundreds of Israelis in kippas and Emiratis in long white robes and kanduras gathered in early June at a Global Investment Forum in Dubai, co-sponsored by The Jerusalem Post and The Khaleej Times. This, despite the fierce mini war that Israel had just fought with Hamas in Gaza and with Palestinian radicals in Jerusalem.

David Singer: Abdullah-Biden meeting will not help resolve Jewish-Arab conflict

The meeting between Jordan’s King Abdullah and President Biden at the White House on 19 July seems set to achieve absolutely nothing towards resolving the 100 years-old conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Biden’s Press Secretary - Jen Psaki – has claimed:
“It will be an opportunity to discuss the many challenges facing the Middle East and showcase Jordan’s leadership role in promoting peace and stability in the region.”

The King has shown no leadership in resolving the conflict between Jews and Arabs over sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (aka "West Bank") [“Disputed Territory”] and Gaza – comprising the remaining 5% of the territory of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine where sovereignty still remains unallocated (“Unallocated Territories”).

Sovereignty in the remaining 95% of the Mandate territory was divided between:
Jordan - 78% – upon the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946
Israel - 17% – upon its establishment in 1948.

Concerted attempts over the last 25 years to create an additional Arab State in the Unallocated Territories for the first time in recorded history (“two-state solution”) have all failed. Abdullah has been a principal protagonist for this solution.

Jordan’s failure to take a leadership role in agreeing to an alternative solution - division of the Unallocated Territories between Jordan and Israel within the framework of their existing 1994 Peace Treaty – has gone begging during Abdullah’s 22 year reign.

The following historic, geographic and demographic realities bind Jordan with the Disputed Territory:
Transjordan in 1948 conquered and occupied the Disputed Territory until 1967 – renaming the newly-merged territorial entity “Jordan” in 1950.
The Arab residents of the Disputed Territory were Jordanian citizens between 1950 and 1988 and elected their own representatives to the Jordanian Parliament in Amman.
Statements made by Arab leaders over decades have attested to the territorial and population ties between Jordan and the Disputed Territory:
"Jordan and Palestine until 1945 were one state, actually. After the Second World War Churchill himself said ‘This is Transjordan and this is Palestine’. Before that, Jordan was an emirate, completely part of Palestine." – Yasser Arafat New York Review of Books 25 June 1987

A new survey commissioned by the (heavily Democratic) Jewish Electorate Institute of self-described Jewish voters in the US.

The results are shocking.

If the details are accurate and the questions weren't preceded with leading definitions, as we've seen in other polls, it shows that fully 25% of American Jews agree that "Israel is an apartheid state" while only 52% disagree.

22% agree with the statement that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians while only 62% disagree.

The numbers are even worse for the young.

Ignorance about Israel seems to correspond with ignorance about Judaism. While the survey didn't ask about Jewish practices, only 9% identified as Orthodox and 17% as Conservative Jews, with 31% saying that had no denomination at all.

While 62% claim they have an emotional attachment to Israel, it is obvious that for most of them, it is a shallow attachment indeed - not one that prompts them to even investigate whether the slanders about Israel are accurate or not.

The trend of people making up lies about Israel correlates with the increase of antisemitic attacks in America.

American Jews are thoroughly ignorant about their own history, their religion, and the Jewish state. That ignorance translates into apathy and then into a willingness to believe the enthusiastic modern antisemites who pretend that they are merely anti-Israel.

This is a massive failure of American Jewish leadership, Jewish education, synagogues and the previous generation of American Jews who taught their children that Judaism and Israel aren't priorities for them.

If the current American Jewish leadership cannot do their job, perhaps it is time for a new leadership to take over.

(h/t Noah)

The Seattle Times wrote an editorial on June 25 opposing those who tried to stop the Zim San Diego container ship from unloading its cargo at the Seattle port:

More than 100 years ago, with the creation of the Port of Seattle by King County voters, our community decided it would look out as much as look in when making our fortune in the world, establishing our reputation as an international port city.

Over a tense six days this month, that reputation — and our region’s standing as an open trade hub — was challenged after protesters temporarily blocked a cargo ship from unloading.

Activists with the “Block the Boat” campaign targeted the ZIM San Diego, which is owned by the publicly traded ZIM, an Israeli-based shipping company. The effort was part of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that seeks to put economic pressure on Israel to withdraw from occupied territories.

Thanks to outstanding Seattle leadership, however, the effort failed in Seattle, with its reputation as a reliable international seaport intact. Port of Seattle officials, working with Mayor Jenny Durkan, the Northwest Seaport Alliance, terminal operator SSA Marine and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, were able to accommodate protesters while ensuring the safety of workers. The ship’s cargo was unloaded Friday without incident.

Surrendering to protesters would have set a harmful precedent and caused irreparable damage in a highly competitive environment, said Port of Seattle Commissioner Stephanie Bowman.

“We fight for every single box that comes into the harbor,” she told the editorial board. “Looking as though we’re turning cargo away, that we’re inefficient, that we’re not welcoming, is not the message we want to be sending.”

Our region is vying for discretionary cargo — freight that could go to any other port — not only against West Coast seaports such as Los Angeles-Long Beach and Prince Rupert, but even through the Panama Canal to East Coast terminals.

The math is simple: The more cargo that comes here, the more jobs and opportunities there are for our manufacturers and exporters to ship their merchandise out. Thanks in no small part to the Port of Seattle, Washington was the fourth largest state exporter of goods in 2018, according to federal data, representing 13.8% of the state’s gross domestic product.

The combined ports of Seattle and Tacoma support more than 20,000 jobs and $1.9 billion in labor income, according to a 2019 report by the Northwest Seaport Alliance, and the region’s marine cargo industry produced an average annual wage of $95,000 and directly supported $5.9 billion in business output.

The message is clear: you can protest all you want, but blocking international commerce has direct consequences for the livelihoods of thousands of people in the Seattle area.

The BDSers wrote an amazingly tone-deaf response that pretty much said, "screw you, Seattle:"

As Jewish Seattlites who care about justice, we were deeply disappointed to see The Seattle Times editorial board applaud Seattle’s connection to the global economy, while refusing to acknowledge our complicity in Israeli apartheid through commercial interactions.

Injustice in Palestine/Israel is not a faraway issue, from the ZIM boat docking here to the Boeing-made bombs used by the Israeli government to massacre Palestinians in Gaza. There is no “over there” when it comes to Palestine/Israel.

The Block the Boat campaign, led by the local Palestinian group Falastiniyat, offered Seattle a chance to refuse injustice. The campaign responds to the Palestinian call for pressure in the form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel until it ends its system of apartheid.

The longshore workers and community organizers acted from a principle that eludes the editorial board: When commerce supports apartheid, there can be no business as usual.

Is there any better illustration of how hypocritical these people are? They claim to care about justice, yet they are willing to sacrifice the livelihoods of thousands of Seattle area residents for their cause!

Where is the justice for the people of Seattle - the dock workers, the exporters, the businesses that depend on the import/export business? That is not even addressed. Like toddlers, they scream about what they want, and cannot even consider the feelings or desires of anyone else.

Of course, endangering Seattle's cargo economy doesn't cost them a dime. They continue to use laptops with Israeli-designed chips, tweet from mobile phones with Israeli technology, watch streaming media with Israeli content - all of which far more directly help the Israeli economy than a delaying the unloading of a ship carrying medical supplies owned by a publicly traded container company whose headquarters is in Israel.

The rabid haters are very proud that this letter was published. (They don't even know the difference between an editorial and an op-ed.)

I'm also happy that this letter was published, and I hope that everyone in Seattle sees it. It shows how childish, selfish, short-sighted, hateful, antisemitic and hypocritical the BDSers are, and how little they care about their city and its residents.

From Crosstown:

In the first six months of 2021, there were 43 hate crimes targeting Jewish people, according to Los Angeles Police Department data. That is a 59.2% increase from the same timeframe last year, and more than double the number of incidents in a comparable period in 2018.

“What’s been especially troubling is the frequency, intensity and brazenness of the anti-Semitic hate crimes recently,” said Sam Yebri, an attorney who is active in the local Jewish community.

Yebri, who is running for the open District 5 City Council seat in 2022, added, “There has been an explosion of hate of all kinds, especially anti-Semitism, on social media over the last two years that has generated a focus, whether it’s on the far left or the far right, on Jews.”

The LAPD defines a hate crime as “any criminal act or attempted criminal act directed against a person or persons based on the victim’s actual or perceived race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender.”

Anti-Jewish attacks made up 14.6% of the 295 hate crimes reported in Los Angeles in the first half of 2021. Jewish people were the third most-targeted population; 25.5% of the reports were listed as “anti-Black or African American,” and the LAPD classified 16.3% of the hate crimes as “anti-Hispanic or Latino.”

I cannot parse out these statistics from the full dataset of crimes in Los Angeles, but based on State of California statistics from last year, the vast majority - 64% - of anti-religion hate crimes are against Jews.