Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, November 04, 2021

11/04 Links Pt2: An etrog, a lion and all the secrets of 1,300-year-old mosaic in Jericho; The time for Israeli hasbara is now; The Ethiopian Jewish holiday Sigd belongs on all Jews’ calendar

From Ian:

How Israel Shaped Ruth Mayer And Her Hope For Her Homeland’s Future

Mayer got married in 1958 to her late husband, Arye, who immigrated to Israel at eight years old from Romania. Pogroms forced Arye's family out of their home.

"They left their home with only two suitcases, and they were forced to leave on the side roads, and they were walking for days and days without food or water," Mayer said. "And then the Red Cross was taking orphan kids away from the war zone. So his parents declared that they were not their kids; they found them. So the kids went with the Red Cross."

"They never knew if they would ever see their parents again."

The Red Cross put Arye and his brother on a boat to the British Mandate for Palestine. But they were turned away. (In 1939, Britain began limiting immigration to Palestine following the 1936-39 Palestine Revolt against the British Mandate for the increase of Jewish immigration as Hitler rose to power.)

According to Mayer, Arye's ship went to Italy, where he and his brother boarded another boat that went back to Palestine, and this time, they were allowed to enter the region. They were adopted by a man from a Kibbutz (a communal settlement in Israel, typically a farm) near Jerusalem.

Arye and his brother served Israel as soldiers, volunteering for the Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 to 1948. (The Haganah turned into the Israeli Defense Forces or IDF.)

"The first war that he served in, he was 15-years-old, so we are talking 1945 (before Israel's independence). There was an unorganized war, and it was a brutal battle," Mayer said. "He and his brother lied about their age."

"But he served in 73 in the Yom Kippur war and the Sinai war."

Eventually, Mayer, Arye, and their three daughters relocated to the United States after their youngest, who has a disability, was born. And they've remained here since. However, Mayer's brother and family still reside in Israel, in Tel Aviv, close to where missiles are often fired. So when an escalation between Israel and Hamas occurs, like the latest in May, she fears for her family's safety.

Mayer says she loves Israel because it saved her family and many other Jewish families. But she's tired of the bloodshed and fighting between Israelis and Palestinians.

"The Jewish and Israeli people, they love Israel, and they cherish Israel. I know how I feel. I miss it terribly. I feel like I know what it means to be homesick," she said.

"I do hope for peace between Israelis and Palestinians."

Am I a Jew? Australian? Both? - opinion

There is a gap between the role of the rabbi in Israel and the Diaspora. On the whole, the Israeli rabbi is more of a Talmudist and teacher and less of a mentor and minister. The Diaspora rabbi tends to be a professional, concentrating more on people skills, ministering to a congregation and representing Judaism to the host society.

I was an incarnation of the second concept. Forty-five years in Diaspora pulpits molded me into an ecclesiastic and ambassador. Commencing my career in the United Synagogue in London, I spent 32 years in Sydney as chief minister of the Great Synagogue. Early on, I had a meeting with the synagogue’s Board concerning the role of the rabbi. I said I seemed to have two full-time jobs – congregational minister and community ambassador. I felt I was competent to do either and asked the board what they preferred. Rather pragmatically, they said: “Both!”

So “both” it remained. I know I wasn’t the perfect rabbi: nobody was or could be. But somehow the combination of roles evolved over the years by previous rabbis (not always in consultation with the lay leaders) seemed to work, and that’s the way things were and remain. Occasionally I asked myself a philosophical question: when I got involved in matters of national debate was it as a Jew or an Australian? Once again the pragmatic answer was “both!”

The question actually arose constantly. Interviewed on TV in the 1990s (billed as “one of twenty leading Australians”) about the future of the British monarchy in Australia, did I speak as a Jew or an Australian? When I spoke at the national Sea of Hands event at Bondi Beach to advocate reconciliation with (and an apology to) the Aboriginals, was I there as a Jew or an Australian? When I helped the Uniting Church to get its first female military chaplain, was my involvement as a Jew or an Australian? At times I stood up for the Muslim, Chinese and Roman Catholic communities; I addressed conferences of politicians, judges, journalists, nurses, naval chaplains, teachers and child care workers. What was I – a Jew? an Australian? I addressed large audiences on national occasions like Anzac Day and Australia Day – as a Jew? as an Australian? I can’t be sure, but I think the answer was “both!”

The extinction of Jewish heritage in northern Cyprus

Historically, large Jewish population groups lived across coastal towns in Cyprus such as ancient Salamis in the city of Famagusta, which is today under Turkish occupation. Sadly, the invasion campaign has brought widespread destruction to all non-Muslim Cypriot historic sites.

To this day, the occupying forces continue to plunder and destroy the Cypriot cultural heritage, including the Jewish heritage of the occupied area. The Jewish cemetery there, for instance, has been destroyed. According to the 2012 report "The Loss of A Civilization: Destruction of cultural heritage in occupied Cyprus,"

“The historic Margo Jewish Cemetery, a national monument for the Jewish people, southeast of Nicosia, has been desecrated and destroyed in the same way as Christian cemeteries in the area occupied by Turkish troops have been desecrated and destroyed.

“The Margo Jewish Cemetery is home to the graves of Jews of the diaspora of 1885 and of Jewish refugees who came to Cyprus after the Second World War.

“The cemetery is located in a strictly controlled military area and is guarded by an armed Turkish soldier. Jewish organisations and other groups have persistently petitioned for free access to the cemetery to conduct religious ceremonies, but these requests have not been granted by the occupying power and its puppet regime.”

“We have visited the cemetery several times,” Philippou confirms. “But we haven't been able to hold any religious ceremonies, just a quick visit under supervision. We would like to have it restored, but no permission was given thus far.”

See a video of the destroyed Jewish cemetery in the Turkish-occupied part of Nicosia here.

Cypriot-Dutch author, cultural campaigner and activist Tasoula Hadjitofi became a refugee at age 15 when Turkish troops invaded Famagusta, the city of her birth, in 1974. For several decades, she has collected artefacts and other symbols of cultural heritage that has been looted and stolen to bring them back home to Cyprus. Referring to the liberation of prisoners from Nazi concentration camps in 1945, Hadjitofi said:

"Cypriots fought alongside the allies as British troops during the liberation of the Jews and other prisoners, for Cyprus was then a British colony. There are no poppies for those heroes on Holocaust Memorial Day in the United Kingdom or in Cyprus and little is known anywhere about them. Most of these forgotten heroes died quietly and took with them so many untold stories. Perhaps a handful are still around? Their stories must be told and their courage must be honored."

"The historical ties are strong between Israel and Cyprus," added Hadjitofi. "I do hope that our Jewish brothers and sisters worldwide are watching attentively the Islamisation of northern Cyprus by Turkey, as well as the destruction of the Christian and Jewish sites in the occupied area. And for the sake of our shared heritage, historical and current struggles for freedom, as well as fundamental principles, they must do their best to stop them."

Palestine Activists Disappointed: Upcoming Kristallnacht Observance Not A Reenactment (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

burning house Toronto, November 4 - Students and community figures devoted to fighting Zionism and anyone associated with the movement voiced a sense of letdown today upon discovering that this week's anniversary of a 1938 pogrom throughout the Third Reich against Jews, Jewish institutions, and Jewish-owned businesses involves commemoration in a subdued, somber manner, and not, as they had assumed, an occasion to try it again.

Abu Bakr Jabareen, a spokesman for the Free Palestine Coalition at area university campuses and mosques, informed a shocked group of activists that their planned regimen of beatings, lynching, arson, vandalism, and violence targeting Jews, synagogues, Jewish schools, Jewish-owned shops and offices, and other identifiable elements of Jewry, will not in fact take place, because it turns out Kristallnacht has a mournful and didactic character, not a celebratory one.

"We're all disappointed," acknowledged Jabareen, addressing volunteers from Students for Justice in Palestine, If Not Now, Jewish Voice for Peace, and assorted organizations advocating BDS. "I, too, thought that Kristallnacht called for what we've always envisioned we could do if we made the political decisions. But I found out just now that our reenactment of justice against suspected Zionist targets and those who condone them might be illegal. We could get in trouble if we hold it as planned."

The activists decried the discovery. "That's just not fair," declared Louise Hoffman of If Not Now. "How much says Zionists slandered us to the police, who will now be expecting us to go rioting and looting, when in fact we'll be doing something that to the untrained eye might look like rioting and looting, but is actually fighting for justice for Palestinians? What a cynical Zionist ploy."

"Now what are we going to do with all this gear?" wondered Yusef Najjar of SJP. "I can't very well go burning down the Hillel on campus now, or any of the synagogues in the area, much as I want to express my identity and sense of justice."

"But that's not really what the disappointment is about, I guess," he sighed. "Anti-Zionism has long been more about making Jews feel insecure everywhere because they have the temerity to want to feel secure in a place of their own, where dominant cultures dictate whether Jews will be safe, let alone prosperous. Obviously that's not acceptable - it goes against everything we've always known to be true. I hope I'm not to old to enjoy the day when that truth reemerges and we can go kick some Jews to make ourselves feel better. I think today's youth are so troubled precisely because they don't have the reassurance that no matter how bad things are for them, at least they're not as lowly as the Jew. We need that back."

Judaizing Jerusalem (poster)

This poster pretty much went viral on Twitter.

11/04 Links Pt1: Palestinians Admit: Only Destroying Israel Will Bring Peace; Israel cannot allow terrorism financing under guise of humanitarian aid

From Ian:

Palestinians Admit: Only Destroying Israel Will Bring Peace

As Palestinian Media Watch has shown, every year the PA and its institutions mark November 2nd with a comprehensive diatribe against the Balfour Declaration.

This year, PA Chairman and President Mahmoud Abbas issued a new “presidential decree,” ordering that the “national flag” be flown at half-mast on all the PA governmental buildings, including embassies and representative offices abroad.

According to the official PA news agency Wafa, the aim of lowering the flag is to remind “the world in general and the United Kingdom in particular of the suffering of the Palestinian people and their rights to achieve independence, statehood and self-determination.” Last year, the PA courts held a trial against the UK government demanding that it be held accountable for the declaration and its consequences.

Unsurprisingly, the PA never mentions that prior to 1917, much of the Middle East and other regions were part of the Ottoman/Turkish Empire for 400 years. They never mention that an independent “State of Palestine” never existed. They similarly do not mention that the Balfour Declaration was not merely a British whim, but rather a decision adopted and ratified by the international community at the San Remo Conference in 1920.

The PA also never mentions that the Balfour Declaration was then adopted by the League of Nations in the 1922 Mandate for Palestine. At that time, “Palestine” included both Israel (including Judea and Samaria) and Jordan.

While pretending that Israel only has to withdraw to the 1967 borders to achieve peace, the reality is that every day, the PA further intensifies the anti-Israel propaganda and brainwashing of the Palestinian population. For the PA, only the cancellation of the Balfour Declaration and the undoing of its consequences — i.e. destroying Israel — will suffice.

JCPA: The Palestinian Authority: President Biden's Promises Are a Mirage

The PA is disappointed that the administration is delaying the reopening of the American consulate in Jerusalem and does not accept the claim that this requires the consent of the Israeli government. PA sources claim that according to the law and UN Resolution 181, Jerusalem is international territory and the status of its diplomatic missions has not changed. Therefore, reopening the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem only requires the political will of the Biden administration.

Regarding the renewal of U.S. civilian financial aid to the PA which was stopped by the Trump administration, it claims that its hands are tied because of the Taylor Force Act, which prohibits any financial support to the PA as long as it continues to pay monthly salaries to terrorists and their families.

U.S. sources claim that to unfreeze the “Taylor Force” restrictions, President Biden needs to persuade Congress and invoke a clause in the U.S. Constitution that states that foreign relations are under the president’s authority. This claim has been made throughout the last century with little success, since the Constitution gives Congress the power to approve or block appropriations.

Again, this is a sensitive political issue that could provoke great opposition from Israel and its supporters in the United States. According to PA officials, several members of Congress who met in July with the PA Chairman and Hussein al-Sheikh, the minister of civil affairs, demanded that the allowances to terrorists and their families be converted to a social benefit unrelated to the number of years the terrorists sat in Israeli prisons. The Members of Congress also urged the PA to stop all its activities against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is not interested in a diplomatic falling-out with the Biden administration. He knows that he cannot get anything better at the moment, so he is trying to bypass the administration by appealing to Russia to reinvigorate the Quartet to secure its political goals.

It is highly doubtful that his efforts will succeed, but he is trying to show that he is doing everything possible to break the impasse in the political process. The PA is in a severe financial crisis. There are insane price increases in the West Bank markets, popular anger is growing, and no Arab country is willing to come to the PA’s rescue financially. Mahmoud Abbas is urgently seeking an achievement.

@StateDeptSpox sent out the "Department Press Briefing - November 03, 2021" with an "ARTICLE INDEX" listing "~ISRAEL/PALESTINE~" Below is the screen shot and the link - https://t.co/YelQU3qJL1

This is concerning and wrong. Is it a change in policy or typo? Serious question. pic.twitter.com/7bFPFDR6uY
— David Milstein (@davidamilstein) November 4, 2021

'Israel cannot allow terrorism financing under guise of humanitarian aid'

Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan responded on Monday to two letters sent by the Palestinian Authority to the UN protesting Defense Minister Benny Gantz's recent designation of six Palestinian organizations as terrorist entities.

Erdan pointed to the hypocrisy of UN members for not enforcing their own Security Council Resolution 2129 of 2013, which affirms the rights of member states to prosecute and penalize the financing, direct or indirect, of terror groups and their activities.

In a detailed letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Erdan outlined the reasons why those organizations were outlawed by Israel as, through money laundering and other tactics, they provided a lifeline for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union, Australia, Canada, Japan, and Israel.

The PFLP, wrote Erdan, pioneered terrorist attacks in the 1960s and 1970s through armed airplane hijackings, and through the half-century continued to murder civilians, children, and students in bloody terrorist attacks and bombings.

After extensive investigations by Israeli authorities, the six organizations were found to have contributed to the PFLP by raising funds from foreign donors by disguising themselves as human rights and civil society organizations. These organizations also employed and provided consistent salaries to individuals who openly declared being PFLP operatives and allowed the PFLP to use its facilities as safe-havens.

Several of the operatives were found to have actively participated in plotting and executing attacks against Israeli civilians.

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinian Authority Campaign Against Palestinian NGOs

The six Palestinian NGOs were classified by Israel as terrorist organizations because of their affiliation with the PLO's Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by both the United States and the European Union.

The PFLP, which has carried out many attacks against Israelis, including civilians, is one of 11 groups that form the PLO, headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Each group receives monthly allocations of up to $70,000 from the PLO's unofficial finance ministry.

Yet while Israel has come under attack for its move against the six NGOs, there is almost no mention that the Palestinian Authority (PA), which joined the bandwagon of anti-Israel criticism, has also been targeting Palestinian NGOs for quite some time.

[T]he PA has been targeting hundreds of Palestinian NGOs... as part of an effort to control them and take their funds. Unlike Israel, the PA is not targeting the NGOs because of their affiliation with terrorism. Many of the NGOs have been critical of the PA leadership: that is why Abbas wants to silence them.

Al-Haq, one of the six organizations labeled by Israel as a terrorist organization... pointed out that this was not the first time the PA leadership had targeted Palestinian NGOs.

When Al-Haq complained about the PA decree targeting Palestinian NGOs, the mainstream media in the West, as well as several human rights organizations self-righteously chose to look the other way.... The international community did not demand clarifications from the PA leadership about his "assault" on Palestinian NGOs.

Palestinian legal expert Majed al-Arouri.... said that more than 20,000 Palestinian employees would lose their jobs as a result of the restrictions imposed by the PA on the work of Palestinian NGOs and charitable organizations.

As far as many in the international community are concerned, it is fine if Abbas takes punitive measures against the PFLP, but it is outrageous if Israel does it.

Those who are ignoring Abbas's crackdown on the Palestinian NGOs are depriving the Palestinians of democracy and freedom of speech.

The international community's obsession with Israel... proves that it is more interested in condemning and delegitimizing Israel than improving the status of human rights and democracy under the PA.

From the BBC:

Europe's top human rights organisation has pulled posters from a campaign that promoted respect for Muslim women who choose to wear headscarves after provoking opposition in France.

The Council of Europe released the images last week for a campaign against anti-Muslim discrimination.

A slogan on one advert read: "Beauty is in diversity as freedom is in hijab".

Several prominent French politicians condemned the message and argued the hijab did not represent freedom.

But some Muslim women who wear headscarves said the reaction showed a lack of respect for diversity and the right to choose what to wear in France.

France's youth minister, Sarah El Haïry, ... suggested the poster had encouraged women to wear headscarves. She said this message jarred with the secular values of France, which had expressed its disapproval of the campaign.

It would be obvious to say that Israel is more tolerant than France, since France bans women wearing the hijab in many circumstances and Israel never does.

However, this is a story about Europe altogether.

One cannot even imagine such a campaign in Israel - because Jews don't discriminate against women in hijabs to begin with! Married religious Jewish women cover their hair, too. Muslim women with hijabs walk freely in Israel alongside Jews in restaurants, malls and cafes.

Israel is truly diverse. A tolerance campaign like this one would be met with puzzlement.

Europe, on the other hand, needs diversity campaigns because Europeans are bigoted. While I disagree with the messaging that hijab means freedom - it emphatically does not - any campaign to accept Muslims as normal members of society implies that many Europeans do not think that way today.

Which is why when the international community accuses Israelis of racism or ethnic discrimination, they are just falsely applying the hate in their own societies to Israel.

Israeli Jews hate terrorists. They hate those who want to kill them or throw them into the sea. But they don't hate Muslims or Christians or Baha'i.

The people who accuse them of such are far more bigoted than the Jews they label as racist.

The New York Times has announced that the newspaper has a new correspondent in Israel, Raja Abdulrahim:

Delighted to announce that @RajaAbdulrahim is joining the @nytimes Jerusalem Bureau where she will roam widely, writing about Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, with a special focus on Palestinian affairs.
— Michael Slackman (@meslackman) November 3, 2021

There is definitely justification for hiring a native Arabic-speaking journalist to add to the coverage of the region. However, newspapers should at least pretend to choose journalists who are objective.

Abdulrahim is not one of them. Not one of her tweets that mention Israel is positive about the country.

She regards Gaza as "little more than an open-air prison:"

She casts the IDF as immoral for having the same primary goal of every single army in the world - to protect its country's citizens:

She fully accepts the lie that Jews cast every critic of Israel as antisemites, ignoring (in this case) Marc Lamont Hill's antisemitism and support for Palestinian terrorism, as she implies that CNN is a Jewish pawn:

She doesn't think the UN is anti-Israel enough.

She believes that despite tens of thousands of anti-Israel articles attacking Israel, all critics of Israel (including herself) are being "silenced."

Abdulrahim gleefully embraces the "apartheid" slur:

The existence of a pro-Israel lobby is terribly unhealthy. But only the pro-Israel lobby - the only lobby in America she has ever mentioned.

One word Raja has never tweeted: "Hamas."

To her, there is no conflict, only unending oppression by a powerful Jewish state against innocent, unarmed Palestinians who have never done anything bad.

Raja Abdulrahim cannot be considered objective by any definition. Her own social media posts on the topic are far more than biased - they are completely one-sided against Israel.

The New York Times chose her not in spite of her bias but because of it.

What will Abdulrahim's reporting look like? This quote from an organization for Arab journalists indicate that she will enthusiastically interview Palestinians (as if they have been ignored.)

The guidelines that she extols for journalists to follow are explicitly anti-Israel. They include:

All reporting should take into consideration that Israel occupies Palestinian territory, and that Palestinians — whether they live in the West Bank, Gaza or inside Israel — are subject to an unjust and unequal system...

Avoid “both sides” framing. Recognize the power imbalance between Israel and the Palestinian people.

Do not call Gaza “Hamas-controlled.” It is sufficient to say “Gaza,” or “Gaza’s Health Ministry,” for example.

Replace “eviction” and “real-estate dispute” with “forced removal.” The terms “eviction” and “real-estate dispute” suggest a disagreement between a landlord and tenant, obscuring the Israeli government’s efforts to forcibly displace Jerusalem’s Palestinian population.

Be cognizant of how you’re identifying Palestinians. Do not use the identifiers “Arab-Israeli” or “Israeli-Arab,” unless requested by the individuals described. Instead use “Palestinian citizen of Israel” if that applies, or “Palestinian.”

This reporter is embracing guidelines that explicitly instruct journalists to be biased against Israel in every story, using inaccurate language. They are to push a narrative, not to seek out objective facts. They telling Arab reporters to exclude any Israeli or Jewish perspectives. And they tell them not to even mention Hamas or Palestinian terror - ever.

Judging from Abdulrahim's tweets, she internalized these guidelines before they were written. And this is the kind of slanted, one-sided reporting we can expect from her in Israel.

(h/t YMedad)

UPDATE: She actually denied that Hamas and Hezbollah were terror organizations, and that they murdered Israeli civilians - during the second intifada.

UPDATE 2: See CAMERA's 2011 article about her.

To the Jew-hating UN (and Ken Roth,) Jews are "aliens" in their historic lands

Human Rights Watch chief Ken Roth tweeted an article he loved:

They "experts" are Michael Lynk, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory, and Balakrishnan Rajagopal, UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing.

Let's see what the "experts" said that so impressed Roth.

“The very raison d’être of the Israeli settlements in occupied territory – the creation of demographic facts on the ground to solidify a permanent presence, a consolidation of alien political control and an unlawful claim of sovereignty – tramples upon the fundamental precepts of humanitarian and human rights law,” the experts said.

They said there are now close to 700,000 Israeli settlers living in illegal settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. “The Israeli settlements are the engine of the occupation,” the experts said. “They are responsible for a wide range of human rights violations against the Palestinians, including land confiscation, resource alienation, severe restrictions on freedom of movement, mounting settler violence, and racial and ethnic discrimination.

“Most seriously, the purpose of settler implantation – rupturing the relationship between a native people and its territory – is the denial of the right to self-determination, which is at the very core of modern human rights law.”

Alien political control? Even if you consider the territories occupied, it is the job of the occupier to maintain political control over the area! Let alone the fact that Jews were in the Land before anyone heard of Palestinians or Muslims.

Settlements - groups of buildings! - are responsible for human rights violations?

Those buildings are responsible for "racial and ethnic discrimination?" Are Palestinians a different race than Jews?

Finally, these "experts" are claiming that Jewish settlers who want to live in their ancestral homeland really don't want to live there. No, their entire purpose is to "rupture the relationship between a native people and its territory." Yes, they move to these villages and towns because they hate Palestinians.

Here is an example where the people who spout off such nonsense would deny all day that they are antisemitic. But listen to what they are saying: Jews have no historic, emotional or legal ties to the land of the Torah. Not only that, but the only purpose of their wanting to live in the Biblical towns of Bet El, Shiloh, Kiryat Arba/Hebron and others is because they want to hurt Arabs. That is how hateful these Jews are - according to "UN experts."

Denying Jewish history is antisemitism. Denying a Jewish link to the land that Jews have prayed to return to for 2000 years is antisemitism. Ascribing evil motives to Jews that have no basis in reality is antisemitism.

The UN should apologize to all Jews for this sickening display of hate. But it is so ingrained in the mentality of the modern antisemites that they cannot even see it.

A Drastic Proposal (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

In my morning paper there is a discussion of the home front defense drill that will be taking place today, simulating an all-out war with Hamas and Hezbollah. Warning sirens will be activated in various places, and note will be taken of whether schoolchildren and others are able to reach shelter in time. My personal situation is good compared to that of most Israelis; there is a shelter on every floor of the apartment building I live in, and we get about a minute’s warning of rockets from Gaza (flight time is 90 seconds). Rockets from Hezbollah will take a bit longer.

Unfortunately, only about 42% of Israelis (according to my newspaper) have shelters in their homes. That means that they can’t possibly make it to the nearest public shelter in time, so they end up spending long hours or even days in them when there are rocket attacks. Or they depend on the somewhat dubious protection of stairwells. Even a shelter in the basement of a multistory building takes too much time to reach.

Iron Dome and other antimissile systems have provided good protection during the small conflicts that we’ve had in recent years, but in a war with Hezbollah, which is said to have some 130,000 rockets aimed at all parts of Israel, including some dozens of rockets with precise guidance systems that will be targeted at airbases, power stations, fuel depots, and other critical infrastructure, there will not be enough systems to protect most civilians.

There is money budgeted to fix this, but nowhere near enough, and the process is slow and (of course) bogged down by bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, the prospect of a conflict with Iran draws ever more likely as the Iranian regime plays for time with the Western powers. Unless something unexpected happens, like a revolution in Iran, the moment is near when Israel will have to decide: do we permit Iran to become a nuclear power or will we go to war? There is no third option.

War with Iran will involve Hezbollah, which has no other reason for existing. It will certainly trigger Hamas, and the other terror providers in Gaza. It will probably include missile and drone attacks on Israel from the territory of Syria and Iraq, and possibly directly from Iran. Estimates are of more than 1,000 rockets per day; the worst damage will be to border communities, which are in range of Hezbollah’s massive mortars. There will be ground incursions in the north, to try to overrun military installations and civilian communities, kill people and take hostages. We can expect a wave of terrorism from Judea and Samaria, and perhaps even the participation of Palestinian Authority “security” forces. Finally, terrorists among Israel’s Arab citizens will certainly join in, as they did in the last small war with Gaza.

Such a war would extremely traumatic for Israel’s home front, maybe worse than any of her previous wars. Nobody would be safe, and the country would not be the same afterwards, even if we win.

At the same time, war, no matter how it starts, would be portrayed in the international media as a vicious attack by Israel on helpless Lebanese, Gazans, and others. The international anti-Israel conspiracy – there is no other expression that adequately describes the coalition of organizations dedicated to the extirpation of the Jewish state from the world – will launch a coordinated antisemitic campaign throughout the world. This isn’t speculation: we’ve seen it in action every time Israel has acted to defend herself against rocket attacks from Gaza. The objective will be to pressure the international community to prevent an Israeli victory and allow our enemies to prepare for the next round.

I expect that the Biden Administration, like that of Barack Obama, will try to embargo shipments of essential weapons and ammunition to Israel. I believe that the overall climate in the administration and Congress is more anti-Israel today than in the days of Obama, although they have tried to avoid direct public confrontations so far.

What, then, is the best strategy for Israel in this situation?

Can we avoid war by appeasement? We can only delay it. The Iranian leaders do not want a conventional war at this time; the regime prefers to wait until it has prepared its nuclear shield. Once it is in place, it can unleash Hezbollah against Israel while deterring us from retaliating directly against them.

But even without war, a nuclear Iran would be disastrous for Israel. Iran would proceed to establish a sphere of influence over the entire region. It would gain economic and political power. The regime could demand concessions from Israel – a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem, prisoner releases, withdrawal from all or part of Judea and Samaria, an airport in Gaza – and Israel, without allies, would be forced to comply. Each time, the alternative would be war; conventional war, but backed by a nuclear threat.

Little by little our sovereignty would evaporate, foreign investment and trade would dry up, Israelis with foreign passports would leave – and then there would be more demands. It would not be as dramatic as nuclear bombs on Tel Aviv, but just as final.

Israel needs to act soon, and with overwhelming force, against both Iran and Hezbollah simultaneously, in order to prevent massive damage on our home front. Their military capabilities and leadership must be destroyed, and very quickly, before they can strike back and before the US and Europe can intervene. I am talking about a few days, not weeks. It might be that the only way to do that is with unconventional weapons. We need to be prepared to use them.

I understand that this is a drastic proposal. Do you have a better one?

11/03 Links Pt2: The ‘indigenous Palestinians’ lie; Col. Kemp: 'From the River to the Sea': Hamas Explains What British Students Want; You can’t be an activist if you’re Jewish

From Ian:

The ‘indigenous Palestinians’ lie

The latest outrage was committed by the Washington, D.C., branch of a national climate action group, Sunrise DC, which bowed out of a voting rights rally because a “number of Zionist organizations” would be taking part. “Given our commitment to racial justice, self-governance and indigenous sovereignty, we oppose Zionism and any state that enforces its ideology,” Sunrise DC said in a statement.

You may want to read that statement again to fully comprehend its absurdity. Sunrise DC opposes Zionism, the nationalist movement for the reestablishment and support of the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland, because of the group’s commitment to “self-governance and indigenous sovereignty.”

Zionism is the ultimate act of self-governance and indigenous sovereignty. Only the Jewish people can make such a claim about their connection to their homeland in the Middle East.
In other words, all peoples—including ethnic successors of colonizers—are welcome to self-governance and indigenous sovereignty … except Jews.
• According to Amnesty International, an indigenous people has (among other things):
• A historical link with those who inhabited a region at the time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived;
• Distinct social, economic or political systems;
• Distinct language, culture and beliefs;
• Been marginalized and discriminated against by newcomers;
• Maintained and developed their ancestral environments as distinct people.

The Jews of Israel possess all of these characteristics. The Palestinians have none.

The Jewish people are the oldest surviving civilization—by thousands of years—with ties to the land of Israel. Jews have their own laws, religion, language and culture. The Palestinian Arabs do not have any of those.

The Jewish people held sovereignty in the Land of Israel on multiple occasions in history, only to be conquered, occupied, oppressed and then violently expelled—or to be more precise, ethnically cleansed. Whether in Christian Europe or Muslim Asia and Africa, and even in their own homeland, Jews were a subjugated people, constantly harassed and reminded that they did not belong.

Yet even during the darkest moments of their exile, they never lost hope in a return to their homeland, and kept alive their distinct language and culture—firmly rooted in the territory that is today the State of Israel.

By all rights, such a people, who seized the opportunity to return home, liberated the territory from those who had occupied it with foreign settlers—buttressed and supported by imperial and colonial powers like the Arabs, Ottomans and Great Britain—should be the darlings of all who support “self-governance and indigenous sovereignty.”

Vic Rosenthal: Understanding Israel-Hatred

The state of Israel has been in existence only for 73 years. The Zionist project has been around for somewhat longer, beginning in the 19th century. Since 1860, some 116,000 Jews and Arabs have lost their lives in wars, terrorism, and pogroms related to Arab-Jewish conflict in Eretz Yisrael. In the annals of recent human bloodshed, this doesn’t move the needle; in the Congo Wars of 1996-2001 and the genocides that immediately preceded and followed them, as many as 5.4 million were killed. The Syrian Civil War, still under way, has claimed 500-600,000 victims. And yet, more concentrated diplomatic and media activity surrounds our conflict than any other since the Cold War. Why are we special?

Israel is regularly accused of genocide. According to the UN, her alleged victims, the Arabs of Judea/Samaria/Gaza and eastern Jerusalem, who were about 1.1 million in 1970, now number at 5.2 million. Genocide? Even if this figure is exaggerated, the accusation is simply crazy. Advertisement

Israel is regularly accused of apartheid, although Israeli Arab and Jewish citizens have equal rights, both de jure and de facto. There are no segregated facilities, no separate beaches, restrooms, or lunch counters (although Jews are forbidden to drink from water faucets on the Temple Mount). The Arabs in the disputed territories, by internationally recognized agreements, are citizens of the Palestinian Authority, and insofar as the PA holds elections, can vote in them. The historical phenomenon of apartheid bears no resemblance to anything found in Israel or the territories, despite the attempts of anti-Israel groups to torture definitions to make it so.

In the few decades of her existence the modern State of Israel has been attacked by soldiers of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia; other belligerents include Hezbollah, Hamas, the PLO and numerous other terrorist groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). She has been bombarded by missiles, rockets, mortar shells, balloons, and drones from Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and Iraq. She has been infiltrated by terrorists countless times, including by means of rubber boats and hang gliders. She is currently the target of threats to annihilate her from Iran, which has provided large amounts of money and weapons to proxies in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, and which is developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Iranian leaders have referred to Israel as a “cancer” that must be eliminated from the world. I don’t think there is any other nation in recent history that has its very existence questioned in a similar way.

Hamas, which took control of Gaza in a coup against the Palestinian Authority in 2007, two years after every last Israeli soldier or civilian left the strip, precipitates periodic wars against Israel while waging a continuous terror campaign against residents of southern Israel. Gaza receives millions in aid from the UN and the EU, along with large amounts of cash from Qatar, supposedly for humanitarian purposes. Hamas uses it to prepare for the next war, and to make its kleptocratic leaders fabulously rich, while the rest of the population suffers. But Israel is blamed for “occupying” Gaza and impoverishing its people.

Richard Kemp: 'From the River to the Sea': Hamas Explains What British Students Want

This conference flies in the face of the gullible optimists who have suggested the terror group has somehow softened its stance on Israel. That narrative has been especially prevalent since the issuance of a political statement in 2017 that was designed to improve Hamas's image by hoodwinking Westerners into thinking that the organization had reformed. While some pretend otherwise, this document did not supersede or amend Hamas's 1988 charter which is explicit: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it."

The 2017 document re-affirmed: "Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea", to be achieved by "armed resistance".

The 1988 charter also calls for the murder of Jews across the world, naked Jew-hate that was conveniently dropped from the 2017 statement. But in 2019, senior Hamas politburo member Fathi Hammad reiterated: "You have Jews everywhere and we must attack every Jew on the globe by way of slaughter and killing."

Those arguing that the Palestinian Authority has a different agenda from Hamas are wrong. Despite extensive subterfuge for the consumption of the international community, including implausible claims of support for a two-state solution, the PA shares the same "river to the sea" doctrine for the destruction of Israel that British university students find so attractive.

[W]hen students and others call for "Palestine" to be free "from the river to the sea", it is this fantasy that they embrace: Jews massacred, expelled, enslaved, hunted down or allowed a precarious subsistence as second class citizens in a repressive Islamic state.

Most recently, last week, more than 500 academics signed a petition attacking Glasgow University in Scotland for apologising over an antisemitic article published in a journal on the university website. Their concern was not the blatant antisemitism in the article but the fact that the university apologised for it.

In an era where opposition to racism and discrimination against all other peoples is rightly at the top of university authorities' and students unions' priorities, why does this not apply to Jews? Why are Jews the exception? Calls for the violent erasure of the one and only Jewish state is not only tolerated, it is actively encouraged by some professors, faculty bodies and students' union leaders. This causes many Jewish students to apply only to the few universities which are known to be less intolerant. It is time for university authorities to put a stop to these vicious demonstrations of antisemitic hate, and if they fail to do so, for the government to start cutting their funds

Kugel Yerushalmi (AKA Yerushalmi Kugel or Jerusalem Kugel)* is a strange dish for the uninitiated. It’s a kugel, but unlike a crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside potato kugel, it’s not strictly savory, and unlike a rich dairy noodle kugel, it’s not creamy and sweet with raisins and/or fruit peeking out from among broad egg noodles. Those other kugels were invented in Europe. But Kugel Yerushalmi was born in Jerusalem.

From the Jewish Exponent:

It all started in Lithuania. A wave of disciples of the Vilna Gaon arrived in the Holy Land in 1808, led by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov. Although they first went to Tiberias, they later relocated to Tzfat, where they fostered warm relationships with the local Sephardic community. A second and third wave of students came to Israel in 1809, and purchased agricultural land.
But a plague broke out in 1812 in Tzfat, forcing many Jews to flee to Jerusalem. The refugees succeeded in renewing the Ashkenazi presence in Jerusalem after nearly 100 years of banishment by local Arabs. And they made Yerushalmi kugel.
They couldn't afford raisins, the story goes, so they browned sugar to make their kugels look dark. There is also a legend that local Jews of Polish descent preferred sweet kugels, while the Litvaks (Lithuanian Jews) opted for savory ones — hence the combination. I cannot vouch for the veracity of either of these stories.

Kugel Yerushalmi lore aside, it is a popular hobby these days to accuse Israeli Jews of stealing or appropriating Arab or “Palestinian” food. Just how popular is this cute little propaganda concept? I consulted Google. As it turns out, “stealing” is the preferred term of those frantically searching Google for “facts” with which they might demonize the ~~Jews~~ Zionists.

Here are the different search parameters I tried, with the approximate number of search results yielded by each:

· *israeli appropriation of arab food* (6,360,000 results)

· *jews stealing arab food* (11,600,000 results)

· *israel stealing palestinian food* (12,200,000 results)

· *israel stealing arab food* (13,400,000 results)

· *israelis stealing arab food* (15,000,000 results)

Not that the accusations of ~~nefarious Jewish~~ food thievery are true. An opinion piece for Haaretz by Mor Altshuler, gives us the, er, skinny:

Couscous was known thousands of years ago as the “grain offering” that was sacrificed in the Temple in Jerusalem: “And when anyone brings a grain offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour [solet]; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon” (Leviticus 2:1). Incidentally, frankincense was added to the recipe’s spices.
As for Palestinian freekeh (toasted green wheat), wheat and roast barley, they were all mentioned among the courtship customs of the Biblical Boaz, who gave roasted grain to Ruth the Moabite in the fields of Bethlehem. It was from their relationship that the House of David arose.
Nor is there any need to go back as far as the Bible. In southeastern Turkey, kubbeh, the glory of the Palestinian kitchen, is called “Jewish kofta” – that is, Jewish meatballs.
Jews invented kubbeh because it was their custom to eat meat on Shabbat, but it is religiously prohibited for them to slaughter animals or cook on that day. Before the refrigerator was invented, the solution was to wrap ground meat in dough and fry or bake it on Friday, so it wouldn’t spoil over Shabbat.
Similarly, eggplant and hummus, also ostensibly from the Palestinian kitchen, are mentioned in the records of the Spanish Inquisition as characteristic Jewish foods that could be used to identify people who formally converted to Christianity but secretly remained Jews. . . .
The greatest irony of all is olive oil, which has become the symbol of the Palestinian people. Olives are one of the seven species the Bible cites as acceptable offerings in the Temple, but they had a special status in the Bible because olive oil was used to anoint kings and priests and to light the menorah in the Temple. King Solomon paid with olive oil for the cedar trees he bought from King Hiram of Tyre to build the Temple (I Kings, 5:25).
Pliny the Elder wrote in the first century, in his book “Natural History,” that olives from the Land of Israel were beautiful and full of oil, and therefore they were imported to Rome (Nissim Krispil, “A Bag of Plants,” p. 169 in Hebrew). And there’s a hypothesis that the Roman occupiers uprooted the Jews’ olive trees to destroy their olive oil industry, which competed with their own.

In other words, the idea that we stole Arab food is total crap. Facts and history aside, it’s a propaganda ploy, pure and simple. Except not so pure. Really, really dirty. The part that makes me crazy is when the ~~liars~~ propagandists say there’s no such thing as authentic Israeli food.

But back to our kugel. A couple of weeks ago, I got a hankering for Kugel Yerushalmi. I hadn’t made one in years. But making Kugel Yerushalmi is like riding a bike. Once you learn how, you never forget.

Some background: During the 1980s, I tasted Kugel Yerushalmi for the first time, and saw how everyone oohed and ahhed when it was brought out at a Kiddush. The look and taste were intriguing, so I asked a neighbor to show me how to make it. I jotted down her instructions in a tiny little notepad I had on me, and saved that piece of paper for years.

(Two weeks ago, I finally typed it out properly. God forbid my kids should someday have to inherit that tiny, oil-stained piece of paper of a recipe.)

The original recipe on a teeny weeny piece of paper, saved for posterity

I watched my neighbor make the kugel before braving it myself. Kugel Yerushalmi is made with very thin noodles mixed rapidly with a caramel and oil mixture that is ready only when on the verge of boiling over the pot and burning beyond repair. Which makes Kugel Yerushalmi a dangerous dish for the home cook to replicate. (I know someone who got third degree burns when the caramel splashed her as she was pouring it into the noodles on the day before her son’s bris, the reason she was making the kugel in the first place.)

Once the caramel and noodle mixture cools a bit, the cook adds some beaten eggs and lots and lots of ground black pepper. (In fact, my kids said I finally got it right when I used a full heaping tablespoon of ground black pepper—some cooks double that amount.)

Maybe you thought that at this point, you slide the kugel into the oven and an hour later, just like on the TV shows, a timer dings, and it’s ready to serve. But a properly cooked Kugel Yerushalmi is a deep, deep brown on the inside. If it isn’t the right color on the inside, don’t eat it. Seriously. Just don’t. You can’t get that color unless two factors are in play. 1) You have to cook the caramel way past when you think it’s ready. 2) You have to bake the kugel very slow in a low oven, and preferably overnight.

After looking on as my neighbor prepared this dish, I was ready to make one myself. It came out great! My family loved it. I was psyched. And as time went on, I got kind of small town famous for my kugel. At least on our tiny settlement.

My kugel was so good that people were asking me if I would sell it to them. Even the neighbor who taught me how to make it asked if I would make it for her—mine came out better than hers, she said.

And so, a little cottage industry was born. I’d make a humongous Kugel Yerushalmi every week, using 7 pounds of noodles. I baked it overnight on Thursday, and on Fridays, I’d sell it to my neighbors, weighing out the portions on a baby scale. Sometimes, I’d even barter the kugel for services, for instance, in exchange for yoga classes—what must have been a first in Kugel Yerushalmi history.

While I was making Kugel Yerushalmi a couple of weeks ago, it came to me: I have never heard of an Arab preparing, selling, eating, or claiming Kugel Yerushalmi as his own. Perhaps that will change after one of them gets wind of this Jewish Jerusalem delicacy with its 19^th century roots. But for the meantime, it’s undeniable: Kugel Yerushalmi is a Jewish delicacy invented by Jews in Jerusalem.

Kugel Yerushalmi is ubiquitous at a Shabbos Kiddush, served with a pickle. But not just any pickle. It has to be a pickle brined in vinegar.

No one eats those pickles at any other time; the Israeli vinegar-brined pickles are terrible. For everyday eating, Israelis prefer pickles brined in salt. A long vertical jiggly slice of a lukewarm vinegar-brined pickle is nonetheless considered de rigueur as an accompaniment to Kugel Yerushalmi. It adds a certain something.

(No, thank you. I take mine plain. But then I’m a purist.)

Kugel Yerushalmi

Yield: 12 or more servings

Ingredients:

·         1 lb. (400 grams) thin soup noodles (lokshen)
·         1 tablespoon margarine
·         ½ cup oil
·         1 ¼ cups sugar
·         2 eggs
·         1 teaspoon salt
·         2 teaspoons or up to 1 heaping tablespoon ground black pepper

Method:

1.       Boil noodles in salted water for 4 minutes. Drain, place in a heat-proof mixing bowl, and toss with 1 tablespoon margarine.
2.       In a medium-sized pot, combine the oil and the sugar. Cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. The mixture will bubble at the edges, then at the center, and will then foam up.
3.       Here is where you need speed, strength and caution: Immediately remove the oil and sugar mixture from the heat, pour it over the noodles well away from you to avoid burns from the hot caramel, and working quickly, vigorously stir the mixture until no clumps remain.
4.       The caramel residue in the pot will have already hardened. Not to worry. Beat the eggs in the pot with the fork and this will liquefy the caramel and mix it into the eggs. Add the eggs to the noodles. Any extra-stubborn caramel on your saucepan can be easily soaked away with water)
5.       Add the salt and pepper (Jerusalemites like it hot! Some use as much as 2 tablespoons of pepper).
6.       Pour the kugel mixture into a greased high, round, flat-topped metal mold as is traditional, or alternatively, a greased tube pan. Bake overnight at lowest oven setting, or if you prefer to cheat, for 3 hours at 300°F or until the top is crusty and brown, and a thin knife, inserted into the center of the kugel, comes out clean.

*Wikipedia erroneously states that Kugel Yerushalmi is sometimes known as “Galilean kugel.” I asked around, and no one had ever heard the kugel referred to as Galilean kugel. My friend Mark Kaplan even said, “I live in the Golan, right next to the Galil... I've never heard it called Galilean Kugel.”

I looked at the footnotes for this Wikipedia entry, and somehow figured out that the reference is to a recipe for “Galilean Kugel with Bacon” in a Nancy Silverton cookbook called “Israel Eats.” Maybe she called it that to distinguish it from its kosher “cousin,” but it’s strictly Silverton’s own invention, and certainly not how anyone has ever referred to the real deal.

The number of Christians under Palestinian rule has dwindled dramatically over the years, as a result of persecution by Muslims and the idea that they can do better economically elsewhere.

But the Palestinian Authority, especially cash strapped this year, wants Christians to come to visit - especially around Christmastime in Bethlehem.

Now consider this. The PA needs tourist cash badly. It controls some Jewish shrines, in Nablus, Jericho and elsewhere. Why aren't they trying to attract Jewish tourists?

The reason is obvious: they cannot guarantee the safety of Jewish tourists.

If they could, Jews from Israel and abroad would visit often, buying up souvenirs and even staying in hotels.

When Jews come to visit ancient Jewish sites under PA rule, they have to go in armored buses and be protected by the army, only an very specific dates and times of day.

If the Palestinians would embrace peace, their economy could do much better.