Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, July 18, 2021

Head of human rights NGO, @KenRoth, blames antisemitism on Jews

British Jews experienced an “unprecedented number of antisemitic incidents” during and after this summer’s fighting between Israel and Hamas, the Jewish community’s watchdog organization announced on Thursday.

In a report, the Community Security Trust stated that 628 antisemitic incidents were recorded during the one-period between May 8 and June 7, a rise of 365 percent over April and “the highest number CST has ever recorded in any month-long period.”

“This was the most intense period of anti-Jewish hatred seen in the U.K. in recent years,” the group stated. “It saw record levels of antisemitic hate incidents, anti-Jewish chants and placards on public demonstrations, incitement from radical Islamist extremists in the U.K. and calls from jihadist terrorist groups for Jews to be killed.” The organization added that “the level of anger and hate that is directed at Israel always spills over into antisemitism at times of conflict,” with British Jews being “held responsible for events thousands of miles away, over which they have no control, simply because they are Jewish.”

According to the CST, 83 percent of incidents constituted abusive behavior, 7.5 percent of incidents involved threats and 5 percent involved assaults. Many involved Jewish people being singled out on the streets or in schools with screams and chants about the Palestinians.

In one case, a man stopped Jewish high school students in London and threatened to punch them if they did not say they supported the Palestinians. He then said: “Tell your fucking mum and dad they are murderers and killing babies.”

In another, a speaker at a Manchester demonstration accused Jews of controlling the media, declaring that “the main 13 executives that approve the content released by the BBC are actually in fact Jewish. So this means the information released by the mainstream media will be biased.”

On May 21, police arrested a man whom witnesses said broke into the car of an Orthodox Jew and began hitting the driver unprovoked. The incident happened outside the Kosher Kingdom store on Golders Green Road before noon. One witness told the Jewish News of London that the car had been targeted because it displayed an Israeli flag.

Ken Roth, who has a salary in excess of $600,000 for heading Human Rights Watch, ran this information through his twisted, Israel hating brain, and wrote this tweet:

Antisemitism is always wrong, and it long preceded the creation of Israel, but the surge in UK antisemitic incidents during the recent Gaza conflict gives the lie to those who pretend that the Israeli government's conduct doesn't affect antisemitism.

There are at least three things that are outrageous about this tweet:

1. Anytime you say that something is wrong but....you are justifying it. Roth would never, ever formulate a tweet beginning with "Racism is wrong but" or "Asian bashing is wrong but..." Yet in this case he is making an excuse for a specific subset of antisemitic attacks.

2. Roth is not blaming attacks on Jews on the attackers, but on Jews themselves. Specifically, his hate for Israel is so pathological that he says that Arabs attacking random Jews in the UK should be blamed on Israel.

3. He doesn't mention his own role in fomenting antisemitism. After all, years of telling the world that Israel is uniquely evil, and since April most of his tweets slandering Israel as being guilty of apartheid and racism, has a cumulative effect on people. When the leaders of human rights organizations demonize Jews, it can result in people justifying attacking Jews.

Roth saw that his tweet was being ratioed with withering criticism, and he attempted to clarify it:

Interesting how many people pretend that this tweet justifies antisemitism (it doesn't and I don't under any circumstances) rather than address the correlation noted in the Haaretz article between recent Israeli government conduct in Gaza and the rise of UK antisemitic incidents.

Is that what the article says? Because its author doesn't think so!

If he would have said anything remotely similar about racism, or sexism, he would be forced out of his job within minutes of the tweet.

But antisemitism is an exception to the no tolerance policy for bigotry among those who travel in Roth's circles.

This one episode exposes the hypocrisy of the "human rights" community, the lie that the Left stands in solidarity with Jews under attack, and the impunity that Roth and Human Rights Watch have to slander the Jewish state and its supporters.

Peter Beinart just proved he is a bigot by his own definition

There seems to be a tendency among Israel haters to play a "can you top this?" game where they fall over themselves to find new ways to accuse Jews and Zionists of being horrific people with new accusations against them - even though nothing has changed on the ground.

Peter Beinart jumps on the bandwagon by not only repeating that Israel is guilty of apartheid - a position that he argued against not long ago - but he then goes on to say that all Zionists, and indeed anyone accusing haters of Israel of antisemitism, are in fact bigots - because they are "anti-Palestinian."

His argument is muddled, to put it mildly. He starts off by saying that the Republicans wanted to censure Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Presley, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for “inciting anti-Semitic attacks across the United States.” with their scurrilous accusations of Israeli "apartheid" are in fact the real bigots:

Such accusations have dogged Tlaib, Omar, Pressley, and Ocasio-Cortez since they entered Congress. Search for articles alleging that they are antisemitic and Google generates a seemingly endless supply. But if you search for articles suggesting that their critics are “anti-Palestinian,” you’ll find next to nothing.

Let's ignore for now that the entire spike in antisemitism in the US, Canada and UK during the last two months has been clearly tied to pro-Palestinian attackers, and that the link between slandering Israel and attacking Jews is crystal clear.

Since only Tlaib has Palestinian ancestry, Beinart's claim that the politicians who criticize the"squad" are anti-Palestinian bigots means that he is saying that anyone who supports the only Jewish state (or points out the link between anti-Zionism and antisemitic attacks) is a bigot.

What, exactly, is "anti-Palestinianism" according to Peter Beinart? He doesn't define it, so it is unclear whether he thinks it is bigotry against Palestinian Arabs or simply being against Palestinian Arab nationalism.He brings examples that would indicate both of those, saying that anyone who is against a Palestinian state that would be a danger to Israel is guilty of the brand new crime of "anti-Palestinianism."

But if being against a Palestinian state is bigotry, that means that being against nationalism is bigotry.

And since Beinart has established himself in recent years as being the leading Jewish intellectual anti-Zionist, then by his own definition he is a bigot.

Beinart quotes one potential definition of "anti-Palestinianism" that is instructive:

In a tweet last fall, Mezna Qato, a historian of the Middle East at Cambridge University, defined “anti-Palestinianism” as “Prejudice, hostility or discrimination against Palestinians. Denial of the Nakba. Accusing a Palestinian of ‘latent’ racism(s) without cause. Allowing Palestinian exception to all other held liberal or left values/politics.”

If Beinart accepted that these are examples of bigotry, then Beinart and all anti-Zionists are bigots.

“Prejudice, hostility or discrimination against Zionists" - All of Beinart's writings at Jewish Currents are hostile to Zionists and Zionism.

"Denial of the Jewish history of the Land" - Beinart isn't guilty of this but there are countless examples of Palestinians denying the existence of the Temples in Jerusalem, taking over Jewish holy spots and claiming them as their own [there are literally no Jewish holy spots in Israel that Muslims do not claim themselves,) andclaiming

"Accusing a Zionist of ‘latent’ racism(s) without cause." That is the entire point of this essay!

"Allowing Zionist exception to all other held liberal or left values/politics." Palestinians do not hold liberal values by any definition. Zionists, generally, do, from equal rights for women and gays to sensitivity to animal rights to adherence to human rights standards. Israel's tolerance of Islam is far greater than what is found in Europe, where minarets, burkinis, hijabs and Muslim slaughter are all subject to restrictions that are unheard of in Israel.

The only exception to liberal/left politics is in fact their opposition to the most liberal state in the region.

Peter Beinart has defined himself and his allies as bigots, in black and white.

Beinart tries to thread the needle, by ridiculously claiming that what Palestinians (or, specifically, Tlaib) want is not a Palestinian state but a state where Palestinians are the vast majority (thanks to "return") and yet Jews will supposedly be granted equal rights. Anyone who follows even a little bit of the news, or the history of the Arab claim to want equal rights for Jews in an Arab majority state, knows that this is not at all what Palestinians want. Surveys, speeches, and history proves that Palestinians have always wanted to control the areas that Jews controlled, and nothing else.

The history of Palestinian nationalism is the history of Palestinian Arab antisemitism:

From the Mufti who considered Palestine to be southern Syria before the British Mandate,

to their insistence that Jews under the threat of annihilation be forbidden to immigrate to British Mandate Palestine while Arabs could enter freely,

to the 11th hour "binational state" that Arabs proposed in 1947 when it looked like they would lose the partition vote - a state where Jews would have full rights - a mere ten days before they started attacking Jews in Palestine and a mere year before Transjordan expelled all Jews from its portion of Palestine,

to the 1964 PLO Covenant that excluded the West Bank and Gaza from its desired "Palestine" because Jews didn't control those areas,

to Yasir Arafat's 1974 "phased" plan to destroy Israel (never renounced),

to the repeated Palestinian refusal to accept a state and permanent peace and their choice to kill Jews instead,

to surveys that show that Palestinians who say they want a two state solution see it as a stepping stone to taking over the entire area where Jews have no national rights - but Arabs do.

Just today, these enlightened, democratic Palestinian Arabs are denouncing Jews visiting the site of the Jewish Temples on the anniversary of their destruction. (They also demand that the Western Wall be considered Muslim so Jews would be limited from visiting there, just as they were before 1967 and 1948.)

Who is Peter Beinart trying to kid when he claims that an Arab majority state from the river to the sea would allow Jews to have equal rights?

When Beinart defends Palestinian nationalism, he is defending antisemitism.

I want to be clear: when Westerners talk about a Palestinian state, they do not mean a state that is antisemitic. But when Palestinians talk about a Palestinian state - whether it is side by side with or replacing Israel - they look at it as a means to end Jewish rights in the region. It is purely antisemitic. In fact, antisemitism is the very reason they have not accepted a state by now, because it would allow a viable Jewish state to still exist.

Beinart knows the truth. Zionists know the truth. Palestinians know the truth. But liberal Westerners are ignorant about the history, about the bigotry in daily Palestinian media, the antisemitism taught in Palestinian schools. Beinart wants to gaslight Western liberals into accepting his grand plan to destroy the Jewish state in the name of tolerance and human rights, fairness and justice.

They shouldn't believe him.

After all, he just proved he is a bigot.

07/18 Links: 27 Years Since the Attack That Shook Argentina; Biden gives UNRWA $135m. after agency condemns anti-Israel hatred; Im Tirtzu: 'UN sponsoring BDS groups,'

From Ian:

IDF: 27 Years Since the Attack That Shook Argentina

On July 18th, 1994, the Lebanese terrorist group, Hezbollah, carried out an attack at the site of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Within hours, Israel sent a rescue team to assist in the search for survivors. This is one of the many attacks committed by Hezbollah abroad and is indicative of its presence and activity in Latin America.

27 years ago, Hezbollah attacked the AMIA building in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The attack was carried out by means of a vehicle armed with explosives that, after detonating, demolished the 6-story building. This terror attack took the life of 85 and left injured more than 300, most of them members of the Jewish community of Buenos Aires.

Hours after the terror attack, the IDF sent an Israeli Air Force aircraft to Argentina, along with a humanitarian aid delegation made up of officers and soldiers from the Search and Rescue Brigade.

Master Sgt. (Res.) Nissim Nassi, a rescue engineer in the IDF Search and Rescue Brigade, shared with us, “We received the call... and immediately packed our bags and left. We quickly understood that the attack was carried out with a ‘car bomb’ that was found under the building."

The members of the IDF delegation worked together with Argentinian firefighters and volunteers in order to find and rescue as many of the victims as possible. “What struck us was the number of people who wanted to help. We started with the challenging task of evacuating people and trying to find survivors," Master Sgt. (Res.) Nissim Nassi remarks.

According to the Argentinian official investigations, the attack on the AMIA building was carried out by Hezbollah, an internationally recognized terror organization. Hezbollah is based in southern Lebanon and is financed by the Iranian regime. The organization’s primary objectives are to destroy the State of Israel and establish an Islamic republic in the region.

Although most of Hezbollah's activities take place in the Middle East, they maintain a strong presence in Latin America. The terror organization was able to carry out the attack on the AMIA due to its network of operatives abroad. Today, Hezbollah continues to promote illegal activities all over the globe.

Hezbollah’s acts of terror have no borders. Just as they attack Israeli civilians, they pose a constant threat to communities around the world—the terrorist attack on AMIA in 1994 is a prime example.

Today in 1994, 85 people were killed & hundreds wounded in a vehicle suicide bomb attack against the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, directed by Iran & carried out by their terrorist proxy Hizballah. pic.twitter.com/WjVEu0AOLS
— R?????? K??? ? (@COLRICHARDKEMP) July 18, 2021

Hezbollah’s terror has no borders.

Hezbollah operatives bombed the AMIA building in Buenos Aires, Argentina 27 years ago today. Within hours of the attack, Israel sent a rescue team to assist in the search for survivors.

May the memories of all 85 victims be a blessing. pic.twitter.com/7ZrfB3jHkJ
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 18, 2021

Learn more about #Hezbollah and the threat it poses to Israel and the Jewish people, here >>>https://t.co/0Xc81epmko
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) July 18, 2021

Before Israel was reborn, every Friday was Tisha B'Av for Jerusalem's Jews

Ahead of Tisha B'Av, I looked up some 19th century accounts of Christians who visited the Kotel, or the "Jews Wailing Place" as they called it.

Every Friday, Jews of Jerusalem would come to mourn at the Wall for the destruction of Jerusalem. Every Friday was more emotionally wrenching for these Jews than Tisha B'Av is for most of us today.

This account even says that Jews recited Kinot (elegies) every Friday:

From Toward the Sunrise: Being Sketches of Travel in Europe & the East, by Hugh Johnston · 1881:

A very touching and sadly suggestive scene is the wailing of the Jews when, from week to week, these poor, despised, down-trodden people gather to sigh, and mourn , and sob over the ruins of their temple.

The Jews' Wailing Place is a little quadrangular area, about one hundred feet long and thirty feet wide, an exposed part of the outer western wall of the Haram , between the gates of the Chain and of the Strangers. It is a fragment of the old wall of the Temple, as shown by the five courses of large bevelled stones, and here on Friday afternoons the Jews gather together to weep over the ruins of the Holy City, and mourn for their “ holy and beautiful house ” defiled by infidels. There are old Jews with black caps and dingy dress, sitting on the ground, reading out of old, greasy books ; and Jewesses, draped in their white izars, sitting in sorrow , their cheeks bathed in tears, or kissing passionately the stones which formed part of the foundations of the holy house. Unhappy ones, they can get no nearer the place of their fallen temple, for to cross the threshold of the sacred enclosure, on Mount Moriah, is instant death to a Jew.

There they are, engaged in their devotions ; some standing, some .sitting, some kneeling, others lying prostrate upon the ground. They read lamentation after lamentation : “ Be not wrath very sore, O Lord ; neither remember iniquity forever ; behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people. Thy holy cities are a wilderness; Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid waste.” — Isa. lxiv. 9, 11. "O God, the heathen are come unto thine inheritance ; thy holy temple have they defiled ; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. We are become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to them that are around about us.” -Ps. lxxix . 1-4 .

One of their wailing chants is in words like these :
“ Because of the palace which is deserted, We sit alone and weep ;
Because of the temple which is destroyed, We sit alone and weep ;
Because of the walls that are broken down, We sit alone and weep ;
Because of our greatness which is departed, We sit alone and weep ;
Because of the precious stones of the Temple ground to powder, We sit alone and weep."

From Eastern Life - Present and Past, by Harriet Martineau · 1876. This author could not imagine that less than a century later, her hopes would largely come true.

I have said how proud and prosperous looked the Mosque of Omar, with its marble buildings, its green lawns, the merry children, and gay inmates making holiday ; all these ready and eager to stone to death on the instant any Jew or Christian who should dare to bring his homage to the sacred spot. This is what we saw within the walls.

We next went round the outside , till we came, by a narrow crooked passage, to a desolate spot, occupied by desolate people. Under a high, massive, very ancient wall, was a dusty, narrow inclosed space, where we saw the most mournful groups I ever encountered. This high ancient wall , where weeds are springing from the crevices of the stones, is believed to be a part, and the only part remaining, of Solomon's temple wall : and here the Jews come, every Friday, to their Place of Wailing, as it is called, to mourn over the fall of their Beautiful House, and pray for its restoration. What a contrast did these humbled people present to the proud Mohammedans within ! The women were sitting in the dust - some wailing aloud, some repeating prayers with moving lips, and others reading them from books on their knees. A few children were at play on the ground, and some aged men sat silent, their heads drooped on their breasts. Several younger men were leaning against the wall, pressing their foreheads against the stones, and resting their books on their clasped hands in the crevices. With some, this wailing is no form ; for I saw tears on their cheeks. I longed to know if any had hope in their hearts that they, or their children within a few generations, should pass that wall, and become the echoes of that ancient cry , “ Lift up your heads, O ye gates, that the King of Glory may come in !” If they have any such hope, it may give some sweetness to this rite of humiliation. We had no such' hope for them ; and it was with unspeakable sadness that I , for one, turned away from the thought of the pride and tyranny within that enclosure, and the desolation with out, carrying with me a deep - felt lesson on the strength of human faith , and the weakness of the tie of human brotherhood .

From an essay in Memories of Gospel Triumphs Among the Jews During the Victorian Era by John Dunlop, 1894. Although this author was writing about the desire that Jews would all convert to Christianity, these observations of Jewish continuity and attachment to Jerusalem are spot on.

(This post was queued up before the fast day)

07/17 Links: Yisrael Medad: Jabotinsky, Arabs and the Jewish homeland; Ilhan Omar’s antisemitism poses a moment of reckoning for Democrats; Brooklyn Man Beaten, Robbed on Way to Synagogue

From Ian:

Yisrael Medad: Jabotinsky, Arabs and the Jewish homeland

To reach that stage, Jabotinsky wrote that the Jews in the Mandate territory required a wall. Was that wall, a la Podeh, one of a separation of populations? One of apartheid? One of suppression? No. He explained, “The only way to obtain such an agreement is the iron wall, which is to say a strong power in Palestine that is not amenable to any Arab pressure.”

Jabotinsky’s Iron Wall was part of a defensive mechanism that would convince Arabs engaged in a terrorist campaign that they would fail. A century later, they have not yet surrendered their campaign of violence, negation and rejection of Jewish national identity.

Jabotinsky’s outlook on the Arabs in Mandate Palestine was based on his early promotion, from 1906, on behalf of national rights of minorities in Europe’s multi-ethnic empires. His dissertation was on Karl Renner’s concept of national cultural autonomy.

His 1929 poem, Two Banks has the Jordan, contains the line, “There the son of Arabia, of Nazareth and my son will find fulfillment”. In a 1930 essay, he wrote, “He can produce documentary evidence of always having been a staunch adherent of the binational, even the multi-national state idea.”

Gil Rubin, in his 2019 study, notes that Jabotinsky, despite writing in 1937, “From a Jewish perspective it [population transfers] is a crime,” did consider the idea of a transfer proposal of Arabs out of Palestine in an outline of an article jotted down in November 1939. His thinking was influenced by the Peel Commission’s recommendation to relocate 300,000 Arabs, and also based on his belief that no ethnic minorities would remain in Eastern Europe after the war. Up to twenty million minority peoples, he foresaw, would be forced to leave their homes or assimilate into the majority population.

Nevertheless, as Jabotinsky’s “The Arab Angle Undramatized” proposal shows, he believed once a firm Jewish majority was in place, it would convince the Arab residents that Jewish primacy was the reality and normalcy. The article outlined in detail his view that wide-ranging autonomy rights could be then granted. His thinking formed the basis of Menachem Begin’s 1977 autonomy proposal.

It is unfortunate that we are a witness to Elie Podeh’s own legacy of falsehood.

Israel quietly letting Jews pray on Temple Mount, in break with status quo — TV

Israel has quietly started allowing Jewish prayers on the Temple Mount in recent months, in what would appear to be a major change to the status quo that has existed at the holy site since the Jewish state captured the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan during 1967’s Six Day War, according to a report Saturday.

Channel 12’s religious affairs reporter Yair Cherki filmed prayers at the site in recent days, as policemen — who in the past would eject any person suspected of prayer, and sometimes kicked people out for merely citing a biblical verse while speaking — passively looked on.

“For months now, every morning this unofficial prayer quorum has been praying on the Temple Mount,” Cherki said. The worshipers gather without prayer books, tefillin or any other symbols of prayer that could draw unwanted attention from Muslims at the compound that houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

But pray they do, with the cops turning a blind eye. The Islamic Waqf, which administers the compound, is aware of the situation and monitors them from a distance, but has so far not taken action, according to the report.

Cherki described the developments as “a revolution, unfolding quietly and gradually under the radar.”

The Temple Mount is the holiest place in Judaism, as the site of the biblical Temples. It is the site of the third-holiest shrine in Islam, the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Biden’s Mideast point man said to urge Israel to aid a teetering PA

The US administration’s point person for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reportedly warned Israeli officials during his visit to the region this week that the Palestinian Authority is undergoing one of its worst crises yet and that Jerusalem would be well advised to provide some assistance.

“I have never seen the Palestinian Authority in a worse situation,” US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israel and Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr told Israeli officials, according to a Thursday report by the Axios news site.

The PA’s crisis is multifaceted: At the economic level, it has suffered significantly as a result of the ongoing pandemic. It has also seen Israel withhold hundreds of millions of shekels in tax revenues on an annual basis since 2019 in order to offset funds that Ramallah pays to terrorists and their families.

The PA also faces a legitimacy crisis at the political level after its President Mahmoud Abbas made the decision in April to indefinitely postpone the first parliamentary election in nearly 15 years. The PA leader said the decision was due to Israel’s refusal to allow balloting in East Jerusalem, but most observers charged that Abbas feared an embarrassing loss to his rivals in Hamas and within his own Fatah party.

To make matters worse, the PA became the target of international uproar after a prominent Palestinian activist, Nizar Banat, was killed last month while in PA custody. The death sparked protests throughout the West Bank, against which Abbas’s security forces clamped down harshly, leading to further demands for explanations from the US and other countries around the world.

Amr met with Abbas, PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and other senior Palestinian officials in Ramallah as well as Israeli officials in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv while in the region this week.

Palestinian-Jordanian crisis erupts ahead of Abdullah-Biden meeting

A senior Palestinian official has triggered a crisis between the Palestinian Authority and Jordan after stating that the Palestinians alone had thwarted former US President Donald Trump’s plan for Mideast peace.

The Jordanians say that they also played a major role in derailing the Trump plan.

The PA dismissed the Trump plan, which was unveiled in January 2020, as a conspiracy aiming to liquidate the Palestinian issue and Palestinian rights.

The Arab League, including Jordan, also rejected the plan, saying it would not lead to peace or meet the minimum rights and aspirations of the Palestinians.

Jordanians feared that the plan aimed to turn their country into an alternative homeland for the Palestinians.

The crisis comes on the eve of a meeting in Washington between Jordan’s King Abdullah II and US President Joe Biden.

It also comes two weeks after PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Abdullah agreed during a meeting in Amman to coordinate positions “on the interest of the Arab nation and its common cause, primarily the Palestinian cause,” according to the PA’s official news agency WAFA.

During the meeting, Abdullah reiterated Jordan’s support for the Palestinians “in achieving their just and legitimate rights and establishing their independent, sovereign and viable state on the June 4, 1967, lines, with east Jerusalem as its capital,” Jordan’s official Petra news agency reported.

The crisis erupted during a recent meeting of the Arab Parliament, the legislative body of the Arab League. A video of the rare public, heated discussion appeared over the weekend on various social media platforms, drawing sharp criticism from Palestinians and Jordanians alike.

The Palestinian official, Azzam al-Ahmed, a veteran member of the Fatah Central Committee, said in a speech before the parliament that the Palestinians alone had foiled Trump’s “Deal of the Century.”

“We are the ones who clashed with America,” he said.

07/16 Link Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The challenge of reconciling Christians and Jews; How can Israel convince gentiles if it can't convince Jews?

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The challenge of reconciling Christians and Jews

Even in godless Britain, progressive Christians have played a hugely disproportionate role in feeding the new antisemitism through the influence of the Church England itself, Christian non-governmental organizations, and other Christian institutions.

Shouldn't the Church of England be atoning for all this rather than an event that took place seven centuries ago?

The poisonous combination of Christian theology and the social-justice agenda is now making inroads even among America's bedrock Christian supporters. Earlier this year, a survey by the University of North Carolina at Pembroke revealed a sharp drop in support for Israel among young American evangelicals.

Asked whom they supported in the "Israeli-Palestinian dispute," just 33.6% said Israel, 24.3% said the Palestinians and 42.2% said neither side. In a similar survey in 2018, 69% said they sided with Israel, 5.6% said with the Palestinians and 25.7% said they did not take either side.

Supporting Palestinianism enables these young evangelicals to appear cool to their secular peers. The twist is that Palestinian "replacement theology" enables them also to tell themselves that they are still loyal Christian believers.

Only now, they believe the ludicrous fiction that Jesus was a Palestinian, and its grotesque spin-off that the Israelis are crucifying the Palestinians of today.

Saying sorry for the past just isn't enough. Addressing Christian antisemitism involves facing its anti-Israel element head-on.

This doesn't just mean acknowledging the pernicious lies and distortions about Israel perpetrated by the church; it also means acknowledging the roots of this bigotry in Christian theology.

Only such honesty can start to reconcile Christians and Jews, and open the path to a partnership between these two parent-and-daughter faiths that is essential if the West is to be defended against the forces threatening to bring its historic culture and values down.

How can Israel convince gentiles if it can't convince Jews? - opinion

The recent Pew survey shows that only a third of US Jews believe the Israeli government is making a sincere effort to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Of the Jews who support the ruling Democratic Party, only 20% think so.

The Lapid-Bennett government is unlikely to change this worrying picture because its existence depends on maintaining the status quo on the Palestinian issue. Consequently, the desire to restore a healthy balance to the triangular relationship will eventually encounter an unbridgeable obstacle: the lack of a credible Israeli intention to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians.

The same obstacle will also prevent the success of Israel hasbara (PR) efforts in the US and the West in general. In 1993, Christopher and Peres feared that American Jewry would not support the Oslo Accords arguing that Israel had gone too far in making concessions to the Palestinians. Over the years this picture has completely reversed. Most American Jews believe that Israel is not at all interested in marching toward a settlement.

The Palestinian issue is not a matter of bad public relations that a shrewd argument could overcome. It is a living reality that threatens Israel’s identity and its future. The illusion that the solution to the problem exists in the realm of rhetoric did not begin with Netanyahu. When Menachem Begin outlined the ‘Foundations of Hasbara (PR) Abroad’ he wrote: “Do not mix into the language of the past the linguistic barbarity ‘Palestine’... Why can we not say: ‘Arabs of the Land of Israel’? And in saying this, we immediately create a different moral and political perspective.”

Compared to the Netanyahu era, the new government is indeed a refreshing breeze. But even this government will find that being nice and showing good manners do not create a “different moral and political perspective.” It would be useful to revisit the words of Shimon Peres: “Without a policy of a peace initiative, Israel cannot conduct an effective policy of hasbara… The problem is not just what we’re explaining, but to what extent are we believed.”

Israel’s hasbara problem is, of course, only a symptom of much more serious phenomena, among them: the threat to our relations with the US and its Jews. If we fail to convince the Jews, how can we persuade the gentiles?

The Tikvah Podcast: Daniel Gordis on the Rift Between American and Israeli Jews

It’s sometimes asserted, particularly in elite circles, that liberal American Jews have grown distant from Israel because of Israel’s actions, including those undertaken by longtime and now former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. With the ascension this year of a new prime minister and a new government in Israel, the time has come to reassess that argument and consider it anew.

The American-Israeli writer Daniel Gordis disagrees with this idea, that Israel’s actions determined American Jewish attitudes. To him, the growing divide between Israeli and American Jews is decidedly not about what Israel does. It is, rather, about what Israel is. The two largest Jewish communities in the world are animated by different attitudes about Jewish life and Jewish prosperity. In this rebroadcast conversation from 2019 between Gordis and Mosaic’s editor Jonathan Silver, he argues that these more fundamental differences, not the policies of the Netanyahu government or the chief rabbinate, are the true cause of the widening rift between the Jews of Israel and the United States. That suggests that a simple change in a policy—as the new government may bring about—won’t bridge the gap

Quds News tweeted a video of Jews walking and singing as they walked up the wooden ramp to visit the Temple Mount, with the absurd caption that they were "storming Al Aqsa:"

230 Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyards under the protection of Israeli occupation forces and performed provocative tours, today.#FreePalestine pic.twitter.com/ffQ9QbZ0eR
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) July 14, 2021

Even though we've seen this terminology countless times, for some reason people noticed this one and hundreds commented on the absurdity of calling this "storming."

More Jews than usual visit the Temple Mount ahead of Tisha B'Av, the fast day that commemorates the destruction of the Temples, which is on Sunday.

From CNBC:

Google has parted ways with its VP of developer relations for Google Cloud, according to an internal email that employees said followed a contentious all-hands meeting about antisemitism.

“I wanted to share that today is Amr Awadallah’s last day at Google,” Eyal Manor, Google Cloud vice president of engineering and product, wrote in the email to staff Thursday evening and viewed by CNBC.

Awadallah, who was vice president of Developer Relations and joined the company in 2019, wrote a 10,000-word manifesto on LinkedIn in June about his previous antisemitism. It was titled “We Are One.”

“I hated the Jewish people, all the Jewish people”! and emphasis here is on the past tense,” his manifesto began. “Yes, I was anti-Semitic, even though I am a Semite, as this term broadly refers to the peoples who speak Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, among others.”

In interviews with CNBC, several employees described a contentious staff meeting on Wednesday, which touched on the manifesto.

Awadallah, an Egyptian American who is well-known in the cloud industry, also posted his manifesto on YouTube and Twitter in attempts to decry antisemitism by recounting how he became enlightened after he “hated all Jews.” In an awkward attempt to decry hate amid the Israel-Palestinian conflict, he listed all the Jews he knew who he said were good people. Employees said his public admission, which omitted major historic Jewish events, made it difficult for public-facing developer advocates who are tasked with being the face and bridge for Google developers internally and externally.

Within the manifesto, Awadallah describes how he was “cautious” of VMware co-founder Mendel Rosenblum based on his last name but that he learned to appreciate him after getting to know him and his spouse, VNware co-founder and former Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene, who both invested in Awadallah’s company Cloudera.

Employees who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said the frustration with Awadallah’s leadership style had been building for months, leading up to this week’s all-hands meeting, where employees confronted him about their discomfort with his manifesto, working with him and the leadership attrition of his reporting leaders. The meeting, employees said, required mediation from a human resources employee who had to step in several times.

“On one hand, I’m grateful that you not longer hate my children,” a Google director of Network Infrastructure and Tech Site lead said in a LinkedIn comment. “On the other, this has made my job as one of your colleagues much harder. The previous situation has made being a Jewish leader at Google tough. This has made it almost untenable.”

While Awadallah in his manifesto acknowledged his prior prejudice in apparent pursuit of “peace,” he used anecdotes and personal stories to try to make a point about why his current assertions are correct. One way he does this is by sharing his 23andMe results, which showed he was 0.1% Ashkenazi Jewish, which he typed in boldface as a reason for why he’s technically Jewish, too. Employees said Awadallah had previously used his 23andMe results to justify his opinions.

The manifesto attempts to be woke but in the end it is cringe-inducing and wildly anti-Israel. It isn't a reason to fire someone, though, and it looks like employee dissatisfaction with Awadallah has been there for a while.

The manifesto describes all the Jews that Awdallah respects - from colleagues to Stan Lee, Albert Einstein and Isaac Asimov - but he pointedly notes that the ones that he looks up to are all atheists, proving that Jews are a people and not just a religion.

But by saying that, he is also saying that he disrespects any Jews who believe in God.

He also goes on an incredibly ignorant rant about Israel, claiming that he has nothing against Zionism but then insisting that its practitioners are all about ethnic cleansing. That only leftist Israelis care about Palestinian lives. That most Palestinians want peace, and there are only a few fanatics who don't. That Gaza is an open-air prison. That Israel is an apartheid state.

I don't see any malice - but a great deal of ignorance, and more than a little bigotry that peeks through as Awdallah broadly implies that only atheists can be moral humans.

Again, I don't think this should be enough by itself to fire the guy, although if I was a religious Jew or Christian working for him I would feel very uncomfortable. Apparently, this is the last straw of a long line of problems that people had with Awdallah.

If nothing else, it proves yet again that intelligent people can be ignorant and bigoted, even as they think that they are immune from both.

07/16 Link Pt1: Arnold Roth: King Abdullah, when will Jordan hand our child’s murderer over to US justice?; The UAE and the so-called ‘national sin’

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Tisha Be'av: Israel must end baseless hatred, rally together - editorial

Tisha Be’av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, begins at sunset on Saturday, July 17. The 25-hour fast on which the Book of Lamentations is read marks a series of disasters in Jewish history, headed by the destruction of the First and Second Temples.

Talmudic rabbis blamed these tragedies on what is called “sinat hinam” in Hebrew – baseless hatred. Sadly, it has again raised its ugly head, and we need to work together to quash it. Israeli society is beset by factionalism and polarization, distrust and a lack of compassion, inequality and selfishness. Baseless hatred is rife – too much of it. Here are just a few examples:
• As religious affairs correspondent Jeremy Sharon reported this week, an organization of religious-Zionist groups that calls itself the Joint Committee for Preserving the Holiness of the Western Wall is praying at the section reserved for non-Orthodox egalitarian prayer. Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai condemned the move as “baseless hatred,” noting that the area is the only place non-Orthodox groups have to pray at the Kotel.
• As noted by Yochi Rappeport, the executive director of Women of the Wall, a group of ultra-Orthodox men expressed intense hatred toward women who gathered to usher in the month of Av on July 11, tearing up 39 of their prayer books, jeering and laughing. “This hate crime can be likened to the baseless hatred we find in our history thousands of years ago,” she wrote.
• As political correspondent Gil Hoffman reported from the Knesset on Monday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu crossed the line of acceptable political discourse while accusing each other of mishandling the coronavirus pandemic. Netanyahu asked Bennett, “How did you succeed in destroying so much in such a short time in the struggle against corona?” while Bennett retorted, “You became sourpusses so fast that even when you see good things, you cannot give compliments.”

When President Isaac Herzog took his oath of office just a few days before, he made a point of urging the public “to change the tone, to lower the flames, to calm things down.”

Although his plea apparently went over the heads of the prime minister and his predecessor, Herzog added, “Baseless hatred, the same factionalism and polarization, are exacting a heavy price – today and every day. The heaviest price of all is the erosion of our national resilience.”

Arnold Roth: King Abdullah, when will Jordan hand our child’s murderer over to US justice?

On March 14, 2017, the US Department of Justice unsealed terrorism charges and designated Tamimi an FBI Most Wanted Terrorist. The US prosecutors had kept the charges secret for four years as efforts were made by private diplomacy to convince your government to turn her over. The announcement brought us hope that long-thwarted justice was about to be done.

Our hope was misplaced.

Just six days later, Jordan’s Court of Cassation, the appointment and dismissal of whose judges require your approval, declared the extradition treaty, bearing the personal, signed endorsements of your revered late father King Hussein and President Bill Clinton, as unenforceable. The court ruled it lacked parliamentary approval — a purported defect that obviously could have, but never has, been corrected.

In the years that followed, we fought to create awareness of Tamimi’s obscene freedom and of the appalling support Jordanians give her. We have gotten pushback we never expected, warning that your kingdom, a key US strategic ally and third largest recipient of US aid, would fall and chaos ensue, if this lightning rod for terrorist sentiment is extradited to Washington.

Shockingly, your multiple ceremonious visits to Washington as guest of the Obama and Trump administrations produced not a single official utterance about the ongoing travesty of justice.

How to explain this desecration of law, of morality, of fundamental decency? Is your rule truly that precarious? Is Jordanian society so infused with hatred of Jews that, with the connivance of the international media, you have no choice but to let it go on? What meaning does leadership have if, as monarch, you are hostage to the most bigoted elements of Jordanian society? What future does Jordan have if its leadership nurtures the dysfunctional mindset by which handing an admitted murderer of Americans to American justice is the real outrage?

It remains in your hands, King Abdullah. You can end this. Let your upcoming visit to Washington be the moment when you declare Jordan is going to do whatever necessary to immediately effectuate the 1995 treaty; to honor the US request to extradite Tamimi; to see justice finally done.

Unforgivably overdue by years, this would be a step towards healing a festering wound in the strategic relations between Jordan and the US and, no less important, eating away at Jordanian society itself.

Every US official who meets with @KingAbdullahII next week should be asking him to honor Jordan's extradition treaty with the United States, including @POTUS. This is unacceptable and will undermine Congressional support for Jordan if not resolved quickly. https://t.co/DeWFb8dnq0
— Richard Goldberg (@rich_goldberg) July 16, 2021

Palestinian Media Watch reports that an "Israeli affairs expert" claimed on Palestinian Authority TV that according to Israeli law, Arabs are prohibited from polygamy - but Jewish men are allowed to marry more than one wife.

PA TV “Israeli affairs expert” Fayez Abbas: “Another article in the [Israeli] paper Haaretz –says that in the Negev (i.e., in southern Israel) there are 6,680 cases of men who are married to more than one woman, and the [Israeli] police or attorney’s office claim that they did not succeed in enforcing the anti-polygamy law. In Israel it is forbidden to marry more than one woman for Arabs, for Muslims only. The Jew can marry more than one woman according to the law in Israel (sic.), but the Arab cannot. [The Arab] is sentenced to an active prison term and the payment of heavy fines.” [Official PA TV, Palestine This Morning, July 4, 2021]

This is of course absurd as Paragraph 176 of Israel's Penal Law, which prohibits polygamy, applies to everyone living in Israel, without exception.

This is probably the way that the lists of "racist laws" that supposedly apply only to Jews and not to Arabs get compiled.

Palestinians in Silwan selling houses to Jews, taking the money and fleeing

Two Silwan properties were found to have been sold to Jews within the past month.

On July 1, it was revealed that Walid Atout sold his apartment to Jews. He and his family fled because they could be killed for selling to Jews.

From the Silwan Information Center:

About the property, the information center clarified that about a week ago, there was talk about selling it to unknown parties, so notables from the town of Silwan and members of local committees spoke with the owner of the property named Walid Atout, where he denied the sale, pointing out that he received an offer to sell it to Turkish authorities, but he did not do so. He remained at home with his family until Thursday morning.

The Wadi Hilweh Information Center added that amid the investigations conducted by the committees and the competent authorities over the past few days, it was found that Atout sold his house to Ahmed Ighbaryeh from the Palestinian 1948 lands, who handed it over to a contractor for renovations, while Atout and his family of 5 members left the property without emptying its contents and without taking their personal belongings of clothes and other stuff, in order not to draw the attention of the neighboring residents, especially since the property is located inside one of the alleys of Wadi Hilweh neighborhood.

The center added that competent authorities from Silwan had contacted the so-called "Ighbaryeh" on Thursday to find out what was going on and demanded him to come to the property to talk, but he refused and denied that he had leaked the house, and said that he had bought it to turn it into a clinic. The notables managed to talk to him and then he too fled the site.

This week another sale was revealed. Faoud Atallah Siyam had sold his properties to the Elad Association a while ago and subsequently died. His wife wasn't aware of the sale but she was called to a lawyer's office this week where she was shown video of Siyam accepting the money and that he also sold another apartment he owned in the neighborhood to the Jewish group.

Because the Arab media doesn't want to admit that their own people would sell land to Jews, they use the language (in both Arabic and English) that the properties were "leaked" to the Jews.

These stories don't often make it into Western media because the narrative is that Jews are stealing properties rather than legally purchasing them. If the truth was reported, the media would have to mention the potential death penalty that the PA has for selling land to Jews, which would be awkward and show that the only bigots in this story are the Palestinians.

Palestinian officials claim Israeli ice cream will cause miscarriages

The Palestinian Ministry of the Economy issued a warning for Palestinians not to buy Israeli ice cream because it has listeria:

Ministry of National Economy

Israeli ice cream contains Listeria monocytogenes which might lead to suppressing the immune system and miscarriages for pregnant women.

Out teams made sure that our markets do not carry the Israeli product, and we invite you to use the national products that are of high quality and competitive.

There is a grain of truth in this announcement. The Israeli Buza ice cream shop chain announced that their own internal testing had identified a small amount of listeria.

They have four shops, two in Tel Aviv and two in the north. They apparently provide ice cream for other shops but they do not sell their ice cream in commercial packaging.

Buza ice cream would never have been carried in Palestinian stores.

In a normal consumer announcement, the government would specify the brand, the lot numbers, the expiration dates, and tell consumers to discard anything they already bought. The ministry is doing none of that.

The ministry is using a real story to try to get Palestinians to think that all Israeli ice cream brands are dangerous.

Incidentally, Buza is co-owned by an Israeli Jew and an Israeli Arab (h/t iTi)

07/15 Links Pt2: No More Slogans; Erasing Years of Work, California Bill Revives Anti-Semitic Ethnic Studies Curriculum; Florida Officials Thank IDF Rescue Team

From Ian:

No More Slogans

The ADL is not alone in its failures; few of the other prestigious Jewish organizations headlining the No Fear coalition have done much better. But its performance is illustrative of the broader problem. On the eve of the rally, the ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt admitted in a Newsweek column that “the left has an antisemitism problem.” According to Greenblatt, “while extremism on the right has dominated the public conversation for much of the past five years … right now the challenge is also rising among certain elements of the far left.”

Greenblatt implies that this is a new and surprising phenomenon, but antisemitism found its most comfortable philosophical and political home on the left several years ago. President Obama’s strategy of distancing the United States from Israel while bolstering Iran was accompanied by a deliberate demonization of the Israeli government and more than a few intimations that Jewish money and influence were responsible for the domestic unpopularity of the administration’s nuclear deal.

In response, Greenblatt himself spent years leading numerous witch hunts, using the ADL imprimatur to tar opponents of the Obama administration’s Iran policy with the brush of antisemitism. Under the leadership of a partisan political operative, the ADL has been far more committed to the welfare of the Democratic Party than to the welfare of America’s Jews.

It’s no surprise, then, that antisemitism is enjoying normalization across the mainstream of Democratic politics. Just as in Corbyn’s Labour Party, antisemitism now permeates the Democrats’ progressive base. If nothing else, the one thing that Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March, the squad, the Democratic Socialists of America, the teachers unions, and the entire intersectional movement all share in common is a nagging antisemitism problem. These are not fringe movements, but valued members of the Democratic coalition, often used as campaign surrogates and enjoying public endorsement from leading Democratic politicians.

None of this is to say that there is no antisemitism on the right. Republican politicians and right-leaning pundits also stray into stereotyping, invoke antisemitic tropes, trivialize the Holocaust, hold Jews to unique double standards, refer to the canard of dual loyalty, and accept endorsements from outspoken antisemites. But Republican leadership and the Republican Party in general have been far more willing than Democrats to call out such behavior from their own colleagues, and to distance themselves from both the transgressors and their transgressions. On the political right, antisemitism is increasingly the exception; on the left, it is fast becoming the rule. Most people on the left are not antisemites, but antisemites now hold most of the left’s power.

“No Fear” may be a fine aspiration, but it’s deeply misplaced as a substitute for bold action against dangerous forces. In the current climate, fear is deeply rational. Antisemitism is on the rise, it has a strong and tightening grip on elite and establishment opinion, and the primary organizations Jews trust to protect us have instead abetted its rise. It’s past time for America’s Jews to move on from their traditional leaders and organizations in favor of new ones willing to speak honestly and act.

Also King: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!” https://t.co/Qfh1b0FSW2
— Orbital tungsten rod sales ?? (@razingarizona) July 14, 2021

Debunked: Those Maps of ‘Palestinian Land Loss’ Are Misleading. Here’s Why.

If you’ve spent some time reading about the Arab-Israeli conflict on the internet, you have most likely encountered a series of maps supposedly outlining how Palestinian land ownership has dramatically declined over the last century.

Seen variously under titles such as “Palestinian loss of land,” “Shrinking Palestine” or, more recently, “Palestinian Historic Compromise,” the maps are striking.

They are also grossly misleading and poison the conversation about Israel. Here’s why.

Most people assume maps are accurate: charts that have been meticulously drawn up to faithfully depict the land they represent. But we often fail to consider their potential to mislead. The ability of maps to convey three-dimensional realities on a two-dimensional plane is more constrained than we realize. Moreover, the title above the map – like a headline – frames the way we understand it.

When taken out of context, maps can easily be used to manipulate or deceive. While this deception is immediately apparent to those familiar with the particular region’s history, such maps can nevertheless successfully influence the perception of uninformed people.

The next time you see these maps online, feel free to quote from part of this article, or to simply link to this page.

Whatever you do, don’t let the lie go unchallenged.

Misleading Terminology
First, some background information. Historically, the word “Palestinian” did not refer to Arabs living in the region, but to the region itself. Some 100 years ago, the land was administered by the British, and its inhabitants were Jewish, Christian and Muslim – all of whom were identified as “Palestinian.” However, for most, their primary identity was not their nationality, but their religion.

Indeed, many Arabs bristled at being called “Palestinian,” voicing strong opposition to the label. Instead, they saw themselves first and foremost as Arabs or Muslims. Only in the mid-1960s was the word co-opted to mean Arabs.

Hence, before 1948, it would not have made sense to talk about Palestinians as opposed to Jews. The population was divided into two primary groups: Jewish and Arab.

This makes sense because a sovereign Palestinian state never existed. Therefore, there were no “Palestinian lands.” Rather, the land was part of the Mandate for Palestine, a geographical area controlled by the British after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War.

Media Outlets Omit Critical Context About PA’s Pay-for-Slay, Turn Facts About Policy Into Israeli ‘Claims’

Glaring Omission: 2018 Taylor Force Act
The Washington Post, The Associated Press, and Reuters are also seemingly oblivious to the fact that Israel’s decision to freeze part of the tax transfers aligns with United States’ policy to prevent taxpayer money from going to the PA so long as it continues its Pay-for-Slay program.

Named for an American civilian murdered in a 2016 Palestinian terror attack in Tel Aviv, the Taylor Force Act was passed in 2018 with strong bipartisan support. Its purpose is to stop US funding to the Palestinian Authority due to the stipends paid to terrorists and their families.

In fact, it would seem that an article ostensibly castigating Jerusalem for taking steps to deter terrorism would include related information about how Washington has done the same thing. Albeit, the Biden administration has seemingly found a loophole and intends to provide groups supporting Palestinians with hundreds of millions of dollars.

By failing to note the Taylor Force Act, WaPo and The Associated Press can proceed to blithely spread the following:
For the Palestinians, the families of attackers are widely seen as victims of a half century of Israeli occupation. The Palestinians say that many Palestinians are unfairly held by Israel and that the number of prisoners involved in deadly attacks is a small percentage of those aided by the fund.

It is difficult to fathom how any news article could include an apparent justification for terrorism.

Moreover, the problem is widespread. Research conducted by HonestReporting shows that between July 6 and July 12, the term “Taylor Force Act” was included a total of 52 times in news items and television segments. Over the same period, “Taylor Force Act” and “Israel” were mentioned in the same article or segment a mere 15 times. When you add “terror” to the mix, there were only five results.

By uncritically relaying the PA’s stance on Pay-for-Slay, news organizations are proving to be obstacles to the kind of transparency needed to facilitate a robust public debate on the issue of aid to the Palestinian people — especially regarding where it winds up.

Babylonians Graciously Offer Jewish Exiles Perpetual Second-Class Status, Occasional Genocide (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

: Credit: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP via Wikipedia

Babylon, July 15 - Officials and local leaders reacting to the arrival in Mesopotamia of the continuing waves of forced Jewish emigration from Judah took pains today to repeat their message of welcome to the refugees from Emperor Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of their land, stressing that the newcomers can look forward to thousands of years of contingent tolerance, sporadic attempts to destroy Jews, and discriminatory treatment by their host nations, be they the current, Neo-Babylonian Empire, or any number of successor regimes ruling various parts of the Jewish Diaspora.

Crowds of Babylonians lined the roads of towns and cities across the region this week to greet Jewish refugees and those forced at swordpoint to leave their ancestral homeland, a massive population movement expected to continue for months, perhaps years, as Nebuchadnezzar's military mops up remaining Jewish resistance and determines whether to leave any Jews at all in Judah. The crowd called cries of welcome to the Jews, assuring the exiles that millennia of second-class status await them, during which the dominant powers will treat Jews as perpetual outsiders, at best tolerated and at worst, well, look what's happening right now.

The current wave, estimated at several million, significantly increases the number of Jewish exiles forced into Babylonia, eleven years after Nebuchadnezzar removed the vassal King Jechoniah of Judah and installed the latter's brother Zedekiah in his stead. The emperor deported large swaths of Judah's aristocracy along with Jechoniah, in an attempt to decapitate incipient insurrection. However, Zedekiah eventually revolted as well, prompting Nebuchadnezzar to order a full-scale invasion and reduction of every Jewish stronghold. Following suppression of Zedekiah's revolt, the military administration installed Gedaliah ben-Ahikam as governor of the troublesome province and its remaining inhabitants, but the long-term prospects of that arrangement remain uncertain.

Babylonian community leaders exhorted their constituents to make the Jews feel at home by reminding them they don't belong. "We do them a favor by not killing them, that's the main thrust of our welcome," explained Hamedatha the Agagite. "I just don't think people who hold this bizarre notion of a single deity behind all of reality can ever truly integrate into larger polytheistic society. So we can give this a few decades at most, I think - probably on the order of seven or so - but my prediction is their presence is just going to be a thorn in the side of right-thinking people and it's our children and grandchildren who will have to deal with it."