Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, December 25, 2021

Nazis used to claim they weren't antisemitic

When I see modern antisemites denying that they have any problem with Jews, I am reminded that most antisemites throughout history said the same thing.

Even the Nazis.

From wire services, March 25, 1933:

Days later, Goering even claimed that there would be a death penalty for anyone attacking Jews!

The US State Department believed Goering.

Even though, that very same day, journalists from the Manchester Guardian documented the persecution:

Only a month later, newspapers in the US showed photos proving that Goering was a liar.

A lot of people today also deny that they hate Jews. Yet the only people they want to see ethnically cleansed, or boycotted, or forcibly removed from their homes, or killed for "legitimate resistance" reasons, all happen to be Jews.

The "Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism," which says BDS is not antisemitic, would not say that Nazis in 1933 were antisemitic because they claimed they didn't attack "Jews as Jews" but merely as socialists.

And just like the Nazis, the new antisemites can point to Jews who agree with them as "proof" that they aren't antisemitic.

Right or left, the hate is the same.

12/24 Links Pt2: Are Palestinians an indigenous people?; Phillips: A Christmas crusade: scapegoating the Jews; Mainstream Jewish Groups Need to Understand That Interfaith Dialogue Legitimized CAIR

From Ian:

Are Palestinians an indigenous people?

According to a definition cited in the RTD Journal, “Indigenous peoples, also referred to as first people, aboriginal people, native people, or autochthonous people, are culturally distinct ethnic groups who are native to a place which has been colonized and settled by another ethnic group.”

For several decades, Palestinian leaders, followers and archeologists have touted the notion that Arabs are the true “indigenous people” of what was called Palestine, and are descended from Canaanites and other tribes who lived there before it was conquered by the Jewish people. Although they offer no evidence for this claim, it has become part of Palestinian identity; and, as a belief, it is unquestioned.

Nomadic tribes, such as the Bedouin, cannot be included in this category, because there is no way of knowing from where they originated. Arab tribes who migrated to the land of Israel/Palestine in the modern period left no texts, documents or evidence of their origin or culture. Their tribal/family names, however, often indicate their foreign origins.

Arab Palestinians call themselves “indigenous people” to depict themselves as victims of colonialism and to support their claim that Jews have “stolen the Palestinian homeland” and “occupied” it. Written in the PLO Covenant and Hamas Charter—and advocated by Islamists and organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood—it is used to justify terrorism, demonize Israel and pursue the goal of eliminating Israel.

Arabs who call themselves Palestinians—derived from the word “Philistines,” an invading force from the Aegean Sea—use the word “indigenous” to legitimatize their efforts to carry out their struggle against Israel’s existence. Their self-description as a “people” is refuted by the fact that they have little in common, and are merely a collection of tribes and clans that are often at war with each other.

Indeed, the idea that the Arab Palestinians are an “indigenous people” is a lie, as proven by Biblical and historical texts and archeology, which confirm Jewish civilizations throughout the land of Israel; there are no documents, sources or other evidence that refer to a “Palestinian people.”

Melanie Phillips: A Christmas crusade: scapegoating the Jews

It’s more than just troubling. Not only does it slyly reinforce the blood libel perpetrated against the Israel’s Defense Forces — which goes to lengths unmatched by any other military to protect civilian life — that they willfully slaughter Palestinian children.

It also continues to tap into the calumny of replacement theology, which in recent years has been revived within the church.

This ancient doctrine, which was responsible for the Christian pogroms against the Jews of medieval Europe, held that the Christians had replaced the Jews in the eyes of God and had inherited all divine promises made to them while the Jews themselves had become the party of the devil.

Today, this doctrine has been appropriated by Palestinian Arab Christians — and endorsed below the radar by many liberal Western churches — to claim that the Palestinians have now inherited the divine promise of the land of Israel.

This has created such absurdities and obscenities as representing Jesus, the Jew from Judea, as a Palestinian; writing the Jews out of their own national story in Israel; and rehashing the ancient libel that the Jews killed Jesus to underpin the modern libel that the Israelis are slaughtering the Palestinians.

The churches’ accusation against Israel is even more egregious since Christianity really is under existential threat throughout other parts of the Middle East and the developing world.

In its ancient cradle of Iraq, Christianity has been virtually wiped out by Islamist attacks. At the beginning of this year, Open Doors listed the ten countries where Christians were most persecuted as North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, Nigeria and India. Of more than 50 countries on its full list, all were in the developing world. None of them was Israel.

Yet Welby and the other clerics ignored all this (although Welby subsequently sought to deflect the growing outrage over his article by writing a postscript on the Spectator website in which he devoted three paragraphs to Christian persecution around the world). Instead, the churches’ campaign chose to scapegoat the Jews for crimes against Christianity perpetrated by others — the fundamental myth fueling Christian antisemitism from the time of the early church fathers.

Many decent Christians are horrified by the venom of the liberal churches towards Israel and the resurgence of theological Christian Jew-hatred, which to them goes totally against the uplifting lessons they learn from their faith.

But judging from this disturbing campaign, it seems that little of substance has changed for the church in its foundational malice towards the Jewish people.

There’s only one place in the region where Christianity grew by 1.4% this year…it’s the same place the Archbishop of Canterbury is warning Christians are being “driven out” of. ?? Heres what you need to know about Christians in Israel, from me and a Christian Arab, @YosephHaddad pic.twitter.com/s13G85zsvM
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) December 23, 2021

The Palestinian Authority has Jesus envy

Once the PA turned Jesus into a Palestinian it was a simple step to misappropriate some of Christianity’s religious, as well as holiday, symbols. The PA and Fatah on numerous occasions have depicted Palestinians on a crucifix in political cartoons. The PA likewise has turned Santa Claus into a Palestinian. Palestinian Media Watch has documented at least seven cartoons in which Santa Claus is fighting, abused by and even murdered by Israeli soldiers.

Some mistakenly think that the PA’s claiming Jewish history and Jesus is so absurd it therefore can be ignored as meaningless Palestinian identity creation. Unfortunately, the PA’s falsification of history must not be ignored, because it has a much more sinister goal: it serves as justification for the PA and Fatah seeking to destroy Israel.

Fatah’s Waed magazine for children aged 6 to 15 repeatedly teaches that it is this fictitious history that justifies and guarantees Israel’s destruction: “Palestine underwent dozens of invasions, and many peoples entered it such as a Babylonians, the Persians, the Samaritans, the Assyrians, the Hyksos, the Hittites, the Pharaohs and the Hebrews. Afterward the Greeks and Romans arrived… In the end, Palestine fell under the Zionist occupation… The occupation will cease to exist just as what was before it ceased to exist.” (Waed, Issue 32, pp. 5-6) And this: “Over thousands of years, it has proven that… there is no invader who invaded this land and did not leave it defeated in the end, and that is what will happen to the Zionist invaders.” (Waed, Issue 27, p. 23)

As long as the PA continues to deny the thousands of years of the Jewish people’s history in the land – including the fact that Jesus was a Judean – and uses this as a basis to deny Israel the right to exist, a peace process has yet to begin.

Merry Christmas! (cartoon)

I made this cartoon as a response to those "Joseph and Mary would be stopped by an Israeli checkpoint" memes...

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

12/24 Links Pt1: Israel's gates are always open for aliyah; Mark Regev: What is Israel's endgame in attacking Syria?; Israel’s Moment of Truth in Dealing with Hamas?

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Israel's gates are always open for aliyah

While they are all right to praise the increase in aliyah, we should not rest on our laurels. Israel must do more, must do all it can, to encourage Diaspora Jewry to make aliyah.

According to demographer Prof. Sergio Della Pergola of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the number of Jews worldwide stands at approximately 15.2 million, with more than 6.9 million living in Israel and the other 8.3 million in the Diaspora. The largest Jewish populations by country are the US (six million), France (446,000), Canada (393,500), the United Kingdom (292,000), Argentina (175,000), Russia (150,000), Germany (118,000) and Brazil (91,500).

Aliyah officials here cannot be complacent, though, especially when it comes to communities in distress. As Ethiopia again faces political turmoil, it is essential that Israel enable those awaiting aliyah to fly here, despite the pandemic. The cabinet voted on November 21 to approve the immigration of thousands of Ethiopians who have been waiting for years to fly to Israel, many in transit camps. But the government’s new regulations aimed at stemming the spread of the Omicron variant have apparently held up the process.

Rabbi Stewart Weiss, a regular Jerusalem Post columnist, wrote two columns recently urging the government to “bring home 10,000 members of Beta Yisrael waiting anxiously to immigrate to the Jewish state,” as well as the estimated 50,000 Jews living in South Africa. “This is a moment in time for South African Jews to gather up their courage, their vast talents and their families, and join us in our historic, divinely inspired march to redemption,” he wrote.

We echo his appeal to the Israeli government to seize the moment and expedite the immigration of Jews from Ethiopia, South Africa and elsewhere in the Diaspora. Israel has not sent a welcoming message to Diaspora Jewry by closing Ben-Gurion Airport to foreigners. But it can send a clear signal to all Jews abroad that its gates are always open to those who want to make aliyah.

Caroline Glick: The empty suit at the head of the table

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held a primetime press conference about his COVID-19 policies Monday evening. It went poorly for him.

Channel 12 News reporter Ofer Hadad spoke for many Israelis when he said, "Mr. Prime Minister, on the one hand, you're signaling urgency and fear, and on the other hand, confusion.

"You decide to require a Green Pass for entry into shopping malls, and then you do an about face. You call for children to get vaccinated and then we discover that the education minister is – at best – refusing to mobilize the school system to this end. You ask the citizens of Israel not to travel abroad. And then your family flies off to the Maldives. You're confusing us."

Bennett's confused and contradictory policies on COVID-19 are of a piece with his confusing and failed policies in every other major policy sphere. From his dealing with the Biden administration, the Palestinians, Iran, Diaspora Jewry, the economy and beyond, Bennett's policies are a muddle of self-defeating contradictions.

Consider the situation with the Biden administration. Bennett said that by forming a radical ruling coalition dominated by the Left and the Islamist Ra'am Party, he would vastly improve Israel's relations with the administration. Bennett and his partner, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, insisted that then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had brought Israel-US relations to a crisis through his close relations with then-President Donald Trump and the Republican party. Bennett and Lapid claimed that once they took charge, ties with the Biden administration would vastly improve.

‘Israel’s contract with Diaspora suspended due to COVID-19’

Arsen Ostrovsky is disappointed with the State of Israel.

Ostrovsky is a leading human rights lawyer who moved to Israel from Australia in 2012. In 2018, he won the Sylvan Adams Nefesh B’Nefesh Bonei Zion Prize recognizing outstanding English-speaking olim who embody the spirit of modern-day Zionism by contributing in a significant way to the country. Yet he wrote in an impassioned Facebook post this week that he feels abandoned by the country.

“We have chosen to make aliyah and devote our lives to this state that we love so much,” Ostrovsky said. “Yet, when we need the state for us, it is nowhere to be seen. No other way to describe this feeling other than pure abandonment.”

Ostrovsky’s story is unfortunately not unique.

Countless new and veteran immigrants have been struggling over the course of the pandemic to gain entry for their loved ones into Israel – for weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, births and deaths. Some have succeeded, but others have been met with silence or, perhaps worse, form letters coldly stating a denial of entry.

“The State of Israel has a contract with the Diaspora, wherein Israel is a place of refuge for us, where there is a safety net that exists for all of us,” said William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “That contract has been suspended.”

Daroff was one of a small number of “exceptions” who was accepted into Israel to visit his daughter who, until last week, was a lone soldier. He and his family arrived just before the government voted to turn the United States, where Daroff lives, into a “red state.”

Now, there are few flights to and from Israel and the US, as not only are American foreign nationals banned from entering Israel, but Israelis are also banned from traveling to the US.

Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, wrote an open letter to "Palestine refugees."

Most of the letter is whining about how UNRWA's budget is stretched too thin and services are starting to be impacted.

This is the direct result of UNRWA's working definition of a "Palestine refugee" which contradicts the definition of refugee used in the Refugee Convention and guarantees that the number of "Palestine refugees" will continue to increase by the millions forever.

Somehow he doesn't consider the fact that UNRWA's definition of refugees might have something to do with their budget woes. Unless there is a way to take "refugees" off the rolls, nothing will happen to solve the problem.

In the letter, he writes,

But some decisions to decrease or stop support to the Agency are political. Since 2018, the Agency and its mandate have come under increased political attacks. These attacks aim at harming the reputation of the Agency. These attacks are based on the foolish and wrong idea that by closing UNRWA they will erase 5.8 million Palestine refugees. Let me reassure you that your rights, including your right of return and compensation, are enshrined in international law and UN resolutions and have nothing to do with the UNRWA mandate.

There is no "right to return" under international law. Period.

Practically all "Palestine refugees" aren't real refugees, so any international law about refugees do not apply to Palestinians. That is why they cannot apply for asylum in other countries like real refugees can. Everyone knows this but no one wants to say it out loud because the #1 rule in international relations is "don't piss off the Palestinians."

UNRWA needs to be dismantled. There is no reason to consider millions of Jordanian citizens to be refugees, or for them to have a separate school and medical system. There is no reason for Palestinians living in Lebanon for seven decades to not have a path to citizenship. There is no reason why Palestinians who live in Palestine, under Palestinian rule, should be considered refugees.

None of this makes sense until you realize that UNRWA's official policy to solve the problem is to force Israel to take in millions of "refugees." The UN intends to force Israel to commit national suicide.

This is why UNRWA needs to be dismantled and Arabs who pretend to care about Palestinians should take responsibility for keeping them stateless.

Hafez al-Barghouti is a Fatah member who is the former editor of Palestinian Authority newspaper Al Hayat al-Jadida, and a frequent op-ed contributor to various Arab media.

Writing in Jordan's Al Ghad, Barghouti has come up with a completely new example of how Zionists steal everything from Arabs.

Hebrew.

In the middle of an article about Israeli cultural appropriation, where he falsely claims that Israelis told Miss Universe contestants that Bedouin culture was Jewish, and goes through the usual litany of how Israelis steal Arab dance, music and cuisine.

Then he says:

Even the current Hebrew language is a modern invention, as it was developed by a Russian Jew who came from Russia to Palestine in 1890 and used Arabic grammar and the Canaanite Aramaic language, and added to it from the Yiddish language and European languages and called it a Hebrew language and written in Aramaic letters similar to ancient Arabic, i.e. separate letters.

Yes, he is claiming that the primary influence on modern Hebrew is not...Hebrew, and that the language was stolen from Arabs.

Of course, even before Eliezer ben-Yehudah worked to standardize modern Hebrew, Hebrew was spoken and used for secular purposes. A simple Hebrew was spoken in the Old Yishuv throughout the 1800s, and there were Hebrew journals and newspapers that pre-dated Ben Yehuda. The earliest examples of periodicals written in Hebrew online at Israel's National Library are Ha-Me'Asef (Poland) from 1783 and Ha-Tzefirah (Ukraine) from 1823. Ben Yehudah based modern Hebrew grammar primarily on Mishnaic Hebrew, not Arabic, although he took some words from modern Arabic and Hebraicized them.

But to some people, Jews are thieves and therefore everything Jewish or Zionist is stolen. Other languages evolve with outside influences, but Jews steal their language. Other cuisines borrow from other cultures, Israeli cuisine steals.

___________________

Barghouti ends off the article with an old Arab joke, although I cannot figure out how it relates to his theme:

It is said that a well-known merchant in Hebron was a friend of an Israeli merchant, and one day the Israeli merchant complained that he had bought a large amount of women's bras and could not sell them because they were too large, so he offered to sell them to the Arab merchant at a cheap price. Months later they met, and the Israeli asked him what happened to the bras? The Hebronite replied, “They have all been sold.” The Israeli wondered, “Do your women have big breasts?” The Hebron merchant replied, “No, but your heads are big. I have prepared and embroidered them as kippot for religious Jews, and I sold them.”

I've seen variants of that joke elsewhere, but someone who doesn't know that kippot are significantly cheaper than bras is not exactly the right person to act as an expert on Jews, Israelis or Hebrew.

Indeed, Jews have gone in the other direction - to turn kippot into bras.

From MiddleEast-in-24.com:

A number of rabbis met today (Wednesday) with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at his palace in Ankara, and discussed with him a number of issues related to Jewish life in the country and around the world. The meeting was attended by many rabbis, led by Russia’s Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Berl Lazar. The person who was supposed to arrive was also the Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who was eventually forced not to arrive because Turkey is a red state.

The rabbis discussed with Erdogan and then ate a sumptuous dinner. According to the organizers of the meeting, this is the first time that a strictly kosher meal is served in Erdogan’s palace.

Erdogan even surprised when he promised to approve the construction, for the first time ever, of a synagogue in northern Cyprus – a territory occupied by Turkey a few decades ago, unrecognized by world nations and having Chabad activities. The Turkish president even stepped in when he said he hoped the synagogue will be inaugurated in about a year. Today there is an improvised and semi-secret prayer house in the Chabad house in the Turkish half of the island, and now the Turkish president has promised to take active action to establish a synagogue there.

Turkey has been building settlements on occupied territory for decades, and it is met with a shrug from the same world leaders who say that Jews building houses in disputed territories are guilty of war crimes.

But now that Erdogan is saying that he is building a synagogue for Jews in occupied territory, that might be enough to get the world upset for the first time at Turkey.

(h/t YMedad)

12/23 Links Pt2: Bassem Eid: Israel – the best place to be an Arab; Illinois Votes to Divest State Pension Fund From Unilever Due to Ben & Jerry’s Boycott

From Ian:

Jews are not foreigners

With the arrival of the Omicron variant in Israel, the Israeli government made a sweeping decision to close its skies from the entry of foreigners. This decision insensitively equates Jews living in the Diaspora with foreigners, denying them entry into Israel, the Jewish State. This decision widens the chasm between Israel and world Jewry.

Significant and fundamental values are tested precisely in moments of crisis. We must recall our values and principles.

The Zionist revolution took place in the last two hundred years thanks to the resourcefulness of Jews from around the world whose devotion to the Land of Israel overcame material challenges, diseases, and security threats. The State of Israel was established thanks to the Zionist movements that operated in the Diaspora and in Israel, throughout the years. These efforts included opening the gates of the country to Diaspora Jews to visit, learn, experience, and connect with Israel, thereby preserving the national entity of the Jewish people globally.

Jews are not foreigners. We must not create a precedent in which the State of Israel will treat our brothers in the Diaspora as foreigners. Over the past two years, Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora have expressed frustration at the decisions to prevent their community members from entering Israel, and in many cases, preventing the reunion and reunification of families.

If Zionism is at the forefront of our values, then we must find creative solutions that are less harmful to the relations between the Jewish state and the Jewish people. Government ministries must convene and produce circumstance-specific criteria in which Jews can be allowed to enter Israel while maintaining health guidelines. Just as it is clear to us that Israelis cannot be prevented from entering Israel simply because it is their home, so we must work to find solutions for Diaspora Jews seeking to arrive in Israel, as it is their home as well.

Bassem Eid: Israel – the best place to be an Arab

Although Israel is the world’s only Jewish state, it is home to a free and thriving Arab community. For decades, anti-Israel activists have decried Israel as an illegitimate state which represses Arabs and Muslims. Israel has been incorrectly labeled as a state for “settler colonialism” and apartheid. These baseless claims could not be further from the truth.

Researchers have conducted surveys to shine a light on the true treatment of Arabs living in Israel. According to these surveys, there is a growing trend of Israeli Arabs ditching their former Palestinian identity and starting to identify more heavily with their Israeli nationality. This switch in national identity is great news for everyone who holds a stake in the Middle East. It proves that Arabs have been able to call Israel home, while Israel is able to maintain its Jewish majority. Despite being the world’s only Jewish state, Israel is a welcoming, diverse country that boasts a thriving Arab population.

Arabs make up 20% of Israel’s 8.8 million people population. Israel’s Arabs have been integrating into society and live in every corner of the country. Israel’s Arabs enjoy the same freedoms as their Jewish neighbors. Contrary to anti-Israel talking points, Israel’s Arabs live and work side-by-side with Jews, Christians, Armenians, and all others who call Israel their homes. As they do in other western democracies, Arabs can vote in elections, own businesses, work, speak, and worship freely, wherever in Israel they call home. In the recent Israeli elections, Ra’am, a pan-Arab party, became a part of Israel’s governing coalition. These results could not be more clear: Israel, a heterogeneous society, is among the leading nations in the Middle East. Israel’s Arabs have taken notice.

Arabs, no matter how long they have been Israelis, are increasingly supportive of their home country. According to a 2019 survey by Dahlia Scheindlin and David Reis, two leading progressive pollsters, 51% of Israel’s Arabs identify themselves as “Arab-Israeli” and 23% identify as “Israeli”. The survey went on to indicate that 76% of Israeli-Arabs went on to say that, within Israel, Jewish-Muslim relations are overwhelmingly positive and that 58% want to continue to advance coexistence and improvement of relations between Muslims and Jews.

Miss Universe's pro-Israel post creates online firestorm

India's Harnaaz Kaur Sandhu, the winner of the Miss Universe pageant that was recently held in Israel has come under fire in recent days for sharing her positive reviews of the Jewish state.

Sandhu uploaded an Instagram reel on Dec. 15 sharing her experience and even wrote alongside the video "Shallom, Thank you from the bottom of my heart ISRAEL for hosting the 70th edition of Miss Universe in your beautiful country, the Holy Land. It's a pleasure and honor for me to witness the great historic places in Jerusalem and Marvellous hotels in Eilat, can't wait to come back again in Israel, Toda 🙏🏻✨ Escape from the sun."

The reaction by Israel haters was quick, and they have been flooding her profile with hostile comments over the past several days.

One user wrote, "free Palestine," and another said, "You spelt Palestine wrong," another wrote. Others resorted to emojis with the Palestinian flag.

Focus On Family, Community Rather Than Palestine Makes Man Obvious Racist (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

black father Hempstead, December 26 - A local small-business proprietor who devotes his time and resources to nurturing his children, enriching his marriage, caring for his aging parents, volunteering at a nearby soup kitchen, running fundraisers for area schools, and participating in initiatives to keep the streets of his hometown clean and safe, instead of following the exhortations of prominent activists and putting the plight of Arabs living under Israeli governance six thousand miles away, must perforce disdain those Arabs as inferior to other humans, activists report.

According to those activists, Terrence Howell, 50, who runs Front Street Hardware - a franchise in the True Value chain - spends his non-work hours on family and community endeavors, and donates supplies from his business to local projects, such as last year when a neighborhood elementary school needed to perform emergency repairs to its student bathrooms, and Front Street Hardware provided various fixtures gratis. Moves of that nature, the activists conclude, in the presence of known pro-Palestine alternatives such as harassing Jews or donating to known terrorist groups, demonstrate Mr. Howell's racist sensibilities.

"It's not like Palestine is an obscure issue," explained Hofstra University Students for Justice in Palestine chapter head Latisha Holmes. "It's in the news practically every day. No one can claim not to know how urgent it is, or how important it is to make every issue about Palestine. The only reasonable conclusion one can draw from this man's pattern of behavior is that he regards Palestinians as racially inferior."

"It's internalized white supremacy," agreed Palestine Solidarity Campaign volunteer Holden Lamaar. "You'd think as a person of color himself, Howell would be sensitive to the racist implications of supporting anything that isn't Palestine. Everyone who knows anything knows that there can be no justice for anyone until there's justice for Palestinians, and it's we apologists for antisemitic terrorism who get to define 'justice.' That Howell disregards this axiom is damning enough. What is a pothole on his street compared to the suffering of Palestinian children at the hands of imperialist white supremacist Zionists?"

Holmes added that at a meeting of the local parent-teacher association, Howell voted in favor of allocating certain funds to extracurricular enrichment of children's science education, and not, as Holmes and a group of activists had lobbied, to have her lecture the children on the crucial topics of blaming Israel and Zionists for everything that's wrong with the world, and making the undoing of Jewish security the centerpiece of a fulfilling existence.

12/23 Links Pt1: Mansour Abbas recognizes the reality of Israel; Biden Admin Ignores Law To Sanction Hamas and Hezbollah for Civilian Shield Use; UN chief: 'Ponzi scheme' crashed Lebanon's finances

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Mansour Abbas recognizes the reality of Israel

The inclusion of Ra’am in the current coalition was already a turning point in Israel’s history. Its participation signified a pragmatic approach for Arab-Israeli leaders, one that focused on improving the lives of their constituency.

Abbas and his party campaigned on solving issues in Arab communities and improving the quality of life. Since then, as part of the coalition, he has secured budgets for an ambitious five-year plan for the Arab population – called Takadum (Progress) in Arabic – that tackles vital issues such as the uncontrolled gun violence in the Arab sector and a severe housing shortage.

That refreshing hands-on approach to leadership, which recognizes the reality and attempts to work within the system to improve constituents’ plights, unfortunately, hasn’t been adopted by Mansour’s fellow Arab lawmakers from other parties.

Joint List MK and Balad Party leader Sami Abou Shahadeh responded to Abbas’s statement on Jewish statehood by accusing him of “having a split personality.”

“The question of the status of the Palestinian minority in Israel is fundamentally tied to the definition of the state as a Jewish state. Only a state of all its citizens can bring about justice and full equality among all citizens,” Abou Shahadeh said.

Likewise, Joint List leader Ayman Odeh dismissed Abbas for giving in to the Jewish majority. “The question of the state’s identity should interest every citizen – Arab or Jew – who cares about peace and democracy,” he said.

Odeh, it seems, is living under the illusions that Abbas mentioned. Israel was indeed founded as a Jewish state, and that it shall remain, affording full rights and equal status to all its citizens. If that issue could be taken off the table, it would create so much more opportunity to address the real issues that affect all citizens of the country.

Mansour Abbas’s statement on Tuesday was long overdue from an Arab-Israeli leader, but it’s certainly most welcome. Let’s hope that other courageous leaders also come forward with similar declarations.

Sometimes small, incremental changes lead to seismic shifts in society. If this is indeed a turning point in the way the Arab citizens of Israel view their country. We can look back on Abbas’s statement as a game changer.

Ra’am Secretary-General: Kotel, Temple Mount, Are Only for Muslims, Terror Prisoners Must be Released

In a televised interview on the Kul al-Arab Israeli-Arab news station, Ra’am Secretary-General Ibrahim Hijazi this week praised the “security prisoners” who are fighting the “occupation,” and asserted that the Temple Mount and the Western Wall belong only to the Muslims, and called for erasing the Jewish communities in Judea & Samaria.

Hijazi’s interview, which was translated and brought to the public eye by the Arab Desk of Im Tirtzu, took place a day before the highly-praised declaration by Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas that Israel was and will remain a Jewish state.

Critics of Ra’am’s inclusion in the government have long accused Ra’am of speaking one way in Arabic and another in Hebrew to mask its true agenda.

Hijazi’s interview did nothing to soothe the critics’ concerns, as he made clear that “the one who makes decisions on the big issues, national and ideological, is not Ibrahim [Hijazi] or Mansour [Abbas] – it’s the Ra’am platform.”

“Our position is firm,” continued Hijazi. “The blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and every grain of dirt in it, its plazas, its domes, its walls, and the Buraq Wall (Western Wall) all belong to Islam and no one is allowed to set foot there.”

Regarding Israel’s jailed terrorists, he said: “Why are the security prisoners in Israeli prisons? They defended their land. The security prisoner has a problem with the state, or with a police officer, a prison guard, or the army. He has a problem with the state that is occupying its land. In every matter regarding the prisoners – by the way, there are old prisoners, sick prisoners, child prisoners, sick prisoners [sic], and women. What’s about them? What are they still doing in prison? I know how to do my job, to make a serious contribution regarding this matter. This is a serious matter in which a security prisoner fought and sacrificed.”

Erdogan to Rabbis from Islamic States: Antisemitism Is a Crime Against Humanity

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday told a visiting delegation led by Chief Rabbi of Turkey, Isaak Haleva, and the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar, with representatives of the Alliance of Rabbis in the Islamic States (ARIS) that Turkey views antisemitism as a crime against humanity, just like Islamophobia, Anadolu reported.

At the meeting at the presidential complex in the capital, Ankara, Erdogan told the visiting rabbis: “Just as we see Islamophobia as a crime against humanity, we also see anti-Semitism as a crime against humanity,” and added: “I do not accept any approach that marginalizes people because of their faith or ethnic origin.”

The Turkish President praised the contributions of his country’s Jewish citizens over the centuries, and said: “We did not allow inhuman ideas such as racism, antisemitism, intolerance to other religions to find ground in these lands.” He also said, “We need to be in solidarity in the fight against Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia, especially in Western countries.”

And then Erdogan addressed the blue and white elephant in the room, saying, “Turkey’s greatest desire is a Middle East where societies from different religions, languages, and ethnicities live together in peace.” He suggested that the past decade and a half of terrible relations between Turkey and Israel were rooted in Turkey’s warnings to the Israeli government to “ensure that matters are approached via the perspective of long-term peace and stability in the Middle East.”

He’s only been educating his less bright younger brother, see…

Erdogan then continued his patronizing message to Israel, saying that “relations with Israel in the fields of economy, trade, and tourism are progressing in their own way,” but, naturally, “Israel’s sincere and constructive attitude in the context of peace efforts will undoubtedly contribute to the normalization process. Turkey-Israel relations are vital for the stability and security of our region.”

The head of a Christian college in Bethlehem is an antisemite

In 2017, Premiere Christian News reported:

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.

Amany Mahmoud writes:

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.

However, most houses in the area really are legally owned by Arabs, and some Jews offer them huge sums to purchase them. Many Arabs in Silwan accept that cash and then escape out of the country because their neighbors would kill them for selling land to a Jew.

See? When you have the truth on your side, there is no reason to spin self-contradicting lies.

From the Columbus Dispatch:

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.

12/22 Links Pt2: Examining the ‘Israeli Century’; DC Librarian Who Made Children Reenact Holocaust Is Failed Dem Candidate, Convicted Fraudster; Biden is paving the way for a dangerous ideology

From Ian:

DC Librarian Who Made Children Reenact Holocaust Is Failed Dem Candidate, Convicted Fraudster, and Animal Abuser

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.

Biden is paving the way for a dangerous ideology

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.

Antisemitism, from the streets of Berlin to the streets of Ramallah - opinion

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.