Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 13, 2021

12/13 Links Pt2: Don’t be fooled. Zionism is an Indigenous rights movement and being anti-Zionist is antisemitic; Head of Israeli Army’s Rescue Team in Surfside, Fla., Plays ‘Hallelujah’ Tribute to Victims

From Ian:

Don’t be fooled. Zionism is an Indigenous rights movement and being anti-Zionist is antisemitic.

On Oct. 26, the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education passed a resolution condemning antisemitism, as it’s defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), and as requested by every synagogue and mainstream Jewish organization in San Diego. Since then, Israel-haters in San Diego have been wringing their virtual hands over the audacity of a school district to define antisemitism the way most Jews define it (in a state that over the previous five years saw a 40 percent increase in antisemitic hate crimes, and in a country where Jews are the targets of 60 percent of all faith-based hate crimes).

Recognizing they can’t simply say that they oppose such resolutions because Israel-haters want to exploit Jew-hatred in order to incite hatred against Israel (the world’s only Jewish state and home to nearly half of the world’s Jews), the Israel-haters wax apoplectic about how the IHRA definition “chills free speech” because it supposedly makes legitimate criticism of Israel antisemitic, is a tool for “weaponizing antisemitism,” and will somehow increase anti-Arab or anti-Muslim hatred.

I addressed why these claims are specious and themselves antisemitic in an an essay last month.

Likely because the IHRA definition in pertinent part provides it is antisemitic to deny “the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” we are seeing claims that being “anti-Zionist” is not antisemitic, as well as claims by Israel-haters actually comparing Zionism with racist colonialist ideologies like “Manifest Destiny” (which was used to justify America’s westward expansion and brutal conquest of Native Americans).

These claims are false and also incredibly insulting to the vast majority of Jews, who either are Israeli or feel a very strong attachment to Israel. Moreover, these claims get to the core of why the Arab-Israeli conflict persists, and why, despite at least eight different peace and partition offers since 1937 (to create the first independent Arab state west of the Jordan River), no such offer has ever been accepted.

While the Israel-haters try to redefine Zionism to make it seem somehow equivalent to colonialist ideologies like Manifest Destiny, the truth is that the definition of Zionism is quite simple: Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people, like all other peoples, have a right to self-determination and sovereignty in part of their Indigenous homeland.

Double-Edged Antisemitism

The Oct. 9, 1982 Palestinian terrorist attack on the Great Synagogue of Rome, in which killed two-year-old Stefano Gaj Tachè was killed, and the blood of 37 others who were wounded flowed on the stones of the building that should have been the safest refuge for Jews in the Italian capital, was a double slap in the face — not only by the murderers, but by those who didn’t lift a finger to defend their victims.

According to a front-page story last week in the left-leaning Italian daily, Il Riformista, Italian authorities had been warned that an attack against Jews or Israelis was being planned. Though documents cited in the story show that Francesco Cossiga — prime minister of the Italian Republic from 1979-1980, and president from 1985-1992 — had decried it at the time, numerous documents from more than fifteen years ago show that no one ever bothered to investigate the matter further. The implication is that there had been a political agreement between former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti and Palestinian organizations, which had requested that they be given a free hand against Jews and Israelis on Italian soil in exchange for a vow not to assault “innocent” Italians (i.e. non-Jews).

Though such a promise meant nothing, as Palestinian terrorists hadn’t taken into account the identity of “innocent” Italians when they attacked Rome’s Fiumicino airport in 1973 (killing 34); the 1985 highjacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro; or the 1985 twin attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports (killing 19).

Nevertheless, it was clear that Jewish blood was still a bargaining chip, even after the not-so-distant Holocaust, and after the Ghetto of Rome had been marked forever by the deportations of 1943. Indeed, the above terrorist attacks were simply part and parcel of the “next round.” And the same were once again stained with Jewish blood.

During the year of the attack on the Great Synagogue, PLO chief Yasser Arafat addressed the Italian Chamber of Deputies armed with a pistol. Andreotti, the godfather of the parliament’s pro-Arab policy, had allowed him to do so; and only Giovanni Spadolini of Italy’s Republican Party opposed the event.

The luxury beliefs of Western anti-Zionists

Rob Henderson, an Asian-American Air Force veteran and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cambridge, has defined “luxury beliefs” broadly as opinions that confer social status on Western elites at very little cost, while taking a toll on those actually impacted by such ideas. One example cited by Henderson, who grew up poor, neglected and in and out of foster care, is the trendy Defund the Police movement, which is supported significantly more by the wealthy than the poor – and is overwhelmingly rejected by African Americans.

This is not surprising as it is the latter who suffered the most when the woke BLM-inspired slogan following the murder of George Floyd was, was, to varying degrees, actually implemented into policy. Major cuts to the budgets of police forces in major cities like Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Philadelphia led to a dramatic increases in crime – particularly homicides – against African Americans.

Western ant-Zionism, which is increasingly in vogue not only on the far-left, but within major media outlets as well, is similarly a luxury idea – one that is dangerously divorced from the millions of lives who would be impacted by such a ‘solution’ to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Whilst the chances of Israel agreeing, or being forced at the point of a gun, to accept the end of Jewish sovereignty in their historic homeland are inestimably low, the injurious impact of such luxury beliefs is still quite real.

The promotion by pro-Palestinian activists of an non-Zionist future, which represents an existential threat for Israeli Jews, also does grave harm to Palestinians, as it nurtures false hope that they don’t need to bother with the nitty-gritty work of negotiations, compromise and (badly needed) institution-building to ameliorate the conflict, but instead can just wait Zionism out – what former Guardian journalist David Hearst once admiringly referred to using the Arabic word Sumud, meaning steadfastness or staying power.

The Algerian representative to an Organization of Islamic Cooperation meeting said that Israel is attempting to control the entire Middle East.

The speaker of the Algeria People’s National Assembly (Lower House), Brahim Boughali, spoke Friday in Istanbul at the 16th Conference of the Union of Councils of Member States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

In his speech, he said, “Algeria calls on Islamic peoples for greater solidarity with the Palestinian people, while working to preserve their rights, gains, heritage and identity, and condemning policies aimed at empowering the Zionist entity from controlling and taking over the region through normalization or collusion.”

You see, when Israel makes peace with Arab nations, it is not for peace. It is to take over!

Notice also the wording. He isn't directly accusing Israel of trying to take over the region - that is a given. He's upset that other Arab nations are empowering the Jews in their unlimited greed.

He added, “We support the Palestinian people in their sacred struggle for liberation and dignity and for the sake of building their independent and sovereign state and its capital, Al-Quds Al-Sharif, as it was throughout its glorious history, a beacon of civilization, freedom, thought, and peaceful coexistence."

Before Zionism, Jerusalem was a neglected backwater for the Muslim world, ignored by virtually all. But everyone is entitled to their own facts, right?

Shfa News, a Palestinian news network, conducted an opinion poll of Arabs in Jerusalem.

The sample included 1,200 Arab residents of Jerusalem who have an Israeli ID card.

Of the 1,200, 1,116 (93%) say they prefer that Israel retains control over the entire city. Only 84 people answered that they prefer to transfer political control to the Palestinian Authority.

When those 84 people were asked about their willingness to give up their IDs in favor of a Palestinian Authority ID, they suddenly became more Zionist. 79 of them answered that they would refuse to give up the Israeli identity card they now hold and replace it with a Palestinian Authority ID.

Only 5 people answered that they are willing to give up their current Israeli ID.

That's 99.6% that prefer Israeli residence IDs over Palestinian citizenship.

This would be a surprising result for those who claim that Israel engages in ethnic cleansing of these very Arabs. Apparently they prefer "apartheid" to living in a Palestinian state.

12/13 Links Pt1: Abraham Accords herald a new normal for Israel, Arab allies; The Arab Apartheid No One Talks About; Israeli airstrikes targeted chemical weapons facilities in Syria

From Ian:

Abraham Accords herald a new normal for Israel, Arab allies

The Abraham Accords that Kushner championed made all of these things a real possibility for the first time since 1948. THE BIDEN administration was right to signal its support for the signed peace agreements between Israel and Arab countries. This, too, helped accelerate the momentum for peace.

If the wave of peacemaking translates into tangible benefit for Arab youth, pan-Arab support for peace with Israel will only grow.

We need a new regional order where Israel is a stakeholder and no longer a foreigner in its own region. This new regional order should not be seen as against anyone, but, rather, as beneficial to all. Also, this new regional order should be based on an updated joint assessment of threats, but also on how to generate opportunities that promote stability and future development.

This time of year in America, it is common to pray for peace. Simply put, security and prosperity demand peace between people.

The Biden administration should accordingly push for a broader effort at cultural reform with the potential to generate the popular support necessary to sustain a peace process.

Doing so means urging and equipping Arab allies to roll back generations of rejectionist messaging in Arab establishment-owned media, mosques and schools. It means supporting the rising tide of bold, grassroots Arab voices that have been calling for specific relations between Arabs and Israel.

Rather than returning to the old clichés of the “peace process,” we could encourage America’s diplomats and scholars to see the extraordinary power in ordinary things.

MEMRI: Saudi Writer: War With Israel Not An Option; Palestinians Must Renew Negotiations Under Arab, Gulf Aegis

In an article in the daily 'Okaz, Saudi writer 'Abd Al-'Aziz Munif Bin Razen called for the renewal of the negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel under the aegis of Arab and Gulf countries, based on the 2002 Arab peace initiative. He argued that a policy of hostility or disregard towards Israel will not yield a solution to the conflict but will only serve the interests of manipulative elements such as Iran. The region cannot withstand another war, he added, especially given the Covid pandemic and the economic crisis that attends it. Therefore, the need for peace has become more urgent and vital than ever, he concluded.

The following are translated excerpts from his article:[1]
"For several decades, the Palestinian issue, or the Arab-Israeli conflict, as those who trade in it like to call it, has remained without a definite victory for either side. The ones who benefit the most from trading [in the Palestinian cause] are the ones who have manipulated it and interfered in it without any justification, except for their [desire] to pose as the policemen of the region – although in practice they have been more like paper tigers.

"The clashes between the Palestinians and the Israelis [over the years] have resulted in nothing but bloodshed on both sides and a psychological barrier that each generation inherits from the last. That is why no [Palestinian] state has been established, no refugees have returned [to their homes] and international law has remained unimplemented. What has happened is the creation of hostility for its own sake.

"This hostility and this psychological barrier do not characterize only the Palestinians and Israelis. They exist throughout the Middle East, including in Arab countries that do not share a border with Israel. The hostility [to Israel] grew out of the sense of solidarity with the Palestinian people, and is based on Arabism and blood [ties].

"However, [at some point] several Arab countries came to the conclusion that the policy of hostility and boycott was useless, and that ignoring the enemy is a defeat in itself. For this reason, some countries in the Gulf and elsewhere began building bridges of peace with Tel Aviv, not out of submission or obedience, but out of recognition and appreciation of the other, so as to break the psychological barrier and address the Palestinian issue in a more balanced manner, far from high-flown slogans and while safeguarding the Saudi initiative, called the 2002 Arab peace initiative… [an initiative] that Saudi Arabia still regards as a basis for peace with Israel.

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Arab Apartheid No One Talks About

"Not all of the professions will be opened to Palestinians under the new decree...." — L'Orient Today, December 8, 2021.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon "are socially marginalized, have very limited civil, social, political and economic rights, including restricted access to the Government of Lebanon's public health, educational and social services and face significant restrictions on their right to work and right to own property." — UNRWA, September 2020.

There are several reasons why the Lebanese do not want the Palestinians. One reason is that since the 1970s, the Palestinians have brought war and destruction to Lebanon and turned refugee camps into bases for terror groups.

"It is time to end this history of discrimination and systematic segregation... Qualified Palestinians should be allowed to practice their professions, especially in fields where they are most needed.... Very few Lebanese would share my view." — Sawssan Abou-Zahr, senior Lebanese journalist, Reliefweb, August 1, 2021.

What is clear...is that the international community has long been ignoring the abuses and human rights violations by an Arab country against the Palestinians.

The demonization of Israel by so many journalists, officials and so-called human-rights groups leaves little time to ask why a Palestinian in Lebanon is not permitted to practice medicine while a significant portion of the medical staff at Israeli hospitals consists of Arab doctors and nurses.

At the American Muslims for Palestine conference in Chicago over Thanksgiving weekend, one of the speakers was Omar Suleiman, who has been praised as a new type of moderate Muslim leader - he even once gave the opening prayer at Congress.

Suleiman gave his vision of a future Palestine, one where Jews and Christians are not expelled, but dignified, under supposedly benevolent Muslim rule.

Is Palestine a Muslim issue? It's a Muslim issue, but it's not just a Muslim issue. People will say well, you know, the Muslim vision for Palestine is one in which Jews do not exist, in which Christians do not exist, in which people are wiped out and oppressed. And I respond to them and I say have you not read about Umar Ibn Al-Khattab, entering into Palestine? That's my vision of Palestine.

Umar Ibn Al-Khattab was offered to pray in the church and he says to the Patriarch, "Let me walk out of here, because if I pray here then some overzealous Muslims will come later on and say Umar Ibn Al-Khattab prayed here and they'll turn this into a masjid." And so out of his wisdom and sincerity he walked out and he prayed in a place that is today masjid Omar.

My vision for Palestine is one that...doesn't exclude religious communities, doesn't white people out. My vision for Palestine is what Palestine was! It's not a false hypothetical situation in the future: it's one that existed! People dignified and held high! That's the Palestine that I want.

So don't come to me with your present reality of ethnically cleansing Palestinian Muslims and Christians and saying we have to do this because if we cede to these barbaric people then they will wipe us off the planet. That's not true and we have a history that is older than seven[ty] years.

He sounds so tolerant!

Unfortunately for him, this vision is a whitewash of the reality of Jews and Christians under Muslim rule over the centuries, and today as well. After all, we only have to see how Christianity has dwindled under Muslim rule even in the past few decades to see how tolerant Muslims have been - let alone the ethnic cleansing that Jews have suffered under Muslim rule only seventy years ago.

The Palestine that he wants to return to is one where Jews would be beaten if they dared walk past the seventh step of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where Jews would be killed if they entered the Temple Mount, where Jews would be attacked if they brought folding chairs to the Western Wall to pray. The Palestine that he envisions is one where Jews and Christians know their place is to be humble supplicants from their Muslim masters - or else.

What was it like to be a Jew in Palestine under Muslim rule? James Finn, the British consul to Jerusalem in the mid 19th century, describes it:

In times gone by these native Jews had their full share of suffering from the general tyrannical conduct of the Moslems, and, having no resources for maintenance in the Holy Land, they were sustained, though barely, by contributions from synagogues all over the world. This mode of supply being understood by the Moslems, they were subjected to exactions and plunder on its account from generation to generation (individuals among them, however, holding occasionally lucrative offices for a tune). This oppression proved one of the causes which have entailed on the community a frightful incubus of debt, the payment of interest on which is a heavy charge upon the income derived from abroad.

... The Jews are humiliated by the payment, through the Chief Rabbi, of pensions to Moslem local exactors, for instance the sum of 300£. a year to the Effendi whose house adjoins the ' wailing place,' or fragment of the western wall of the Temple enclosure, for permission to pray there; 100£. a year to the villagers of Siloam for not disturbing the graves on the slope of the Mount of Olives ; 50£ a year to the Ta'amra Arabs for not injuring the Sepulchre of Rachel near Bethlehem, and about 10£ a year to Sheikh Abu Gosh for not molesting their people on the high road to Jaffa, although he was highly paid by the Turkish Government as Warden of that road. All these are mere exactions made upon their excessive timidity, which it is disgraceful to the Turkish Government to allow to be practised. The figures are copied from their humble appeals occasionally made to the synagogues in Europe. Other minor impositions were laid upon them which they were afraid to discontinue to pay, such as, to one man (Moslem) for superintending the slaughtering of cattle by themselves for food, to see that it is performed by the Sephardi Eabbi who has purchased his license to do it. Periodical presents likewise of sugar, etc., to the principal Moslems at their festivals.

The Hebron Jews were more exposed than even those in Jerusalem to rough usage from the natives, and they had suffered greatly from the tyrannies of the brutal ' Abderrahhman el 'Amer.

This barely scratches the surface.

An 1852 account describes how Jews had to hide any indication of owning property or goods, because the Arabs would steal them. Jews in Palestine suffered pogroms. - not just in 1929. The word "Jew" was (and remains) an epithet in the Arab world.

This is the life that Omar Suleiman wants Jews to return to.

It turns out that Suleiman has a history of bigotry that he tries to hide behind his words pretending to be tolerant. The late Petra Marquardt-Bigman wrote about him at length for JTA in 2019.

And under the Jewish rule that Suleiman calls "ethnic cleansing" there are more Muslims living in Jerusalem than at any time in history. There are more Muslims visiting Al Aqsa - under Jewish supervision - every week than had ever visited in all recorded history under Muslim rule.

But all you really need to know about Suleiman is what he said at the end of his AMP speech, saying that Jewish history in the land does not exceed 70 years. He denies Jewish history itself. He denies that Jewish holy places are Jewish, even though they all pre-date the Muslim invasion of the land by over a thousand years.

Anyone who denies Jewish history is an antisemite, no matter how wonderfully he speaks.

(h/t kweansmom)

As we wrote earlier this month, there has been Arab anger at the Arab World Institute over their invitation of an Israeli singer at the Festival Arabofolies (Arab World Festival) in Paris, along with a major exhibition that featured Jewish history in the Arab world.

The BDS movement claimed that they were against the exhibit because it was created in cooperation with Israeli museums.

A new article criticizing the exhibition proves yet again that anti-Zionism is just an excuse to whitewash antisemitism.

The Arab World Institute had previously mounted exhibitions titled “Hajj, the pilgrimage in Makkah” in 2014 and the “Christians of the East, 2,000 years of history” in 2017. This "Jews of the Orient: a multi-millennial history” is the third of the trilogy. But mentioning that Jews had lived in the Arab world and built their own culture is too much for some Arabs, who never considered Jews to be part of their world.

Nizar Hussain Rashid, writing in Rai Al Youm, attacks the exhibition with thinly-veiled antisemitism, saying that the exhibit "emanates from the Israeli bosom" and showcases, somehow, Israeli theft of Arab culture.

He makes the ridiculous argument that the name of the exhibition, Jews of the Orient or Jews of the East, is inaccurate because north African Jews are not from the East at all.

Somehow, since he considers Israelis to be Western colonialists, that makes this exhibition on Jews in Arab lands to be illegitimate.

Rashid repeats the lie that there is no history of Jews in Israel. "They toiled in digging and digging in the land of Palestine and did not find either a stone or a trace [of their history.] Where will the museum’s stones and sculptures come from then? Who are the forgers among the Professors of Archeology at the Hebrew University, for example? "

Rashid then goes on to deny that any Jews were forced out of Arab countries, claiming that they all left voluntarily from Egypt and Iraq and elsewhere, and then they found real discrimination when they reached Israel and regretted leaving their homes.

Which brings up the question - if that is true, when why didn't they go back?

The writer ends off by saying "In any case, the Arab World Institute is now standing naked of every virtue and on open ground, after it was infiltrated in this scandalous way."

Denying Jewish history. Saying that Jews are liars. Making clear that Jews never belonged in Arab countries as full citizens to begin with. Yeah, that's not "anti-Zionism."

And this is just one of the daily examples of antisemitism in Arab media. Another example from yesterday is a major Algerian newspaper headline, "How 3 Jewish families conspired to occupy Algeria," blaming the French occupation on a Jewish plot, in a bizarre interpretation of history.

If the people who are in the forefront of anti-Zionism really opposed antisemitism as they claim, why are they silent when there are such egregious examples of antisemitism throughout the Arab world?

The State of Israel was the real winner in Miss Universe

I watched the last 90 minutes of the Miss Universe competition, which was apparently broadcast live from Israel while it was the middle of the night there. (The Philippines contestant, a crowd favorite because of all the Filipino workers in Israel, said "Boker Tov Israel!" meaning it was early morning there.)

All through that hour and a half I was rooting for the South African contestant, who came to Israel despite pressure from the modern antisemites of her home country who tried to prevent it. She made it to the final 16, then final 10, then final 5, then final 3. (Yes, the broadcast is a little padded.) Unfortunately, she didn't win.

The best parts were the many short films showing the contestants visiting all of Israel - and in the short time they were there, they sure saw a lot! Jaffa, Haifa, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the Sea of Galilee, Masada, the Judean Desert, Caesarea, Bedouin encampments, Nazareth, the Ramon Crater - and so many more places. The contestants were thrilled to be in Israel; the Mexico contestant was almost in tears at the opportunity to see it.

This was the real Israel that was shown.

They also showed off the great food they ate, and the Israel haters are no doubt very angry at so many examples of Israeli cuisine that borrowed from so many other cultures, from fancy ice cream to shakshuka.

One of the judges, apparently from India, also gave a call out to how great Israel is.

Israel's Ministry of Tourism took advantage of the invaluable publicity and had a commercial for viewers to book a trip. But the entire three hours was a fantastic advertisement for Israel. I didn't watch Eurovision, but I doubt that they showed off the country as much as Miss Universe did.

Not one nation withdrew from the competition because of the boycott. Several had COVID issues, and it is possible that Malaysia and Indonesia used COVID as an excuse not to participate, but unless a competitor says that they are withdrawing because they hate Israel, no one can claim a BDS victory.

There were a couple of other interesting subplots.

One was that the other Muslim participants were feeling much pressure from their home countries. Yet they came through with poise and didn't cave to the haters.

Another story was that the Israeli organizers tried to get the Miss Universe organization to drop the swimsuit competition because it objectifies women.

They didn't succeed, but an unlikely heroine came out of it. On Friday, during the preliminary round where every contestant modeled a swimsuit, the Bahraini contestant came out fully covered in an attractive activewear outfit.

This is especially impressive since she is the first Bahraini contestant for Miss Universe, ever. And to imagine that the first Miss Universe Bahrain would be competing in Israel is still mind-blowing.

There are a lot of very angry people who tried so hard to get the world to boycott this show. They not only failed, but they failed spectacularly. And Israel looks wonderful.

Elder Comix: PFLP day job

12/12 Links: Is the Biden Administration at War with Israel?; Bennett takes off to UAE for first Israeli PM visit; Three dead at funeral of Hamas member killed in Lebanon explosion

From Ian:

"Is the Biden Administration at War with Israel?"

"The US does not want to open a consulate merely to have a place for diplomatic connections with the PA [Palestinian Authority]. If that is all they wanted, they could easily do this by opening a mission in Abu Dis or Ramallah -- where most other countries conduct their relations with the PA... the purpose of opening the consulate is to recognize Palestinian claims to Jerusalem." — Eugene Kontorovitch, professor, George Mason University, Antonin Scalia School of Law, Israel Hayom, December 5, 2021.

The 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations states that "a consular post may be established in the territory of the receiving State only with that State's consent". In other words, reopening the consulate may be done only with the consent of the Israeli government.

All this cannot be dissociated from the general hostile attitude of the Biden administration towards Israel from the moment it came to power.

Earlier in March, an internal memo from the US State Department was leaked to The National, a daily newspaper in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The National reported that "The Biden administration memo recommends voicing US principles on achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace under a two-state solution framework 'based on the 1967 lines'".

The author of the memo is Hady Amr, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs and Press and Public Diplomacy in the Biden administration, and also in charge of US negotiations with Israel and Palestinian organizations. It is hard to imagine that Amr was chosen as an "honest broker". Amr has a long history of anti-Israeli activities.

Amr also is the lead author of a report published by the Brookings Institution in December 2018 in which some proposals are made that could be regarded as disturbing. The report says that the United States must "reconnect" with Hamas, a fundamentalist terrorist group; seek "to create a Palestinian unity government integrating Hamas", and "compel Israel to make major concessions", even if it may "endanger Israel". The report never defines Hamas as a terrorist group, and never says that Hamas's goal is to destroy Israel. The report adds, "should Israel prove uncooperative with American efforts, the United States could signal it will move ahead anyway."

The behavior of the Biden administration towards Israel is all the more worrying in that at the same time, it places itself in a weak position regarding negotiations with Iran and seems ready to make a deal with the mullahs' regime at any price, in a resolution that has already been called "less for less", or, worse, "less for more".

Defense Min. Benny Gantz presents Iran attack timeline to US officials

Defense Minister Benny Gantz updated American officials that he has set a deadline for when the IDF will need to complete preparations for an attack against Iran.

The Americans did not voice opposition to the Israeli preparations when presented with the date by Gantz on Thursday, a senior diplomatic source said the following day.

“There was no veto,” the source said.

The IDF has intensified planning for an attack against its arch enemy. Last week, American sources revealed that Austin and Gantz were expected to discuss joint military preparations, and a report on Kan said that the IDF was planning a massive mock strike aerial drill for this summer.

Gantz met with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday. The conversations focused mainly on Iran and its continued pursuit of nuclear capability, but some of the US officials also brought up Israeli settlement activity and their concern that building in the West Bank will block a future two-state solution.

Jerusalem consulted with Washington on two previous strikes on Iran: one in June against a facility producing centrifuges in Karaj, and another on a missile production site outside Tehran, The New York Times reported.

Melanie Phillips: Speaking to the wider world

I appeared last week on Inside the News on Sky News Australia, where Rowan Dean and I discussed my argument that deep green environmental ideology was essentially pagan and anti-human. After that, we turned to the no-less enormous question of why the west persistently and catastrophically fails to understand the rest of the world — a topic which had to be dealt with in under two minutes! You can watch Sky’s video clip of the second item here, although you’ll have to battle through some advertising to get to it. Alternatively, you can listen to it by clicking the audio link above.

I was also the guest in an hour-long webinar hosted by Peter Kurti, research scholar at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, on the west’s crisis of reason and its onslaught upon its own culture. I had actually brought together the various strands of this crisis in my 2010 book The World Turned Upside Down: the Global Battle over God, Truth and Power — which Peter was kind enough to describe as “prescient” — and we talked about some of the most significant markers along my journey to the view that the west is in big trouble. We also discussed the current epidemic of antisemitism, whether the precipitous decline of reason in the west was now irreversible and, if not, what we could do to turn the situation round.

Texas man's threats to kill Chabad rabbis are still up on YouTube

From the Jerusalem Post:

A man in Amarillo, Texas, is facing up to five years in federal prison, accused of directing death threats at three rabbis, according to a statement published on Friday by the office of the US Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Chad E. Meacham.

37-year-old Christopher Stephen Brown is charged with interstate threatening communications after he allegedly repeatedly contacted Chabad, calling for the death of all Jews, threatening to murder members of the Beit Din (Jewish court) and sending a link to his YouTube channel, on which he said Chabad's chairman, vice chairman and the son of another member of the organization must die.

He later called again, threatening to "tear out" rabbis' eyes and tongues and kill as many as he could, then again the following day saying he would blow their heads off, according to the statement.

When police went to Brown's residence to apprehend him, he resisted arrest, and his girlfriend, 28-year-old Rebekah Jones engaged physically with the law enforcement officers, aiming a gun at an FBI agent who then successfully disarmed her.

Brown's YouTube channel is still up, calling himself “The Maleficent Mystifying Oracle Dr. Obadiah.”

As of this writing, one can still watch his crazed screeds accusing Chabad of raping hundreds of thousands of children and of the Church wanting to assassinate him. His explicit death threats are also still there. He is enamored with The Joker villain.

Although he speaks as if he is religious, he also says he is defending LGBTQ people from Chabad.

One of his comments to his own video says, "I will - with my Lord's might - wipe humans off the earth as a slave wipes a mirror. I will create a new lifeform. So it is done."

Two of his videos have over 20,000 views!

In the end, is Brown any different than Zahra Billoo, another religious person who considers organized Jewry to be the enemy of all Muslims and all decent people? They are both crazed antisemites who threaten Jews. But one of them is a respected leader in a Muslim organization and her threats are more subtle, so she gets defended.

Hamas claims Lebanon weapons depot explosion was only "oxygen and disinfectants for COVID patients"

On Friday night, a large explosion in Tyre killed at least one person and injured a dozen others.

You can hear secondary explosions in this video.

While Lebanese and Arab media quoted Hamas members who admitted that the explosion was in a Hamas weapons depot - which may have been beneath a mosque that was destroyed - Hamas had a different explanation.

After examining the circumstances surrounding the accident and listening to eyewitnesses, it is revealed that the explosion was caused by a short circuit in a warehouse that includes oxygen cylinders for coronavirus patients and an amount of cleaning products, disinfectants, and preliminary material allocated to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

But then one of the people injured in the explosion, Hamza Ibrahim Shaheen, died of his injuries.

He was a member of the Al Qassam Brigades of Hamas. Their description of his heroic death contradicts the story about the short circuit, as they said that he was "martyred while on a jihad mission."

Hamas called for a major funeral in Lebanon today for this "mujahid."

A Lebanese official investigating the blast said that it was definitely ammunition that exploded, not oxygen tanks.

Lebanese are making fun of Hamas' explanation for the explosion, especially now that it was forced to contradict itself as to the heroic nature of the "martyr."

CAIR's defense of Zahra Billoo's antisemitism: "Some of our best friends are Jews!"

I reported earlier this month that Zahra Billoo, executive-director of the San Francisco Bay Area branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA), spoke in a panel session at an American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) convention where she spouted antisemitism, calling synagogues and Jewish institutions the "enemy" of Muslims.

We need to pay attention to the Anti-Defamation League. We need to pay attention to the Jewish Federation. We need to pay attention to the Zionist synagogues. We need to pay attention to the Hillel chapters on our campuses, because just because they are your friends today, doesn't mean that they have your back when it comes to human rights.

So oppose the vehement fascist, but oppose the polite Zionist too. They are not your friends...

I am not going to sugarcoat that, they are your enemies. There are organizations and infrastructures out there who are working to harm you. Make no mistake of it. They would sell you down the line if they could, and they very often do behind your back.

This caused quite an uproar, with even the Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL condemning Billoo's statements and demanding a condemnation from CAIR.

But instead of condemning Billoo, CAIR says it stands by her bigoted statements. It downplays what she said and then uses the oldest excuse in the book for antisemites.

In the wake of her speech, anti-Muslim websites misquoted Zahra’s remarks and falsely claimed that she had discouraged Muslims from working with Jewish groups at-large.

This is a blatant lie. In fact, Zahra praised the many Jewish activists and groups that support human rights for all people, including Palestinians, and specifically encouraged Muslims to engage in interfaith collaboration with Jewish organizations such as IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace.

Really? She didn't list any purportedly Jewish groups besides those two.

And Billoo specifically called out "Zionist synagogues." Which synagogues are anti-Zionist?

There are about 4000 synagogues in America, and hundreds more makeshift minyanim in workplaces and people's houses.

I am aware of only one synagogue that is explicitly "non-Zionist" and it is barely a synagogue. Brant Rosen's Tzedek Chicago meets for prayer only on Friday nights, in the basement of a Lutheran church.

Which means that approximately 99.98% of American synagogues are not anti-Israel.

Every single one of those are considered enemies by CAIR and Billoo.

CAIR's defense? They like some Jews like Brant Rosen, so they cannot possibly be antisemitic! The members of the other 99.98% of synagogues don't represent real Judaism!

Already in the 1930s people were making fun of "some of my best friends are Jews" defense against the charge of antisemitism.

What CAIR is really saying is that some of their best friends are Jewish dhimmis, anxious to please their Muslim masters and live in eternal proleptic dhimmitude.

12/11 Links: PA Textbooks ‘Encouraging Violence’ Found on Teenage Girl When Arrested for Jerusalem Stabbing; The Unmitigated Gall of Ilhan Omar

From Ian:

Palestinian Authority Textbooks ‘Encouraging Violence’ Found on Teenage Girl When Arrested for Jerusalem Stabbing

A 14-year-old Palestinian girl suspected of stabbing a woman in Jerusalem on Wednesday was carrying a number of Palestinian Authority textbooks with messages of violent incitement when she was caught, an Israeli watchdog revealed Thursday.

Police said they arrested the teenager at her school shortly after she stabbed 26-year-old Moriah Cohen — her family’s neighbor in the flashpoint neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah — while the victim was walking with her five children.

IMPACT-se, an Israeli nonprofit that reviews educational materials used by the PA, said that the girl carried books containing a number of “violent” materials in a school bag when arrested. These included a lesson on reading comprehension describing a terror attack on Israeli civilians as a “barbecue party,” a statistics lesson using a frequency table that featured the numbers of “martyrs” killed by Israel, and a social studies text portraying armed resistance as “natural” and “legitimate.”

“It is hard to imagine a more tragic metaphor for the brazen antisemitism and encouragement to violence in the Palestinian curriculum, than a 14-year-old Palestinian girl stabbing a visibly Jewish woman while carrying the Palestinian Authority’s inciteful textbooks in her backpack,” the groups CEO Marcus Sheff commented. “These textbooks are strategically created by the PA to promote a culture of hate and violence among 1.3 million children.”

“I truly hope those countries that still support the Palestinian Ministry of Education and UNRWA are paying close attention and drawing the appropriate conclusions,” Sheff said, referring to the UN agency serving Palestinian refugees that has come under fire for employing antisemitic and violent materials in its schools.

The Unmitigated Gall of Ilhan Omar

You may recall a few years back when the Democratic Party backed out of censuring Omar for her numerous repulsive comments because of “fierce backlash” from the Congressional Black Caucus (a group whose members have held strategy sessions and meetings with Louis Farrakhan, because the normalization of certain kinds of hatreds is nothing new on the left.) Censures and resolutions are almost always useless exercises in political theater. But Pelosi showed a special kind of creativity when she decided to reprimand Omar with a watered-down, platitudinous “anti-hate” resolution, which mentions Alfred Dreyfus, Leo Frank, Henry Ford, and “anti-Muslim bigotry,” but not Omar.

Parties are reluctant to censure their own members, no matter how odious the words, as that sort of thing telegraphs weakness and upsets the base. And the opposition likes to exaggerate the influence of backbenchers. Take the Washington Post’s partisan pseudojournalist Greg Sargent, who absurdly argues that Boebert et al portend emerging Republican attitudes. Certainly, the faction is not irrelevant, but it’s wishful thinking to say that they will “continue gaining adherents and intensity.” Not a single one of these Republicans is driving any serious policy initiatives. And Kevin McCarthy certainly isn’t posing with the Greene and Boebert on the cover of Rolling Stone in their “Women Shaping the Future” issue.

The Squad — who are surely “gaining adherents and intensity” as moderate Democrats shed seats due to the party’s progressive turn — already have outsized power. They can stop bills right now. A few months ago, they nearly sunk funding for Israel’s defensive “Iron Dome” system — perhaps the only spending that Squad members passionately oppose. (AOC was in tears because she had abstained from cutting off spending on a system that saves thousands of lives.) The Biden administration already uses AOC’s branding for its climate-change agenda. And virtually every Democrat defends the administration’s every move. These are consequential politicians treated with reverence by the press.

That said, the cynical effort to focus on the most absurd members of the opposition party is nothing new — especially as a means of deflecting attention away from your own problems. But when your champion is one of the most repugnant voices in Washington, the effort is transparently preposterous.

Former BBC chairman tells broadcaster: ‘Prove anti-Muslim slur claim or apologise’

Former BBC chairman Lord Michael Grade has urged the corporation to finally prove its claim that Jewish victims of an antisemitic attack on Oxford Street used an Muslim slur or apologise.

The Conservative peer’s dramatic intervention heaps further pressure on the broadcaster after a week of unbridled anger over its reporting of a sickening attack on a busload of Charedi youngsters celebrating Chanukah in central London.

The BBC’s report appeared to blame the Jewish teenagers on the bus for “anti-Muslim slurs” – while describing the shouting, spitting and Nazi salutes from outside the bus as “alleged” antisemitism.

In the audio someone is heard saying in Hebrew: “Tikra lemishehu, ze dachuf” – “Call someone, it’s urgent”. It is believed the BBC took this be someone shouting in English: “Dirty Muslims”.

The teenagers on the bus categorically denied they uttered any abuse and Jewish News learned that the claim of anti-Muslim slurs was added after the reporter filed his story, apparently by senior BBC staff.

On Tuesday the Board of Deputies sent a formal complaint from to BBC director-general Tim Davie, chairman Richard Sharp and head of news Fran Unsworth. Three days later the BBC is yet to respond

Noura Erekat appropriating Moroccan culture as Palestinian while accusing others of appropriating Palestinian culture.

Another day of Palestinian “activism” pic.twitter.com/6gZguHjhZ8
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) December 11, 2021

The King James Version of the Bible is inconsistent in translating פְּלָ֑שֶׁת - sometimes "Palestina" and sometimes "Philistia"

I always thought that while the King James Bible had its political motives, that its scholarship was pretty good.

But recently I noticed that the word "פְּלָ֑שֶׁת", which occurs eight times in the Hebrew scriptures, has three different translations in KJV.

Four times it is translated as "Philistia."

Three times as "Palestina."

And once as "Palestine."

It seems that the many translators of KJV didn't have a good editor to keep consistency between them.

But even in the entire King James, there is no mention of "Palestinians," only "Philistines."

12/10 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Double standard of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia; Why Josephus Matters; AOC goes full Jeremy Corbyn; Guardian corrects egregious error about Texas anti-BDS law

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Double standard of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia

An assumption of just such moral equivalence was on display in the BBC report of the London bus attack. Even if its journalists genuinely thought they heard an anti-Muslim slur on the video, they nevertheless recklessly failed to verify such an explosive claim before transmitting it.

Their reasoning became clear from an interview with one of the journalists involved, who said that his team “thought it important to reflect there was abuse going both ways.”

In other words, they thought they needed to demonstrate a notion of balance. Yet it is only where an anti-Semitic attack is concerned that the BBC seems to think balance involves diminishing the significance of the attack by suggesting that its victims were morally culpable in some way.

Moreover, the BBC report involved a further double standard—for it described the visibly anti-Semitic attack as merely “allegations,” while the alleged anti-Muslim smear was presented as fact.

The West in general has a problem with acknowledging anti-Semitism. There are various reasons for this.

Unable to cope with the fact that the Holocaust took place in the epicenter of high European culture, the West tries to bury the persistent evidence that much of it still has an innate prejudice against the Jewish people.

Although the anti-Semitic far-right exists, much of today’s anti-Semitism comes from the left, which assumes itself to be the acme of virtue and therefore incapable of bad things, and from Muslims, whom the left deem to be victims and therefore incapable of bad things.

Moreover, admitting the enormity of anti-Semitism within the Muslim world would shatter the fiction Western liberals believe as unchallengeable truth that, in the Middle East, the Jews of Israel are human-rights abusers while Palestinian Muslims are their victims.

The worst reason of all is that those who think that claims of anti-Semitism are exaggerated do so because they believe that the Jews really do dominate the world through money, media and politics, and try to manipulate it in their own interests.

In other words, the double standard used to minimize or deny anti-Semitism is itself further evidence of the anti-Jewish feeling that so frighteningly continues to poison the West.

Thomas Mann’s Philo-Semitism and Colm Toibin’s Thomas Mann

In January 1934, the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior revoked the novelist Thomas Mann’s German citizenship, in part, because of his membership in the ‘German Committee Pro Palestine’ (‘Deutsches Komitee Pro Palästina’) and his support for its main goal, to sponsor the settlement of Jews in Palestine. Shalom Goldman, Professor of Religion at Middlebury College, is an avid reader of both Thomas Mann and Colm Toibin, the author of The Magician, a new novel about Mann. Goldman explains his disappointment with the novel.

I have been reading and rereading Thomas Mann’s Joseph novels for over half a century. Like many others educated in the Yeshiva tradition, I delighted in Mann’s use of midrashim, the legends that supplement the spare narratives of the Bible. Mann accessed these legends through his own research, and through a network of European Jewish scholars he cultivated before he set to work on what would eventually be his four volume 1500-page magnum opus on Joseph – a quartet of books he dubbed his ‘pyramids.’

And I have been reading and admiring Colm Toibin’s novels – including The Master, his novel about Henry James – for over a decade. So it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to reading Toibin’s new novel about Thomas Mann, The Magician. Before its publication in September, I reread some of my favorite sections of the Joseph books, as well as all of The Magic Mountain, another Mann classic that has been a constant companion. I also looked again into a number of the excellent biographies of Mann that have appeared since his death in 1955, and it is these biographies that Toibin acknowledges in a note at the end of the novel, giving pride of place to Anthony Heilbut’s Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature, published in 1996.

Thomas Mann (1878-1955) was one of the great literary figures of the Twentieth Century. He wrote short stories, novels, and essays and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929.

Mann opposed the Nazis early on, left Germany when they rose to power, and used his considerable energies to oppose them.

Why Josephus Matters

If we leave biblical and New Testament authors out of the frame, Flavius Josephus (37–100+ CE) was the most consequential ancient writer in the West. This claim is not provable by statistics, but a process of elimination supports it. Plato was big, Aristotle too. Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Polybius had their admirers, and every literate Roman knew Cicero and Livy. But Christian Crusaders did not take Plato into battle in the Holy Land. Thucydides was not rewritten in Latin and Hebrew versions, as Josephus was, amplifying his already huge impact. From the first to the twenty-first centuries, Josephus’ work has mattered to more people and more consistently than any other non-biblical text.

Does that mean that he should matter now? Nothing simply matters. Classical music, stock prices, and American politics matter to some but not others. Things that mattered to us when we were twenty might not at forty or sixty. To ask why Josephus matters is to ask, first, why he has mattered, and second, why he might matter from now on, which is not the same thing.

It is only worth discussing Josephus’ mattering if we know something of his life and writings. When he was born in Jerusalem (37 CE), to a member of the priestly caste named Mattityahu, an older brother had already scooped the father’s name and so he was called Yoseph, after a grandfather. Furnished with the gold-plated education enjoyed by Jerusalem’s elite, in both Hebrew and Greek literature, young Yoseph must have stood out. When he was just twenty-six, the city elders dispatched him on a delicate mission to Nero’s Rome. His task: to liberate three fellow-priests being held by the emperor. Nero, though he had already ruled for a decade, was only Yoseph’s age. After surviving a deadly shipwreck, Yoseph succeeded in his mission by scoring an introduction to Nero’s wife Poppaea. She won over her volatile husband, who had recently killed his mother and would soon dispatch her.

When Yoseph returned to Jerusalem, in 65/66 CE, he was distressed to find the city in commotion. Nero had recently sent a new official to coastal Caesarea with instructions to extract large sums from Jerusalem’s world-famous temple, using his locally recruited auxiliary force to crush any resistance. We cannot explore Nero’s reasons (his officials elsewhere had the same orders), or the origins of the war that this ignited in Judea. Suffice it to say that the common image of Judeans long struggling under oppressive imperial rule is hard to sustain. In Josephus’ view, Jerusalem had until then been the happiest of all cities under Roman rule. Now he conveys a universal sense of shock, grievance, and humiliation at the latest moves. But what to do about them? Although we have nothing to check it against, his portrayal of the range of responses sounds plausible. Some desperately armed themselves for protection. Indignant younger priests demanded the exclusion of foreigners from the city. Many prominent elders who had worked with the ruling consensus counseled patience and relentless diplomacy. Eventually, charismatic militants would enter the city with armed followers, in deadly conflict with each other.