Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 02, 2021

12/02 Links Pt1: 129 nations ignore Jewish ties to Temple Mount, call it solely Muslim; Crucial PA admission: UNRWA is a political, not a humanitarian organization

From Ian:

129 nations ignore Jewish ties to Temple Mount, call it solely Muslim

The United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution 129-11 on Wednesday, that disavowed Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and called it solely by its Muslim name of al-Haram al-Sharif.

The text, referred to as the “Jerusalem resolution,” is part of a push by the Palestinian Authority and the Arab states across the UN system to rebrand Judaism’s most holy site as an exclusively Islamic one.

The United States, which opposed the text, said that the omission of inclusive terminology for the site sacred to three faiths was of “real and serious concern.”

Located in the heart of Jerusalem's Old City, it is where the ancient Jewish Temple, stood 2,000 years ago, and it is the home of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound which is Islam's third holiest site.

“It is morally, historically and politically wrong for members of this body to support language that denies” both the Jewish and Christian connections to the Temple Mount and al-Haram al-Sharif, the US envoy told the UNGA.

The US has not been the only country to voice concern over the lack of inclusive language. In an attempt to ensure support for the resolution, its authors had made some small amendments since the UNGA last approved the resolution in 2018 by 148-11. That text referenced al-Haram al-Sharif twice, one in the action portion of the resolution and once in the introduction.

This time, the phrase al-Haram al-Sharif was mentioned only once in the introduction. Despite this shift, support for the resolution dropped, with the number of countries that abstained growing from 14 to 31.

Three years ago, all the European countries supported the text, this year a number of them changed their votes.

Hungary and the Czech Republic opposed the resolution, while Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia abstained.

A British envoy said “the resolution adopted today refers to the holy sites in Jerusalem in purely Islamic terms without recognizing the Jewish terminology of Temple Mount.

This morning, I addressed the @UN General Assembly before it voted on 3 biased & anti-Israel resolutions, including one which tries to erase Jewish history in our eternal capital, Jerusalem 1/9 pic.twitter.com/uenDK9pU3X
— Ambassador Gilad Erdan ???? ???? (@giladerdan1) December 1, 2021

On the 4th night of Chanukah, as we celebrate the Maccabees' 167 BCE rededication of the Jewish Temple & victorious resistance over Greek Seleucid tyrant Antiochus who outlawed Judaism in ancient Israel, the U.N. wants to pretend this Temple never existed. https://t.co/cloKALFoHm https://t.co/lR2jZcgadW
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) December 1, 2021

This Anti-Israel "Special Committee" Must Be Shut Down

Former Reps. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), Dan Burton (R-Ind.) and Eliot Engel (D-NY)

At every session of the UN General Assembly, more than a dozen resolutions are passed to demonize Israel - more than against all other countries combined. One is the reauthorization of the mandate of and funding for the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Human Rights Practices (SCIIHRP). Established in 1968, its sole purpose is to excoriate Israel before the court of world public opinion. Despite internationally recognized human rights violations occurring in numerous states, no other country has a "special committee" devoted to churning out harsh and inflammatory reports criticizing it.

The existence of such a body discredits the UN and is offensive to U.S. taxpayers, who pay close to 25% of the entire UN budget. The Abraham Accords have created dynamic partnerships between Israel and visionary, forward-looking Arab countries. Isolation of Israel and the fetishization of Palestinian victimhood is not conducive to peace, which can only come about through direct negotiations between the parties.

UN Watch: LIVE: The Future of UN Watch

On Wednesday, December 1, at 12 pm EST, UN Watch’s Fundraising Campaign concludes. Hillel Neuer will announce the total amount raised thanks to your help, and discuss the battles ahead for UN Watch.

About the Campaign:
UN Watch needs to raise $500,000 by December 1st to ensure the continuation of its vital work. We are turning to our social media community to help us reach our goal.

To take part in the campaign, all you have to do is make a $5 donation and inspire 5 friends to do the same so that we can reach our $500,000 target by the end of November. It might not sound like much, but if every one of our social media followers gives $5 and asks 5 friends to do the same, we will surely hit our goal.

The tenth anniversary of "pinkwashing" and what it teaches about Leftist antisemitic conspiracy theories

It was ten years ago when Sarah Schulman popularized the term "pinkwashing" in an op-ed for the New York Times. (I found one earlier mention, by Jasbir Puar in The Guardian in 2010.)

At the time, I noted how steeped in hate is the absurd theory that Israeli pride in its support for gay rights is merely a front to whitewash its alleged crimes.

There is another angle, though, that points to a commonality between antisemitism from the Left and the Right: they are both often rooted in conspiracy theories.

After all, the idea that the Israeli government, Zionist organizations, gay Zionist Americans and liberal Zionist Jews all work together to push a narrative of Israeli tolerance of gays is nothing but a huge conspiracy theory.

Not all antisemitism is based on conspiracy theory, but a great deal of it is. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the blood libel, the idea that Jews are behind the Plague as well as Covid, Holocaust denial, Jews controlling Hollywood - all of these are familiar antisemitic conspiracy theories of the Right.

But the "Israel Lobby," charges of pinkwashing, Zionist control of the media, the ADL is behind US police brutality, Zionists are "silencing" pro-Palestinian voices, Israel engages in "Jewish supremacism" - these are all conspiracy theories of the Left that are no less bigoted.

Jovan Byford is an expert on conspiracy theories and wrote a major book on the topic, "Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction" (2011.) He dedicates a chapter to antisemitic conspiracy theories and segues from analyzing conspiracy theory antisemitism on the Right to that of the Left:, arguing that the conspiratorial aspect is exactly how one can distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism:

Recent years have witnessed an increased awareness of a seemingly new brand of conspiratorial antisemitism propagated mainly by sections of the left. The phenomenon, which has become known as ‘new antisemitism’, or anti-Zionism, is defined by the fact that the central object of disparagement and prejudice are not Jews as such, but Israel as the Jewish state (Chesler, 2003, Iganski and Kosmin, 2003, Foxman, 2004, Taguieff, 2004). Rather than viewing Israel as a country whose policies and actions, like that of any other, can (and indeed should be) criticised on merit, sections of the political left have come to view it as the source of uniquely harmful influence in the world. Israel’s actions, and even its very existence, are believed to be an expression of the uniquely iniquitous nationalist ideology (Zionism), which is considered to be comparable to Nazism: it is racist, imperialist, expansionist and tyrannical. Transgressions of the Israeli state – from human rights violations to military actions that are deemed, by critics, to be disproportionate – are seen as inherently more sinister than those committed by any other state in history, with the exception of Nazi Germany. Furthermore, Israel’s policies are seen as sufficiently egregious to undermine its basic legitimacy: exponents of ‘new antisemitism’ often go as far as to call for the dismantlement of Israel. This makes Israel the only member of the United Nations whose very existence is routinely brought into question and Jews the only people whose right to self-determination, it is argued, should be retrospectively revoked. Crucially, as David Cesarani (2004: 72) notes, the definitive crossing of the boundary between criticism of Israel and antisemitism occurs at the point where the former becomes articulated in language typically associated with antisemitism, that is, when it ‘intentionally or unintentionally uses or echoes long-established anti-Jewish discourse, characterising Jews inside Israel or in the Jewish diaspora as singularly wealthy, powerful, conspiratorial, treacherous and malign.’ In other words, when it is embellished with the motifs of a Jewish conspiracy.

The chapter section is an excellent summary of the new antisemitism. Here Byford shows how Leftist antisemites will even note the similarity between their theories and traditional antisemitism - as a way to defend themselves from being considered antisemites!

Accounts of ‘the Lobby’ are so blatantly conspiratorial that their exponents on occasions candidly admit that what they are alleging is essentially a Jewish plot, one that resembles the classic antisemitic conspiracy theory. Writing in the magazine Tikkun, Paul Buhle (2003) writes, for example, that when one looks at the power of the pro-Israel lobby ‘it is almost as if the anti-Semitic Protocols of Zion, successfully fought for a century, have suddenly returned with an industrial sized grain of truth’. The British historian Tony Judt has also admitted that claims about the sinister power of the ‘Israel lobby’ sound ‘an awful lot like, you know, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the conspiratorial theory of the Zionist Occupational Government and so on’ but that, while ‘unfortunate’, this cannot be helped as this is ‘just how it is’ (cited in Hirsh, 2007: 86). Such comparisons are rhetorically significant, because writers use the notoriety of the Protocols to accentuate the sinister influence of ‘the Lobby’, while at the same time forestalling any accusations of antisemitism by implying that, despite the resemblances, their claims are distinguishable from those of the right. As Tony Judt put it, ‘you can’t help it if idiots [on the right], once every 24 hours, with their stopped political clock are on the same time as you’ (ibid.). Thus, a distinction is drawn between disreputable (and false) conspiracy theories of the right and the accounts of real conspiracies uncovered by the left.

Leftist antisemites, sensitive to charges of racism, add a new layer to their conspiracy theory to forestall the idea that they are antisemitic:

The ‘slippage from criticism of American foreign policy to wild eyed conspiracy theory’ (Fine, 2006) apparent in the discussions of ‘the Lobby’ should not occur so easily, however. Left-wing thought is marked by long tradition of opposition to racism and a standing commitment to equality and social justice, which means that its contemporary exponents should be resistant to ideas traditionally peddled by their ideological opponents. And yet, as we have seen, among critics of ‘the Lobby’, this sensitivity is often lacking. This is at least in part because their ideological position is sustained by another key feature of the conspiracy theory, namely its essential irrefutability. As noted in Chapter 2, conspiratorial explanatory logic comprises a number of interpretative devices that makes the conspiracy theory immune to conventional cannons of proof and testing (e.g. by transforming disconfirming evidence into proof of the conspiracy). These devices protect the conspiracy theorist not just from challenges related to evidence or proof, but also from those made on moral grounds. Moral criticism, just like disconfirming evidence, can be attributed to the conspiracy and thus rendered invalid. This is an essential feature of the writing on ‘the Lobby’. The very reason why the idea of a Jewish plot should be resisted – namely antisemitism – is perceived as a distraction, a label deliberately manufactured, manipulated and used by ‘the Lobby’ for silencing opponents, de-legitimising criticism of Israel and controlling public opinion. Thus, antisemitism ceases to be a danger to be avoided by all those discussing the sensitive issue of Jewish influence in politics, and is perceived, instead, exclusively as a weapon of Zionist self-legitimisation. This stance towards antisemitism goes hand in hand with the so-called Holocaust industry argument, popularised by Norman Finkelstein (2000). According to Finkelstein and his followers, the Holocaust has been exploited and instrumentalised by powerful Jews to justify Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians and build a taboo around antisemitism (see Laqueur, 2006, Cesarani, 2004). The effect of this stance on antisemitism and the Holocaust, but also its underlying psychological function, is to undermine any sympathy for Jews that would normally foster resistance to antisemitic motifs. In other words, by persuading their audience, and, importantly, also themselves, that the moral standpoint from which their arguments can be criticised is consciously imposed by ‘the Lobby’ – and therefore an essential part of its sinister method – writers can pre-empt, destabilise and render unfounded any criticism of their ideological position. This places ‘the Lobby’ theory of America’s foreign policy beyond moral reproach, removes the taboo surrounding antisemitism, reinforces the believers’ conviction in the absolute truth of their views and inoculates them from any awareness of where the boundaries lie between acceptable and unacceptable opinion. The belief that everything, including the definition of what is acceptable, is manipulated by the sinister lobby not only shields the anti-Zionist worldview from the effects of disconfirming evidence, but also makes it vulnerable to the malign influence of motifs and stereotypes rooted in the conspiracy tradition.

This is brilliant analysis, describing how the Left uses the additional conspiracy theory that Jews are defining antisemitism to discredit critics as a way to make modern antisemitism palatable - and immune to criticism itself!

The entire campaign against the IHRA definition of antisemitism is based on the idea that the Zionist establishment is conspiring to define antisemitism to allow Israel to act in sinister ways.

When "criticism of Israel" crosses the line into the idea that Israelis - the most argumentative, contentious people around - unite to embrace evil, that is no longer criticism of Israel. It is Jew-hatred, and it is something that Jews recognize quite well.

From the New York Times:

The official residences of U.S. ambassadors overseas are almost always prime pieces of real estate: stately mansions in desirable neighborhoods where American diplomats entertain dignitaries, hold high-level meetings and occasionally host presidents.

In Israel, for more than half a century, the top U.S. envoy lived just outside Tel Aviv in a luxurious five-bedroom estate with sweeping views of the Mediterranean Sea. Israel gave the land to the United States in the 1950s.

Yet President Donald J. Trump sold the property when he moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in 2018. And that has left the newest American ambassador to Israel, Thomas R. Nides, to resort to the rental market for a place to live.

Mr. Nides, who arrived in Israel on Monday, has said he will live in Jerusalem to be near the embassy. More than half of the embassy’s staff members, however, still live in Tel Aviv, hampered by Jerusalem’s skyrocketing housing prices and security precautions required for American officials living there. That arrangement will require Mr. Nides to make the hourlong drive several times each week to meet with his own diplomats.

The bias in this article is from omission.

1. For decades, US Embassy staffers had to commute from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to meet with Israeli government officials. The entire reason embassies are located in national capitals is for convenience. But when it comes to Israel, suddenly it is considered inconvenient to mirror what happens in every other country.

2. Jerusalem real estate is indeed expensive. But Tel Aviv was just declared the most expensive city in the world! Every staffer is going to rent, not buy, in Israel, so the argument that Jerusalem's expensive real estate is an impediment for them to move makes no sense.

3. Why is the ambassador commuting to meet his own staffers instead of them commuting to him? Aren't they meeting in the embassy in Jerusalem?

4. An hour-long commute is not unusual in US metropolitan areas. Over 30% of workers in New York and Washington have commute times of over 45 minutes. There are hundreds of people who regularly make the trip between New York and Washington, 3 hours by train and 4 hours by car. Traffic is very bad in Israel but not worse than in many US cities.

5. It's 2021. Isn't there telecommuting to cut down the frequency of travel?

I'm not saying that the fact that the US Ambassador now has to scramble to live in Jerusalem and to find appropriate places to host VIPs is not newsworthy. But when you look at what the article seemingly goes out of its way to ignore, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the entire reason for the article is to say that the US Embassy move to Jerusalem was a mistake, and to only mention facts that support that conclusion.

There are dozens of articles in Arab media over the past two days that have the identical headline (and mostly identical text): "Settlers perform provocative dances in the Old City" of Jerusalem.

Jewish settlers continued, this evening, Wednesday, their provocative dances on Bab Al-Wad Road in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem.
And Jerusalem sources reported that settlers stormed the Old City in groups, and performed provocative dances on Bab al-Wad Road for the fourth consecutive day.

Here are the "provocative" dances:

They are singing a Chanukah soong.

It is worth reiterating what these headlines mean.

Palestinian media thinks that Jewish celebrations are not just celebrations, but are deliberately done to provoke Palestinian Arab feelings. This is a combination of antisemitism (Jews only use their holidays to hurt people) and egocentrism (Jews spend all their time thinking about Palestinians.)

But also they say that all these Jews are "settlers," meaning that they do not belong in Jerusalem or in the Middle East to begin with.

This Jew-hatred is so pervasive that people don't even bother to call it out. But the pervasiveness is the point: Palestinians are brought up with antisemitism, from their media, their schools, their families.

Saying that Jewish celebrations are really excused to hurt others is antisemitism. And it is the headline in dozens of Palestinian news sites, today.

Yes, Israel Can Attack Iran (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

Did you ever notice how from time to time a particular theme appears simultaneously in various media? One that I’ve seen a lot of lately is “Israel doesn’t have the ability to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, so we need to find a way to live with it.” Here is yet another example, from security analyst Yossi Melman, writing in Ha’aretz:

As the nuclear talks with Iran resume in Vienna, Israel must try to reach an agreement with Washington, by which the U.S. will extend it a nuclear umbrella and openly acknowledge it. …

The deployment of a nuclear umbrella is the ultimate guarantee of deterrence in the face of Iran’s nuclear program and, if Tehran succeeds in assembling a nuclear weapon, the possibility that Iran will threaten Israel in order to extract concessions from it. …

You don’t have to be a general or a military strategist to understand [why Israel can’t destroy Iran’s nuclear program]. It’s enough to look at the map, at the forces operating in the area and to read about the air force power from available sources. …

I’ve left out Melman’s detailed arguments about why it would be difficult. He discusses countries the IAF can and can’t fly over, the need for refueling, the fact that we would almost certainly lose some pilots, and so on. But all he can do is produce a list of constraints. Such a list only shows that he, Melman, doesn’t know how to attack Iran.

Let’s look at the consequences if Iran develops a nuclear capability (in this context it doesn’t matter if they have a bomb or just the ability to assemble one quickly). The psychological effects for Israelis of living under that kind of threat would be crushing. Because of the great imbalance in size and population between the countries, the threat of Israeli retaliation might not be sufficient to deter Iran from a first strike, especially if it were combined with a massive rocket attack from Hezbollah. And remember that the Iranian leadership acts in large part from religious motives, which may lead to irrational behavior.

Other countries in the region, like Saudi Arabia or Egypt might decide that they needed bombs too, which they could purchase from several suppliers with no need for an extended development program. Israel’s Begin Doctrine would be shredded. The possibility of an accidental nuclear exchange would become exponentially greater, as would the possibility that such weapons would fall into the hands of terrorists. Outside investment in Israel would dry up, the economy would struggle, and some Israelis might even flee the country.

The issue is much simpler than Melman presents it. Israel does not have a choice but to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, because she cannot live with it. The suggestion that Israel could simply outsource her deterrence to the US, even if the US were led by someone more dependable than the man who called the rout of American forces from Afghanistan “an extraordinary success,” is more than stupid – it is suicidal.

The US, unfortunately, is a nation in decline, socially, economically, politically, and militarily. I don’t think any of her adversaries – China, Russia, and Iran – are strong enough to frontally challenge her at this point, but I expect to see them chipping away at her allies, like Taiwan and Ukraine. Israel would be very foolish to put all her eggs in America’s basket today.

Melman himself admits the “weakness of the Biden Administration and its lack of desire to confront Iran” in connection with the negotiations for a nuclear deal. But a few sentences later, he suggests that a “nuclear umbrella” placed over Israel by the same administration would protect her. And this he calls “a bold and creative move!”

It seems to me that despite what Melman and others have said, Israel does have options to attack Iran. One approach is to paralyze the regime as a whole: cut off the head by killing the leadership, and cut the spinal cord by wrecking her communications and power infrastructure (perhaps with EMP weapons). Not everything must be done by manned aircraft: drones, submarine-launched missiles, Jericho ICBMs, and even special forces on the ground could take part. In this way, Iran can be taken out of the game without the need to destroy all her nuclear facilities at once. This also entails neutralizing Hezbollah at the same time, which might be the most difficult part.

There are other approaches, but rather than the surgical removal of the nuclear program, I prefer an attack targeting the regime because it will also lead to solutions to other problems, like Hezbollah. Possibly if the regime is hurt badly enough, the domestic Iranian opposition will be free to act, which could bring about the best outcome of all.

It’s not known to me who is encouraging the voices of defeatism coming from those like Ehud Barak and Yossi Melman, but in both cases the suggested solution is that Israel beg for the protection of the US, which makes me suspicious of those circles in America – for example, former president Barack Obama and his associates – who would like to see a further erosion of Israel’s independence and freedom of action.

Israel has a history of solving difficult problems in innovative ways. This is precisely such a case. I’m confident that she will prevail – and sooner than some think.

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.