Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Arab moves to improve human rights must be praised, not ridiculed

In late August, the UAE announced that it will establish an independent human rights commission, independent of the government, adhering to the Paris Principles for the National Human Rights Institutions.

There is reason to be skeptical when one sees such announcements. The UAE does not exactly have a stellar human rights record. It has essentially no freedom of the press and it imprisons political dissidents.

It is possible that this is a whitewash. Yet the very announcement shows a sensitivity to a public perception of human rights in the Emirates and that can be leveraged.

Human Rights Watch ridiculed the UAE move. "This is just another tactic, part of the UAE's decadelong whitewashing campaign to make themselves look like a tolerant, respectful and open country," said Hiba Zayadin, a researcher with HRW. Ken Roth dismissed the news out of hand.

But other human rights groups properly say that it is too early to tell, and that the new organization can be judged against its own standards soon enough.

Alexis Thiry, a legal adviser at Geneva-based legal advocacy organization MENA Rights Group, told DW it was too early to know if the new UAE organization would be sticking to the Paris Principles, as promised. This was because the rights group had not yet been able to read a publicly available version of the law, UAE Federal Law number 12 of 2021, that enabled the creation of the institution, said Thiry.

"It is difficult to have an opinion about the forthcoming independence of the [institution] and its compliance with the Paris Principles," he explained. "At this stage, it is also too early to comment on the performance of the institution since its members have yet to be appointed, to our knowledge."

This is the proper response - healthy skepticism but hoping for the best, and an eagerness to hold the UAE to its own standards. Compared to the HRW response, the MENA Rights Group sounds like a responsible party that actually cares about human rights and not sound bites.

Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi yesterday attended a human rights forum in Cairo, He said some very positive things about freedom of religion in Egypt: "What annoys you as a Muslim when you see a church or a synagogue? Whoever wants to convert can convert, and the one who wants to believe believes, and the one who doesn't want to believe does not believe... and this is freedom from a religious perspective...I respect non-belief, even if one says I do not believe in any religion...Whoever believes that he possesses cultural distinction and tries to impose it on other societies is taking a dictatorial path."

Again, Egypt's human rights record is abysmal. But shouldn't such statements be celebrated? One cannot turn around a society in a day, and hearing such statements from the president of a country is important.

It seems that groups like HRW choose to target countries that have established relations with Israel. But those relations can only have a positive effect on human rights in the other countries, as more Arabs are exposed to the Israeli society where Muslims enjoy full rights, to an extent beyond many European countries. Their relations with Israel are often accompanied with positive moves towards the few Jews who live in those countries.

People who care about human rights should celebrate peace between Arab countries and Israel, something that we have not seen from HRW and Amnesty. Real human rights groups should use the positive messages being given by the Arab countries leavened with a healthy dose of skepticism. At the very least, official announcements in favor of human rights can be leveraged later to hold those officials accountable, since no one wants to be exposed as liars.

There is nothing negative about Arab nations publicly embracing human rights. Even if they are hypocrites, it gives ammunition to human rights defenders. HRW's slamming those moves indicates that they are more interested in appearing to care about human rights than actually doing anything to promote them.

The Gilboa prison episode: A perfect example of honor/shame

When the six prisoners, most of them Islamic Jihad terrorists, escaped from Gilboa Prison, the Palestinian street went wild. Palestinians were proud. This tweet from "human rights attorney" Noura Erakat captures the glee, praising the "six Palestinian political prisoners who self-liberated themselves using spoons against nuclear weapons and grotesque racial domination."

Why?

It was very clear that they would be caught - or killed during a capture attempt - eventually. Four of them have been caught as of this writing. Islamic Jihad is blaming the "apartheid wall" for their capture saying that this was why they couldn't escape to the West Bank (and indirectly justifying the security barrier.)

So why the celebrations?

The celebrations and praise had nothing to do with "freedom" for the terrorists. Everyone knew that their freedom will end one way or another.

They were celebrations of Jewish humiliation.

To be sure, the problems at the prison that led up to the escape were inexcusable. But the Israeli prison system will lick its wounds, examine its mistakes, and fix the problems. That's what Israelis do - keep improving and learning from mistakes.

Palestinian Arabs don't think that way. To them, everything is about honor - the Jews must be not defeated but humiliated. Victories are based on perception, not facts.

The honor/shame society, with its emphasis on how things look and not ho they are, cannot win against a society that is fact-based. One needs to be able to admit mistakes to improve, and the Palestinians who blame all of their problems on the Jews cannot grow beyond their own myths.

This is why the Arab states have been turning away from the Palestinian cause - because the Palestinian refusal to accept a state and to stop their internal fighting is shameful to the entire Arab world, and at some point the shame has caused them to stop wanting to be associated with people who have shamed the entire Arab world.

Palestinian groups are trying to escalate this prison escape into something much bigger, into a new intifada. They will use any excuse to try to do that, and there are multiple attempts to do that every year, as we saw when Israel placed cameras near the Temple Mount. The groups try to direct Palestinian emotion of any kind into a new war. Usually such attempts fail, but this is hard to predict. Palestinian prisoners are heroes and new measures to frustrate future escape attempts will upset the masses. The Palestinian Authority is trying to ride this wave of emotion just as Hamas and Islamic Jihad are.

Both the "honor" of the escape and the "shame" of the captures elicit emotions, and the Palestinian groups want to gain power based on these emotions. The Gaza groups try to shame the PA and the PA tries to shame Hamas. Facts are secondary.

You simply cannot understand the Middle East without understanding how pivotal the honor/shame culture is - and how self-defeating it is. Arab nations are starting to catch on, but there is a long way to go.

Here's a nice example of an antisemitic article in the Jordanian Assawsana news site. This is not an anomalous opinion, but mainstream, even though articles like this are somewhat more rare than in the past.

If I were a Jew, I would go back to reading the real history of the Jews.

The Jews are the descendants of the Canaanites who inhabited the country of the East, the area between the Nile River, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and for this reason their flag consists of two blue lines representing the Nile and Euphrates rivers.

...They returned to the land of their fathers and grandfathers in the land of Canaan when our Prophet Moses, peace be upon him, rescued them from enslavement, killing and slaughter of Pharaoh for them. After that, God scattered them all on the earth for breaking the covenants with our master and Prophet Muhammad bin Abdullah, peace and blessings be upon him.

And I will ask and verify why the countries of the whole world agreed to get rid of us and establish a national home for us in Palestine? Is it because people hated us in all the countries in which we lived for our pure and unfair material dealings that are not our religion, and we exploited them and tried to enslave them. . . etc?.

I also wonder why the Jews did not fuse with the different societies in which they lived and continue to live for many years? Why couldn't they merge with the Palestinian people in Palestine as well? . . .

I will arrive at a fact that no one can deny, which is that the problem is not with all the peoples of the world, nor with the Palestinian people, but with the Jewish people themselves. And when I came forward, and because I play the role of a member of the Jewish people, I have to realize the truth of the matter, which is that all peoples hate us, even if they seem to us outwardly love us. And that is because the thirteen Jewish families, the most important of whom are Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Morgans, control the economy, money, policies and global decisions in the Security Council and the General Assembly.

How long will we Jews continue to live in anxiety, fear and terror from all around us? And why? Can we control the peoples of the world forever? Is it not time for us to change our behavior with other peoples? And live a life of tranquility, serenity, security and peace?

See how much the author cares? He only wants what's best for us Jews!

09/11 Links: Mossad spy chief on 9/11: We realized rules for fighting terror had to change; Yom Kippur in British Mandate Palestine and the Irgun; Security forces search for last 2 fugitives

From Ian:

Mossad spy chief on 9/11: We realized rules for fighting terror had to change

When American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower on September 11, 2001, then-Mossad chief Efraim Halevy was in the middle of a meeting with then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.

“Suddenly someone came in the room, passed him a piece of paper. And he said to me, ‘Something has happened. I think you shouldn’t be here, you should be in your office.’ I said, ‘What happened?’ He told me briefly, and I was off on my way,” Halevy recalled, speaking to The Times of Israel ahead of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

“The 9/11 events caught everyone by surprise,” he said.

Halevy, 86, had been the head of the Mossad spy agency for three and a half years when two planes hit the World Trade Center, a third hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, after the passengers regained control of the aircraft from the hijackers and prevented it from hitting its target, which investigators believe was either the White House or the United States Capitol.

The British-born spymaster was wary of revisiting many of the technical questions of the Mossad’s activities following the attacks — what they knew and when and what was shared with the US — but he said there was a general effort to bring whatever relevant information it collected with the Americans.

“I’m now well past 80 and to start going into my memory, which has all kinds of ‘boxes,’ some which are very full and some of which are emptying up — I would rather not go into that minefield,” he said.

“We had an understanding that on this issue we had to cooperate in bringing information [to the US] if it came our way and to initiate activities to gather information subsequent to the attack.”

Halevy recalled a grim mood in the Mossad following the attack and not only out of an understanding that a major event had taken place with the potential to significantly reshape the world.

'If we cannot name our enemy, how can we ever expect to defeat it?'

Steven Emerson is considered one of the most esteemed experts on Islamic Jihad. As early as 1992, he sounded the alarm that a major attack on US soil was just a matter of time, but no one seemed to care. Speaking with Israel Hayom, he has vivid memories of 9/11, as if it happened yesterday.

Unlike most Americans who were shocked by the horrific events, he was not surprised. In fact, about a month before the attack he predicted that something big was imminent, but again, to no avail.

Q: What lit up your interest in going after the subject of the jihad in America and how it happened, a decade or so before 9/11.

"In December 1992, I had been working as an investigative correspondent for CNN (my second year for CNN; my 12th year as a journalist). In late December I got a tip that in Oklahoma City, the Iran-Contra Special Prosecutor was going to unveil his final report on the Iran-Contra affair but I didn't know what day. So I flew to Oklahoma City on December 24, the day before Christmas and checked into a downtown hotel, waiting any day for the report to be released. Well on December 25, Christmas Day, everything was closed, even the restaurant in the hotel. So I took my rented car and drove around downtown looking for a fast-food restaurant and I suddenly passed a most unusual sight as I drove near the Oklahoma City Convention Center: Streaming in and out of the Center were thousands of men and women dressed in traditional Middle East clothing – women wearing hijabs and men wearing the galabias (long robes). My first instinctive reaction was that there must have been a film being made and that these folks were extras. So I parked my car nearby and went inside the convention center. I immediately realized that this was actually a convention of some kind – I really didn't know what kind until I went down to the convention floor where there were scores of tables, each one cluttered with books, audio and video cassettes, and pamphlets or Middle East clothing for sale. I felt a bit conspicuous but I was warmly welcomed from the table as I began collecting the books, cassettes, and pamphlets. Some were in Arabic, but many were in English. And the ones that were in English had very radical anti-American, anti-Israeli, and antisemitic rhetoric with names of organizations based in Tampa, Florida; Boston, Massachusetts; Bridgeview, Illinois; Brooklyn, NY; Tucson, Arizona – from all over the country.

"I soon discovered that the organization hosting this conference was called the Muslim Arab Youth Convention or MAYA for short. (Only later would I found out that it was founded and headed by Abdullah bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's half brother). In fact, I was warmly welcomed by one of the attendees – Abdullah, who identified himself as a 'revert' to Islam (since everyone in the world is born a Muslim including Jews and Christians, one doesn't convert to Islam; rather one reverts to Islam). Abdullah told me he had been born a Jew but had reverted to Islam. He took me under his wing and actually allowed me to accompany him as his guest to 'Palestine Night' that very evening where we sat in the section of converts or reverts. The speakers including Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal, Muslim Brotherhood leader Kamal Helbawi and leaders of other radical Islamist groups including Al Gama al Islamiya. Although the fiery speeches were in Arabic with thunderous applause from the audience of about 3000, there was a simultaneous translation for all 25 of us in the revert section. At one point, everyone got up and starting chanting something about 'Yahudi.' So naturally, we all tried to join in as well. I asked Abdullah what were we chanting? He blithely responded, ' Oh, just 'Kill the Jews.'

Al-Qaida was smashed, but not crushed

In 2001, the organization al-Qaida struck a blow that shocked the world. In a series of coordinated terrorist attacks, unprecedented in nearly every aspect, the group managed to hit the US, the strongest superpower in the world, in its most vulnerable spot.

Residents of the world were amazed to see how a small organization numbering only a few hundred or thousand members, located in far-off Afghanistan without any particularly impressive infrastructure, managed to organize such a destructive attack. In the years that have passed, al-Qaida has carried out other terrorist attacks in Madrid (2004) and London (2005).

But the American invasion of Afghanistan dealt the organization a harsh blow. Many of its people were killed or captured by the Americans. Cooperation between intelligence agencies worldwide made it difficult for terrorists from the group to operate freely, as they had done previously, and the scope of the attacks it perpetrated against the west gradually decreased.

But the most serious blow to al-Qaida came in 2011, when a team of US special forces killed its leader and founder Osama Bin Laden. His successor Ayman al-Zawahiri, served as a kind of spiritual authority, almost disconnected from what was happening in the field.

Al-Qaeda leader, rumored dead, appears in video for 9/11 anniversary

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was seen in a new video on Saturday, following rumors that he had died. The footage wsas released on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks the online activity of jihadist groups, reported that in a video released by al-Qaeda, al-Zawahiri spoke on a number of subjects including the “Judaization of Jerusalem.”

Although the video was released on Saturday, al-Zawahri made no mention of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, Rita Katz, SITE’s director noted.

Al-Zawahiri made references to a raid on a Russian military base by the al-Qaeda-linked Hurras al-Deen group in Syria, which it claimed on January 1, 2021, Katz added.

Al-Zawahiri also talked about the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan, but Katz pointed out that it could have been said long ago following the signing of the Doha Agreement, in which the US pledged to remove its troops from the country.

“Thus, he could still be dead, though if so, would have been at some point in or after Jan 2021,” Katz tweeted.

Reminder, this is how some #Palestinians celebrated #September11! Just vile. pic.twitter.com/qNbKwBLWgz
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 11, 2021

09/10 Links Pt2: Caroline Glick: Assessing the twin disasters of September 2001; Danny Lewin H'yd: The very first victim of 9/11; 9/11 event to feature speakers affiliated with terrorists

From Ian:

Matthew Continetti: Year 20

We owe this 9/11 Generation a great deal. I was not the only resident of New York City in the weeks after September 11 to have nightmares of more planes flying into skyscrapers. Nor am I alone when I recall the pervasive fear that accompanied the anthrax attacks the next month or the D.C. sniper rampage the following year. The threat loomed large of another massacre; of suicide bombings on the scale experienced by Israel during the contemporaneous Second Intifada; of terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction. None of that happened.

Why? Because Americans acted. Those Americans, male and female, belonged to every race, every ethnicity, every religion, every creed, every sexual orientation. And they belonged to both political parties. The brightest stars among Republicans and Democrats—from Tom Cotton to Tammy Duckworth, from Dan Crenshaw to Jason Crow—belong to the 9/11 Generation. They may not agree on either the ends or the means of domestic and foreign policy. But they are joined by common citizenship and a mutual interest in the safety and prosperity of America. They ran toward the danger. And they deserve our profound gratitude.

The high cost of war bought safety for the homeland and a reduction in radical Islamic terrorism. Bin Laden wanted his holy warriors to collapse the American economy and drive us from the Arabian Peninsula. They failed. Not only did Osama bin Laden lose his mission and his life. His successors Musab al-Zarqawi and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi did too. These victories for freedom did not happen in a vacuum. It wasn't special-pleading or guilt-tripping or an especially scathing diplomatic communique that ended Baghdadi's reign of terror. It was Delta Force.

Which is why the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has been so dispiriting. It may resuscitate global jihad at the very moment when that ignoble cause was on the verge of defeat. It may revive the fighting spirit and grand ambition of localized and constrained terrorist groups just as America turns inward and aloof.

That danger makes the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 an occasion not for intellectual browbeating but for patriotic resolve. It is the bedrock courage, resourcefulness, and resilience of the 9/11 Generation that will see America through her latest dark night of the soul. The enemy cannot win so long as we never tire, never waver, and never forget.

Caroline Glick: Assessing the twin disasters of September 2001

We have a tendency to forget that two historical events occurred in early September 2001. No one needs to be reminded of the jihadist attacks on Sept. 11 that killed nearly 3,000 people in a single morning. The other event, that tends to be overlooked, was the UN Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, which concluded four days before the attacks.

With 20 years of hindsight, and in light of America's catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan last month, it suddenly seems clear that the Durban Conference changed the course of history equally if not more than the Islamic terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. It was legacy of Durban, more than Sept. 11 that brought the free world to its present perilous juncture. Today a humiliated free world faces triumphant forces of jihad, far more powerful than they were on Sept. 10, 2001. It faces a rapidly rising China. Above all else, it faces internal upheavals and cleavages within its own ranks.

US President Joe Biden justifies his decision to withdraw US and NATO forces from Afghanistan in the shameful way he did by claiming that the time had come to end "the forever war." But it works out that Biden and his advisors don't have a problem with all "forever wars." They just weren't willing to fight jihadist Islam. They didn't want to fight this specific war – against the enemy that attacked America 20 years ago this week. And in their frenzied quest to devote all of their energies and efforts to fighting their chosen forever war, Biden and his team were willing to ignore – or perhaps worse, to accept – two very simple facts of war.

First, the only way to end a war that you haven't won is to lose it. And second, if you end a war without winning it, you hand victory to your enemy.

Several analysts have likened the US defeat in Afghanistan to the fall of the Byzantine capital Constantinople to the Ottoman armies in 1453. The Taliban flag flying over what was the US Embassy in Kabul until the end of last month, and reports that China is considering taking over Bagram Air Base, signal that America's enemies believe they are ascendant, that the free world has been defeated.

The "forever war" Biden, his advisors and supporters are gunning to aggressively pursue until the complete destruction of their enemy is a war within the United States. The "enemy" are their political rivals, who they castigate as "racists." They call their forever war, "the war against racism."

The odd thing about their efforts is that the American war against racism was won decisively more than 50 years ago thanks to the Civil Rights Movement and thanks to the fact that the majority of Americans recognized at the time and since that racism is antithetical to ideals of freedom and equal opportunity on which the United States was founded.

The seeds of this strange war were planted 20 years ago at Durban. We remember the Durban conference mainly for its antisemitic agenda. The plan to present anti-Zionism as a "kosher" form of antisemitism, and use it to abrogate the Jewish state's right to exist was codified at Durban. But legitimizing antisemitism wasn't only a means to hurt the Jews. For many actors on the international left, legitimizing the goal of cancelling Israel's moral and legal right to exist was and remains still today a means to advance their primary goal: destroying America's moral confidence in its role as the leader of the free world and denying the US's moral right to fight to defend its national interests.

Melanie Phillips: Twenty years on, the cultural fault-line remains

Most devastatingly of all, the Holocaust passed a shattering judgment against modernity. So in the repudiation of its foundational beliefs, the west arrived at precisely the same point as the Islamic jihadists.

Of course, westerners never saw any similarity between themselves and Islamists locked into the seventh century and whom it dismissed as incomprehensible, crazy and worthless.

But in a mirror image, the west was busily severing the connection with its own historic values. This was compounded by an arrogant assumption that western attitudes were universal.

The west therefore tried to impose its utopian, post-modern belief in negotiation and compromise upon a Middle East and Islamic world that saw conflict solely in terms of victory and defeat, strength and weakness.

And so the west has continued to repeat its fiascos by indulging in the same fantasies that it will end the “forever wars” — whether through the Israel-Palestine “peace process,” the Iran nuclear deal or abandoning Afghanistan, where both British and American governments are now spinning themselves the fantasy that Taliban “realists” will keep the Taliban jihadists in check.

For Islamists, war is indeed forever. For such fanatics, defeat is only ever temporary.

For the west, however, there are no “forever wars.” Its wars are either won or lost; there are victors and vanquished.

And military strength matters less than belief. The 9/11 attackers didn’t use sophisticated military hardware. They hijacked civilian aircraft and turned them into flying human bombs of enormous destructive potential.

What fuels the jihad is the power of an idea. That idea is the cult of death.

To overcome a cult of death, the west needs a belief in life. Its own life. That is the way to draw the necessary courage and resolve from this most sombre anniversary; but alas, it seems the most difficult of lessons to learn.

Palestinian media says Israeli police shot a doctor for no reason. Video shows the reason.

Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, wrote:

Palestinian doctor shot dead by Israeli police in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM, Friday, September 10, 2021 (WAFA) – A Palestinian medical doctor was announced dead on Friday evening shortly after he was shot and critically injured by Israeli occupation forces in the old city of Jerusalem, according to witnesses.

Israeli police officers reportedly opened gunfire at Dr. Hazem Joulani near Bab al-Majlis, one of the main gates of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, critically injuring him. The Israeli police also denied access of Palestinian civilians who attempted to provide him with first aid.

The Palestinian Detainees Affairs Commission said Joulani, who was rushed to Hadasah Medical Center for treatment, was announced dead of his wounds a couple of minutes later.

No mention of why they might have shot him. (Or why any police officer would ever allow "civilians" to enter a crime scene to administer "first aid.")

Luckily, we have video of this doctor trying to stab an Israeli police officer. From three different angles.

Why would a doctor want to do this?

Perhaps he went crazy. Perhaps he was under investigation for something. Perhaps he was depressed and decided that being a "martyr" sounded pretty good.

All we know is that he decided to attack Jews. And Palestinians cheer that.

(h/t kweansmom)

Akhbarten.com, an Arab news site popular in Egypt and Syria, has an article explaining a Quranic verse:

The example of those who were burdened with the Torah, but then did not carry it, is like an ass carrying books —evil is the example of the people which deny the signs of God, and God does not guide the wrongdoing people. [Qurʾān 62:5]

The article explains that just as a donkey carries books yet does not understand what they contain, so the Jews are burdened with a Torah they do not understand. Only Muslims do.

So far, this is just another example of how one can find examples of antisemitism in every day Arabic language media.

But the person explaining the verse does not understand it as well a the author of the Quran did.

The Quran's stories often come not only from the Torah itself but from rabbinic sources as well. Its author was quite familiar with Rabbinic stories from the Midrash and Talmud.

This particular verse seems to refer to a famous midrash, the first part of which is familiar to every Jewish schoolchild. When God wanted to give the Torah, he first went to the other nations and offered it to them. They would ask, "What is in it?" and God would answer "Thou shat not kill" or steal or commit adultery, and the nations would decline, saying that one of these sins are part of their national culture. When God came to Israel, however, they didn't ask what was in it, but accepted it wholeheartedly.

The second part of the midrash says, "It is similar to a man who sent his donkey and his dog to the granary, where fifteen seʾah [of grain] were loaded atop the donkey and three seʾah on the dog. The donkey walked and the dog lolled his tongue [in exhaustion.] He cast aside one seʾah and placed it atop the donkey and then did the same with the second and then the third. This is how Israel accepted the Torah, together with its commentaries and its minutiae. Even those seven commandments that the Noahides could not abide and cast aside, Israel came and accepted. "

So the rabbis themselves compared the Jews to a donkey, as a compliment! The Quran took this story and turned it into an insult to Jews - an insult not only for a Muslim audience but for a literate Jewish audience as well!

This paper notes also that a later Quranic verse seems to compare Jews more directly to the tongue-lolling dog of this midrash. (It shows that the verse that the midrash is commenting on is one of the "proofs" Muslims give that Mohammed is alluded to in the Torah.)

09/10 Links Pt1: Matti Friedman: The Next Lebanon War; Joe Biden’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ Moments; A Missed Opportunity in America's Refunding of UNRWA

From Ian:

Matti Friedman: The Next Lebanon War

Spending time on the border with Yitzhak Huri, a lieutenant colonel who’s the second-in-command of the army brigade in this sector, I asked if he thought Lebanon’s disintegration and the desperation of its citizens made war more or less likely. Does the crisis lead the Lebanese to pull back to avoid further mayhem, or go for broke? “When a person has nothing to lose, you can’t know what he’s capable of,” Huri said. “The same goes for countries.”

I put the same question to the Lebanon watcher David Daoud, who was born to a Jewish family in Beirut and lives in Washington, D.C., where he works with the Atlantic Council and the advocacy group United Against a Nuclear Iran. Hezbollah has never wanted Lebanon to be a prosperous state “like Israel or Singapore,” Daoud said, because that would limit its autonomy. But at the same time, he said, the organization’s interests aren’t served by another civil war or the kind of state collapse that would be hastened by a war with Israel at this moment. The group is more likely, Daoud thinks, to try to use the current crisis to make itself even more central to the lives of its followers by doing what it has always done: providing services that should be provided by the state but aren’t. Hezbollah is already distributing bread and fuel, and if it plays its cards right, it will emerge stronger. “The crisis hasn’t weakened Hezbollah, but it has constrained them to such an extent that they must act responsibly on the border,” Daoud said.

That’s why, for example, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah quickly announced that his group’s recent 19-rocket barrage was purposely aimed at open fields, not at Israeli civilians or even soldiers. He’s trying to project strength to his followers, insisting he’s unafraid of war, while calibrating his actions to avoid an explosion he won’t be able to handle. But it’s a hazardous game. Both sides may not want a war, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be one. Things could easily slip out of control no matter how closely each side watches the other.

What do Israelis see when we look into Lebanon? A place with beautiful forests and beaches, where different groups of people share a strip of Levantine coast, one that could have been as successful as Israel or more so—the “Switzerland of the East,” as people said in the ’50s and ’60s. Some of us see a country that has been an arena for misguided Israeli policies or the backdrop for a potent chapter of our own young lives as soldiers. Many see a continuous threat.

But there’s another story we might see across the fence this summer, as we struggle to emerge from an unprecedented period of political dysfunction of our own, with four elections in two years and no national budget, with political leaders who’ve tried to convince us to see each other as enemies, and with internal divisions that feel less bridgeable than ever before. Lebanon is a country that allowed itself to be hollowed out. Its different sects failed to create a national story about citizenship that superseded other loyalties, and the state was paralyzed until the fragile edifice corroded, until the forces of progress faded or emigrated and were replaced by religious and tribal powers not just indifferent to modernity but openly contemptuous of it. It’s a story of state collapse, which is one of the themes of this region in our times. The forces of disintegration are weaker in Israel than they are in Lebanon, but they’re present and will win if we let them. The neighbor across the fence isn’t just a problem or a threat. Lebanon is a possible future.

Noah Rothman: Joe Biden’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ Moments

And if the United States has been made more secure by the debacle in Afghanistan, the visuals to which American audiences are being treated don’t suggest that at all. The Taliban has indicated that it will formally inaugurate its new government in Afghanistan on the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks against the U.S. The date is surely designed to humiliate the United States as much as to reinvigorate the terrorist elements that spent the last two decades evading American vengeance. In fact, many of those same terrorists will serve in the new Afghan government.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, Afghanistan’s new interior minister charged with maintaining domestic security, heads the Haqqani Network, a U.S.-designated terrorist group with close operational ties to al-Qaeda. Haqqani is wanted for his involvement in several terrorist attacks, some of which targeted and killed Americans. Mullah Yaqoob, the son of the infamous Taliban commander Mullah Omar, is in charge of the country’s defense. He oversaw the field commanders who led the insurgency against the Afghan government and is complicit in the Taliban’s atrocities against the Afghan people. Hibatullah Akhundzada, a hardline cleric who encouraged his own son to execute a suicide-bombing attack, serves as the Taliban’s supreme commander. And the country’s prime minister, Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund begins his tenure as head of state on a United Nations sanctions list.

The president insists that this iteration of the Taliban will be unable to govern Afghanistan, but they have so far ruled with an iron fist. Moreover, the administration betrays this as more hope than expectation when its members dangle the idea that the United States could one day recognize the legitimacy of a Taliban-led government. The notion that America would even contemplate acknowledging the validity of the Taliban’s ascension to power through force of arms isn’t just a moral atrocity but also an act of abject cowardice that leaves Americans at home and abroad exposed.

The reconstitution of the Taliban does not inspire confidence that the United States is in any way safer because of the Biden administration’s actions. And, if recent history is any guide, this administration will suffer political consequences as a result.

Noah Rothman: Yes, Biden blew it

Clearly, America’s vaunted capacity to disrupt and deter terrorist operations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region from bases in the Persian Gulf and without reliable intelligence in the area is a matter of some dispute.

The apparent imprecision of the intelligence that informed the planning around these strikes has not dissuaded the Pentagon from entertaining the possibility of further cooperation with the Taliban on counterterrorism issues. “As far as our dealings with them, in war, you do what you must in order to reduce risk to mission and force, not what you necessarily want to do,” Milley said in a statement that called into question just how “over” the war in Afghanistan truly is.

Whether this nascent relationship blossoms into something fruitful or not, the threats to American interests from within Afghanistan will persist. The Taliban’s reconquest of Afghanistan “is encouraging many jihadists to think about traveling to Afghanistan now instead of Syria or Iraq,” one British official told the Washington Post . “We are now back to 1998, where the Clinton administration was launching missiles at desert camps and hoping to hit something,” one Trump-era counterterrorism official said. “That wasn’t enough to prevent 9/11, and returning to that is not a recipe for success.”

Ultimately, the evacuation effort Biden took so much pride in and credit for failed in its single mission: getting American citizens, legal permanent residents, visa holders, and eligible applicants out. The Biden administration admitted to leaving only between 100 and 250 American citizens behind, though it has previously claimed that there is no way to know precisely how many Americans were in Afghanistan when Kabul fell. The number of green card holders left to the Taliban’s mercies is also unknowable, but it is estimated to be in the thousands . Many more NATO and non-NATO allies are struggling to evacuate their stranded nationals.

Even the herculean multinational effort to get as many people out of Afghanistan as possible could become an albatross around Joe Biden’s neck. Of the over 120,000 people evacuated from Kabul’s airport, only 8,500 were Afghans. “Hundreds of children were separated from their parents. Rogue flights landed without manifests,” the New York Times reported. “Security vetting of refugees was done in hours or days, rather than months or years.” U.S. officials are investigating widespread reports that Afghan children were “married ” off to able men so that both would be eligible for evacuation. And despite all this, on Sept. 1, the State Department finally conceded that the United States left behind “the majority ” of Afghans who either had visas or were eligible for them, along with their families, but languished on a waiting list. One estimate places that number at around 100,000.

So, yes. This could have gone better. From the beginning of the U.S. drawdown and at almost every haphazard step along the way, the Biden White House stumbled into disaster after disaster. And in the end, all America managed to secure were circumstances that leave Americans less safe at home, less respected abroad, and stained with the dishonor of the broken promises we made to the Afghans who foolishly trusted in the United States. There’s nothing to be proud of in that.

Identifying as an "Arab Jew" doesn't make it real

At +972, Hadar Cohen writes:

Whenever I find myself at a leftist protest against the occupation, there is always someone holding a sign that says “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies.” This phrase has become, in some ways, the bedrock of leftist ideology promoting coexistence in Israel/Palestine. But when I encounter this phrase, I immediately feel disoriented. Which side am I on? If I am on the “Jewish” side, do I lose the Arab identity within me? Can I identify as an Arab, even as I enjoy privileges as a Jewish citizen of Israel?

I identify as an Arab Jew. My family has lived in Jerusalem for over 10 generations, and my other ancestral cities include Aleppo in Syria, Baghdad in Iraq, and Shiraz in Iran, along with a small village in Kurdistan.

In our traditional Jewish home, observing our Syrian-Palestinian heritage and culture came with ease. Jewishness and Arabness fit together cohesively — there was no contradiction. But outside our home, my faith and culture clashed. The State of Israel conditioned me to see the intersection of “Jewish” and “Arab” as non-existent or impossible, even though Arab Jews have lived at this intersection for years.

She then goes on to review the racism in the early days of modern Israel against Mizrahi Jews - racism that was shameful and real enough although she exaggerates it.

Cohen leaves out a great deal in her essay, facts that are very relevant but that she doesn't want her brainwashed anti-Israel audience to know.

One is that practically no Mizrahi Jews identify as Arab. She is an anomaly. There are millions of Mizrahi Jews who are proud of their heritage that was influenced by their ancestors who lived in the Arab world, but they don' t call themselves Arab Jews. I highly doubt that her grandparents thought of themselves as Arabs. This is a construct has been created relatively recently.

As Wikipedia notes,

The term is controversial, as the vast majority of Jews with origins in Arab-majority countries do not identify as Arabs, and most Jews who lived amongst Arabs did not call themselves "Arab Jews" or view themselves as such.[17][18] In recent decades, some Jews have self-identified as Arab Jews, such as Ella Shohat, who uses the term in contrast to the Zionist establishment's categorization of Jews as either Ashkenazim or Mizrahim; the latter, she believes, have been oppressed as the Arabs have. Other Jews, such as Albert Memmi, say that Jews in Arab countries would have liked to be Arab Jews, but centuries of abuse by Arab Muslims prevented it, and now it's too late. The term is mostly used by post-Zionists and Arab nationalists.

Meaning that the term "Arab Jew" is a new construct created for political purposes, not reflective of reality.

The second fact is related: Arabs never considered Jews to be full citizens in their countries. The lives of Jews in Arab counties were sometimes better, sometimes worse, but they were never, ever considered to be equal with the Muslims. And very often throughout the centuries, Jews in Arab countries were persecuted, forced to act as subservient to their Arab masters, attacked, raped and murdered. Only recently I published a series of articles about how Jews in Muslim and Arab lands were treated in the 1800s but Arab antisemitism is a theme I have documented countless times.

So when Cohen says "Arab culture is centered on hospitality and the welcoming of strangers. We were a place of open arms, accepting travelers and refugees with love and care," she is either ignorant or lying. Arab culture is famously hospitable but it is not welcoming, and the strangers must know their place.

The third fact Cohen ignores is that Israel of today is not the Israel of the 1950s. Mizrahi culture is not only celebrated in Israel, it has become part and parcel of Israeli life today. The discrimination she mentions has all but disappeared, as tens of thousands of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews have intermarried and roughly half of Israelis now have some Mizrahi roots.

I can only find one article in newspaper archives that use the term "Arab Jews" - something the syndicated author Henry J. Taylor admits he made up himself in his 1979 column, although he wrote about Jews in Arab countries for years beforehand. without using that term. That 1979 column is a litany of how badly "Arab Jews" have been treated by their host countries:

Even though he uses the term, Taylor clearly doesn't believe that Jews had ever been considered true Arabs by the Arabs themselves.

Hadar Cohen's article is gaslighting, not factual. It isn't Israel that had created the division between Arab and Jew - but the Arabs themselves, over and over again throughout history.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has been the focus of protests in Gaza in support of the six prisoners who escaped from Gilboa Prison this week.

On Thursday, the ICRC in Gaza issued a statement on its responsibilities vis a vis Palestinian prisoners:

The ICRC works on the basis of confidential dialogue with authorities. That's why we have full access to detainees. Having access to all places of detention, being able to meet detainees, and using our confidential dialogue to advocate for their interests is our priority.
Our visits to places of detention aim at assessing the treatment of detainees and their conditions of detention with the ultimate objective of ensuring humane treatment and acceptable conditions of detention.
Following the events of this week, we continue our detention activities and visits in Israeli prisons. Our teams will continue to monitor the situation in terms of the treatment of detainees and their conditions of detention.
It is however the responsibility of the detaining authorities to ensure calm while dignity and humane treatment of the detainees are preserved.

Should detainees be transferred in the future, we will continue monitoring their treatment and conditions and engage the authorities in our bilateral dialogue if needed. We ensure families of detainees moved are informed so they can stay in touch with their loved ones.

That isn't enough for those who want to see all terrorists free to attack Jews with impunity.

Today, Islamic Jihad placed dozens of armed terrorists outside the headquarters of the ICRC in Gaza, and organized a demonstration beyond that, in an attempt to intimidate the organization to go beyond its normal areas of responsibility and to openly support the escaped terrorists.

Dozens of Al-Baha Force members of the Al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of the Islamic Jihad, were present at noon in front of the Red Cross headquarters in the Gaza Strip.

Al-Baha forces carried all their military equipment in a strong message to the international community and to the Red Cross to take urgent action to save the lives of the prisoners before it is too late.

Terrorists intimidating an international aid organization is not newsworthy, of course.

A survey by the group Alums for Campus Fairness (ACF) found that 95% of Jewish students recognize antisemitism as a problem on their campus, and three quarters of those respondents recognize it as a “very serious problem.”

It found that 46% of students personally heard offensive or threatening antisemitic comments

made in person by another student.

17% of Jewish students were physically threatened for being Jewish, and 27% more knew someone it happened to.

But what troubled me the most was that 27% of students said a faculty member or employee of their school made offensive or threatening antisemitic comments in person - and another 30% said they knew someone else who was the victim of those antisemitic comments.

Specific examples given are horrifying:

I had a professor make a horribly offensive analogy about the Holocaust. When I told her it was offensive, she gaslit me and said if I was so sensitive, I should find another career.

A professor, when discussing the Jewish Diaspora in ancient Babylonia, said that “It seems that the Jewish version of this history may be distorted to make it seem worse than it was, as unsurprisingly many Jews were wealthy while in Babylon.”

Professors often made out of hand comments that supported antisemitic conspiracy theories against Israel, such as that Israelis harvest Palestinian organs or use Palestinian children as target practice.

One time I asked my accounting professor if I could please move my exam because of religious holidays (Rosh Hashanah), he answered back by saying “do you think I should change my schedule because of you being jewish?” I answered, “No, I am just politely asking for an extension or a new date since I won’t be able to complete the exam the day you have set for it.” He didn’t hesitate and answered, “I already told you that I am not jewish and I won’t change your exam.” After this the only option left for me was to talk to the head of accountancy. So, I went on told her the situation, and without thinking twice she told me, “of course the professor should give you a new date to complete your exam because of your religious holidays, and btw jag sameaj” It turns out the head of department is Jewish and she right away let the professor know of her answer regarding the moving for my exam. I completed my exam right before Rosh Hashanah. After the jag I was eager to see what I scored on the exam. I went to class the following morning and for my surprise I had failed the exam. I asked the professor and he told me “I didn’t have time to correct your exam, and I guessed what grade you deserved.” I politely answered him back, “Ok, I understand is there any way we can sit together and go over it?” The professor eagerly answered back to me “as you changed my schedule because of your jewish holiday, I am not willing to grade your work.” I ended dropping the class and getting a 4.0 the second time I took the course, but obviously with a different professor.

I took a course on US citizenship and equity at UC Berkeley. On the first day of class the Professor went down the roster, taking roll. When he got to my name, he stopped and began asking me antisemitic questions related to economic libel and the Rothschild conspiracy theory. My last name is Rothschild so I experience this kind of antisemitism constantly, but it was unnerving being outed in class at a University that is notoriously antisemitic. I never hid my last name nor my ethnicity until I went to Cal. But in all honesty this experience was just the tip of the iceberg at Cal. I would never encourage Jews to attend UCB.
Long story but tldr. Professor was incredibly antisemitic (jews did 9/11; Jews own the media etc). Friend and I filed a 30 page report (and met with) multiple deans on his antisemitism. We received a 1.5 page letter stating that we misconstrued his comments and he did nothing wrong. Then they offered him tenure.

The survey found 79% of respondents had personally experienced an instance of antisemitism on campus in total, with the report saying Jewish students attending a state school as opposed to a more expensive private school are more likely to have been physically threatened themselves.

The survey did not mention Israel, but many students answering the open-ended part of the survey mentioned antisemitism masked as anti-Zionism along with the more traditional neo-Nazi type harassment.

09/09 Links Pt2: Give Sports Bigotry No Sanction; Hold up: 'Money Heist' actors in hot water for supporting Israel?; "Elvis' Deep Fake Rosh Hashanah Song

From Ian:

Give Sports Bigotry No Sanction

Hamid Sajjadi, Iran’s recently appointed minister of sports, warned Iranian athletes in August not to compete against counterparts from the “child-killing and occupying regime of Israel.” With the 2022 Winter Olympic games commencing just five months from now, sporting authorities must condemn and punish this discrimination.

At this year’s Olympic games, the world watched Fethi Nourine from Algeria and Mohamed Abdalrasool from Sudan forfeit their judo matches rather than risk sharing the Olympic stage with an Israeli opponent. Supported by the Palestinian Olympic Committee, Nourine and Abdalrasool demonstrated that old hatreds die hard. Meanwhile, Olympians from presumably hostile countries welcomed their Israeli peers, embodying the Olympic values of sportsmanship and mutual understanding.

The International Judo Federation (IJF) promptly suspended Nourine and his coach, and launched an investigation into the incident. In a press release, the IJF said, “Judo sport is based on a strong moral code, including respect and friendship, to foster solidarity and we will not tolerate any discrimination, as it goes against the core values and principles of our sport.” Defiant, Nourine told the Algerian press, “My position is consistent on the Palestinian issue, and I reject normalisation, and if it cost me that absence from the Olympic Games, God will compensate.”

For years, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has called upon athletes in the Arab world to boycott Israeli sports. Jibril Rajoub, the chairman of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestinian Football Association, has weaponized these sporting events to condemn what he calls the “crime of normalization.” In 2014, Rajoub declared, “Any activity of normalization in sports with the Zionist enemy is a crime against humanity.” Following Nourine’s withdrawal, Rajoub posted a photo on Facebook of the two together, and commended Nourine’s “courageous stance refusing normalization.”

Rajoub is effectively encouraging athletes to break Olympic rules, and destroy their careers in a campaign to exclude and alienate Israeli athletes. “The practice of sport is a human right,” states the Olympic Charter. “Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind.”

Rajoub even has a personal history of promoting violence against Israel.

Media Double Standard: Only Israel Is an ‘Occupier’

In other words, the BBC fully understands that Turkey’s 1974 invasion of the northern part of the island is not accepted by any other state or by the UN.

A European Parliament briefing describes the situation as follows:
…the Turkish army occupied 37% of the island’s territory. A cease-fire was declared on 18 August 1974, confirming the partition of the island. The period that followed was characterised by territorial occupation, loss of life, flight by sections of the population and destruction of the cultural heritage. In November 1983, the illegally occupied zone proclaimed itself the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ (TRNC), illegally in the eyes of the United Nations Security Council.

Moreover, since Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, the EU regards the whole of the island as “EU territory.”

Nevertheless, as is uniformly the case in BBC reporting on the topic of Cyprus, the corporation avoids the use of terms such as “occupation” and “international law” — which are equally inevitably seen in BBC coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

In articles about Cyprus, readers do not find any pronouncements pre-emptively allocating disputed territory to one side or the other — in the style of the frequently employed phrases “occupied Palestinian land” and “Palestinian territory.”

As we have noted in the past, the BBC is able to report on the long-running conflict in Cyprus in a manner which refrains from promoting a particular political narrative. That editorial policy continues to stand in sharp contrast to the corporation’s chosen framing of territorial disputes involving Israel.

Jewish UK comedian’s message that ‘Jews Don’t Count’ rings true across the pond

When David Baddiel’s latest book, “Jews Don’t Count,” was published in the UK earlier this year, he was somewhat surprised to hear some Americans buzzing with interest about it.

After all, the book, which rails against the relegation of antisemitism to a bigotry of lesser importance among many progressive activists, arose in the aftermath of the Jeremy Corbyn era of British politics, where issues of antisemitism dominated public discourse.

Now, more than six months later, Baddiel — a comedian, author, and popular British TV personality — has adapted the book for American audiences, with a new version out in the United States this week.

“Before I rewrote the book, a number of Jewish Americans had read it anyway because it was available on Kindle,” Baddiel told The Times of Israel, in a recent phone interview while vacationing in Cornwall along the British coast.

“There was interest… without me even rewriting a word of it,” he said, adding that, like their coreligionists in the UK, left-leaning Jews in the US feel “alienated.”

“Left-wing Jews tend to be allies to other minorities, [but] where are our allies?” he said.

I have not seen it in any Israeli media, but several Twitter accounts in Hebrew (and at least one in Arabic) are claiming that someone sneaked a shofar to the Temple Mount and managed to blow it.

Avri Bloch, reporter for Channel 20, says "A Shofar was sounded on the Temple Mount in the Old City. The Israeli police detained a Jew who, during the Ascent to the Temple Mount on Rosh Hashanah, blew a kosher Shofar 12 times, the minimum amount of blasts needed to be valid."

Tom Nisani, director of the "Temple Mount Is In Our Hands" organization, tweeted,

Two of the pilgrims to the Temple Mount during the holiday made the Shofar sound heard.
They have not been arrested or detained, because as long as we continue to act, the police understand that they have no legal basis.
It is amazing that despite the attempts to suppress the rights of the Jews and hide this discrimination, the Jews do not give up and continue to do and act.

Palestinian network Al Qastal has video that of Jews visiting that they claim was of the Jews who blew the shofar, followed by what might be police escorting two Jews away from the site.

انتهاكات متكررة بحق المسجد الأقصى...
قبل قليل المستوطنون نفخوا بالبوق خلال اقتحامهم لباحاته الطاهرة pic.twitter.com/GW74TLQ39r
— AlQastal القسطل (@AlQastalps) September 8, 2021

This isn't the first time this has happened. In 2018, a Jew smuggled a shofar on the Temple Mount and blew it until police arrested him.

Knesset To Truck In Bikes For Showcase On Air Quality (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

truck exhaust Jerusalem, September 9 - The Jewish holidays that bring legislative work in Israel to a standstill in late summer or early fall each year clear space in the parliament compound for other public-spirit activities and events, which in 2021 will see a large exhibition on environmentally-friendly means of conveyance and transportation, the pieces of which will require a massive output of diesel fumes and pollution from the vehicles that will deliver the equipment and remove it afterwards.

The Knesset began its holiday recess before Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish new year festival that coincided this year with September 7-8, and will continue through Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement - on the 16th, until after the eight-day Sukkot festival that runs from the 21st through the 28th. The hiatus in direct lawmaking activity has over the decades made the venue available for exhibits and public-awareness campaigns during this period; this year, organizers decided to stress the importance of ecological sensitivity, and invited both legislators and the public to attend a participatory event featuring bicycles and other non-motorized vehicles as alternatives to the fossil-fuel-run options that so many Israelis use to commute, run errands, or pursue leisure. The bicycles, scooters, and other emissionless items, along with all the pavilions, signs, booths, counters, cabinets, shelving, promotional materials, lighting fixtures, electrical equipment, and ancillary items will reach the Knesset in numerous gasoline-burning trucks, cars, and vans.

Event spokespeople stressed the importance of making the Knesset a venue for this crucial ecological message. "We have to enlist government figures and institutions in the campaign for ecologically-minded change," explained event assistant director Tzvi Ut. "I'm glad were able to snag the Knesset itself, which is so central an institution in Israel. Now we can commence the logistical and physical preparations: trucking in the hundred or so bikes, scooters, even unicycles and wind-driven experimental or novelty products, plus all the display pieces. It's a lot of materials - I think we'll need the volume equivalent to four or five semi-trailers. that doesn't include the refreshment and beverage stands that will also serve the event."

Ut emphasized the insistence on wind- and human-powered vehicles, as opposed to electric cars, scooters, or bicycles. "The embarrassing truth, for the ecologically minded, is that electric vehicles don't result in a net reduction in fossil-fuel use consumption or air pollution," he observed. "It just moves the emissions from the air around the vehicle to the air around whichever coal-, oil-, or gas-fired power plant that produces the electricity that eventually makes it into the vehicle battery. This kind of consistency and avoidance of dissonance is important for us and to the integrity of the environmental movement as a whole."

"I'm hoping we can get John Kerry to attend," he added. "It would really boost the profile of this event to attract someone who arrives via his own private jet."

09/09 Links Pt1: Enough of the Durban depravity; NZ, Cyprus to boycott Durban IV conference due to antisemitic stance; Palestinians declare ‘day of rage’ in support of prisoners

From Ian:

Elan S. Carr: Enough of the Durban depravity

Former U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. He currently serves on the advisory council of the Combat Antisemitism Movement and ai a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

The failure of the international community to condemn Durban I had very real consequences: Antisemitism was given a prestigious platform, and anti-Zionism and Israel hatred become accepted orthodoxy among certain academic schools and in large swaths of public discourse.

The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement was borne out of Durban, and the harassment and discrimination to which Jewish university students have been subjected in many parts of the United States and Europe owes its prevalence to the depravity of Durban.

Remarkably, instead of condemning what Durban I became, the United Nations continues to celebrate the event by organizing successive commemorative conferences. Later this month, the UN plans to hold a high-level meeting in New York known as Durban IV, to honor the 20th anniversary of the original conference. This is a moral outrage, and it will surely compound the damage and further driving global antisemitic narratives.

I applaud President Joe Biden for leading the United States to boycott this obscenity. Across four administrations, both Democrat and Republican, the United States has refused to participate in Durban I or any of its follow-up iterations, including the one that is forthcoming. The US understands that Durban is about antisemitism, not anti-racism, and will not abide any form of hatred towards Jews.

President Emmanuel Macron of France similarly declared his country’s boycott of the Durban commemoration, as have the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Australia, Canada, and of course, Israel. These countries are exhibiting moral leadership and are an example for the world.

All countries of goodwill must withdraw from Durban IV. With antisemitism rising across the world and attacks on Jews proliferating from Los Angeles to Berlin, the time has come for leaders of conscience to act in concert. On this matter, there is no room for neutrality. Participating in Durban IV is an endorsement of antisemitism. The time has come for all of us to say enough of the Durban depravity

. New Zealand, Cyprus to boycott Durban IV conference due to antisemitic stance

New Zealand and Cyprus will not take part in this month’s event marking 20 years since the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, which identified Israel alone as a racist state.

The conference was studded with antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiments.

“New Zealand remains strongly committed to combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Wellington said on Thursday. “Consistent with our long-standing position, New Zealand will not attend the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration conference in New York on 22 September 2021.”

Cyprus has also decided not to attend the conference, American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris said, citing a conversation he had with Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides on Monday.

Also this week, Italy and Croatia said they would not attend the conference, with the latter saying the decision was due to “the constant antisemitic attitudes and the linking of conferences to anti-Israel propaganda and the promotion of intolerance.”

Durban IV will be held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York this month.

Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, the UK and the US also plan to boycott the event. The number of countries boycotting this year’s conference, 16, is greater than the 14 which opted out of the 2011 Durban Review Conference, and the 10 that did so in 2009.

Major democracies have pulled out of Durban IV which obscenely celebrates the worst global display of antisemitism in the post-war era—the 2001 Durban Conference.

When will Belgium, Denmark, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland & others follow?

?? Petition: https://t.co/pusCImy0C3 pic.twitter.com/nGc1oUuwFx
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 9, 2021

Hey countries! Do you want to attend the @UN Durban IV conference and promote antisemitism?

Countries:
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— The Mossad: The Social Media Account (@TheMossadIL) September 9, 2021