Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, December 01, 2021

12/01 Links Pt2: Lighting a candle in Hebron beyond the seventh step; Banning Israelis from squash championship is Malaysia's shame

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: Lighting a candle in Hebron beyond the seventh step

The same pattern was repeated in the 20th century when Arabs – egged on by the incitement of Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem – led a pogrom in 1929 in which 69 Jews were murdered with scores of others wounded, maimed or raped. Jewish life in the city didn't fully resume until after it was taken by Israeli forces in 1967, an event that also signaled the end of religious discrimination at the Tomb of the Patriarchs with worship for both faiths allowed inside as Jews were finally allowed past the seventh step.

The memory of the atrocities of 1929 hang heavy over the small community that has restarted Jewish life in properties that Jews owned before 1929 with terrorism from their Arab neighbors a constant threat. Nor is it odd that Herzog should also be affected by memories of 1929 since his great-grandmother, Faya Hillman, survived the massacre by feigning death among the corpses of her neighbors.

Herzog noted that Jews are not the only ones who "trace their roots" to Hebron since it's also considered sacred by Muslims. The shared burial place ought to be a connection for peace. Instead, it has become a focus of mutual hostility – the result not only of constant Arab attacks on Jews in the city but also the 1994 shooting attack at Machpelah by Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish extremist who murdered 29 Muslims who were worshipping at the shrine.

The problem that Hebron poses is not just one of how to protect the 1,000 Jews who live amid 200,000 Arabs, especially when both sides consider themselves to be living under siege.

It's that the Arabs continue to regard the Jewish presence at a place where Jewish life began as illegitimate. Even if, as Herzog does, you support a two-state solution, the prospect of once again evicting the Jews of Hebron is unthinkable. Yet that is exactly the scenario envisaged even by the so-called "moderates" of Fatah, in addition to supporters of the extreme Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip but regards Hebron as a stronghold of their movement in the West Bank.

While many Jews on the left sympathize with the idea of throwing Jews they regard as extremists out of Hebron, the Palestinian stand about the ancient city is hardly surprising since Fatah and Hamas think of towns and cities inside pre-1967 Israel as every bit as much illegal as Hebron or the most remote West Bank hilltop settlement.

For all of the problems that come with Hebron, if Jews have no right to live there, can their presence in any other part of the country be considered legitimate? Palestinians and their antisemitic allies abroad who masquerade under the banner of anti-Zionism don't think so.

By lighting a candle in Hebron, Herzog sent a loud message to the Palestinians that they need to give up their delusions about evicting the Jews or returning to a situation where they wouldn't be able to ascend beyond the seventh step to Machpelah. Those who encourage them to hold onto those destructive fantasies about Hebron or any other part of the country are not promoting peace or interfaith harmony. On the contrary, those opposed to Jewish life in Hebron are encouraging an endless cycle of violence fueled by antisemitic and anti-Israel hate.

'Apartheid state'? It's time for a different claim

Here are two instances that illustrate how absurd the claim is. This week, police arrested a young Arab man after he was caught on camera blocking the Begin Highway in Jerusalem as part of a wedding celebration. The incident took place three months ago. He was known to the police and they fined him. Only after the footage was released on social media did the police remember to make arrests.

In the second incident, minors blocked off the entrance to Jerusalem during the Ahuvia Sandak protests and were beaten and arrested, led off to the court in handcuffs and with their feet bound. In South Africa, could the oppressed have been treated with kid gloves, while the oppressor was led in cuffs to a jail cell? The answer is clear. Were Black South Africans under the boot of apartheid allowed to riot, stab, and shoot at the entrance to a hospital, and find themselves at home a week later? It's doubtful.

Another option is that Israel is operating under a kind of "reverse apartheid," one that discriminates, but gently, and is soft on criminals when it comes to appointing doctors and judges and MKs, even if they support terrorism against citizens of the state. On the other hand, to cause the Arab minority to suffer and discriminate against them from north to south, the government that "oppresses" them allows them to express support for unchecked violence and promise that it will resurface during the next war.

Ironically, it was the violent Arab nationalists raising their heads that smashed the delusion that if we would ignore the danger, it would disappear, and also proved that claims that Israel is a racist, discriminatory country are some of the biggest lies told about it.

It's time to shelve the apartheid theory, even if it's not clear that will help. Anyone who tries to miscast Israel as a racist dystopia doesn't intend to stop. Claims about "apartheid" were just part of a long list of excuses. Once it was infiltrators, then settlers, then "processes identified with the 1930s." The name changes, but the goal stays the same – to find darkness within the light. They see Israel as an evil state going back to the Maccabees, the source of all trouble and ills. It's time to find a new campaign and drop the ridiculous "apartheid" claim.

Two Israelis attacked, car torched by Palestinians after entering downtown Ramallah

Two Israelis were attacked and their car was set ablaze by a crowd of Palestinians after they entered downtown Ramallah on Wednesday night.

It was not immediately clear why the two had found themselves near al-Manara Square in the de facto Palestinian Authority administrative capital, well away from the major checkpoints leading to the site.

Police identified one of the Israelis as a resident of the West Bank settlement of Shiloh; the other lives in the mostly Ultra-Orthodox Israeli city of Elad. According to an Israeli security official, the two claimed they sought to reach Hashmonaim, a settlement about a half-hour drive away by car.

In videos from the scene, a crowd of Palestinians can be seen surrounding their car. The two Israelis, who appear to be religious, did not respond to taunts from the crowd in the video.

After their car was torched, the two Israelis were extracted by Palestinian Authority security forces. Under Ramallah’s policy of security coordination, PA forces work to prevent Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis and extricate Israelis who stumble into Palestinian areas of the West Bank.

“The citizens left accompanied by Palestinian security forces in coordination with the [Israeli] security forces in the area,” the Israeli army said.

The two Israelis were subsequently held for interrogation by Israeli police. They did not suffer serious injuries during the incident, according to the Israeli army.

Chanukah video night 4: Lots of Latkes (Park Avenue Synagogue) plus unusual acoustic version of Little Dreydl

And some impressive guitar from Jeremiah Lockwood:

(h/t Yerushalimey)

Biden Harris Goysplain Chanuka to the Jews (Judean Rose)

Dear President Biden and Vice President Harris,

Thank you so much for explaining Chanuka and its customs to me. Had it not been for you, President Biden, I would never have known that Chanuka is “undeniably American.” Had it not been for you, Vice President Harris, I would never have known that non-Jewish spouses may help light the menorah by placing a hand under the Jewish spouse’s hand as he lights.

From our family to yours, Happy Hanukkah. pic.twitter.com/yfCQfsE1uX
— Douglas Emhoff (@SecondGentleman) November 29, 2021

President Biden, Vice President Harris, I had always thought that Chanuka was about battling foreign influences, multiculturalism, and assimilation. I thought Chanuka was about fighting to preserve Jewish observance at a time the Greek occupiers of Jewish indigenous territory had made such observance illegal. Perhaps that is why it seems strange to me that the non-Jewish wife of a Jew who married out would make a public ceremony of the two of you lighting the menorah. But be patient with me. I have a lot to learn.

President Biden, I’d like to know more about that thing you said regarding Chanuka being undeniably American. I thought the Chanuka story had nothing to do with America at all, being that the Chanuka story happened thousands of years before America was even discovered. Had you not told me that Chanuka was undeniably American, I would have said just the opposite—that there is nothing American about Chanuka. So I’m really glad you straightened that out for me.

I mean—I’m so glad to have been enlightened. All those years I was completely wrong. But now I know: Chanuka is undeniably American. Amazing.

I also really liked all those pretty words about “fragile flames” and illuminating “a path forward.” Truly. That was so much more lyrical than the violent, bloodthirsty tale I was raised on. Jews taking up arms and slaughtering the non-Jewish occupier and so forth. That’s what I’d thought Chanuka was all about. That and fried food, of course.

I was so wrong. (And hopefully, so is my bathroom scale.)

What I really like about the way you, President Biden, and you Vice President Harris, greeted the Jews on Chanuka is how it turned our holiday into something so much more attractive and universal. It made me almost feel like I belonged and fit into normative society. Which is weird. Because I’d always thought Chanuka was about Jews NOT fitting in—about Jews REFUSING to fit in.

Chag Sameach on the first night of Chanukkah, a holiday celebrating the vibrancy and durability of authentic religion over watered-down secularist admixtures.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 29, 2021

Guess I was wrong. Which is great. I can hardly wait to drink eggnog and yeah. I can almost taste those Christmas cookies coming at me come December 25. And you know what, Vice President Harris? I feel so much better about you smiling and nodding as that student talked about Israel committing ethnic genocide, which after all, is what the Greeks were trying to do to the Jews of Israel. There’s no way you could think that the Jews of Israel were doing the same thing to somebody else, right?? It must have all been a stupid misunderstanding. After all, you married a Jew, so you can’t possibly be an antisemite, amiright?

In summary, President Biden, Vice President Harris, I want to thank you for reinventing Chanuka for the Jews. Your Chanuka is so much more adaptable, so much more attractive. None of this slaughtering of Greeks. None of this Jews fighting to stay Jewish and not marrying out business. After all, look at Kamala and Doug. The perfect embodiment of a blended family and shared traditions. You see? I was so wrong. All these years I thought the Maccabees fought for exactly the opposite of that and here we have this couple publicly lighting the menorah together. Absolutely delightful.

I have to say that I also really like the way President Biden compared the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, restored after desecration by the Greeks, to democracy, something invented by the Greeks. What a neat twist it is to liken a holiday that celebrates the de-Hellenization of Israel and Jewish observance to an actual Hellenistic political philosophy. Some mindboggling brilliance, there. Kudos to your JINO speech writer, Joe. Whoever he is.

Vice President Harris, what I really liked best about your 2020 Chanuka greeting, for instance, was the way Doug couldn’t pronounce the hard letter “Het” at the beginning of the word Chanuka, but you could. I liked that you said it several times so we could catch that and admire your perfect Hebrew pronunciation, especially compared to Doug’s. If someone were to make a “Who said it Better” video, you would definitely win over Doug. And really, that’s so much more important than I can express.

It makes me feel better as a Jew to hear my vice president exert that much effort toward pronouncing my holiday. In fact, I couldn’t help but marvel over how much she must love the Jews to have actually married one and practiced saying his words until she could say them better than him. Aside from the pronunciation thing, which admittedly is really great, I still can’t quite figure out how the Kamala-Doug Chanuka greeting fits in with Chanuka, being that it isn’t permitted for a Jewish man to be with a non-Jewish woman, and Chanuka is kind of about observing Jewish law.

But give me a minute and I’ll catch up. I’m sure of it.

I have to say, President Biden, Vice President Harris, I looked through similar greetings from presidents on Christian holidays, and there was nothing about them being American. A lot of stuff about resurrection, and a certain guy whose name starts with J, but nothing likening Christianity to the United States. So I guess the fact that you described Chanuka as “undeniably” American is an honor.

You guys must really love the Jews. So thank you.

And Happy Chanuka.

This tweet is from an Iraqi with the Twitter handle of Sufian Al-Samarrai. He has almost 100,000 followers.

Translation:

I reached the Wailing Wall in Israel. I was imagining that the Jews are savages who will stand in my way and say to me, O Muslim, do not approach or storm [here.]
I found visitors from Muslims, Christians and all religions there
I did not find racism and Jewish hatred as they claim
But I found it in the Palestinians' dealings with the Arabs!
My family and grandparents supported their cause dearly.

12/01 Links Pt1: UN to Condemn Israel in 3 Resolutions, Erase Jewish Connection to Judaism’s Holiest Site; As Vienna talks resume, Iran's military vows to destroy Israel

From Ian:

David Singer: If Israel swallows Arab propaganda on Judea and Samaria why shouldn't EU and UN?

United Nations (UN), European Union (EU) and Arab propaganda has perverted the history of the Arab-Jewish conflict. Their heinous conduct enables them to falsely claim that Jews have no legal right to live in Judea and Samaria ('West Bank').

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has seemingly swallowed parts of their disingenuous narrative hook line and sinker.

Achieving this triumvirate’s sinister agenda has been amazingly simple: Start with the year 1967 – instead of 1920 – when talking about resolving a conflict that has in fact been raging for more than 100 years.

Doing so has seen the UN, EU and Arab propagandists:
-Term the conflict: The “Israel-Arab conflict” or the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” - instead of what it has always been – the “Jewish-Arab conflict”.
-Ignore that Arabs living in Palestine in 1922 were only regarded as part of the “existing non-Jewish communities” – that “Israelis” and “Palestinians” did not then exist.
-Paper over that the San Remo Conference and Treaty of Sevres in 1920 decided that:

Arab self-determination was to occur in 99.99% of the territory captured from the Ottoman Empire in World War 1 - including those territories designated under the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon and the Mandate for Mesopotamia (now Iraq)

Jewish self-determination was to occur in the remaining 0.01% - “Palestine” - under the Mandate for Palestine (Mandate) - unanimously adopted by all 51 member states of the League of Nations in 1922.

UN Watch: UN to Condemn Israel in 3 Resolutions, Erase Jewish Connection to Judaism’s Holiest Site

Today the UN General Assembly is slated to adopt three one-sided resolutions targeting Israel, as part of a total of 14 resolutions being adopted over the next month that target the Jewish state, with only five on the rest of the world combined.

“The UN’s assault on Israel with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental watchdog organization.

“It’s absurd that in the year 2021, out of some 20 UN General Assembly resolutions that criticize countries, 70 percent are focused on one single country— Israel. What drives these lopsided condemnations is a powerful political agenda to demonize the Jewish state,” said Neuer.

Today’s resolution on Jerusalem refers to the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, solely by its Muslim name, “Haram al-Sharif.”

Neuer said that “the UN shows contempt for both Judaism and Christianity by adopting a resolution that makes no mention of the name Temple Mount, which is Judaism’s holiest site, and which is sacred to all who venerate the Bible, in which the ancient Temple was of central importance.”

Another resolution blames Israel only for the lack of peace, giving a free pass to the Palestinian Authority. References to terror fail to name perpetrators such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whereas Israel is named and blamed throughout.

“Today the General Assembly will adopt resolutions about the Palestinians that fail to say a word about terrorism and other gross human rights abuses committed by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Nor do they even attempt to promote democracy, accountability and the rule of law to actually help Palestinians living in the areas ruled by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas,” said Neuer.

Adoption of the resolutions will come two days after the UN held its annual international Palestinian solidarity day, featuring one-sided events in Geneva and New York.

US Vote on Palestinian Refugees Raises Discomfort in Israel

The United States’ vote to abstain last month on a draft United Nations resolution involving Palestinian refugees and their descendants set off discomfort in Israel over Washington’s policy regarding one of the most sensitive topics in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

During the November 9 meeting, the UN’s Fourth Committee passed the resolution, which, among other things, affirmed support for the continued work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). It called on Israel to “cease obstruction of the Agency’s work” and affirmed that “Palestine refugees are entitled to their property and income derived from it.” It urged “the two sides to deal with property rights in the final stage of negotiations.”

The resolution comes up every three years. The US abstaining was a marked departure in policy — all previous American administrations except the Obama administration have voted against this resolution.

In explaining the abstention, Ambassador Richard Mills, the deputy US representative to the United Nations, stated that Washington was “pleased to see language included in several of the resolutions that reflect our priorities in line with strengthening UNRWA. This language puts a stronger onus on the Agency and on UN leadership to demonstrate a renewed commitment to the humanitarian principles of neutrality, independence, and impartiality, as well as provides a basis for strengthened agency oversight.”

The US also voted against several additional resolutions that singled out Israel: “We are disappointed that Member States continue to disproportionately single out Israel,” Mills said. “For this reason, the United States strongly opposes the annual submission of a package of resolutions biased against Israel.”

In contrast, the Clinton administration’s representative voted against the refugee resolution in 1999, saying the US “could not support unbalanced resolutions which attempted to prejudge the outcome of negotiations; lasting peace would come from agreements reached among the parties themselves, not from any action taken by the Committee.”

Nihad Awad Executive Director of CAIR: The U.S. Embassy Must Be Moved Back to Tel Aviv, Which Is Occupied and Will Be Freed Later; We Are Disgusted with the Biden Administration’s Lack of Respect for Palestinian Human Rights @CAIRNational @NihadAwad @AMPalestine pic.twitter.com/R5aF4JJ7IS
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 1, 2021

From Palestinian Media Watch:

Niece of terrorist prisoner Muhammad Aref Oudeh: “They came to say that my homeland is their homeland
My land, my history, my residence have become their land
Jerusalem – could it be, people, that it would become the occupiers’ property?
Is it the capital of the impure?
No, it is the capital of Palestine
So it will remain, and so we will remain” …

Daughter of prisoner Husam Al-Dik: “O Palestine, the days of Saladin will return
If you only knew, the victory that you will have is the victory of Hattin
A Jew defiled Jerusalem and behaved tyrannically and violently
He gathered the world’s dogs inside you and [placed] a military camp on your land
Resistance is a weapon and a rock, you will never lose
Resistance is a weapon and a rock, Allahu Akbar (“Allah is greatest”)”

Clueless Westerners still think that if only Israel would give more concessions, there will be peace. Palestinians teach their kids that there can never be peace as long as there is an Israel.

The Festival Arabofolies (Arab World Festival) is a thrice-yearly cultural event sponsored by the Arab World Institute in Paris. This week the winter version will take place.

The Arab World Institute has been admirably showing exhibitions featuring Jews of the East recently. Last week, to much fanfare, French President Macron inaugurated an exhibit titled "Jews of the Orient." It is now featuring an exhibit on how the six-pointed star is a recurring motif in Islamic and Jewish art.

And one of the performers at the Festival Arabofolies is Neta Elkayam, an Israeli who sings Jewish-Moroccan tunes.

When the BDS movement found out that an Israeli was performing, they put out a call for Arabs to boycott a festival that was curated and organized by Arabs. They then discovered that the Israel Museum and the Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem donated some artwork for the "Jews of the Orient" exhibit.

How scandalous that Arabs should be exposed to Arab art that was lent by Israeli institutions to an Arab festival!

BDS apparently missed other Israeli performers. There will be a tribute to a Tunisian violin player, Maurice Meimoun, and vocals and percussion are coming from Shalom and Yoav Bouhnik. Presumably the other band members, who are all Arab, know that the Bouhniks are from Israel.

So far, the only people to publicly announce they are pulling out of the festival are four Palestinian performers.

It is clear that the Arab World Institute has no problem with Jews or Israelis. They want to educate people about Arab culture and if that includes people from the large Mizrahi community in Israel, why not?

We will be seeing a major Arab cultural festival, with tens of thousands of attendees, with Israelis fully participating next to Algerians, Tunisians and Iraqis - as they should.

If the only performers to drop out of the festival are Palestinians, this would be a great defeat for the BDS movement. It means that the Arab world is ignoring BDS and prefers sanity over childish boycotts. And if their fellow Arabs publicly ignore the call to boycott cultural activities with Israelis, then Western performers will start to wake up to the fact that they have been gaslighted by the BDS movement into thinking that it is much bigger than it really is.

Twenty years ago today, 11 people were killed and 188 injured two suicide bombers blew themselves up in the crowded Ben Yehuda Street mall at 11:30 P.M. on a Saturday night. Five of the victims were children:

Assaf Avitan, 15

Israel Ya'akov Danino, 17

Golan Turgeman, 15

Adam Weinstein, 14

Ido Cohen, 17

A car bomb exploded nearby 20 minutes later.

Hamas often celebrates the anniversaries of terror attacks, and this is no exception. They created a video to honor the occasion.

But the Palestinian Press Agency Safa which is a mainstream Palestinian news site not associated with Hamas also celebrates this attack, along with another attack from December 1, 1993 murdering 2 Israelis, Shalva Ozana and Yitzhak Weinstock, who were on the side of a road because of engine trouble.

Safa is proud of terror attacks murdering Israeli civilians:

Martyrdom operations in December constituted one of the most important forms of resistance, and established a more mature stage in the history of the Palestinian struggle, and caused dozens of Israeli deaths and injuries.

These operations have become the most prominent weapon in the face of the treacherous Israeli military machine, and the continuous crimes of the occupation against the Palestinian people.

There is a nostalgia being shown here, where Palestinians are longing for a time when they were killing Israeli civilians every week.

On Monday night, a bus full of Jews on their way to a Chanukah celebration in central London was attacked by a group of what appear to be Arab men who spat, cursed, used obscene gestures and banged their shoes against the bus as it was apparently stopped at a traffic light.

Throwing shoes, or showing someone the soles of one's shoes, is considered highly offensive in the Arab world.

According to the people posting the video, this happened on Oxford Street in London.

The bus was playing Jewish music and may have had Chanukah decorations, possibly children wearing kippot, making it obvious that it was filled with Jews.

The incident was reported to Metropolitan police.

I have not found any news stories about this yet.

(h/t Jonathan)

UPDATE: The Daily Mail has the story, and adds that the bus was full of Jewish teenagers and that the police are looking into this as a "potential racially-aggravated public order offence." (h/t YMedad)

UPDATE 2: TheJC has all the details.It was a Chabad bus with young Israeli and British Jews. They stopped to dance on the street and the Arab men started intimidating them.

11/30 Links Pt2: IAD: NYTs Demonizes Israel in Mission Hebron – and Forgets to Mention One Major Detail; Appearing in Jerusalem, Black Eyed Peas frontman rejects calls to boycott Israel

From Ian:

Prof. Phyllis Chesler: Free as a Jew

Harvard Yiddish Prof. Ruth R. Wisse’s new memoir that tells of her love affair with Israel and the war against the West, is sharp, examined, and a more urgent read than ever. Review.

Like the poet John Masefield, I also suffer from “sea fever” and so down I went to the “seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky.” I needed no “tall ship,” only a room on the beach with a terrace—and all the time in the world to read Ruth R. Wisse’s new book, Free as a Jew: A Personal Memoir of National Self-Liberation.

Reader: I could not put it down. I still chose to read it slowly, to savor it, take it all in. I must have underlined at least a quarter of the book. Wisse commands an aerial view of Jewish history, bringing it to bear on Israeli politics and on the demonization of the only Jewish state. She continues to issue her clarion call about the plague of “political correctness” that threatens to devour the entire Western enterprise.

Free as a Jew is an “intellectual memoir,” but it is also a family history replete with charming photos; a story of European Jews before, during, and after the Holocaust; and a warm introduction to Yiddish literature, and to many of the major Yiddish writers whom Wisse and her parents knew, hosted, and supported in Montreal, where they lived after fleeing Romania. Wisse introduces us to many of these writers: Sholem Asch, Sholem Aleichem, Itzik Manger, Mendele Mokher Sforim, Abraham Sutzkever, and Chaim Grade, as well as to Bashevis Singer, Saul Bellow, Leonard Cohen, Hillel Halkin, Yehuda Amichai, Irving Howe, and Norman Podhoretz.

For Wisse, Yiddish is not a social justice enterprise, nor is it mainly associated with “progressivism.” Rather, it is a rich language, “associated with the actual Yiddish-speaking communities, which remained what they had always been: outposts of Jewish separatism, consisting mainly of religiously observant Jews living culturally apart from the surrounding population.” Yiddish—the language, the culture, the works—is not meant to be politicized.

Free as a Jew is also a story about Ruth’s love affair with Israel, and about Montreal’s Jews (told through the lens of Ruth’s long career, both at McGill and in publishing, long before she accepted a position at Harvard).

The Day of the Million

The State of Israel lacked many things during its first years of existence—peace, prosperity, food, economic stability, housing, and basic infrastructure, to name just a few.

National holidays, on the other hand, were plentiful.

Not holidays in the traditional celebratory sense, but holidays that were intentionally designed, declared, and commemorated in order to achieve important national objectives under the complex circumstances and realities of the nascent Jewish state. At the behest of David Ben-Gurion, these holidays were all imbued with deep and timeless symbolism.

Both symbolically and literally, the holidays largely centered around the army, which was responsible not only for defense, but also for immigrant absorption, educating the people, and instilling Zionist values. As Israel’s prime minister and minister of defense, Ben-Gurion directly oversaw and commanded the army, paying particular attention to its role as a formative player in the country’s evolving society and culture.

During the first temporary ceasefire during the 1948 war, just a month after the official establishment of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the first such holiday, “Swearing In Day,” was celebrated on the country’s military bases and beyond. Then came “State Day” on the anniversary of Theodor Herzl’s death, which featured Israel’s first official military parade. During the festival of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, the country celebrated “Settlement Day,” emphasizing the army’s role in helping fulfill the Zionist mission and dream of settling the land.

Then, during Hanukkah, which took place at the end of December 1948 and into January 1949, Israelis celebrated “Ingathering of the Exiles Day,” emphasizing the importance of another central Israeli value: immigration.

Bones of Herzl’s Grandparents to Be Brought to Israel

The president of the Republika Srpska, of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, agreed on Monday to help exhume the bones of the grandfather and grandmother of Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism, and send them to Israel.

President Željka Cvijanović visited Mount Herzl earlier this week.

During her visit, she laid a wreath at Herzl’s grave, toured the Herzl Museum, received an explanation of his Zionist vision and finally signed a guest book that many visiting heads of state previously signed.

During the visit, Yaakov Hagoel, chairman of the World Zionist Organization, said that Herzl’s grandparents, from whom he drew his Zionist inspiration, were buried in her country, and asked the president to help bring their bones to Israel.

After the establishment of the state, Herzl’s remains were exhumed from his tomb in Vienna and reburied on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem in August 1949, with his parents and sister by his side. Many years later, in September 2006, the bones of his two children were also brought to Israel and buried next to those of their father.

In 2007, the remains of Herzl’s only grandson, Stephen Theodore Norman, were exhumed from a Washington cemetery for burial in Jerusalem. Herzl’s paternal grandparents, who inspired his Zionist conception, remained buried in the small cemetery in the town of Zemun, on the outskirts of the Serbian capital Belgrade.

Chanukah video night 3: Eli Levin, Bayomim Haheim (Yiddish) plus bonus

On the Internet, the socialist Left often uses Yiddish to attack Judaism. It's nice to see the language being used in the way that it has always been traditionally used.

Plus, here's a music video of a new tune for the same Al HaNissim that inspired the Levin video, by Yanki & Shmilly Rothschild, also with a Yiddish accent. (h/t Yerushalimey)

Last week, the Church of Sweden held a meeting where it agreed to a motion that it should investigate whether Israel is an apartheid state.

No other countries are being scrutinized for any other crimes.

Mathias Bred writes in Göteborgs Posten:

Just in time for Advent , we are reminded of the anti-Semitic tendencies in the Church of Sweden. The church meeting last week approved a proposal from the church board member Daniel Tisell (C), Gothenburg diocese, where the church scrutinizes whether Israel is an apartheid state.

One may wonder why a religious community should investigate other countries. Will the Church of Sweden then continue to investigate China, Venezuela or any of the Arab dictatorships in the same region as Israel?

Of course it will not. As several debaters at the church meeting pointed out, this is a one-sided fixation on Israel.

It is about a form of anti-Semitism. Trying to describe Israel as a racist state and demanding that the country be treated differently from other democracies are among the definitions of modern anti-Semitism that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, IHRA, has developed, and which Sweden has supported.

And here's the kicker:

Two days after the decision to investigate apartheid in Israel, the same church council rejected a motion from the Christian Democrats that the church should pay attention to Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Social Democrats were against the proposal.

The Church is trying to defend itself, saying that it isn't accusing Israel of apartheid, but it merely raising the issue. I suppose the Church wouldn't mind if a group in, say, Canada raises the issue of child molestation in the Church of Sweden - and only the Church of Sweden (which indeed has a history of being soft sexual abuse of children by clergy.)

Archbishop Antje Jackelén wrote an open letter to the Jewish community insisting that the Church really is against antisemitism, but, hey, Human Rights Watch and B'Tselem do say Israel is guilty of apartheid, so it is really so bad to investigate this?

I myself would not have used the word [apartheid] in this context. But I am also aware that Israeli and other human rights organizations such as B'Tselem, Yesh Din and Human Rights Watch have used the term in their reports. As far as I understand, the church council has relied on these reports and therefore found it relevant to also include the UN Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute with regard to compliance with international law. The decision also raises the issue of an examination of how the Palestinian Authority and Hamas live up to international law. Although I think the wording is unfortunate, it is clear to me that the church council's decision is in no way directed at Jews as a people, either in Sweden or Israel, nor at the state of Israel.

Oh, so it is clear to her that singling out the Jewish state as the only nation in the world that needs investigating whether it is guilty of the worst racist crimes is not at all directed at the State of Israel.

Jews in Sweden must feel so much better that the archbishop sees nothing wrong!

(h/t Michal H)

11/30 Links Pt1: Erdan blasts UN ‘Palestine Day,’ reminds of Jews expelled from Muslim countries; Biden Admin Ignores Congressional Inquiries Into Iran Sanctions Relief

From Ian:

Herzog's Hebron visit underlines Jewish connection to Israel

On Sunday, President Isaac Herzog lit the first Hanukkah candle in the most ancient Jewish site, Ma’arat Hamachpela, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. The Jewish connection to the city reaches back to biblical times. In the Torah portion which we read last week, we are told that “Jacob lives in the city of forefathers,” that after a long sojourn in Haran he returned to his homeland and lived in Hebron. It was where the oldest land sale contract in human history was drawn up, when Abraham negotiated with the local residents to purchase the Cave of the Patriarchs as a burial site for his wife Sarah, paying above market price.

For Herzog, it’s a deeply personal moment. He is carrying on the legacy of his father, the late president Chaim Herzog, who also served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. In 1976, the elder Herzog distributed a copy of the biblical verses outlining the details of the sale of the tomb to members of the UN. As the JTA reported: “For the first time in history, an agreement made almost 4,000 years ago and recorded in the Bible has been issued as a United Nations document today.”

In a speech at the time, he declared the historic Jewish connection to the holy site, second in importance to the actual Temple Mount in Jewish history and tradition. Chaim Herzog also spoke about his unique connection to Hebron as it was one of the cities controlled by the tribe of Levi in ancient times, and Herzog was a Levite himself. He had been encouraged by the Lubavitcher Rebbe to speak out about this connection to Hebron in the UN.

The menorah lit on Sunday by President Herzog carries on this tradition of standing up for the deep Jewish bond to the Land of Israel. Three reasons are commonly argued to substantiate the Jewish people’s connection to Eretz Yisrael: Firstly, history – Jews have always lived in Eretz Yisrael, and we modern Jews only continue that legacy. Secondly, Jews need a place of haven and refuge – we have learned so tragically that without a place where we can chart our own destiny, our people remain at mortal risk. Finally, that international law endorsed the quest of Jews to establish a state, as supported by the Balfour Declaration and the UN.

Each of these arguments carries weight but also has weaknesses. Would history justify giving the Dutch the state of New York because they ruled there hundreds of years ago? One could argue that maybe being spread out around the world lessens the risk of danger to the Jewish people, as opposed to being concentrated in one place. And those decisions by the international bodies establishing Israel was imperialism at its worst.

Erdan blasts UN ‘Palestine Day,’ reminds of Jews expelled from Muslim countries

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan, along with the World Jewish Congress, blasted the United Nations for its annual “Palestine Day” while ignoring the expulsion of Jews from Muslim countries.

“On Nov. 29, exactly 74 years ago, the U.N. recognized the Jewish people’s right to a state. The Jews and Israel accepted this partition plan, and the Palestinians and the Arab countries rejected it and tried to destroy us,” said Erdan. “The Palestinians and the Arab countries not only attacked Israel, the Jewish state, they also persecuted, massacred and ultimately expelled the Jewish communities in their own countries. Shockingly, this atrocity is completely, completely ignored by the U.N.”

As part of the campaign led by Erdan and the WJC, trucks carrying signs arrived at the U.N. headquarters and showed those entering the building pictures of Jewish refugees being expelled from Arab countries and Iran, along with a demand to stop erasing Jewish history.

A pro-Palestinian conference called “Solidarity with the Palestinian People” was held in the U.N. General Assembly on Monday. The conference, intended to strengthen support for the Palestinians “right of return,” was attended by the president of the General Assembly, the president of the Security Council, the Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations and representatives of Palestinian civil society.

In an attempt to erase history the @UN held a solidarity conference w/ the Palestinians instead of marking the decision to establish 🇮🇱 74 years ago & the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries & Iran. That's why I presented the truth w/ @WorldJewishCong in front of the UN today. pic.twitter.com/Z8CyYiEU2g
— Ambassador Gilad Erdan גלעד ארדן (@giladerdan1) November 29, 2021

The inside story of 'Expulsion Day'

Today, we speak of a largely forgotten ethnic cleansing largely unparalleled in the history of humanitarian abuses. Recall the coordinated international expulsion of some 850,000 Jews from Arab and Muslim lands, where they had lived peaceably for as long as 27 centuries. As some know, in 2014, the Israeli government set aside Nov. 30 as a commemoration of this mass atrocity.

It has had no real identity or name like "Kristallnacht." But today, from this day forward, the day will be known as Yom HaGirush: "Expulsion Day."

It has been a years-long road to identify and solidify this identity. It began the moment that Hitler came to power in 1933.

The international Pan-Arab community, coordinated out of Palestine and spanning four continents, formed a vibrant political and later military alliance with the Nazis. This partnership functioned in the rarefied corridors of governments, the riot-torn streets of many cities on all sides of the oceans and eventually the gun-powdered trenches and frontlines of war-strangled Europe.

The overseer of this alliance was Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, but he led an eager coalition of Arab leaders organized into the Arab Higher Committee, along with popular supporters from the Arab street. They had fused with Nazi ideology and goals, which included the destruction of the Jews and the defeat of British influence.

After the Mufti fled criminal prosecution in Jewish Palestine in Oct. 1937, he relocated to Baghdad. Iraq became the new center of gravity for the Arab-Nazi collaboration. By the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Iraqi Arabs under the guidance of the Mufti had imported all sorts of Nazi ideology and confederation into Iraq. On June 1-2, 1941, as Germany was poised to attack Russia and needed Arab oil, Nazi Arabs in Iraq launched a bloody two-day pogrom against its Jewish community, which had dwelled there for 2,700 years – a 1,000 years before Muhammad.

Today we remember the fate of 850,000 Jewish refugees forced out of Arab countries and Iran in the 20th century. Communities dating back 2500 years were destroyed.

At the UN, I asked Algeria, Egypt, Iraq & the others: “Where are your Jews?”

Full Video: https://t.co/i2bl2DPS7B pic.twitter.com/Pp14VfU9Xc
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) November 30, 2021

EoZ friend Josh K. colorized the famous photo of Yemenite Jews walking to a transit camp in 1949 en route to Israel.

Amazing job! pic.twitter.com/g62jLzuT4w
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) November 29, 2021

By Daled Amos

Of the attitudes of the international community towards Israel, one of the most maddening is criticism of Israeli reaction to the terrorist rocket attacks launched by Hamas -- and the lack of international condemnation of those rocket attacks themselves, deliberately launched against civilian targets.

We criticize the West for its lack of sustained outrage against Hamas targeting civilians.
We note that no country would tolerate such attacks without taking strong measures to stop such attacks.

But does Israel itself bear any of the responsibility for the failure of the international community to condemn these deliberate terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians?

In a 2012 article, Where 8,000 Rocket Launches Are Not a Casus Belli, Evelyn Gordon blames this on the indecisiveness of the IDF in retaliating against Gaza rockets as:

the rotten fruit of a government policy that for years dismissed the rockets as a minor nuisance for reasons of petty politics: For the Kadima party, in power from 2005-2009, admitting the rockets were a problem meant admitting that its flagship policy, the Gaza pullout, was a disaster.

A 2011 report for the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, The Missile Threat from Gaza:From Nuisance to Strategic Threat, by Israeli missile defense expert Uzi Rubin notes how Israeli leaders at the time played down and even dismissed outright the Hamas rocket threat:

o Dov Weisglass, senior advisor to Ariel Sharon, in June 2005 referred to the rockets as "flying objects...in terms of national risk management, they do not constitute a significant factor."

o  Koby Toren, then Director General of the Ministry of Defense, dismissed the the rockets in 2006 as nothing more than a "psychological threat" because of their low level of lethality.

o  Shimon Peres, then Deputy Prime Minister, complained in 2006, "Everyone is stoking the hysteria. What is the big deal? Kiryat Shmona was bombed for years."

o  Ehud Olmert was still downplaying the need for bomb shelters in 2007, announcing that "we will not shelter ourselves to death."

o  Deputy Minister of Defense, Maj. Gen. (res.) Matan Vilnai made a speech at the Knesset in 2008 comparing the complaints of Israeli communities near Gaza with the resilience of Jerusalem’s residents in the face of suicide attacks: "We in Jerusalem…suffered hundreds of dead...did we complain that we could not sleep at night?...Did we claim to have been forsaken?"

In fairness to Peres, he did not totally ignore the Qassam threat. The same article that quotes him minimizing the Qassams, also reports:

Translation:

According to Peres, "Palestinians need to be told: Qassams Shmassams, we will persevere. We will not move from here." The deputy prime minister also accused that "our response stimulates the other side to strike. A series of measures must be taken to eliminate the Qassam." Peres declined to elaborate on what means he meant.

According to Rubin, Olmert qualified his comment about shelters with "...though there may be extreme situations in which we will have a limited response capability."

Also according to Rubin, Vilnai visited the Jewish areas near Gaza the very next day in order to correct the negative impression his comments made.

But the fact remains that Israeli leaders initially played down the threat of Qassam rockets coming out of Gaza.

For years.

The lack of a strong Israeli response to the Hamas rocket attacks took the US by surprise.

In a 2011 interview, former US envoy to Israel Dan Kurtzer said that PM Sharon's failure to respond to Hamas rocket attacks following the 2005 Disengagement was a major mistake:

Kurtzer, in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, said that immediately after Israel left the Gaza Strip he told Washington “to expect a very serious Israeli response to the first act of violence coming out of Gaza.”

...Kurtzer said his message to the Bush Administration was to be ready for a sharp Israeli military response to rocket fire, “and be ready to support it.”

“The success of disengagement rested on the aftermath of its implementation, so I was very surprised there was no reaction to the first rocket, second rocket and 15th rocket,” Kurtzer said.

Instead, according to Kurtzer, "Sharon argued that the rockets were landing in fields, 'not really that bad,' or were being fired by dissident elements, and not the Gaza leadership" -- setting the tone for excuses of Israeli leaders who followed.

As Gordon points out, one of the motives of the Israeli government in initially downplaying the rocket attacks was to defend the Disengagement itself.

But the Begin-Sadat Center report gives other reasons as well. After all, it was not just the leadership that showed disinterest:

the same Israeli public that withstood so determinately the suicide attacks from the West Bank, demonstrated a lack of unity and determination in contending with the Gaza rocket campaign.

The initial rocket attacks started in 2001 and need to be understood in the context of the Second Intifada that was creating a crisis at the time. Life in Sderot was "was calmer and more secure at the time than metropolitan areas like Netanya, Hadera or Jerusalem":

In hindsight, the scant attention paid to the campaign at its onset in 2001 is easy to justify against the backdrop of violence of the Second Intifada and the suicide terror offensive raging at the time through the heart of Israel's major cities, an offensive which reached its peak in April-May 2002. This absorbed all the attention of the general public as well as Israel's political and military leadership. The few hits, the negligible damage and the insignificant casualties inflicted by the primitive rockets launched at the time from Gaza were justifiably regarded as a minor nuisance compared to the ongoing terror campaign against Israel's traffic, public transportation, shopping malls and civic centers. [emphasis added]

But that does not explain the continued lackadaisical response the following year when Operation Defensive Shield was succeeding in combating the Second Intifada.

According to Rubin, both local as well as national leaders played down the threat during the first 3 years. Even when Israel took steps to invade nearby launching areas in Gaza and fired on rocket production areas that were further away,

At the same time, active defense – that is, anti-rocket systems that could destroy Gaza rockets in flight – was shunned repeatedly until about five years into the campaign when the shock of the Second Lebanon War prompted Israel's incumbent minister of defense [Amir Peretz] to initiate the development of an active defense system against short-range rockets. The failure to do so earlier is another indication of the low significance attributed to the rocket campaign against the south of the country by the political leadership of the time. [emphasis added]

The Second Lebanon War came to an end in mid-August, 2006 and Israel was focusing on the failure to secure an undisputed victory. During this time of soul searching, the priority was on rebuilding the IDF, recovering from economic losses, and repairing damage in northern Israel. The needs of the Israeli communities near Gaza were put on the back burner.

The decision to start development on Iron Dome was not taken until February, 2007 and Israeli bureaucracy delayed not only the development of Iron Dome but also the government-sponsored building of shelters.

The report gives several reasons for this:

o The slow increase in the number of rockets and casualties after the first rocket hit Sderot in 2001 lulled residents as well as local and national leaders into inactivity.
o A full-scale defense initiative against the rockets would have been an admission that the Disengagement was responsible for a deterioration in Israel's security.
o There was disagreement over the correct strategy in response to the Qassams. Eli Moyal, the Mayor of Sderot was one of those who believed that civil protection was an admission that Israel was acceding to terrorist aggression -- "to accept civil protection is to accept terror as part of your life" and that instead of defensive measures, "the war should have been pursued aggressively."

o There was a concern that as the terrorist rockets increased in range and efficiency, and more communities were put at risk, so too would there be an increased demand for costly population protection.

Today, we proudly point to Israel's system of shelters against terrorist attack from Gaza.

But according to Rubin:

In his 2005 report on the status of the school and kindergarten sheltering program in Sderot, the State Comptroller condemned the government's mishandling of the situation, calling it "a continuous debacle." This harsh term could well describe the government's handling of the entire sheltering program in southern Israel.

Israel has come a long way since that 2011 report, especially in terms of Iron Dome, which is now in demand by other countries facing similar threats.

But we tend to forget the initial slow response by Israel to the Qassam threat, and that may have served in part as an initial excuse by the international community to downplay the dangerous threat that Hamas rockets continue to pose to Israeli civilians.

Jordanian media has been upset over the surfacing of this video from 2013, where Joseph Braude, a scholar of Islam, interviews Jordanian preacher Mustafa Abu Rumman:

Jordanians just found out that Braude is Jewish. Even worse, his grandfather was reportedly a rabbi in Iraq! Now they are questioning the credentials of Abu Rumman and wondering if he allowed Braude to wander around the Waqf building.

Abu Rumman had to clarify that he met Braude at a conference in Italy, and that the scholar was able to recite the Quran perfectly by heart, even with correct intonation. He says that Braude is not a Zionist and even prayed with him in a mosque.

This episode is now feeding in to an older Arab conspiracy theory - of the Islamic University of Tel Aviv.

As Awad Dhaif Allah Al Malahama writes in Khaberni:

In 1956 the Israeli Mossad decided to establish the Islamic University of Tel Aviv. It is a closed university. Only outstanding Jewish students are accepted there. The Israeli Mossad supervises them directly, as it determines the study materials, the curriculum for each subject, the university professors, and its students, according to a carefully studied plan. The university's Jewish students are chosen very carefully by the Mossad. In it, Jewish students study various Islamic subjects, such as doctrine, interpretation, hadith, jurisprudence, and Arabic language, from a Zionist point of view. Jewish students take special courses in which they are trained on how to live among Muslims, deal with them, and deceive them. Their training is supervised by: psychologists, communication experts, sociologists and politicians.

The Mossad makes this Jewish graduate a Muslim sheikh, and he is presented as a great scholar. This Jewish sheikh is given an Islamic name. And the Mossad prepares for this sheikh, his Islamic place of work, with the utmost intelligence precision. Where this sheikh does his Islamic work, communicates with Muslims, lives with them, spies on them, distorts whatever texts and concepts of their Islamic beliefs as possible, and submits everything about them to the Mossad. This Sheikh issues special terrorist fatwas prepared for him by the Mossad, in order to distort the true image of Islam. The Mossad may ask this sheikh to establish an Islamic jihadi organization and recruit dedicated people in it. This organization may carry out operations planned by this sheikh who was planted by the Mossad.

Malahama assumes that Braude is a graduate of this secret program - how else can he possibly know the Quran? - and that Rumman is therefore a Mossad recruit.

Of course, this fits in with the Muslim theories that anyone they don't like must be a secret Jew.