Israel's occupation of Palestine is behind the exodus of Palestinian Christians from the region, according to a new study.
Research carried out by Dar al-Kalima University in the occupied West Bank town of Beit Jala, concluded that only a small percentage of Christians had left Palestine because of concerns over Muslim religious conservatism.
Explaining the rationale behind the results of the roughly 500 Christians and 500 Muslims interviewed, the study said: "The pressure of Israeli occupation, ongoing constraints, discriminatory policies, arbitrary arrests, confiscation of lands added to the general sense of hopelessness among Palestinian Christians."
Details of the survey are not available online, so I cannot yet see the methodology. It was published in a book by Diyar Publisher, edited by Mitri Raheb, who is the founder of Diyar as well as of Dar al-Kalima College in Bethlehem.
Raheb is not exactly apolitical. He is a member of the Palestinian National Council and the Palestinian Central Council.
He is a founder of Kairos Palestine, the antisemitic, supersessionist organization that attempts to use Christian theology to justify the idea that Jews have no business living in Israel and which calls the Torah a "dead letter."
Raheb's own quotes prove that he is an antisemite.
He spoke at a 2010 "Christ at the Checkpoint" conference - whose title says that if Joseph and Mary tried to go to Bethlehem today, they would be blocked as "Palestinians." (In fact, as Jews, they would be lynched in today's Bethlehem.)
At that conference, he said that "the Palestinian people ...are the continuation of the peoples of the land" but "Israel represents Rome of the Bible, not the people of the land." Meaning that Jews have no connection to the Israel of the Bible but Palestinians do.
Then he descended into the purely antisemitic and thoroughly debunked Khazar theory: "I'm sure if we were to do a DNA test between David, who was a Bethlehemite, and Jesus, born in Bethlehem, and Mitri, born just across the street from where Jesus was born, I'm sure the DNA will show that there is a trace. While, if you put King David, Jesus and Netanyahu, you will get nothing, because Netanyahu comes from an East European tribe who converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages."
The head of a college, who has published his own academic papers and books, is a clear antisemite.
Why would anyone trust his study that was obviously designed to confirm his hate?
Al Monitor is usually a pretty good news source, but sometimes they will allow someone who can't even get their anti-Israel story straight to write an article.
The Palestinians in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah are increasingly being harassed and attacked by settlers and the Israeli police, in an effort to push them to vacate their homes and hand them over to settlers.
In 1972, Israeli associations forged ownership papers of land in Sheikh Jarrah, which the Palestinians own, and registered a number of land plots in the Israel Lands Administration. Yet the team of lawyers in charge of defending the Palestinians found Turkish papers denying Jewish ownership of this land. The Israeli courts, however, rejected the documents claiming Palestinian families’ ownership of the land and insist on the eviction decisions.
OK, so according to the writer, Israelis forged the ownership papers and Israel's courts are part of the scam - this is stated as fact.
So why haven't the Jews just taken the houses yet?
Despite the constant harassment, and threats to their lives sometimes, the Palestinians turned down all compromises and mediations by the Israeli courts. This is why the settlers sought to make high financial offers to the Palestinian residents of the neighborhood to leave their homes and sell them to the settlers. Abdel Fattah Skafi, a Palestinian resident who was offered $5 million for his home, which is adjacent to the settlers’ homes in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, rejected this offer....
[Skafi] explained that the Israelis' position on Sheikh Jarrah is weak, because the ownership papers in their possession are forged and that this is why they are making financial offers.
Why would the corrupt courts offer a compromise?
Moreover, why would Israelis offer millions of dollars for a home if they have already forged the documents of ownership and the courts already accept those documents? Those Jews should be able to steal the houses just like Palestinians claim they do all the time!
The writer is trying to have it both ways, saying that Israelis steal the land but that the Arabs are steadfast enough to reject multi-million dollar offers.
I wish I was that harassed with such an offer for my home.
The truth is much simpler and doesn't require such contradictions. The Jews who legally own some homes in Sheikh Jarrah have already shown their proof of ownership. Israeli courts don't want to award the Jews the homes because it would become an international incident.
One week after the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Ohio chapter in Hilliard was fired for spying on the organization for an anti-Muslim group, the national office of CAIR announced Tuesday via its Twitter account that a second "spy" had been identified.
The unnamed second person that CAIR said was spying on the organization and American Muslims came forward voluntarily. While the individual did not work for the nonprofit, he was an active volunteer in a large mosque and was invited to national meetings and events, the tweet said.
So if he wasn't an employee at CAIR, what sort of "spying' did he do?
Steven Emerson, the founder on the anti-Muslim IPT, paid the second individual $3,000 per month to record prominent Muslim leaders, CAIR's tweet said.
If this spy was not a member of CAIR, that means that all he could record were what CAIR leaders were telling Muslims during their seemingly public events.
It sounds like this person was simply recording speeches that were given to the Muslim community at large.
What is wrong with that - unless, as this CAIR tweet implies, Muslim leaders say things to their fellow Muslims that they don't want the rest of the world to hear.
If that is true, then the real problem isn't that Emerson's group paid someone to record the speeches. The real issue is that "prominent Muslim leaders" say things to Muslims that they don't want anyone else to hear.
Israeli newspapers publicize things that haredi leaders say to their flocks all the time, including things that are embarrassing or that they take out of context to make them sound embarrassing.
When it happens to Jews, it is brave whistleblowing journalism. When it happens to Muslims, it is underhanded spying.
The Washington, D.C., public school librarian who made third graders reenact graphic scenes from the Holocaust is a Democrat who claims she ran for office in New Jersey, where she was convicted of defrauding the state through a tutoring scam and charged with several counts of animal abuse.
Kimberlynn Jurkowski was placed on leave this week after parents complained to Watkins Elementary School that she made students role-play the Holocaust, assigning students to be Jews and pretend to die in gas chambers and dig mass graves, according to the Washington Post. One student was assigned to be Adolf Hitler, who carried out the Holocaust, Jurkowski told the students, "because the Jews ruined Christmas." A Washington Free Beacon investigation found that Jurkowski was hired by the D.C. public school after a scandalous tenure as a librarian in New Jersey, where she ran in 2010 for a local school board as a Democrat, according to an image posted to her Twitter account.
There is no record of Jurkowski serving on the school board for Hamilton Township in Atlantic County, where she says she ran for office. There is record, however, of New Jersey catching Jurkowski bilking taxpayers out of approximately $24,000 through a program designed to help the children of the state's educators. The Hamilton Township district paid for Jurkowski's two children to receive tutoring—but she continued to bill the district for reimbursements once the tutoring stopped. She was convicted of fraud and forced to forfeit her librarian job, according to court records.
Jurkowski's legal problems continued in 2019 when she faced four charges of animal cruelty for leaving her dogs out in the cold. According to coverage at the time from Pet Rescue Report, Jurkowski left five dogs behind to survive frigid temperatures in a dilapidated environment. Body camera footage from police officers called to the site shows "the entire property was completely run down," with "dogs in pens with sheets of plywood leaning against a fence to act as shelter."
One of the dogs, an older Rottweiler named Poseidon, could barely walk, and was found dead and frozen solid to the ground in one of the pens. The dog's death prompted animal rights activists to launch a #JusticeForPoseidon campaign.
The principal of Watkins Elementary School, Scott Berkowitz, did not return a request for comment on Jurkowski. D.C. Public Schools did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including about whether it was familiar with Jurkowski’s criminal record prior to hiring her.
Since working in D.C. Public Schools, Jurkowski has struck an ultra-partisan combative tone online. Her Twitter account is filled with retweets of calls to abolish the police and defend Palestinian terrorism. One Al Jazeera post she shared claims that a Palestinian terrorist named Ahmad Erekat was killed by Israeli police but fails to mention that he was shot after ramming his car into Israelis.
Watkins Elementary School is located just outside a city ward represented by a Democratic lawmaker who claimed that Jews control the weather.
Democratic members of the US House of Representatives passed legislation last week to create a special envoy to combat Islamophobia worldwide. The bill was sponsored by Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, and her Jewish colleague Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois.
At first glance, the creation of this position seems noble as it reassures Muslim minorities around the globe who are being persecuted or facing racism that the leader of the free world is ready to acknowledge their suffering and defend them if necessary. But the reality is the opposite.
As an American Muslim, I stand against this bill along with many similar-minded Muslims who know firsthand what political Islamism is all about and are willing to fight these efforts.
The term “Islamophobia” itself is questionable, especially since it is nothing but an invention of political Islamists who wanted to silence even Muslim voices who question their motives and object to their totalitarian ideology in the name of freedom of religion.
The bill that was proudly supported by the Democratic party failed to define Islamophobia.
Does describing Hamas as a terrorist group fall into this category? What about condemning suicide bombings by Islamist jihadists? And, most importantly, would standing against the Muslim Brotherhood and its defenders make you an “Islamophobe” who deserves to be canceled?
No one has the answers, except the Islamists themselves who are trying to infiltrate the Western political system and modify it to suit their political agenda, which has nothing to do with the Muslim faith.
A new study has found that there are “at last 290 streets or squares” in Berlin that are named after individuals who openly expressed antisemitic views.
That’s probably the record for the most streets named in honor of Jew-haters. Wondering which city is second? I would put my bet on Ramallah, the capital of the Palestinian Authority.
And I would argue that the street names in Ramallah are a much more serious problem than the offensive names in Berlin.
A major street in Berlin, Martinlutherstrasse, honors the founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther. In his 1543 book, On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther proposed that all synagogues, Jewish schools and Jewish homes be set on fire, that Jewish property be confiscated, and that rabbis be forbidden to speak publicly.
There’s also a Berlin street named after Bishop F.K. Otto Dibelius. In the 1930s, he advocated restricting the number of Jews in various jobs and preventing Jewish immigration. Regarding Nazi violence, he declared his hope that “the hour may come soon when violence is no longer necessary.”
Another street in the German capital is named after Heinrich von Treitschke, the 19th-century nationalist rabble-rouser who coined the phrase “The Jews are our misfortune,” which later became a popular Nazi slogan.
I tip my hat to German political scientist Felix Sassmannshausen for publicizing these outrageous choices of names for streets in Berlin.
Interview with Master Holocaust Teacher Dorene Schwartz-Weitz
Master Holocaust Teacher Dorene Schwartz-Weitz
Holocaust education is something that should be part of
every history or social studies class. Or so you would think. After all, the
Holocaust is an historic event, a catastrophic event, an attempt at genocide.
It happened. People are yet alive to
give testimony that this is so.
We know however, that in many cases, this particular event
in history, the event known as the Holocaust, goes unmentioned in elementary
and high school curriculums. Artist and Master Holocaust Teacher Dorene Schwartz-Weitz
aims to change this. She wants mandatory Holocaust Education in every school in
the United States. And she wants that education done properly. Schwartz Weitz
wants Holocaust Education curriculums to be not only mandated but regulated.
How do we know that the state of Holocaust Education within
the United States is a failure? A 2020 poll revealed
that 63% of the respondents had no idea that “6 million” Jews had been
murdered.* Of those who were aware that
a number of Jews had been murdered by the Nazis, 36% believed the number
of victims to be 2 million or so. A further 48% of those polled could not name a single
concentration camp. They had apparently never even heard of Auschwitz, the most
infamous of all Nazi concentration camps.
The Holocaust occurred only 75 years ago, but is largely forgotten by Americans. Some educators in, for example, Florida
and Texas,
feel that Holocaust denial should be a part of Holocaust Education, and treated
as valid opinion. Not to mention the staff member who had third graders reenact the Holocaust and told them that Jews caused the Holocaust "because they ruined Christmas."
Whether all of this is from ignorance or antisemitism, it is (and sometimes isn't) hard to
say. But we do know that something must be done. Dorene Schwartz-Weitz is doing her part, having made it her life’s
work to improve and make mandatory, Holocaust Education in schools across
America. A busy artist whose uncle, aunts, and cousin were Holocaust Survivors, Dorene gave generously of her time to tell us about her work:
Varda Epstein: Tell
us something about yourself, your background. How does one become a master
teacher of the Holocaust?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: If someone would have shown me a
video of my future, I'd never believe I'd become someone who has devoted her
life to working passionately on promoting Holocaust Education. My original
career trajectory was to become an artist.
And indeed, my first major gallery opening was on 57th Street at the age of 25.
Though I was raised by an extended family of Holocaust
Survivors, the subject was always "the elephant at the table" (as
Jews, we were always at the table, lol). The noted Holocaust historian and
Survivor, Dr. Yaffa Eliach, zt"l, was my high school teacher. But
antisemitism wasn't part of my everyday life experience.
Dr. Yaffa Eliach (A"H) with Dorene Schwartz-Weitz
There was, however, always an undercurrent of antisemitism
prevalent throughout my teaching career with what unfolded and what I came to
witness was a lack of basic understanding of what it was to be a Jew. The
culmination of all this arrived one day when a student—a high school football
star in the running for a full scholarship—refused to do the required
assignments. When confronted, he said, "You didn't learn your lesson. You
should be sent back to Auschwitz".
Informed of the incident, the administration of the school
failed to support me. Instead, they turned the tables "and
then they came after me" with accusations regarding my teaching
abilities.
It was then that I wrote, coordinated and taught,
"Portraits of Survivors,” an interdisciplinary Holocaust Education
program, and went back to Rutgers for a Master Teacher of The Holocaust
certification. I was thereafter awarded plaques inscribed with, "Excellence in Teaching.”
Varda Epstein: Not
long ago, you told me that teaching the Holocaust “should not be like teaching
kids dangers of smoking when they haven’t started.” Why shouldn’t the Holocaust
be taught as a cautionary tale?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: There is a phenomenon I became aware of while teaching the Holocaust. I had a student who seemed so dedicated, supportive and involved until I realized it was he who was carving those swastikas into the table where he sat. Apparently, when teaching, i.e., anti-smoking or sex ed. you get students who will suddenly start smoking and students who will start to engage in premarital sex.
It's called "The Boomerang Effect" and has to do with the fact that those in this age group are often rebellious.
Varda Epstein: Can
you talk about the principal in Florida who refused to say that the Holocaust
is a fact? What are your thoughts on this? How can we address top down
Holocaust denial from our educators?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: More and more we are seeing the dire need for school to be a safe place. Creating this environment begins from the top down in setting the atmosphere. Administrators need to first be educated, have a curriculum in place, and an agreement as to how to best achieve a result where students know their well-being is the top priority.
Opening the door for Holocaust Denial by redefining it as "others' views and opinions,” sets the stage for conflict, not resolution. Would we give sex offenders a voice in sex education? I would dare to say that denying the Holocaust, with all its ramifications, is far worse.
Varda Epstein: How
can educators teach the Holocaust to youth in an accurate way without sugarcoating
the truth? And if we get that far, how do we avoid traumatizing them?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: The concept of having a whole school work on Holocaust education as an interdisciplinary program creates the environment where everyone knows they are working together toward a common goal of learning so as to promote an understanding of how this could have happened, and thus be prevented.
Moreover, having a student meet with a Holocaust Survivor so as to listen to their life's story of survival makes the unspeakable more humanely digestible. After 9/11, such meetings became all the more valuable with our students desperately seeking ways to survive psychologically or in the face of terror.
My Great Uncle Moish, Aunt Tzeril and Yankel, Holocaust Survivors on their first day in America.
Yankel was 9.
They survived by burying themselves alive in shallow graves and bunkers, in the forests surrounding Poland.
Varda
Epstein: Where are we failing in regard to teaching the Holocaust?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: With regard to the goals of teaching lessons learned from the Holocaust, we fail in that there isn't first an agreement as to the necessity for Holocaust Education in its own right, rather than as a tagline to Genocide Education, where the Holocaust may be merely mentioned, if at all. There needs to be an awareness of the Holocaust as the turning point in civilization, on all levels. When the discussion encompasses other times and places where there were unspeakable genocides, it waxes over the very facts. The Holocaust happened at a time and in a place where science, art, music, and education were in top form. This wasn't happening to some uncivilized population unable to protect itself, thus making for the possibility of, “it can happen again.”
We need a Holocaust Mandate instituted as a requirement for a high school graduation diploma. There needs to be an agreed upon curriculum implemented by administrators and teachers, and supported by parents.
My father's family, Maciejow Poland. Taken the day my Bubby, father and uncle left to the US. Everyone else in this picture was killed as Hitler went through all the shtetlach.
Varda
Epstein: How can we improve Holocaust education in the classroom?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: In writing a Holocaust curriculum, there needs to be age appropriate information paired with exercises that promote an understanding of how to process and direct those goals so as to improve our relationship to the Holocaust. Those who have gone through Holocaust Education programs, Holocaust Survivors, children of Holocaust Survivors, and victims of antisemitism are our greatest resources in conveying the message. Students should know what a Jew is, along with some Jewish history (including prior persecutions), and current events as part of the basic foundation of understanding. Additionally, students should be made aware of the WWI events that led to Hitler’s, y"s, rise to power, which in turn, led to the near accomplishment of his main goal: the Final Solution.
All of the above should be included in the Holocaust curriculum.
Varda
Epstein: How can parents supplement their children’s understanding of the
Holocaust at home?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: After sitting to draw the portraits of a couple who had survived the Holocaust, one of my high school students said, "I didn't believe the Holocaust happened, but when I saw all these old people getting off a bus on this cold icy winter day just to talk to us, I knew they were not coming to make up stories.”
It later became known that the student's parents were Holocaust deniers. Thus separated from their influence, he was able to form his own opinion.
We cannot assume that parents will be supportive. Some need to first be educated. On the other hand, there are many parents who want to help and do so by chaperoning or taking their children to a Holocaust museum or movie, and then discussing the lessons to be learned.
Student portrait of Survivor Adam Boren
Student portrait of Survivor Ana Balaban
Varda
Epstein: What would you say is the main takeaway that we should want our
children to have from the historic catastrophe that is the Holocaust?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: The world is made of many nations, religions (4,200!), and creeds. Though we are sometimes seemingly so different, we share a most common need and goal for communication, acceptance, understanding and especially peace and love. By opening ourselves up to this awareness, we can all enjoy our shared lives.
Yes, it can happen again, but with Holocaust Education you will know there is a choice in how to respond to your own or others' needs for help. There are still many Righteous Gentiles being honored for their unbelievable courage when putting their own lives and the lives of their loved ones, on the line to save a Jew.
Varda
Epstein: What does the future hold for you as a Holocaust educator?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: Things have drastically changed over the past two years in the world. We are living in the most challenging of times. G-d fearing people see "The Hand of G-d" in all unfolding.
Growing up after The Holocaust, in The Golden Medina, we had childhoods filled with attainable dreams and hope. As a parent/grandparent I pray my children and grandchildren will enjoy the same opportunities afforded us—and especially in regard to having the ability to live their lives as practicing Jews.
As Jews, we are taught to be accepting and respectful of others. Hillel summarized the entirety of the Torah by stating the most important commandment is to, "Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
As a Holocaust Educator, I see that our work, in many ways, has just begun.
If you would like to help assist the goals of education toward prevention, here's what all of us should do ASAP:
1. Demand mandatory Holocaust education: only 19 out of 50 states in the US have mandatory Holocaust Education.
*It is important to note that “6 million” was only an estimate. The actual number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust is closer to 7 million and still counting, as mass graves and bodies continue to be discovered in various parts of Europe.
In my previous blog I wrote incorrectly that 16 Israelis were murdered in the 2001 Sbarro Restaurant bombing, with one victim remaining unconscious only to die later.
The truth is that 15 died in the explosion or immediately after, and 130 were injured, some of them very seriously. A 31-year old woman named Chana Nachenberg, who was there with Sarah, her toddler daughter, suffered a traumatic brain injury from one of the pieces of shrapnel in the bomb, and entered what doctors call a “persistent vegetative state.” Chana is still alive 20 years later, and still unresponsive. Her daughter Sarah was one of the few at the location who escaped unhurt.
A person in a vegetative state has some brain function, but is not able to communicate. Sometimes they recover, but the longer they have been in this condition, the less likely it becomes. Are they in any sense aware? Nobody knows, but I hope not. Here is something Sarah wrote about her mother some years ago. Twenty years is a long time, the length of a generation. Think about what happened in your life in the past 20 years. Today Sarah has a daughter of her own.
I was informed of my error by Arnold Roth, who lost his daughter Malki in the bombing. Malki was 15, and had gone to Sbarro’s for pizza with a friend, Michal Raziel. Both girls were among the murder victims. Several years ago I met Arnold for lunch in Jerusalem, and as we walked back along Jaffa Road toward his car and the bus station, I suddenly realized that we were at the corner with King George St. where the Sbarro restaurant had been. There is a plaque at the location with the names of the victims on it. I could only imagine what Arnold was feeling.
Since Malki’s death, Arnold and his wife Frimet have taken on two tasks. One is to help provide home care alternatives for disabled children, and to this end they established the Keren Malki Foundation in her name. The other is to get justice for their daughter, one of whose murderers walks free.
The Sbarro bombing was one of the most horrifying episodes of the Second Intifada, when Palestinian suicide bombers exploded on almost a daily basis in buses, restaurants, markets, and railroad and bus stations. The attack was planned by Ahlam Tamimi, then a 20-year old journalism student who chose the location and accompanied a suicide bomber, Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri to the restaurant. Al-Masri carried a guitar case containing 5-10 kg. of explosive and hundreds of nails and other shrapnel. Tamimi left him there and returned to Ramallah, where she had a part-time job as a TV news presenter, and reported on the attack to her Palestinian audience. A remarkably cold killer, Tamimi later smiled broadly and thanked Allah when an interviewer noted that she had killed seven children, and not just three as she had thought. She has said that she is not sorry for what she did and would do it again.
Tamimi was sentenced to 16 consecutive life sentences, and the bomb-maker, Hamas commander Abdullah Barghouti, to 67 (!) of them for his role in multiple murders. But in 2011 when the Israeli government foolishly agreed to trade 1027 convicted terrorists for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, Tamimi was among them. She was released and deported to Jordan, where she was given a job on Jordanian TV and became a media celebrity. Frimet Roth wrote then that the release and hero’s welcome of Ahlam Tamimi made her feel as though her daughter were being murdered a second time.
Chana Nachenberg, Malki Roth, and another victim, Shoshana Hayman Greenbaum – who was pregnant – all had American citizenship, and the US has demanded Tamimi’s extradition, in part due to the efforts of Arnold and Frimet Roth. But Jordan refuses to honor its extradition treaty, probably because the king fears the reaction of his subjects. Apparently American officials agree with him, because they haven’t tried to force him to give her up, despite her position on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists.
In the last few weeks there has been an uptick in Palestinian terrorism against Israelis. There have been stabbings, car rammings, an attempted mass shooting (only one death, thanks to quick police reaction), and the recent ambush of a car carrying yeshiva students, which resulted in the death of one of them. And of course, there is also the “background noise” of daily rock-throwing and firebomb attacks which don’t make the news, even in Israel, unless a terrorist gets lucky and kills someone. We get used to all of this, and perhaps don’t think about the suffering of the terror victims and their families. And we don’t dare ask ourselves what it must be like to be as full of hate as Ahlam Tamimi.
One thing that we do know is that Palestinian terrorism is more than just an expression of rage; it is a targeted act with a specific objective. Terrorists and their supporters believe that they can make life here unbearable for Jews, who will pack up and “go back where they came from.”
This is a remarkable mistake for Palestinians, who are usually relatively clever and resourceful. Very few Israeli Jews have a place to go “back” to; certainly Mizrachi Jews are not welcome in North Africa, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and so on. Nor do the descendants of Jews displaced or murdered in the Holocaust, nor the children of those who came from Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire prior to WWII. I doubt that Russia would welcome former Soviet Jews, either. But even those from Western countries, like the Roths, are not going anywhere, despite the pain, sometimes felt very personally, of terrorism.
Israel is not a colony, and it is not a temporary arrangement. The land is soaked in Jewish blood, and the Jewish people have taken root in it. The idea that they can be dislodged by Palestinian terrorism, either the organized kind coming from Hamas or the random acts of hatred by “lone wolf terrorists” is ludicrous. All the terrorists can do is provoke a reaction – one that may ultimately lead to their expulsion in a second Nakba.
Palestinians from across the political spectrum have strongly condemned Ra’am (United Arab List) leader and MK Mansour Abbas for allegedly recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.
On Tuesday, Abbas was quoted as saying, “The State of Israel was born as a Jewish state, and it will remain one.” He made the statement at a conference of the Hebrew economic newspaper Globes.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has repeatedly stated his refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, on Wednesday expressed outrage over the statements of the Arab MK.
“These irresponsible statements are consistent with the calls of extremists in Israel to displace the Palestinians and harm the status of the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque and the history of the Palestinian people,” he said in a statement released by the PA president’s office.
The statement added that Mansour Abbas represents only himself when he talks about accepting Israel as a Jewish state.
“He does not represent the Palestinian people at home and everywhere in the world,” the statement read, adding that such remarks “contradict religion, history and Palestinian heritage.”
Accusing Mansour Abbas of being part of a “current that promotes the Zionist colonial project,” the PA statement continued, “It is unfortunate that instead of siding with the rights of his people and condemning the settlements, killings and displacement committed by the occupation and the plans of Israeli extremists to empty Palestinian lands, we see him repeating the lies of the Zionist movement.”
The PLO Executive Committee, which consists of representatives of several Palestinian factions, expressed “strong condemnation” for the statements of Mansour Abbas, saying they do not reflect the views of the Palestinians.
The committee accused the Arab MK of supporting Israeli “racist” laws and aligning himself with the “right-wing, racist and extremist policy” of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked.
Einat Wilf Goldman Lecture - “Arab Zionism and the Path to Peace".
Dr. Einat Wilf, the 2021 Georgetown Goldman Visiting Professor, gives the annual Goldman lecture hosted by the Center for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown.
Samantha Power, who had once called for a military invasion and occupation of Israel, appeared in her new role as the head of USAID to complain about aid to the terrorists.
Power made her complaints at the virtual winter event for the Alliance for Middle East Peace, an organization that, like anything middle eastern with the word “peace” in it, is anything but peaceful, but managed to lobby Congress into allocating a quarter of a billion dollars to promote “peacebuilding” efforts by organizations like its anti-Israel member groups.
"Investments in the health and wellbeing of Palestinians benefits everyone, including Israelis," Samantha Power complained. "Yet today, it has become controversial to provide life-saving aid to the Palestinian people and invest in their development."
Having the United States fund a welfare state in the West Bank and Gaza, buying butter so that Hamas and the PLO are free to focus on buying guns, missiles, and suicide bombers helps no one, least of all Israelis. The PLO's Palestinian Authority paid out some $150 million in 2019 to imprisoned terrorists and the families of dead terrorists as part of its 'Pay-to-Slay' program.
The PLO’s puppet regime has over $4 billion in debt, and keeps claiming that it’s on the verge of bankruptcy. And yet despite pressure from its donors, it has refused to stop paying terrorists.
Power is well aware of this even as she decided to play dumb in her address to her partners.
The Alliance for Middle East Peace cheered Power’s nomination to head USAID. And Power in turn praised ALLMEP for convincing Congress to allocate $250 million to promote “peace” which will be allocated through USAID.
Power, the NGOs, and the terrorists win while Americans lose. Again.
Yesterday, Hamas sent out a text message to the merchants who have permits to visit Israel for trade and have not returned:
"Brother merchant, for the sake of your interest, we ask you to return to Gaza no later than Thursday 23/12. Your delay will prevent you from automatically renewing your permit."
It seems that many of these merchants take advantage of the permit system to escape Hamas permanently.
Since 2016, nearly 3,300 Gazans who were given permits to leave for any reason (including visiting relatives in hospitals) have not returned, according to Israeli authorities, causing some alarm from the Im Tirtzu NGO worried that they are terrorist sleeper cells.
It is a small percentage of all permits given - about 3% - and those who have business permits are vetted.
We have noted in the past that the Christian population of Gaza has plummeted from 5,000 when Hamas took over to less than 1,000 now, and the reason is that when the Christians are given permission to visit Jerusalem and Bethlehem on Christmas, many never come back. Israel seems to know about this and quietly allows them to stay with relatives in the West Bank, knowing how bad it is for Christians in Gaza.
The statistics released do not break down the non-returnees by the reason for the permits, so it is hard to know how many escaped using business or hospital/prisoner visits as the excuse and how many left for religious reasons. But Hamas' text message indicates that at least some of them are merchants who use their permits to escape.
Yesterday, the head of Israel's Islamist Ra'am party shook the Palestinian street with an interview that is getting wide coverage in Arabic:
The head of the first major Arab party to enter a government coalition said Tuesday that Israel’s status as a Jewish state could not be changed, advising the Arab community to follow his pragmatic approach rather than trying to challenge the country’s identity.
“Israel was born as a Jewish state. And that was the decision of the Jewish people, to establish a Jewish state. The question is not ‘what is the identity of the state?’ That’s how the state was born, and so it will remain,” said [Mansour] Abbas, the head of the Islamist Ra’am party.
“This is the reality. The question is not the about the state’s identity — but what the status of Arab citizens will be in it,” Abbas said.
Arab antiemites are angry. One Israeli Arab newspaper derogatorily calls Abbas a "Shabbos goy."
There was another momentous revelation.
A Jordanian businessman and regular columnist who lives in the UAE, Hasan Ismaik, wrote an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post about the six biggest Arab mistakes. It is one of the most clear-eyed and honest self-analyses I've ever seen from an Arab who writes in Arabic language media. Excerpts:
Legendary Israeli diplomat Abba Eban observed after the failed 1973 Geneva peace conference, “The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. Eban’s wry assessment rings true almost 50 years later. Missing an opportunity is a mistake; never failing to miss an opportunity is a sin against oneself. Endlessly repeated, mistakes become fatal sins when used by a clever opponent to their advantage. Let us count the ways.
The first sin is not accepting the Jewish people as a valued and ancient component of the Middle East. ...
The second sin is choosing the wrong alliances to further the Palestinian cause. From the alliance with Nazism and fascism to the dependence on the Soviets and Arab leaders for whom the Palestinian cause is nothing but a tool to achieve their own purposes, Palestinian leaders have almost always chosen the most harmful allies for their cause.
The third sin is the Yasser Arafat paradigm. Many may be surprised to find the former head of the Palestinian Liberation Army and the Palestinian Authority on this list. Yet he is the man who established the principle of violent resistance that armed non-state organizations follow today: If the price is the blood of Arab Palestinians, then there is no harm in paying it to defeat the occupation.
The fourth sin is the Palestinian people suffering more from the decisions of their leaders and allies than from the actions of Israel. Like Arafat, Hamas’s allies of political Islamic leaders are all too eager to fight Israel until the last Palestinian falls dead.
The fifth sin is viewing the conflict with Israel as an “all-or-nothing” war to the death. Standing between the Palestinians obtaining any of their legal and moral rights is their battle cry to satisfy all historical grievances, reclaim the entire land, expel all Israelis, and eliminate the State of Israel. What has the all-or-nothing approach succeeded in gaining? Very little, if anything at all.
The sixth sin is exploiting the Palestinian cause for political gain. Not all, thank God, but some Arab political leaders in the region and even some governments use the Arab-Israel conflict as a smokescreen to hide their own deficiencies, failures, and hidden agenda. No peace in the Middle East? No state of Palestine? No economic security or prosperity for all citizens? Unrest and uprisings? Don’t blame us, blame Israel. If Israel didn’t exist, we would have no social or economic problems, the Palestinians would have their own state, and the region would be a paradise on earth.
These are all issues I've written about myself over the years, and it is nice to see that some Arabs can see how counterproductive their hate has been. Again, the Abraham Accords are a huge factor in making it possible for Arabs to publicly say things like these with less fear than before.
Until recently, the only thing Arabs agreed on was hating Israel. Without that consensus, assumptions that were accepted as readily as gravity have been crumbling. It is a step in the right direction.
The Israel haters, faced with these Arab turncoats, try to demonize Arabs who want peace with Israel - and that is not a good look, especially for organizations with the word "peace" in their titles.
There are cracks in the dam, and the haters can't patch them up.
It has been publishing a series of articles by Najat Abdul Rahman that seem to be concentrating on attacking the Muslim Brotherhood. But it is based on conspiracy theories, and all conspiracy theories lead to Jews.
Last week she mentioned that Egyptian cinema was overrun with immorality, and it seemed to her to be a fulfillment of the ninth Protocol of the Elders of Zion of spreading vice.
This week she delves a little more into the Protocols, and gives a new history of the fraudulent antisemitic document.
According to her, the Protocols were authored by a group that included none other than Theodor Herzl. They were leaked from the top-secret Jewish cabal and made their way to the Pope. Their publication caused Russians to slaughter tens of thousands of Jews, which prompted Herzl to scream about how the documents were stolen from the Jewish "holy of holies" and therefore exposed Jews to pogroms and calamities.
Rahman goes on to describe several of the Protocols, pointing out how the Muslim Brotherhood was following them in Egypt in concert with their Israeli mentors.
There will be more about the Protocols next week.
This is a mainstream and popular Egyptian newspaper that is spreading pure hate for Jews, today. And there is never a word of objection from the self-appointed experts on antisemitism from the Left about this daily incitement in Arab media.
In October, in San Antonio, a neo-Nazi group protested outside a church holding a fundraiser for Israel. “Horrified” to see them there was a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, a far-left group that was also protesting the church. These two ostensibly ideologically-opposed groups are perhaps not, as we’ll see, such strange bedfellows.
Those who follow the campus scene know that not all is well for Jewish students, especially for those who do not hate Israel. Swastikas, nasty graffiti, and hateful flyers; vandalism, even arson, against Hillels and Chabads; dorm room mezuzot and public menorahs torn down; “anti-normalization” campaigns promoting their ostracization; in May literally hundreds of academic departments and programs issuing hateful one-sided condemnations of Israel, all accompanied by frequent threats of violence from their student peers, such as this recent one from a “Diversity Senator” who proudly announced, “I want to kill every motherf**king Zionist.” It’s no surprise that a recent poll of “openly Jewish” students found that more than 65% felt unsafe on campus, 50% felt the need to hide their Jewish identity, and 10% feared physical attack. Almost 70% were aware of or had personally experienced a verbal or physical attack.
Perhaps most alarming is that the hatred is also coming from the professors.
Enter Scott Shay’s important new book, Conspiracy U. By focusing on his own alma mater, Northwestern University, Shay masterfully diagnoses the general state of today’s campus, and is actually speaking about many campuses when he remarks, in distress, that Northwestern “has enabled some of its professors to openly promote conspiracy theories” (xi). That is precisely the problem: what too many professors are promoting are “conspiracy theories,” and their institutions “enable” them. These theories, naturally, target the Jews. It is indeed no surprise that Jewish students do not feel safe when dominant campus actors openly proclaim they are part of an international cabal to perpetrate evil.
Sound far-fetched? Read on.
Stunningly, Northwestern has been home for some fifty years to Prof. Arthur Butz, whose 1976 Holocaust-denying book has gone through at least four editions in its 45 years in print. Butz claims that Zionism is a sinister movement to despoil Arabs and rob the world, that it invented the Holocaust to obtain Palestine and massive reparations, that it “framed up” the Nuremberg trials to manipulate American leaders into doing their bidding, etc. Classic, far-right, neo-Nazi conspiracy theory here, easily identified as antisemitic. Outrageous as this is, however, Butz and his ilk are not the problem: they have almost no presence on campuses.
By revoking resolution 3379, the UN determined that Zionism is not a form of racism, a determination it has not made regarding any other national movement. Clearly, this has been a setback for those seeking to use the UN as a platform to advance their extreme anti-Israel agenda. Will they learn from this experience and act differently in the future?
Sadly, Israel’s adversaries have not relented. Last May, following the hostilities between Israel and Hamas, the UN Human Rights Council established a Commission of Inquiry responsible for investigating “systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity” in the Palestinian areas and inside Israel, language previously used to allege that Israel is guilty of apartheid policies. Evidently, the term apartheid is meant to reintroduce the Zionism-racism equation under a different heading.
In 1948, the same year the term apartheid was first used to denote legal separation of the races in South Africa, Israel issued its Declaration of Independence. To the Arab inhabitants of Israel, this Declaration promised “full and equal citizenship and due representation in its provisional or permanent institutions.” Consistent with these principles, Israel has maintained a democratic political system based on majority rule. Israel’s Arab citizens participate fully and actively in this system and are represented in the Knesset. Indeed, an Arab political party is a member of the current governing coalition. The relationship between majority and minority is never simple, and Israel is no exception, all the more so because of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet despite the difficulties, Israel has achieved a remarkable degree of coexistence between the Jewish and Arab communities, flying in the face of the allegations that Israel is conducting “apartheid policies.”
The Irish Times has just produced yet another rancid article attacking Jews. This in the same week that Ireland’s ‘bestselling’ political magazine ‘the Phoenix’ was busy spending its time smearing those Jews that fight antisemitism. When we look for a central pillar of Ireland’s widespread antisemitism, we really have to look no further than the Irish media.
When it comes to Israel, the people of Ireland are woefully misinformed. If any people in Europe should naturally support the State of Israel – it should be the Irish. The Jews were betrayed by the British. The Jews saw their land – that was set aside for them by the League of Nations – divided by the British to create the colonial non state of Trans-Jordan.
The British went on to renege further on their international duties by slowly strangling Jewish immigration. In fact, by the late 1940’s – with the British putting Jewish concentration camp survivors back into camps rather than allowing these refugees a safe haven – the Jews were in open warfare with them. Israel was the product of an anti-imperial fight by a chained people in desperate need of freedom and self determination
But this is not the first time Ireland has been on the wrong side of history when people came for the Jews. When Hitler’s genocidal thugs were eradicating European Jewry – Ireland chose to (at best) sit on the fence. Partial Irish support for the Nazi regime has been well documented. This time around the Irish media is visibly helping to lead them astray.
Oh lookie, one of those graph things.
Showing that Palestinians lives are safer in the WB than Irish lives are in Ireland.
Here is a map of the Middle East from the children's book, Amazing Women of the Middle East:
You will notice that there is no Israel in this map. It is replaced with "Palestine."
Modern nations like Jordan and the UAE are mentioned, so it cannot be that the map refers to a time period before 1948.
Iran and Turkey are shown, so this isn't a map of only Arab countries.
It is a clearly deliberate attempt to erase Israel from the map.
The list of women that the book discusses seems to be missing a certain type of people as well:
• Scheherazade, Persia, narrator
• Nefertiti, Ancient Egypt, 1370 BCE, Queen of Egypt
• Queen of Sheba, 1050 BCE, modern-day Ethiopia
• Semiramis, ancient Iraq, 811 BCE, Queen of Babylon
• Cleopatra VII, Egypt, 69 BCE, last queen of Egypt
• Zenobia, Syria, 240 CE, Queen of Palmyra
• Theodora, 497 CE, Empress of Byzantium
• Rabiya al Adawiyya, Iraq, 714, poet
• Shajarat al Durr, Egypt, early 13th Century, Sultana of Egypt
• Hurrem Sultan, Ukraine, 1502, Sultana of Ottoman Empire
• May Ziadeh, Nazareth, Palestine, 1886, writer
• Nazik el Abid, Syria, 1887, activist
• Anbara Salam al Khalidi, Lebanon, 1897, activist and feminist
• Saloua Raouda Choucair, Lebanon, 1916, painter
• Fairuz, Lebanon, 1933, singer
• Zaha Hadid, Iraq, 1950, architect
• Anousheh Ansari, Iran/USA, 1966, astronaut
• Somayya Jabarti, Saudi Arabia, 1970, editor-in-chief
• Nadine Labaki, Lebanon, 1974, film maker and actress
• Amal Clooney, Lebanon/British, 1978, lawyer
• Manahel Thabet, Yemen, 1981, economist and mathematician
• Maha Al Baluchi, Oman, pilot
• Nadia Murad, Iraq, 1993, rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner
• Zahra Lari, UAE, 1995, ice skater
• Azza Fahmy, Egypt, jewellery designer
Hmmm. No Jewish women make the cut of Amazing Women of the Middle East. No Queen Esther or prophet Deborah or Golda Meir.
Some people complained to a Canadian book chain, which removed the book from its shelves. The publisher, Michel Moushabeck who founded Interlink Publishing, wrote a snarky and demeaning response:
This past week, Interlink and my family were subjected to some vicious trolling by a small number of people on social media started by a pro-Israel group, which resulted in the removal of copies of a children’s picture book, Amazing Women of the Middle East, from the shelves of Indigo Books, a large bookstore chain in Canada. The book was banned because the group complained that it was anti-Semitic because the word Palestine—instead of Israel—appeared on the accompanying map that helped identify to children where the women featured in the book originally came from (one was from Palestine).
We are saddened to see such an important book that celebrates Middle Eastern women of all faiths, be disparaged online. Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have been recipients of false accusations of anti-Semitism and this will likely not be the last. The notion that Palestinians are intrinsically anti-Semitic is a harmful and false narrative rooted in racism. This stereotype is harmful to not only Palestinians, but ignores the very REAL problem of anti-Semitism happening around the world. The books we publish amplify marginalized and underrepresented voices, including indigenous Palestinians, who are often left voiceless in Western media. We also publish talented Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic, etc. authors who further our cultural understanding of their lived experiences.
He then went on to make fun of one tweet.
One of the women profiled is Scheherazade, from Persia. Persia is not listed on the map, which means the children won't be able to identify where she came from! So from the outset, we can see that the publisher is not being intellectually honest in his defense of a propaganda map that erases Israel.
Moushabeck goes on to misrepresent and demean the feelings of the people complaining. No one is saying that "Palestinians are intrinsically antisemitic." If the map drew Palestine as being in the West Bank, no one would have cared.
But the decision to erase the Jewish state is indeed antisemitic.
Including women who represent all religions and areas of the Middle East except for members of one religion and one nation is indeed antisemitic. (And saying that women of "all faiths" are celebrated means that to the publisher, Jews don't count.)
There is also another implication in this letter: that women from ancient powerful empires like Egypt, Persia and the Ottoman Empire represent "marginalized and underrepresented voices," that Christians and Muslims who make up billions of people are "marginalized." Is Cleopatra really that marginalized? But the tiny number of Jews from a small ancient kingdom to a small modern democracy are not worth mentioning.
Let's be honest. The reason there are no Jews or Israel in the book is because the author and publisher do not believe that Jews have any rightful place in the region, historically or today.
Let's be even more honest. If the book treated Jewish women on par with the others, and included Israel in the map and Israeli women like Nobel Prize winner Ada Yonath or Israel Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch or poet Leah Goldberg, the book would be boycotted by the target audience.
So cut the crap. This has nothing to do with Palestinians and everything to do with what can only be considered a deliberate mindset that Jews are outsiders, colonialists - in short, the enemy.
That's why this book is antisemitic.
The publisher's letter that twists the arguments about the book and belittles the Jews who were insulted by it proves the underlying antisemitism more than the book itself does.
I don't like censorship but this book promotes the idea that Jews do not belong in the region, and it is therefore utterly unsuitable to be bought by anyone who supports the liberal stance that Interlink Publishing pretends to espouse.
UK Lawyers for Israel warned Pikku Publishing the book, called ‘Amazing Women of the Middle East: 25 Stories from Ancient Times to Present Day,’ could be in breach of education laws if used as a teaching aid in schools because it featured no Israeli women and had erased Israel from a map of the region.
The book, which is marketed to children over the age of nine, is listed on a web page marked “Teachers’ Resources” on the publisher’s website.
UKLFI warned self-publishing company Pikku if the book were used as a teaching aid in schools it would be likely to result in a breach Section 406 of the Education Act 1996.
This forbids ‘political indoctrination’, which is defined as the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in the school.
The UK Lawyers for Israel requested the publishers both in the UK and the USA withdraw the book and re-publish it with the correct map and featuring at least one ‘Amazing Woman’ from Israel.
The title has been withdrawn both from Pikku’s website and the teaching resources based on the book have also been removed from the ‘teachers’ resources’ section.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Elder of Ziyon
