Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

12/14 Links Pt2: The BBC Proves That It’s ‘News You Can’t Trust’; Jewish antisemitism denial; NYTs Whitewash of Gaza Poetry Professor Was ‘Inaccurate,’ an Editors’ Note Now Concedes

From Ian:

The BBC Proves That It’s ‘News You Can’t Trust’

When asked to provide proof of that alleged “racial slur,” the BBC journalist whose name appears on the written report replied, “This was actually something picked up by my editors not me and they wanted to reflect that briefly in the piece.”

Analysis of the same footage carried out by the Jewish Chronicle and others presents a different picture to the one promoted by the BBC — saying there was no slur uttered.

The BBC was challenged on its claim by members of the British Jewish community, including the Board of Deputies, as well as by two members of the House of Lords, Ian Austin and Michael Grade.

On December 13, the Jewish Chronicle reported that the Metropolitan Police “has found no evidence of the BBC’s claim that an anti-Muslim slur was voiced by one of the victims of the antisemitic abuse incident on Oxford Street two weeks ago.”

Nevertheless, nearly two weeks after its reports promoting the notion of such a slur having been used, complaints from members of the public and community organizations have yet to be answered by the BBC.

Bizarrely, the BBC appears to so far have elected to dig in on this issue rather than responding appropriately to criticism of obviously highly problematic reporting that raises many questions beyond those of accuracy.

That chosen course of action clearly indicates to BBC audiences just how committed the corporation actually is to earning and keeping their trust.

Hundreds Rally Against Anti-Jewish Coverage By BBC Following Bus Incident

As many as 250 Britons stood outside of the headquarters of the publicly funded British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in London on Monday night to demand that it take accountability for anti-Jewish coverage on the network.

The crowd chanted “BBC, where the proof? BBC, tell the truth” in response to an on-air report during Hanukkah about an attack on a bus full of Jewish teens in Central London. In its coverage of the event, according to Campaign Against Antisemitism, the BCC reported that racial slurs against Muslims were made by young riders.

“This incident is one of many in which the BBC has victim-blamed Jewish people for antisemitism, downplayed racism towards Jews, platformed antisemites and fueled antisemitism in Britain,” the group said in announcing the event.

“We don’t want to be here, but we have to be here because we have to say: ‘BBC news, stop blaming Jews,’ ” said Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, during the rally.

He went on to note that “we see no evidence for the @BBC’s claim, which is a distraction from the real story, which is that Jewish teenagers were prevented by racist thugs from celebrating Hanukkah.”

HonestReporting Lodges Complaints Following London Police’s Dismissal of Anti-Muslim Slur Claims Against Jews

In our complaint to the BBC, we note that, contrary to the BBC’s allegations, “the Metropolitan police have examined the evidence and heard no such slur,” before making clear that the “claim is an utter sham and deeply offensive to the Jewish community. There are no ‘two sides’ here. Jews were being abused. They did not do any abusing of their own. Insinuating that they did is outrageous.”

We also note the BBC’s failure to adequately address the problem, despite widespread condemnation from Britain’s Jewish community:
The BBC has repeatedly parried complaints about this false accusation instead of doing the decent thing and admitting that the claim simply has no basis. It’s outrageous and deeply offensive. It’s bad enough when Jews are attacked on the streets of London, but for them to then be falsely accused of hurling abuse themselves constitutes a total failure to meet basic journalistic standards.”

The message ends with the simple call: “Apologize already.”

Now that the Met Police has announced that it has examined the evidence and found no proof of any anti-Muslim slur, why has the BBC still failed to respond?

With the corporation so far unwilling to admit any wrongdoing, HonestReporting has also lodged a formal complaint with the regulatory body, Ofcom. In our complaint to the independent industry regulator, we note that:
The issue is so severe and so outrageous, with the BBC refusing to apologise for over 10 days now, that Ofcom’s intervention is clearly necessitated.”

BBC Repeatedly Tarred by Antisemitism
This episode is just the latest in a string of incidents that call into question the BBC’s impartiality regarding Israel and Jewish people. In May, HonestReporting helped expose the antisemitic tweets of reporter Tala Halawa, following a lead by GnasherJew. After an HonestReporting tweet went viral, the issue received widespread media coverage, and the BBC eventually fired Halawa some weeks later.

And just last month, an HonestReporting investigation uncovered numerous antisemitic social posts by another BBC employee, Nasima Begum.

Hardly surprising for an organization that has suppressed an allegedly damning report which would have exposed its deep-seated anti-Israel bias.

It is now abundantly clear that the BBC has a serious problem that must be urgently addressed.

Someone named Alex V. Green, who normally writes about LGBTQ identity issues, has suddenly become an expert on Israel. They wrote on Gawker about the "social justice Zionists" who are horrible for claiming to be indigenous to the land of Israel and for a host of other modern sins.

As is always the case, the anti-Israel arguments are based on lies.

Here's one example. Green says, "the IDF posts affirmations-style memes calling Arabs terrorists." The link goes to this graphic:

Does this graphic call Arabs terrorists, or does it point out - accurately - that shooting rockets at civilians is terrorism?

From this one example, we learn that Alex V. Green is: 1) a liar, 2) guilty of the crime they accuse the IDF of: saying that all Palestinians are terrorists.

Green then goes on to say this oh-so-woke piece of antisemitism:

But the notion that Jews are “indigenous” to Palestine, specifically to the Biblical kingdom of Judea, is new to me....But here were all these kids, pointing to their curly hair or dark eyes as evidence of Semitic nativity (you know, like fascists do!), citing genetic studies and calling themselves “decolonized.”

Accusing Jews who are proud of their ancestry originating in the Land of Israel of fascism is the key pull-quote in the article:

Gee, what fun to accuse people of fascism based on their pride in their appearance, heritage and DNA!

Anyone else on the planet who is proud of their genetic ties to their homelands are wonderful examples of self-respect; when Jews do it they are aping the Aryans who wanted to murder them. What a fun juxtaposition!

Now that we see that Alex V Green is a lying piece of antisemitic (but Jewish!) trash, what more do you need to know?

12/14 Links Pt1: ‘Obsessed’ Biden administration put settlements on par with Iran nukes; Palestinian struggle has no leg to stand on; UN CEIRPP Hosts Event Supporting Terrorist Organizations

From Ian:

‘Obsessed’ Biden administration put settlements on par with Iran nukes

The Biden administration has put the issue of settlements on the same level as the Iranian nuclear threat in its discussions with Israeli officials, multiple Israeli diplomatic sources said in recent days.

“The Americans bring up ‘settler violence’ all the time, obsessively,” a senior diplomatic source in Jerusalem lamented.

When Defense Minister Benny Gantz was in Washington last week to implore the Americans to take a tougher stance against the Iranian nuclear threat, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted they devote equal time to discussing settlements as they did to Iran, which Israeli diplomatic sources found baffling.

Blinken told Gantz that the Israeli government’s settlement activity is “destroying the chance of a two-state solution.”

Gantz’s meetings with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan – who is coming to Israel next Wednesday to continue to discuss Iran – went more smoothly, the sources said.

Talk of the American “obsession” came after Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev came under fire from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and others on the Right for speaking of settler violence with Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, making no mention of Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

David Singer: The UN can deter an Iran-Israel conflict

Iranian Armed Forces spokesman - Brig.-Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi - recently told the Iranian Students News Agency:

“We will not back off from the annihilation of Israel, even one millimetre. We want to destroy Zionism in the world”

Rather than:
- condemning Iran’s threats to destroy another UN member state and
- defending Israel’s right to exist in secure and recognised boundaries as stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 242

– the General Assembly has been engaging in its own demonisation of the Jewish People – recycling a Security Council Press Statement dated 17 September 2015 (Press Statement ) which only referred to the Temple Mount by its Arabic name “Haram al-Sharif” and not its Hebrew name “Har HaBayit”.

General Assembly Resolution A/76/L.16 (Resolution) - passed on 1 December – repeated this highly-offensive canard:
“Recalling the Security Council press statement on Jerusalem of 17 September 2015, in which the Council called, inter alia, for the exercise of restraint, refraining from provocative actions and rhetoric and upholding unchanged the historic status quo at the Haram al-Sharif – in word and in practice, as well as for full respect for international law, including international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as may be applicable in Jerusalem”

The Press Statement and Resolution both failed to acknowledge the special role of Jordan – not Israel - as custodian of all the Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem - recognized in the 1994 Jordan-Israel Washington Declaration and Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty.

If the Security Council and General Assembly can both brazenly ignore these two highly-significant binding international commitments whilst simultaneously denying the Jewish People’s connection with Judaism’s holiest religious site in Jerusalem – what message does this send to Israel, Jordan and Iran?

Israel’s President Herzog has provided Israel’s response:
“Israel will welcome a comprehensive, diplomatic solution which permanently solves the Iranian nuclear threat.”

“In the case of a failure to achieve such a solution, Israel is keeping all options on the table and it must be said that if the international community does not take a vigorous stance on this issue — Israel will do so. Israel will protect itself”

Overt UN bias against Israel and the Jewish People should not preclude the UN from embracing Trump’s Plan to end the 100 years-old Jewish-Arab conflict and avert conflict between Iran and Israel.

UN CEIRPP Hosts Event Supporting Designated Terrorist Organizations

On December 7, 2021, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) held an event titled “Supporting Human Rights Defenders in the Occupied Palestinian Territory: Reality, Challenges, and Obligations” to discuss the October 2021 decision by the Israeli Ministry of Defense to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P), Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Al-Haq, Addameer, Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC), and Bisan were included on Israel’s list of terrorist organizations because they are operated by and for the benefit of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.

The event, which featured speakers from one of the designated NGOs, Al-Haq, as well as from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, included calls for BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions). NGOs also advanced their long-standing campaign to pressure the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open an investigation of against Israelis.

As shown in the quotes below, speakers defended the six NGOs, without addressing the extensive evidence of NGO-PFLP links. Instead, they framed the designations as “an attack on human rights defenders,” without explaining how an NGO tied to a terror group could be considered to be defending “human rights.”

Quotes by Panelists Condemning the Decision and Supporting BDS and Lawfare

Wesam Ahmad (Al-Haq)
- “Israel’s latest attempt to silence Palestinian civil society is just another tactical move in its colonial strategy.”
- “The international community must respond with a systemic counter response that addresses Israel’s actions in various levels. For example, the EU Horizon agreement and its cooperation with Israel with regards to research and development. This is one of the things that needs to be addressed and challenged and suspended.”
- “We have to show that everything is connected. Supporting the process at the ICC, taking measures to ban settlement products, supports of the UN database on business enterprises involved in the settlement enterprise. These are all actions we have been calling for. The response to attempts to silence us should be met with the implementation of these calls.”
- “Israel’s membership in the ECOSOC committee is something that needs to be challenged…Israel cannot be allowed to conduct business as usual in other parts of the UN while it completely disregards the work of UN human rights defenders on the floor of the General Assembly.”

Another Arab op-ed that starts off anti-Israel, ends up hating Jews

Dr. Hani El Akkad writes in Al Watan Voice a hysterical piece (in both senses of the word:)

The Jewish Hanukkah candelabra was lit in Dubai to celebrate the Hebrew festival. It is a holiday in which the Jews celebrate to commemorate the inauguration of the alleged Second Temple in Jerusalem in 164 BC.

I do not know if the Jewish menorah igniters [in the UAE] knew that this was their recognition of the right of the Jews in Jerusalem and therefore their right to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and demolish the honorable Dome of the Rock and establish their alleged temple. The calamity if they knew and considered this religious tolerance and the biggest calamity if they consider this as a matter of Arab generosity and a kind of authenticity of the people of the Emirates. The truth is that I am trying to find approaches for reasons that are logical through which I can justify this heinous act of the Emiratis, but I cannot not find it. I do not think that there are reasons under any logic that would allow something forbidden, which is erecting the eight candle Jewish menorah on Arab land or on any building on Arab land, even if the Jews recognized the right of the Palestinians to a state with Jerusalem as its capital.

And a blue color covering the Burj Khalifa, which we thought was the Burj Al Arab, but after it was defiled by the feet of the Jews and their blue flag, it needs rain for a hundred years to be cleansed...!!, What is left of your Arabness, O Arabs in the Emirates...? To speak the Hebrew language, take off the headband and the keffiyeh, and wear the Jewish kippah...!! You mumble on deaf stones and insert messages to the gods in the holes in the walls, and claim that God heard your prayers and answered you, and you became God’s chosen people.

Dr. Al Akkad saw this Photoshopped picture created last year and believed it. Burj al Khalifa was never lit up with the Israeli flag.

He also thinks that a movie that Arabs have flipped out over that was originally meant to be Jordan's Oscar entry was really written by the Mossad.

Hate is a bizarre thing to monitor.

Human Rights Watch again starts with the assumption that Jews are racists and writes their Lod report around that

Human Rights Watch issued a report on the riots in Lod in May, accusing Israel of "abusive policing" against Arabs and of treating Jewish attackers with more deference than Arabs.

“Israeli authorities responded to the May events in Lod by forcibly dispersing Palestinians protesting peacefully, while using inflammatory rhetoric and failing to act even-handedly as Jewish ultra-nationalists attacked Palestinians,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “This apparent discriminatory response underscores the reality that the Israeli state apparatus privileges Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians, wherever they live and irrespective of their legal status.”

As always with HRW, the conclusions were reached before any research was done. (Shakir made a career of being anti-Israel before he was hired by HRW.) The bias is clear with HRW referring to Arab Israelis as Palestinians, a term that most of them do not use.

In this case, this isn't even anti-Israel bias. The main responses to the Arab rioting were from local authorities, not the Israeli government. It is anti-Jewish bias.

A good indication of HRW's hate for Jews comes in its background information:

Lod, a mixed Jewish and Palestinian city in central Israel, has experienced the rising influence of an ultra-nationalist group, the Garin Torani, which has sought to promote the city’s Jewish identity amid longstanding discrimination against the country’s Palestinian citizens. In 2013, an alleged Garin Torani sympathizer, Yair Revivo of the Likud Party, was elected mayor and has served continuously since then.

Garin Torani is not a violent group. They work to strengthen the Jewish communities in mixed cities but they serve Arab residents as well. They have been in Lod for decades without causing any clashes with Arabs. They opened up a community center for all, and it includes help for people with special needs - Jew and Arab.

But HRW's link to Garin Torani is not to its webpage or Wikipedia page. No, it is to a Haaretz article that takes as a given that Garin Torani is a racist, anti-Arab group and then uses that as a springboard to say that all of Zionism is "arrogant, insensitive, condescending and blinded by racist ideology."

That by itself shows that HRW is not interested in facts but in using the May events as a springboard to push its antisemitic agenda.

Here is how HRW describes the events of the Monday night of May 10:

Around 9:30 p.m. on May 10, a group of Palestinian residents of Lod organized a protest outside the al-Omari mosque against the anticipated takeover of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem. Two civil society lawyers and a city council member said that the police had approved the protest following requests made around noon. Witnesses said that protesters demonstrated peacefully when police used teargas, rubber bullets, and a stun grenade to disperse the crowd after a protester replaced an Israeli flag on an electric pole with a Palestinian one.

The link to the words "demonstrated peacefully" shows a person putting up the Palestinian flag while the crowd chants. However, you can see that members of this "peaceful protest" had set a large fire; the flames and smoke is seen behind him.

Maybe setting fires is considered "peaceful protest" to HRW, but it seems pretty violent to me. And it is consistent with the chanting you can hear, "We will liberate Al Aqsa with blood and fire."

HRW continues to soft-pedal Arab violence in Lod:

Later that night, some Palestinian demonstrators set trash cans, cars, and tires alight near the al-Omari mosque and tensions flared in other parts of the city.

That is their entire description of Arab violence that night.

Compare with Times of Israel:

Jewish religious items store trashed

The violent protest, during which Arab participants raised Palestinian and Hamas flags, called to “liberate Palestine,” and attacked a school, a synagogue, a pre-army military academy and city hall, according to Israel Radio, was one of several large demonstrations in Arab communities.

“It was like Kristallnacht… in a city in central Israel,” a local Jewish resident, Hadar Miller, told Army Radio on Tuesday. She said she and her family have lived in Lod for 12 years and were “proud of the co-existence” in the Jewish-Arab city. But the situation had been deteriorating for months, “and yesterday all the lines were crossed… Now a friend of mine is in detention for defending himself.”

The mob of local Arab residents also attacked medical staff at Assaf Harofeh, Israel Radio reported, targeting Arab medical staff and castigating them for working there. Medical staff had to evacuate some patients to keep them from the mob, the radio report said.

Shlomo Lahyani, a local Jewish resident, said an Arab mob attacked a synagogue and a school, and threw slabs and rocks at Jewish locals during hours of rioting. “They came with murder in their eyes,” he told Israel Radio on Tuesday morning. “They called out, in Hebrew, ‘We are terrorists.'”

He said locals Jews called the police, who did not come to the scene for over an hour. In the meantime, Jewish residents fired shots in the air to try to keep the Arab rioters at bay.

HRW purposefully omits the context of Jewish residents in fear for their lives, and of police not protecting them.

Throughout the week of violence, the bulk of the violence was done by Arabs. Several synagogues were torched along with Jewish-owned shops.

All of this happened in the context of Hamas firing thousands of rockets at Israel and of Arabs attacking Jews in other mixed cities. HRW doesn't mention that the Arab rioters were chanting pro-Hamas slogans, and as such could be seen as a fifth column during a war that HRW barely mentions (except to say that Israel committed human rights violations!)

HRW ignores all of this context. While it is logical that police would spend more effort going after the group that was responsible for the majority of the rioting, HRW positions it as a "both sides" story. The "human rights group" even is angry at the Lod mayor's characterization of the attacks on Jewish-owned shops and synagogues as being like Kristallnacht, saying "This statement was neither accurate nor balanced, given that both Jews and Palestinians were attacking one another."

The Arabs were attacking. The Jews of Lod were largely defending themselves.

Later, some more violent Jews did come from the outside into Lod and made things worse. On Thursday night, a Muslim cemetery was attacked (as another synagogue was torched.) Those attackers were not from Garin Torani, as HRW implies. The mayor tried to close off the city from outsiders coming in to stoke the flames. HRW doesn't mention any of this.

As usual, HRW wrote the narrative first, and then did their "research" to confirm their bias, highlighting anything that seems to support their story and ignoring anything that contradicts it.

Peter Beinart writes in his Substack:

The evidence suggests not only that anti-Zionism doesn’t equal antisemitism but that while some anti-Zionists are indeed antisemites, Jew-hatred in the United States and Europe is more prevalent among supporters of the Jewish state.

Let's look at his evidence:

In the US, the data suggests that—contrary to what you hear from politicians and Jewish leaders—Zionists are probably more likely than anti-Zionists to hate Jews. Poll after poll shows that, in the US today, hostility to Israel is far greater on the left than the right. And while surveys generally ask for people’s views on Israel, not Zionism, it stands to reason that if leftists are more likely to condemn Israel, they’re more likely to oppose Zionism. Studies of antisemitism, however, suggest that it’s far stronger on the American right. Earlier this year, the political scientists Eitan Hersh and Laura Royden asked Americans a series of questions traditionally used to measure antisemitic attitudes—for instance, “Jews in the United States have too much power” and “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to America.” They found that, “While antisemitism in the U.S. is often written about through a “both sides” lens, our evidence — the first of its kind in testing hypotheses through experiments on a large representative sample — suggests the problem of antisemitism is much more serious on the right than the left.” Unless you define anti-Zionism as antisemitism, in which case you’ve created a tautology, the Americans most likely to dislike Jews and the Americans most likely dislike Zionism are different people.

Beinart's logic is:

A. The American Left is more likely to be anti-Israel.

B. The American Right, who are mostly Zionist, is more likely to be antisemitic.

Conclusion: Zionists are more likely to be antisemitic.

This is quite false.

Let's say that 70% of the Right - an overwhelming majority - are pro-Israel and 30% are anti-Israel. It makes sense that most of those 30% also have anti-Jewish attitudes. (Think Pat Buchanan or Ron Unz, both prominent conservative haters of Israel and purveyors of antisemitism.)

Now, what percentage of Americans altogether have antisemitic attitudes? A 2019 ADL survey says that 24% of Americans say that Jews are more loyal to Israel than America and 15% say Jews have too much influence in business. If most of the anti-Israel Right agree with those statements, that would mean that the majority of those with overtly antisemitic attitudes are right wing anti-Zionists - and not one right-wing Zionist!

The only conclusion you can draw is that members of the Right are more likely to be overtly antisemitic than the Left - but it even imply that Zionists are antisemitic! Very few Zionists would answer those survey questions in the affirmative. The relatively small number of Americans who harbor explicit antisemitic attitudes mean that a minority of the Right - the anti-Zionists - can easily be the majority of the proud Jew-haters.

Beinart flunks Logic 101.

To claim that Zionists are more likely to be antisemitic is purely Beinart's bias. It's part of the fantasy among socialist Jews that Christian Zionists are really antisemites, even though they cannot point to a poll that shows that.

Beinart chooses the surveys that support his thesis both in the US and Europe. But the American Left is going in the direction of the British Left, and the British Left is actually attracting overt antisemites. In a 2019 survey that Beinart would never quote, 58% of those who strongly liked Jeremy Corbyn held two or more overtly antisemitic views, and 35% held four or more such views - a huge amount that was not seen in other politicians. Will the American Left go in that direction? Do Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib attract overt antisemites? It is not a far fetched concern. And it is not one that concerns Peter Beinart.

Not to say that there are no antisemitic idiots who admire Israel. Of course there are. Israel haters love to point to white supremacist Richard Spencer as if he represents the Zionism of the Right (and often they make the even more egregious logical error that if a hater says he loves Israel, Zionists must support hate.)

I wouldn't call those antisemites Zionists. They are just bigots who look at Israel as an ally in their own xenophobia against Muslims. Saying that you want Jews you hate to leave your country and go to Israel is not Zionism. Saying that you want to treat minorities horribly and falsely using Israel as a model is not Zionism. But Beinart pretends that it is, redefining the meaning of the word "Zionist" itself to prove his points.

One more point: Beinart says that defining anti-Zionism as antisemitism is creating a tautology. Indeed it is. But what if it isn't a definition - but an observation? What if, in reality, saying that Jews do not deserve self-determination, and other peoples do, is prima facie proof of antisemitism? What if holding Jews to standards that are way beyond those that other peoples are expected to adhere to is actual antisemitism? What if obsessive criticism of only one state, the only one with a Jewish majority, indicates antisemitism? What if boycotting only the one Jewish state indicates that there is something going on beyond legitimate criticism? Beinart and his crowd brush aside these questions, coming up with elaborate excuses why Israel deserves to be singled out.

But there is only one thing in history that is remotely comparable to today's obsessive hate of Israel - and that is the age-old obsessive hate of Jews.

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.