Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, September 03, 2021

UNRWA head admits Palestinian textbooks include antisemitism and support for terror - but denies UNRWA teaches them!

From EJP:

The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, acknowledged that Palestinian textbooks contain problematic material, while still insisting that the agency takes steps to prevent it from being taught, without showing that how this is actually accomplished.

He stated, in a hearing before the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee (AFET), that antisemitism, intolerance glorification of terrorism is present in PA textbooks in UNRWA schools and affirmed that his agency had revised the textbooks used in its schools following allegations of antisemitic content.

But several members of the committee questioned him on continued teaching of hate, violence and antisemitism in Palestinian Authority (PA) textbooks and UNRWA materials, citing a recent report by IMPACT-se, an organization that analyzes schoolbooks and curricula for compliance with UNESCO-defined standards on peace and tolerance. on the textbooks.

It is an interesting strategy to admit that PA textbooks that UNRWA uses are antisemitic and then claiming that UNRWA's antisemitic teachers aren't teaching it.

We know this is a lie because UNRWA's own materials were shown this year to celebrate martyrdom and violence.

Only weeks ago UNRWA claimed that it would create a "tolerance workshop" for employees. However, one of the members of the EU Parliament who questioned Lazzarini noted "the U.S. State Department accountability office (GAO) report on UNRWA said that UNRWA teachers 'have refused to take part in training for tolerance and conflict resolution.'"

The EU is certainly holding UNRWA's feet to the fire more than anyone else, although it hasn't affected their funding.

09/02 Links Pt2: Parole for Sirhan B. Sirhan? RFK’s help for Israel drove his assassin; Why Grocery Stores Get Jewish Holidays All Wrong; Banning swastikas: Victoria leads the way

From Ian:

Parole for Sirhan B. Sirhan? RFK’s help for Israel drove his assassin

During a television interview in 1989, the Jerusalem-born Sirhan said he felt betrayed by Kennedy’s Israel proposal. The assassination occurred a short time after Kennedy, a senator from New York, delivered a victory speech upon winning California’s Democratic presidential primary.

“The prisoner killed my father because of his support of Israel,” former U. S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II wrote in response to the recommendation, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. “The man was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Yet he now may walk free, no doubt to the cheers of those who share his views. Let there be no mistake, the prisoner’s release will be celebrated by those who believe that political disagreements can be solved by a gun.”

Joseph Kennedy also wrote of other aspects of his father’s assassination, including its impact on his family.

Sirhan was lucky to receive the life sentence. He was initially sentenced to death, over the objections of RFK’s younger brother and Senate colleague Edward M. Kennedy. Sirhan’s punishment became a life sentence when California’s top court temporarily ruled against the state’s death penalty in 1972.

Many Americans can think of a few compelling reasons why Friday’s recommendation should be rejected. First, the parole board’s legal division must review it in a process that could take four months. If Sirhan gets past that step, Gov. Gavin Newsom will have 30 days to review the matter, and then he can approve, veto or return it to the parole board, or do nothing and allow it to go into effect, The New York Times reported.

RFK’s backing of Israel intermingles with a slew of other issues arising from the prospect of Sirhan’s release, the subject of a virtual hearing last Friday. Sirhan’s hostility toward Israel is a crucial reason for keeping him forever isolated from society. It extends beyond the horrid act of murder and even the shock that a prominent elected official was slain.

RFK’s assassination was motivated by enmity for an American ally whose diplomatic relationship was just starting to develop, and has grown into an essential partnership. If Sirhan is allowed to walk, then others who seek to murder for political issues can expect to avoid serving their full sentences.

Politicians who take controversial positions – as they all must sooner or later - can feel intimidated if they know that assassins will receive this kind of treatment.

Rory Kennedy: Robert Kennedy Was My Dad. His Assassin Doesn't Deserve Parole

I never met my father. When Sirhan Sirhan murdered him, my mother was pregnant with me. My father's murder was absolute, irreversible, a painful truth that I have had to live with every day of my life. In 1969, Sirhan was found guilty by a jury of his peers and sentenced to death. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional and suspended it.

My mother and the majority of my siblings agree with what I now write. Sirhan is not someone deserving of parole. Across the decades, right up through last week, he has not been willing to accept responsibility for his act and has shown little remorse. The recommendation to release Sirhan still has to be reviewed by the full parole board and then by California's governor. I ask them, for my family - and I believe for our country, too - to please reject this recommendation and keep Sirhan Sirhan in prison.

Why Grocery Stores Get Jewish Holidays All Wrong

Did you hear the one about the grocery store that was selling ham (yes, actual ham) for Hanukkah? How about the supermarket that constructed a pyramid’s worth of matzo boxes just before Rosh Hashanah, or the one that stocked hamantaschen next to the honey bears? Over the last decade, the arrival of the Jewish holidays has increasingly been heralded on social media (and traditional media, too) with a parade of anecdotes from customers encountering stores’ well-meaning attempts to offer holiday products that spectacularly miss the mark.

People’s reactions over finding yahrzeit candles on a Hanukkah display, or photos of challah announcing the Passover section range from amusement to profound annoyance. How difficult, these posts and articles ask, could it be for a supermarket to do a little research? A Christian shopper would never be subjected to the humiliation of finding a Cadbury Creme Egg display before Christmas, or packaged fruit cakes on Easter!

As it turns out, however, “getting it right” is harder than one might think. And while a photo of a grocery store marketing boneless smoked ham as ideal for a Jewish holiday is objectively startling, there is more to the story than just a meme. Behind the punchline is the rather remarkable fact that the holiday section is there at all.

If you walk into a typical grocery store in a town with any discernible Jewish population, you are likely to find a shelf or two dedicated to Ashkenazi comfort and ritual foods: things like matzo ball mix, egg noodles, bottled borscht, and kosher grape juice. These products are often squashed somewhere along the store’s vaguely defined “ethnic” food aisle, which houses Indian curry sauces, packaged soba noodles, and other products that are deemed outside “mainstream” American tastes.

“Today, grocery stores, as part of the civic square, are attentive to a wide variety of backgrounds, but that was not always the case,” said Jenna Weissman Joselit, a professor, author, and historian of Jewish American culture (as well as regular Tablet contributor) According to a recent New York Times article, the ethnic aisle was born in the mid-20th century with an express purpose: “to serve returning WWII soldiers who had tasted foods from countries like Italy, Germany, and Japan while abroad.” Some of the foods eventually found a home in different aisles (think: jarred marinara), but the section itself remained, creating a ghetto of otherness amid a vast terrain of white bread, mayonnaise, and corn flakes.

Al Jazeera (Arabic) writes about the hardship of Palestinian Arabs who work in Israel who are forced to not work during the upcoming Jewish holidays this month.

Israel closes the crossings to the territories during Israeli holidays.

Of course, Egypt closes its crossing to Gaza on Egyptian holidays, but no one seems overly concerned about that.

That isn't the only horrific human rights violation that Palestinians complain about for Jewish holidays. They are also upset that Jews visit Jewish shrines on Jewish holidays, including Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and many others.

Specialist in Israeli affairs, Ismat Mansour, describes the closures, which are carried out under the pretext of Jewish holidays, as a ritual of restricting Palestinians and disturbing their lives on security grounds, although the situation today is closer to calm....The problem with the Jewish holidays - according to Mansour - is that there are many of them, and the closures may extend for long days, as happens on the Passover holiday, in which the closure extends for a week

In addition to this, the national holidays, especially the Independence Day, are considered a history of the catastrophe for the Palestinian people

There you have it. Jewish holidays are a violation of Palestinian rights, and Israeli holidays are designed to humiliate Palestinians.

The funny thing is, when they make this stuff up it is to make themselves feel important. Because the truth that Jewish holidays and Israeli special days have nothing to do with Palestinians offends those who insist they are the center of the universe.

Self-Destructive Palestinian Refusal To Accept Jewish State Good Prep For COVID Vaccine Refusal (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

syringes Ramallah, September 3 - Observers of Palestinian society have noted of late that more than a century of rejecting the notion and manifestation of a sovereign Jewish presence anywhere in the ancestral Jewish homeland, bringing upon themselves a century of misery and political limbo, has served as ample training to reject immunization against the CoV-SARS-2 pathogen, whereby they also bring upon themselves misery.

Commentators specializing in Palestinian social and political trends remarked this week that Palestinian collective unwillingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 marks a phenomenon that could not have happened with such robust force without the similarly self-destructive refusal to accept Israel as a concept, and then as a fait accompli.

"I'm not sure Palestinian society would be where it is today, COVID-immunization-wise, if not for irredentism and intransigence on Jewish sovereignty," argued Khalil Shikaki, a prominent Palestinian pollster. "It takes a long time to nurture an intolerance so profound that one will indulge it even at disastrous cost to oneself or one's identity group. Palestinian vaccine avoidance didn't spring up out of nowhere; it's of a piece with Palestinian avoidance of accommodation with the reality of the Zionist project's success and with the absurdity of thinking it can be undone in any meaningful way. In both cases, the immediate- medium-, and long-term damage to Palestinians will be immense, and only grow as the trend persists."

Shikaki also pointed to cases in which the consequences of each type of intransigence have dovetailed. "Refusal to vaccinate puts more people at risk of hospitalization and painful, lonely death," he explained. "Refusal to accept Israel as a fait accompli puts Palestinians at risk of choosing to engage in activities that result in hospitalization and painful death, as well as the likelihood of isolation in prison. This also holds true on the more metaphorical and international level, where refusal to undertake the responsibilities of emerging statehood, instead wallowing in entitlement that reeks of supremacism, produces isolation on the global stage as even erstwhile allies lose patience and eventually switch sides in deed if not in word."

Diplomats pointed to other confluences of the two types of rejectionism. "We just gave the Palestinian Authority $38 million in vaccines that will go to waste," observed US Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Joey Hood. "At their current rate of vaccination they'll end up having to chuck much of their current stock, let alone those tens of thousands of doses. It's the same thing with all the aid we and others have given them through the decades: they waste in on embezzlement, terrorism, incitement, and other self-defeating endeavors."

09/02 Links Pt1: Douglas Murray: America, the Taliban and a farewell to arms; EU Parliament Grills UNRWA Head Over Antisemitic Textbooks in Palestinian Schools; The PA's suffocation tactic

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: America, the Taliban and a farewell to arms

Like all Islamists, the Taliban are rather good at this sort of thing. They loathe modernity and everything that the modern West has brought the world. But they are perfectly happy to use the fruits of that modernity against it. So while left to their own devices, the Taliban would have struggled to invent (let alone operate) the wheel, the modern world just keeps putting its finest weaponry in their hands. And if you are gifted such things then of course you will use them, albeit for your pre-medieval aims.

The defeated powers are playing the game of ‘reformed Taliban’ to buy themselves the tiniest amount of time in what looks set to be a long game of humiliation. Canada’s minister for equality, Maryam Monsef, addressed the Taliban direct last week. In a video message she called on ‘our brothers, the Taliban’, to ‘ensure the safe and secure passage’ out of Afghanistan of anyone who wants to leave.

Yet in the competition for lead Pollyanna in the West, Monsef doesn’t even make the finals. That award must surely go to the US special representative to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad. As the last US troops were leaving, Khalilzad could be found proclaiming the Taliban ‘now face a test’. What is that test? ‘If you can get one Black Hawk over Kabul on the first day, how many days will it take you to get the whole fleet in the air?’ No, according to Khalilzad the big test for the Taliban is: ‘Can they lead their country to a safe and prosperous future where all their citizens, men and women, have the chance to reach their potential?’

If you had to take a guess, what would the answer to that question be? I would go for ‘no’. Khalilzad continued: ‘Can Afghanistan present the beauty and power of its diverse cultures, histories, and traditions to the world?’ Again, that’d be a ‘no’ from me.

Just about the only things the Americans didn’t give the Taliban was a drone capability. America still has the advantage there at least. Perhaps now would be a good time to use it.

Whiff of Hypocrisy as EU Parliament Grills UNRWA Head Over Antisemitic Textbooks in Palestinian Schools

Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, admitted there were a “number of issues” that need to be addressed.

“We as UNRWA have identified three categories of problems in the textbooks when it comes to being in line with UN value[s],” he said, “which is age appropriateness, gender perception, and then the issues related to incitement to violence, discrimination, and so on.” Lazzarini added that these problems were found after reviewing some 150 books while more checks would be carried out on other texts.

The UNRWA is certainly no stranger to controversy when it comes to the problem of antisemitism in its schools, as well as the thorny issue of its relationship with US-designated terror group Hamas.

Just last month, HonestReporting revealed the agency was seemingly in breach of conditions attached to a $150 million funding windfall from the United States after refusing to dismiss a number of teachers who had used their social media accounts to spread anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and celebrate Palestinian-orchestrated terror attacks.

A US official had made it clear that the resumption of funding, which was cut under President Joe Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, was dependent on the agency sticking to several “rock solid commitments” including a “zero tolerance for racism, discrimination and anti-Semitism.”

In June, UNRWA Deputy Commissioner Lenny Steinseth met with the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Al-Sinwar, who later revealed that Steinseth had thanked him and reportedly expressed solidarity with the terror group.

This, despite the fact the UNRWA has repeatedly found evidence of Hamas digging tunnels that are used to store rockets and launch attacks on Israel underneath its schools.

UNRWA Head Faces Questions at EU Parliament Over ‘Hate Speech, Violence’ in Palestinian Textbooks

Members of the European Parliament pressed the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Wednesday over reports of incitement to violence and prejudice found in Palestinian textbooks used in it schools.

In a hearing with UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs raised the possibility of greater scrutiny over educational materials used by the UN agency, which serves the descendants of Palestinian refugees from Israel’s 1947-48 War of Independence.

“I have serious concerns regarding the textbooks,” said German MEP Dietmar Köster, from the left-leaning Socialists and Democrats party. “In view of UNRWA’s serious shortcomings in recent years, I believe the European Parliament has no other choice but to discuss the question of whether we need stricter oversight over the agency.”

“Just this April, our very own budgetary discharge report criticized UNRWA for the hate speech and violence taught in UNRWA schools and questioned whether UNRWA has the proper mechanism in place to ensure adherence to UN values,” Köster said.

In June, a long-awaited European Union analysis found that Palestinian Authority textbooks trafficked in antisemitic tropes, removed previously-included references to Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements, and “glorified” as heroes terrorists convicted of killing Israelis.

Köster also cited research from IMPACT-se, an Israel-based nonprofit which studies curricula in the Middle East, that found UNRWA-branded educational materials had included calls to violence and a rejection of peacemaking efforts.

Bravo @AnnaAsimakopoul, for taking a clear stance on @UNRWA's egregious shortcomings regarding neutrality & impartiality.

Antisemitism & terror glorification have no place in UNRWA schools.

The EU must demand more oversight to ensure taxpayers' money serves its values. pic.twitter.com/or3ZAMj8Ti
— Transatlantic Inst. (@AJCTAI) September 2, 2021

I have noted many times in the past that when Palestinians say that "historic Palestine" is congruent with the borders of the British Mandate created in 1921, they cannot have too much history.

The Palestinian prime minister proved that yet again on Wednesday.

The Jordanian Minister of Agriculture visited the Palestinian prime minister Muhammad Shtayyeh in Ramallah, and Shtayyeh made a statement about the rich ties between his nonexistent nation and Jordan.

He "reiterated the spirit of partnership between Palestine and Jordan at all levels and throughout history, stressing that the two countries are partners in blood, history and unity of destiny."

Before 1946, Jordan was just a river. Before 1922, Transjordan was just a region - just as Palestine was before 1921.

Palestinians are no more descended from Canaanites as Jordanians are from Moabites or Ammonites.

So I suppose that Jordan and "Palestine" do have a history in common, in that until recently, they had no history.

Mahmoud Abbas is in Egypt and met with Egyptian journalists, where he repeated his usual talking points.

One of the points he wanted to make was that American public opinion is turning against Israel, saying that the American public mood has begun describing Israel as racist, aggressive and committing war crimes.

Abbas is especially heartened by anti-Zionist statements made by American Jews.

He also called out the US church denominations that have embraced anti-Israel positions.

As we have seen in years past, when Abbas feels like he has Westerners on his side, he becomes more intransigent, thinking that in time the West will force Israel to make concessions beyond what Israel has already offered.

The anti-Zionists, who punch way above their weight in publicity, are giving Palestinians hope for their ultimate victory, so it is no wonder they refuse to compromise for peace.

Iranian diesel "for Lebanon" is a money-making scam for Hezbollah

Two weeks ago, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that Iran was sending a ship of fuel to Lebanon in order to help that country's massive fuel shortages.

The Lebanese government had already said last year they would not accept shipments of any kind from Iran, fearful that the US would extend sanctions on them. Nasrallah's bright idea - first broached in June - was a direct challenge to the Lebanese government, as he said then, “Shipments of fuel will arrive at Beirut’s port, and let the state prevent their access to Lebanon.”

Now, Iran has announced that the ship has reached the territorial waters of its destination - Syria!

The first Iranian oil tanker that carries fuel for Lebanon has arrived in Syrian waters, Lebanese newspaper reported.

According to Al-Akhbar, the tanker has entered the Syrian waters on Wednesday and will discharge the shipment in one of the Syrian ports, and then the fuel will be transferred to Lebanon by tanker trucks.

The report said the shipment of the second and third tankers will also be delivered to Lebanon through the same mechanism.

Hezbollah will transfer fuel from Syria into Lebanon?

That's funny, because part of the reason for the fuel crisis to begin with was because Hezbollah was smuggling Lebanese fuel into Syria earlier this year!

Hezbollah sold the fuel for huge markups in the Syrian black market to fund its own terror operations. Social media in Syria and Lebanon too photos of the fuel trucks going into Syria.

Now that Lebanese are as desperate for fuel as Syrians were in May, Hezbollah is asking Iran for fuel at regular prices so they can now make money in the reverse direction and take massive profits - while claiming to be saving Lebanon.

The Lebanese people aren't fooled by Nasrallah's faux altruism. They know he is a reason they are in such bad economic shape to begin with.

09/01 Links Pt2: Dara Horn on a world that only teaches about ‘dead Jews’; Squad Member Was Guest of Honor at Pro-Erdogan Fundraiser; Israeli scientists discover how to reverse cell aging

From Ian:

Dara Horn on a world that only teaches about ‘dead Jews’

Horn’s new essay collection ‘People Love Dead Jews’ looks at pervasive, modern-day antisemitism

She describes this scene in People Love Dead Jews: Reports From a Haunted Present, her new essay collection that comes out on September 7. It’s her first nonfiction book, following five works of fiction that very much feature living Jews with interesting lives and story lines. The cheeky title is meant to be provocative, but it gets at Horn’s concern with how non-Jews around the world usually learn about Jews — not by interacting with them or learning about Jewish life, but by learning about “dead Jews,” through topics like the Holocaust or the Spanish Inquisition or Harbin’s story.

“I had mistaken the enormous public interest in past Jewish suffering for a sign of respect for living Jews,” Horn writes. “I was very wrong.”

Horn’s essays, several of which were previously published in other publications, address the dissonance between people’s fascination with dead Jews and rising levels of antisemitism in the U.S. (The FBI released figures yesterday showing that 58% of reported religiously motivated hate crimes in 2020 targeted Jews.) “Think about your social studies textbook when you’re in sixth grade or something. There’s something about the Israelites in the ancient history section. And then there’s a chapter about the Holocaust. That’s the only thing they say about Jews,” Horn told Jewish Insider in a recent interview.

One essay grapples with the near-universal reverence of Anne Frank while an employee at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam was told not to wear a yarmulke to work. Another makes sense of “Jewish heritage” sites worldwide and the perhaps slightly antisemitic reasons non-Jews maintain them. All try to get at uncomfortable truths about modern antisemitism.

After the Holocaust, Horn argued, the recent memory of the murder of six million Jews kept antisemitism in check. “The last few generations of non-Jews were sort of chagrined by the Holocaust, and that made antisemitism socially unacceptable,” said Horn, who is 44. “For the people who are in my generation and my parents’ generation, the times we grew up in were not normal. Now normal is returning.”

In conversation with JI, Horn talked about what Jewish liturgy has to say about dead Jews, how universalizing Jewish stories can erase the Jewish experience and why Tevye’s story still matters.

J Street Falsely Charges Israel with Restricting Food, Medicine to Gaza

J Street, an advocacy organization that focuses on criticism of Israel, has falsely charged the Jewish state with restricting the import of food and medicine into the Gaza Strip.

In an Aug. 26 email to its subscribers, J Street claimed that to maintain the status quo in Israeli-Palestinian relations “means punishing restrictions on medicine, food and goods to families in Gaza will continue.”

The email was signed by Jeremy Ben-Ami, the organization’s president.

In fact, there are no such restrictions on medicine or food. Other critics of Israel, at least, have been more honest about Gaza imports. “Currently, Israel allows the entrance of all civilian goods into the Gaza Strip, with the exception of a list of materials defined as ‘dual-use,’ which, according to Israel, can be used for military purposes,” notes the Israeli NGO Gisha.

Gisha, which normally advocates for Gaza residents and criticizes Israeli policies, has previously found it necessary to set the record straight about the very same accusation J Street and Ben-Ami leveled this month. After Ralph Nader claimed in 2012 that Israel limits food, medicine and water to Gaza, Gisha slammed the charge as unhelpful and inaccurate “hyperbole.”

“Israel does not restrict the import of food, water or fuel,” the NGO pointedly noted. “And while Nader’s article implies that Israel is responsible for the medication crisis in the Strip, the truth is that ongoing disputes regarding payment for medication between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are largely the cause of this.”

Squad Member Was Guest of Honor at Fundraiser Hosted By Pro-Erdogan Group

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.) attended a fundraiser hosted last month by a Turkish-American advocacy group with close ties to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose members were on hand in 2017 when the Turkish leader's bodyguards beat peaceful protesters in Washington, D.C.

Two officials with the Turkish American National Steering Committee, a nonprofit cofounded by a relative of Erdogan’s, hosted the "meet and greet" fundraiser for Bowman at a restaurant in New Jersey on Aug. 7. Bowman, an acolyte of the "Squad," appeared at two of the committee’s events in May, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

The committee has been accused of working as an influence group for the Erdogan regime. Founded in 2016, the Steering Committee has hosted Erdogan at multiple events in the United States and frequently holds protests supporting Erdogan-backed causes. It lobbied aggressively against the U.S. government’s recognition of the Ottoman Empire’s genocide of Armenians. Officials with the Steering Committee, including Erdogan relative Halil Mutlu, accompanied Erdogan’s delegation in May 2017 when his bodyguards attacked peaceful protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington.

"[The Steering Committee] operates as an Erdogan front, one of many astroturf groups advancing this dictator's anti-American agenda in Washington, D.C.," Aram Suren Hamparian, the executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, told the Free Beacon in June.

Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has been targeted by the Erdogan regime, said Bowman was "siding with the most dictatorial elements in Turkey" by appearing at Steering Committee events.

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

Losses are part of war. There’s no escaping it. The tragedy is immense. A person has precisely one chance at life, to love, to have children, to learn, to have a profession, to do all the things that a person aspires to do, and to have it all taken away when it has barely begun is catastrophic.

Whenever a life is lost, especially a young life, families and friends grieve painfully. In Israel, which has been at war without a break since her establishment in 1948, there is a phenomenon of national grief, which I haven’t seen elsewhere. Funerals of soldiers, police, and terror victims are sometimes attended by thousands of people, many of whom did not know the deceased. The media devote much time and space to each case. Memorial day in Israel is full of ceremonies, all across the country, to remember and honor the fallen.

Jewish Israelis (with some exceptions) understand that they have an obligation to pay a price for the existence of the state, and that part of that price is that some of our children will lose their lives. Nothing demonstrates more conclusively how important the state is to the Jewish people.

So you can imagine the anger when a young life ends because somebody in authority was incompetent or lazy. War is war and soldiers die, but one of the things a good military organization does is analyze its defeats and failures, learn lessons from them, and make changes so that future outcomes will be better. When a preventable casualty occurs, it is because someone failed to do their job.

There are micro- and macro-failures. For example, if a soldier dies because his weapon wasn’t properly maintained, that is a micro-failure. If many lives are lost because an enemy that could be defeated is allowed to continue to re-arm, over and over, and the result is an unnecessary war, that is a macro-failure. They are both the result of someone not doing their job.

The tragic death of Border Police 1st Sgt. Barel Hadaria Shmueli, z”l, traumatized the entire nation, because it was unnecessary, a combination of micro- and macro-failures. Shmueli, a sniper, was placed at a slit in a wall that forms part of the border between Israel and Gaza. The slit was improperly located (too low) and inadequately surveilled by cameras on the Gaza side. The location was known to be dangerous. Sniper weapons are carefully adjusted to fit the individual, and for some reason he was not using his personal weapon. It jammed several times at critical moments. There is a buffer zone along the border that is supposed to be clear of Arab “demonstrators” (i.e., Hamas fighters and human shields), and somehow a number of them were allowed to enter it and come up against the wall, where they could not be seen by the defenders. They attempted to grab Shmueli’s weapon from outside, and in the struggle one of them placed a pistol up to the slit and fired; the bullet struck Shmueli’s head (information from a Hebrew article in Israel Hayom, 1 September).

These are some of the micro-failures, which the IDF promises to deal with. There is also an ongoing macro-failure.

Consider the overall situation. The “demonstrations” orchestrated by Hamas and other terrorist factions in Gaza are not demonstrations; they are attempted human wave attacks against Israel’s border. IDF Soldiers and Border Police defend it; they try to use non-lethal weapons to control the crowds, as well as “less-than lethal” live fire from .22 caliber Ruger rifles, and more deadly weapons if necessary to prevent a breach of the border. Such a breach could result in a disastrous terrorist attack against the numerous small communities in the area.

Hamas and its allied factions, who are supported and financed by Israel’s enemies in Iran, Turkey, and Qatar, are constantly working on ways to attack us. They dig tunnels, release incendiary balloons, stage “demonstrations” to penetrate our border, produce and launch rockets, try to land terrorists on the beaches north of Gaza, shoot antitank missiles at vehicles on our roads, teach their kindergarteners to hate us (so this will go on forever), and more. They are creative and proactive.

On the other hand, the IDF – which has the power to scrape the entire 365 km2 of Gaza into the sea – does not even hunt down the few dozen top leaders of Hamas and other factions and kill them. When rockets are fired at random into Israel’s cities in the hope of creating mass casualties, we prefer to intercept the rockets, and only shoot back when absolutely necessary, and with great care to kill as few people as possible. When incendiary balloons burn hundreds of acres of cultivated lands and nature preserves, the Air Force bombs empty enemy installations. And when a young soldier is killed protecting the border, the IDF prefers to improve procedures and shore up the border – that is, to deal only with the micro-failures.

It’s almost as if we are afraid to fight back, because then we might make them mad. We are satisfied to merely push them away. God forbid that we should hurt somebody.

But it’s far, far worse than just that. Yesterday, the day Sgt. Barel Shmueli was buried, Israel allowed “dozens of truckloads” of building materials into Gaza for the first time since the last mini-war. Today the government announced further loosening of restrictions. If I weren’t too embarrassed by the idea, I might say we are paying them for “protection.” Nice border you have there, we wouldn’t want it to experience a violent "demonstration.”

I have heard the argument that if we did respond more aggressively, then our soldiers and leaders would have to face charges in the International Criminal Court. Perhaps – but what came first? Maybe we have trained the world to think that attacks on Jews are the normal order of things, and Jewish self-defense is the true crime. Somehow the Russians and the Iranians don’t seem to worry about the ICC. Why do we?

Sgt. Shmueli gave his life fighting for the State of Israel. Why doesn’t the State of Israel want to fight for herself?

@CNN's story on FBI Hate Crimes report doesn't mention that Jews were the most attacked religious group

CNN filed a story on the 2020 FBI Hate Crimes report.

It mentioned that there was an increase in hate crimes against Blacks and Asians.

And those were the only groups mentioned.

Here is the list of hate crime incidents by number of victims per defined groups:

Anti-Black or African American	2,755
Anti-White	773
Anti-Jewish	676
Anti-Gay (Male)	649
Anti-Hispanic or Latino	507
Anti-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender (Mixed Group)	279
Anti-Asian	274
Anti-Transgender	196
Anti-Islamic (Muslim)	104

Certainly the anti-Asian attacks deserve to be mentioned because they increased so dramatically. But there were six paragraphs about that topic in the CNN report - and not even one mention of anti-Jewish hate crimes, which outnumbered anti-Asian hate crimes by 246%!

It seems like antisemitism is not mentioned because it is not news - the number of incidents was slightly lower than the previous year. But the decision to say that 274 incidents against Asians was worth highlighting while incidents against Jews is not worth mentioning, when anti-Jewish attacks are the lions' share of anti-religious attacks, was made by reporters and editors.

It is hard to shake the idea that the media has a pre-conceived notion- in this case that Jews are privileged and therefore cannot be characterized as victims.

09/01 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Biden's contemptible speech; Will the West Bank Become the New Afghanistan?; Wildfires: 'If I can't have it, neither can you'

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Biden's contemptible speech

The claim that the killing of bin Laden neutralised Afghanistan as a potential danger to the west is beyond ridiculous. What Biden has done is negate the gains made through investing blood and treasure in Afghanistan for two decades in order to protect the west — however muddled the implementation of that goal may have been — and he has thus dishonoured the sacrifice of all those who gave their lives in that process.

Whether this speech consisted of Biden’s own words, or whether someone else wrote them and he merely read them out, they are shocking. For the damage his administration has done is unforgivable and incalculable.

Consider how the Taliban have been galvanised by what’s happened. Anthony Lloyd of The Times reports from the Bagram airbase:
Maulawi Hafiz Mohibullah Muktaz, a religious leader and fighter from Kandahar aged 35, leaned back in his seat laughing, twiddled some dials on a control console, stared out across the multibillion-dollar base the size of a small city and picked up a phone to summon an imaginary jet.

“Never in our wildest dreams could we have believed we could beat a superpower like America with just our Kalashnikovs,” he beamed, staring across the two runways beneath him.

…“When you do jihad all doors open,” he added, unable to stop smiling. “Our lesson is that we defeated America with our faith and our guns and we hope now that Bagram can be a base for jihad for all Muslims.”

But the Taliban didn’t overwhelm a superpower. The reason it is now in control in Kabul is that the US cut and ran. The Afghan army was only able to function effectively with the assurance of American back-up. As soon as former president Donald Trump decided that this back-up would go, the Afghan army started to crumble; and when Biden set the inflexible August 31 pull-out deadline, the Afghan army collapsed and chaos ensued.

The Taliban did not defeat the United States. The United States defeated itself. That’s why the Afghan debacle is so shattering for the whole of the free world; and why Biden’s arrogant and obstinate remarks, showing that he has learned no lessons whatsoever from a calamity he caused but for which he takes no responsibility, are as ominous as they are contemptible.

Will the West Bank Become the New Afghanistan?

The US spent many years training and equipping the Afghan National Army, and yet it folded like a house of cards before the forces of the Taliban, and its soldiers quickly changed their military fatigues for civilian dress.

They didn’t have the “will to fight” for their country, President Joe Biden said in his August 16 address as thousands of desperate Afghans fled to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport.

What are the chances that the Afghan scenario will repeat itself in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority government is increasingly unpopular, economic conditions are dire and public discontent is burgeoning?

In June, a few weeks after the most recent war in Gaza ended, a public opinion poll conducted in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, led by Dr. Khalil Shikaki, found a sharp rise in the popularity of Hamas.

Fifty-three percent of the respondents said that “Hamas is most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people.” Only 14% prefer the rival Fatah party, led by PA President and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Then came the June 24 killing of Nizar Banat, a political activist from Hebron, at the hands of PA security forces. Unprecedented demonstrations rocked Palestinian cities. Given the ongoing economic crisis, budget deficit and dwindling international aid, the situation on the ground seemed to be rapidly spiraling out of control.

The new Israeli government quickly understood the challenge. It increased the number of entry permits to Israel for Palestinian workers and resumed direct ties with Abbas, in order to prevent economic collapse and promote increased security cooperation.

It is still unclear whether these steps will prove effective and head off the crisis. The big question remains: What will happen to the PA if Israel chooses not to get involved when push comes to shove? Would the Palestinian security services be able to defend their leaders against their rivals – Hamas and other Palestinian factions – if Israel were to withdraw from the West Bank like the US did from Afghanistan?

'If I can't have it, neither can you'

There are Palestinians, obviously not all of them, whose hearts soared at the sight of last week's fires, which wiped out thousands of acres of land surround Jerusalem. There are too many Palestinians who rejoiced at the sight of the flames burning their "stolen land," turning it into blackened fields.

While so many peoples' hearts were wrung at the sight of the embers and the destruction and the burned homes and the smoke – theirs swelled with joy. I know this because in the past few days, I've been talking to a few of them. They are smart enough not to be interviewed on the record, but too happy at the suffering of others to hide it.

I found them after encountering a few social media posts from Palestinians and Arab Israelis. One was the well-known Haifa historian Dr. Johnny Mansour, a lecturer at Beit Berl College. Mansour and his colleagues aren't dancing with joy, but they choose to stress what, in their eyes, the fires exposed: the "geographic, historical truth" of what the "Zionist colonial project" was hiding – "sights that no one expected," Mansour said.

He cited "agricultural terraces that Palestinians worked for decades, the result of the Palestinian peasant's hard work, sweat, and blood to preserve his land and make a living off it, landscapes that the 'project of occupation and Zionist uprooting,' with its 'colonial institutions' planted with trees to destroy what the peasants created and to hide the land and the characteristics of the region."

Mansour, who sees Palestinianism and its agricultural expressions as natural, and Zionist forestation as a foreign weed, is not alone in his views. The discourse in Arab Israeli society, much like among the Palestinians, is redefining the green landscapes of the land and sees the forestation planted as a method of hiding the Palestinian past and the remains of the villages that existed around Jerusalem until 1948.

Back during the wildfires of 2016, the Fatah movement adopted a similar stance, underscoring "The Palestinian identity of all Palestinian rocks and trees being burned now, which are part of our historic Palestine…." There would be no point in bringing up the "diagnosis" of Mansour and people like him, whose views of the Zionist enterprise and the return of the Jewish people are well-known, if it weren't for the nationalist pyromanaics whose discourse repeats the same perception: that the fire is a blow to the enemy and the "occupied land" at the same time. Or in other words, "If I can't have it, neither can you."

UPDATE: This was a fraud WAS: Sassoon Family Trust earmarks $50 billion (!) for helping Israel's economy

This story is a fraud, see the end.

This is mind-boggling. From Calcalist:

The Sassoon Family Continuation Trust, established in 1485 during the Spanish Inquisition, has recently announced that it will commit $50 billion across three funds to “fulfill a mandate to ensure the economic growth and market impact for Israel.”

“There’s a vacuum here, and someone needs to fill it,” David Sassoon told CTech. As a direct descendant of Sassoon trust and its sole beneficiary, he is now the executive chairman of J. Sassoon Group, a Washington, DC-based private equity and investment banking firm and oversees its ventures across the world. Ahead of making ‘Aliyah’ (moving to Israel) later this year, he shared the plans for the trust and its hopes for investment that can help support the longevity of the country.

Over the next 15 years, the Trust will invest $50 billion dollars into three funds. The first, The Israel Hellenic Fund, will focus on the relationship between Israel and Greece, ensuring it goes beyond a military and security collaboration to an economic, tech, life science, and real estate partnership between the nations. The second fund, called The Patriot Fund, will be joint between the U.S and Israel and concentrate on technology pertaining to the national security sector. The final fund is called the Zion Fund and will focus on Israel’s startup scene, with an emphasis on renewable energy, telecommunication, transportation, and infrastructure.

$50 billion over 15 years means that the Sassoon family is investing roughly the amount that the US gives to Israel annually!

(h/t Noah)

UPDATE: This is not true. David Sassoon is a convicted fraudster. Calcalist took down the story. (h/t Ian)

Throughout his political career, Joe Biden has said that the US should not publicly disparage Israel. But behind the scenes, things could be different.

We don't know for sure what was discussed in the private meeting between Joe Biden and Natali Bennett. We do know that White House Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa Barbara Leaf gave an off-the-record briefing to Jewish leaders after the meeting, where she confirmed that Biden did say he was opposed to evictions in Sheikh Jarrah and said he wants to open a Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem.

There is no reason to think that other topics were not brought up.

Over the past week, including the last three nights, Hamas has orchestrated violent riots at the Gaza border, with an increase in incendiary balloons and IEDs launched towards Israel.

Yet even so, Israel has loosened up restrictions on Gaza this morning:

Expanding the Gaza Strip’s fishing zone to 15 nautical miles — the most since 2007.
Additional goods and construction materials imported into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom Crossing.
An additional 5 million cubic meters (1.3 billion gallons) of water allowed into Gaza.
5000 more workers will also be allowed into Israel from Gaza

Israel may have had these plans anyway in response to calm from Gaza - but there hasn't been calm in Gaza. In fact, the IDf statement on the easing of restrictions said, “These civil steps were approved by the political echelon and are dependent upon the continued preservation of security stability for an extended period. An extension of them will be considered in accordance with a situational assessment.”

The first sentence sounds a lot like this was a response to a specific request from the White House to ease restrictions on Gaza, because there is no security stability to be preserved.

The second sentence, however, is more interesting. It says that the easing of restrictions is temporary, and their continuation si wholly dependent on how Hamas acts.

It is too simplistic to say that Israel should shut off Gaza. Just as Israel is careful not to hurt Gaza civilians in wartime, it has to be careful not to hurt them during a truce. Making life easy for innocent Gazans without allowing terrorists to take advantage of the situation should be the default situation.

Airstrikes on empty fields and buildings is not disincentive for Hamas, but the threat that the people of Gaza would protest is something Hamas is very sensitive to. In that sense, it makes sense to make as many concessions as possible and to make it clear that Hamas actions are the only things that can stop the goodwill.

But the timing in this case is all wrong.

The only way it makes any sense is if Israel was planning this all along and wanted to wait until after the Bennett-Biden meeting to make Biden feel like it was his doing. Delaying the easing would be seen as an insult to the American president.

Unfortunately, the message being received by Gazans is that their riots are causing Israel to cave in. It ends up increasing violence, not decreasing tension.

Rashida Tlaib, faux humanitarian, retweeted an appeal to send money to a charity called Baitulmaal.org, supposedly to help Lebanese people get their basic needs.

Alma, the northern Israel think tank, researched Baitulmaal, because there is a charity with that name associated with Hezbollah.

This isn't that charity - but it is just as bad.

Its current director, Mazen Mukhtar, once said "suicide bombings are an effective way to attack the enemy and continue Jihad." A 2004 article in the Washington Post notes that Mukhtar had previously run a website aimed at raising funds for the Afghan Taliban and the Chechen Mujahidin. He has also lectured on behalf of Hamas.

"Baitulmaal" supports an organization called UFA (Unlimited Friends Association for Social Development) based in Gaza. This association has close ties to senior Hamas figures and supports the families of so-called “martyrs." This association publicly declares that it helps “Baitulmaal” distribute its donations to the families of the "martyrs" and the Palestinian people.

Meaning it directly funds terrorists' families.

The UFA has published on Facebook pure Jew-hatred: "We will ask Allah to release our prisoners imprisoned in Nazi-Zionist prisons and release the filthy Al-Aqsa Mosque of the dirtiest Jews.”

Baitulmaal is a member of the "Union of Good," a charity founded by "terror sheikh" Yusuf al-Qaradawi,

There are more links to terrorism listed in the Alma article.

It raises millions of dollars a year, spending all of its funds either on other Islamic charities or in Muslim countries where the money trail can be impossible to follow.

They might be saying they are raising money for Lebanon, but terrorists from Hamas and other groups are almost certainly taking a cut.

Rashida Tlaib wholeheartedly supports this "charity" that channels money to Hamas terrorists.