Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 06, 2022

01/06 Links Pt1: Dutch Government Cuts Funding to Palestinian NGO, Citing Extensive Ties With PFLP Terror Organization; Arab Israelis speak on why they choose to serve in the IDF

From Ian:

Dutch Government Cuts Funding to Leading Palestinian NGO, Citing Extensive Individual Ties With PFLP Terror Organization

The Dutch government on Wednesday announced that it was cutting funds to a Palestinian NGO working in the agricultural sector over its ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — designated as a terrorist organization by the US, the European Union, Israel, Australia, Canada and Japan.

The decision means that the Netherlands will not pay out the next installment of an aid grant to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), a Palestinian NGO that has so far received approximately $25 million of Dutch taxpayer money.

In a lengthy joint statement, Ben Knapen, the Dutch Foreign Minister, and Tom De Bruijn, the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development, said that research commissioned by the Netherlands cabinet from an independent consultancy had “provided sufficient evidence that there were ties at the individual level between UAWC staff and board members and the PFLP for a considerable period of time.”

The statement noted that “for the government, the findings on individual links between the UAWC and the PFLP and the lack of openness about this from the UAWC, also during the investigation, are sufficient reason to stop financing the activities of the UAWC. The Netherlands will not proceed with payment to UAWC of the last part of the financial contribution under the Land and Water Resource Management Program.”

Last October, the UAWC was one of six Palestinian organizations proscribed by the Israeli government over their connections with the PFLP. Formed in 1967 as an ideological fusion of Marxism and Arab nationalism, the PFLP’s overarching goal is the violent defeat of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian state extending from the Mediterranean coast to the Jordan River.

Netherlands defunds blacklisted Palestinian group

Former Dutch prime minister criticized for accusing Israeli settlers of poisoning Palestinians

A former prime minister of the Netherlands, Dries van Agt, said in an interview for a recently aired documentary that Israeli settlers poisoned their Palestinian neighbors in 2015, drawing criticism from Dutch Jews who say he is perpetuating a centuries-old antisemitic blood libel.

B’Tselem, the leading Israeli organization devoted to documenting alleged human rights violations, said it is not aware of the incident described by van Agt.

“The colonizers who conquered the hill a week or two earlier came each night to pound on their door at night, to achieve maximum intimidation, to tell them to go away and they refused,” Van Agt said in the interview for a documentary on antisemitism that was aired in November by the KRO-NCRV broadcaster. “And then one morning something terrible happened: The olive grove and the vegetable garden below — the colonizers always take to top hills – were strewn with poison. And a three-year-old child became very ill. The only explanation was that she drank the milk of a poisoned goat. She was poisoned.”

Van Agt, 90, then began crying and apologized for his emotional state. The incident occurred in 2015 near Nablus, he said.

His interviewer, Frans Bromet, asserted: “These things, they’re not unusual.Van Agt replies: “Oh, no. That’s what the wonderful people from the peace organization say. This happens all the time in the occupied territory.”

David Singer: Grovelling before Abbas

It didn’t take long for President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to be shown up as inept political leaders following the much-publicised visit by President of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Chairman of Fatah its largest faction – Mahmoud Abbas - to the home of Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz.

Their two-and-a-half hour’s meeting was Abbas’s first in Israel since meeting then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Jerusalem in 2010.

Whilst Bennett privately criticized Gantz’s intention to hold the meeting and expressed resentment about the hosting of Abbas in Gantz’s home – he did nothing to prevent it occurring.

Some Ministers in Bennett’s Government were not so circumspect.

Housing Minister Ze’ev Elkin said:
“I wouldn’t have invited to my home someone who pays salaries to murderers of Israelis and also wants to put senior IDF officers in prison in The Hague, including the host himself.”

Elkin was referring to Abbas’s:
- Pay for slay policy: paying monthly stipends to terrorists in Israeli jails and the families of slain terrorists killed while committing terror attacks. These annual payments now total over US$300 million – about 8% of Abbas’s budget.

- Campaign to see Israeli security officials - including Gantz — a former Israeli chief of staff — being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court as war criminals.

Israel’s Communications Minister - Yoaz Hendel – said he:
“personally wouldn’t have met” with Abbas, who “in my eyes is still a Holocaust denier and is playing a very strange double game.”

However Abbas’s visit brought this effusive response from US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price: “The US is very pleased Defense Minister Gantz hosted PA President Abbas at his home in Israel. We hope confidence-building measures discussed will accelerate momentum to further advance freedom, security, and prosperity for Palestinians and Israelis alike in 2022."

Palestinian projection: Now they are accusing Jews of purposefully hitting them with cars

This morning, a Palestinian man on his way to work was hit by a car while crossing the street and died. Palestinian media say that the driver was a Jewish settler.

The Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs condemned what it called "the deliberate run-over crimes committed by the occupation forces and settlers against Palestinian citizens, which are escalating and spreading in more than one location in the occupied West Bank" and said that they consider them an intentional attempt to kill Palestinians and "an extension of a racist colonial mentality that harass the life of the Palestinian citizen in various ways."

There is no campaign by Israel - or Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria - to run over Palestinians. There have been accidents of Jews hitting Palestinians,and Palestinians hitting other Palestinians.

But Palestinians continue to purposefully target Jews with car ramming attacks, today.

We've seen Palestinian psychological projection before, but this is as blatant a case as can be imagined. Because the Palestinian car ramming attacks are explicitly antisemitic, explicitly deliberate and explicitly celebrated.

Don't believe me? Here's a sample of cartoons over the past few years that encourage Palestinians to run over Jews, and that make fun of Jews who don't want to be run over.

As usual, the Palestinians accuse the Jews of doing what they themselves do - or would do if they had the opportunity.

Their accusations mirror their desires. Every time.

Abu Ali Express reports that Hamas political leader Mahmoud Zahar has used a derogatory Arabic equivalent of "gay" to insult Arab nations that have made peace with Israel.

In recent days, al-Zahar has led ceremonies in #Gaza on behalf of Hamas to mark the second anniversary of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani.

In one of these ceremonies, al-Zahar gave a speech in which he used the word "شواذ" (Shawath), a derogatory term in the Arabic language for homosexuals, to describe those who were happy with the assassination of Soleimani. According to him, these "Arab Zionists" are the same "gays of the Arab Ummah" who normalized relations with Israel.

"Shawath" literally means "deviant."

This is not the first time a prominent Palestinian has used that term as an insult.

In 2019, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri who is head of the Supreme Islamic Council and the preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque, said that some of the buildings that Jews are buying in Jerusalem from Arabs are sold by “rogue homosexuals and the owners of sick and malicious souls.”

No comment from Queers for Palestine.

Palestinians really think they are the center of the world

The latest Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll of Palestinians, released in late December, does not have any real surprises in the answers to questions that they ask every time.

There is still a plurality that believes that terrorism is the best way to achieve a state, far more than those who prefer negotiations.

However, oe new question reveals a great deal.

In reaction to the UK government decision to label Hamas as a terrorist organization and the idea of boycotting British products, 49% expressed the belief that such a boycott would be effective in forcing the UK government to rescind its decision while 45% think the boycott would not be effective. The belief in the efficacy of the boycott of British products is higher in the West Bank (52%) compared to the Gaza Strip (45%), among the youth between the ages of 18 and 22 (54%) compared to those whose age is 50 or higher (45%), in villages (57%) compared to refugee camps and cities (46% and 48% respectively), and among women (52%) compared to men (47%).

First of all, PCPSR didn't even ask if people agree with calling Hamas a terror group. It is assumed that every respondent disagrees, even though they know otherwise - they see Hamas propaganda first hand.

But consider the fact that most of those who expressed an opinion felt that a Palestinian boycott of British good would cause the British to change their minds.

How much trade is there between the UK and the Palestinian Authority?

According to the UK's Department for International Trade, the total UK imports from "Occupied Palestinian Territories" amounted to £9 million ($12 million) in the four quarters to the end of Q2 2021.

Palestinians were the UK’s 184th largest trading partner in those four quarters, accounting for less than 0.1% of total UK trade.

The UK does more trade with well-known economic powerhouses the US Minor Outlying Islands, Laos, Vanuatu, St Kitts and Liechtenstein than it does with the Palestinians.

Annual Palestinian trade with the UK is worth less than two hours of trade between the US and the UK.

If Palestinians would boycott Great Britain, no one would notice.

After decades of getting huge amounts of media attention, Palestinians really think they are important to the world, and that their economic might can bring a great power to its knees.

This fantasy world they live in is another reason why peace is impossible. They always believe they have the upper hand, and there are plenty of prominent people who pretend to be in "solidarity" with them which strengthens that belief. So why compromise when they are convinced they will win outright?

01/05 Links Pt2: Israel needs compelling stories, not just facts, to win the PR war; Bari Weiss on Fighting Anti-Semitism & the Cancel Culture

From Ian:

Gil Troy: Israel needs compelling stories, not just facts, to win the PR war

Israel must address different audiences with nuanced and customized messaging – from Israel’s most ardent Jewish and non-Jewish supporters, to liberal yet still supportive Jews, to often disengaged but instinctively sympathetic Americans, to other Westerners, to often hostile reporters. Israel must stop obsessing about anti-Israel fanatics, be they Jewish or non-Jewish, who frequently run the conversation, pulling resources from more receptive audiences.

Each audience needs to hear a more compelling story about Israel – with the day’s relevant facts or explanations fitting into a larger narrative arc. Sometimes the story will be reacting to Palestinian terrorism or some internal Israeli squabble. But more often, the story should emphasize Israel’s status as the only Jewish state in the world, as the only democratic state in its region, and as one of the few surviving, thriving, progressive Western states. We spend too much time worried about the stories “they” tell about us – overlooking the stories we don’t tell well about ourselves.

Consider, for example, the two most underappreciated stories of the last two years:
The Abraham Accords have triggered tremendous excitement among Israelis and many Arabs, while eliciting yawns in America. This breakthrough showed that the unrealistic go-for-broke strategy needs to be replaced by a more systemic, step-by-step approach – going from “Peace Now” to “Peace More.”

And today’s broad-based coalition disproves the assumption that all 20th-century democracies are paralyzed and dysfunctional. Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid built this government by playing the 70-30 game, focusing on the 70% that united them, not the 30% that separated them. That’s a recipe for national strength and democratic success.

Zeroing in on Israel’s relationship with key democracies, especially the United States, the Bennett government should add a third pillar to the AIPAC line that Israel and America are united by shared interests and shared values. Addressing our shared challenges, too, will allow Israel’s representatives to speak more humbly, acknowledging occasional problems, failings or misfires. It also automatically reinforces Israel’s identification with other Western democracies that are struggling with systemic problems today, ranging from political polarization and hyper-partisanship to technological addiction and social media-fed demoralization.

Finally, the most effective public relations emanates from internal strength and national pride. If Israelis feel good about themselves and about what they are doing, that will never convince the haters, but it will reassure the fence-sitters while inspiring our fans. So, more than public diplomacy, Israel needs a Zionist reset, a reminder of who we are, why we are here, and why we do what we do – and remain proud of it.

Jonathan Greenblatt: Why ‘It Could Happen Here’

Even today, nobody wants to believe that extremism, illiberalism, and violence inspired by different variants of the virus of intolerance could unfold on our shores.

But as I write in my new book, “It Could Happen Here,” the title of which was inspired by, and is the inverse of Sinclair Lewis’ ironic formulation, our social fabric is weakening, and our communities are buckling under the pressure from hate seemingly generated on all sides.

Our society is becoming more vulnerable by the day to hate on both the left and the right. Beset by a pandemic that has devastated communities, unsettled everyday life, and cost millions of jobs, people are on edge, and ever more likely to blame the “other” for deepening economic inequality, excessive levels of personal debt, and other stressors.

From my vantage point as the CEO of one of the Nation’s oldest anti-hate organizations, the trends we’re seeing in America are alarming. Hate is on the rise everywhere — much more than many people realize.

Between 2015 and 2018, the US saw a doubling of antisemitic incidents.

In 2019, the ADL logged more antisemitic incidents than we had tracked in any year in the past four decades. And one need look no further than the attacks in Pittsburgh, Poway, Jersey City, and Monsey, and the brazen assaults of Jews in the streets in May 2021 during the Israel-Gaza conflict, for examples of how antisemitic ideologies and rhetoric that are spread online have contributed to acts of real-world intimidation and outright violence.

We know that antisemitism is the proverbial canary in the coal mine — that a good barometer of the level of tolerance in any given society is to look at how accepting that country is to its Jewish people and other minorities. So we should not be surprised by the fact that it’s not just antisemitism, but hatred of all kinds – including anti-Black racism, anti-Asian hate, anti-Latino xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Muslim bias, and more — that’s exploded in recent years. In 2019, the US saw a reported 7,314 hate crimes, i.e. more than 20 each day. In 2020, hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders skyrocketed by almost 150 percent in large urban areas.

Andrew Roberts: ‘We are far from out of the woods with anti-Semitism in Britain’

The two talk about Roberts’ latest book on King George III, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the way debates about history can shape America’s vision of itself, as well as who is thwarting British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s efforts to bring the U.K. closer to Israel.

"The Axis" vs. the Jews of Judea and Samaria (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

Psychological warfare is not all that different in organization from the kinetic kind. There are campaigns and objectives. Recently the objective of our enemies – the Arab-European axis of antisemitism – has been to destroy the legitimacy of the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria. The attacks have come from several directions, but the objective is the same: to establish in the minds of target populations, which include Israelis, Europeans, and Americans, the idea that Jews living in the territories is illegal, immoral, and detrimental to the prospect of peace in the region; and to force their expulsion.

The operations include the EU’s requirement for special labeling of products produced by Jews in Judea and Samaria. The decision was made in 2015, but the difficulty of implementing it without appearing to be overtly antisemitic seems to have deterred many countries from following it. In 2019, the European Court of Justice affirmed the ruling, but some countries still show pangs of conscience.

A more recent operation has been the “settler violence” campaign of recent weeks, waged by various European-funded NGOs (e.g., B’Tselem and others), that claim to report violent harassment of Arab residents by Jewish “settlers” with the connivance of the IDF. Leaving aside the huge imbalance between the number and severity of incidents that can be attributed to Jews and the daily attempts by Arabs to murder them, “settler violence” is often self-defense which is provoked by Arab attacks, and then “documented” by NGO activists, Israeli and European, who just happen to be in the area with their video cameras. Even so, actual data indicates that anti-Arab activity by Jews has actually decreased recently:

…the data made available by the Israel Police point to something remarkable - the number of incidents of Jewish violence is decreasing. From 2019 to 2021, there has been a 61.1% drop in so-called price-tag attacks. Moreover, the number of indictments of Jewish extremists has doubled from 16 to 32 over the past year. That is not the picture the pro-Palestinian groups wish you to see.

“Occupation,” “settlements” and “settlers” also figure prominently in the NGO-initiated campaign to declare Israel an “apartheid” state. The imposition of apartheid is considered a serious crime, based on the prominent example of the former South African regime, which almost everyone agrees, viciously violated the human rights of its subjects. However, since there is no resemblance between Israel and apartheid South Africa, Israel’s accusers (e.g., Human Rights Watch (HRW)) had to gin up their own definition of “apartheid” to apply to Israel. The Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court, defines “apartheid” as a crime against humanity, including

… inhumane acts of a character similar to [murder, enslavement, extermination, deportation, torture, rape, etc., etc.] committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;

Needless to say, this does not characterize the regime in Judea and Samaria. The HRW report cites a “two tiered-citizenship structure and bifurcation of nationality and citizenship,” but the fact that the laws in effect in Judea/Samaria differentiate between citizens and non-citizens is common practice and does not constitute apartheid. Other accusations are the usual exaggerations and inventions characteristic of NGO discourse about Israel. And of course the terrorism that requires security-related responses is never discussed, except to deny its relevance to Israeli countermeasures.

As always, history illuminates what politics obscures. The British Mandate for Palestine, which charged Britain with implementing the Balfour Declaration to provide a Jewish homeland, included all the area between the river and the sea (until 1921, it also included what ultimately became the Kingdom of Jordan). The Mandate itself called for “close settlement” of Jews on the land. In 1947, the UN recommended partition of the land into a Jewish and Arab state, and when the Mandate terminated in May 1948 (in the midst of war precipitated by Palestinian Arabs), the State of Israel was declared, “on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly.”

Immediately thereafter the area of the former Mandate and the new state was invaded by five Arab nations, in contravention of the UN charter. When the dust settled in 1949, Jordan was illegally occupying the eastern part of the territory, which it murderously ethnically cleansed of its Jewish population. The next year, Jordan officially annexed the area – again in violation of international law – and invented the appellation “West Bank” to refer to what had historically been called Judea and Samaria.

Jordan controlled this area for 19 years, during which time only Britain and (possibly) Pakistan recognized its sovereignty. During this period, in contravention of the Armistice Agreement that it had signed, which called for “free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on The Mount of Olives,” Jews were not permitted to visit their holy sites in Jordanian-controlled areas, such as the Western Wall. Regarding the Mount of Olives, which has been in use as a Jewish cemetery for 3,000 years,

At the end of 1949, Israeli lookouts posted on Mount Zion reported that Arab residents began uprooting the tombstones and plowing the land in the cemeteries. The destruction of the cemeteries continued over the course of the 19 years that the Jordanians ruled eastern Jerusalem. Four roads were paved through the cemeteries, in the process destroying graves including those of famous persons. Skeletons and bones were strewn about and scattered. Tombstones were used as paving stones for roads in the Jordanian Army camp in Azariya, east of Jerusalem. In Azariya, a telephone booth was found built out of tombstones, and Jewish tombstones were also used as flooring for latrines. Uprooted tombstones were also used in Jordanian military positions surrounding the city. Both the newer sections and ancient graves were destroyed, some a thousand years old.

After the liberation of Judea and Samaria in 1967, Jews returned to areas in which they had been displaced by Jordanian ethnic cleansing, such as Gush Etzion and eastern Jerusalem, as well as other places from which they had been driven by Arab pogroms and terrorism, such as Hevron. They also established some new communities that were on the other side of the lines that had been drawn in the 1949 Armistice Agreement. It should be noted that the agreement made it clear that the armistice lines have no political significance and are drawn “without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto.”

In an unintended irony, the EU insists that Israeli control of the area amounts to “belligerent occupation” although the area being “occupied” by Israel was previously illegally occupied by Jordan (which illegitimately transferred its stolen property to the PLO in 1988). So in effect the liberation of the territories put Israel in control of all the land that had been originally earmarked by the Mandate for a Jewish homeland.

The EU then misinterprets Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which was originally intended to prohibit acts like the deportation of German Jews to occupied Poland for the purposes of forced labor and murder, as rendering the unforced movement of Jews across the Green Line (which has no political significance) a violation of international law.

In this day when college professors can be fired for using language that is deemed inappropriate and offensive, it should be noted that the terms “West Bank,” “settler,” and “settlement” are precisely those things. But their employment is supremely important for the psychological and diplomatic/legal war against the Jewish state. The abandonment of Judea and Samaria would be blow to the security of the Jewish state that might be fatal, because they are necessary to maintain defensible borders, and to prevent the establishment of a Gaza-like terrorist enclave next to Israel’s population center. The loss of the holy sites in Hevron, eastern Jerusalem, and other places that would fall under Arab control, and the loss of the optimism for the future created by the victory of 1967, would be a spiritual and psychological defeat, a great victory for the Arab-European axis that wishes to see the Jewish state undone.

And we mustn’t fool ourselves into thinking that a retreat from Judea and Samaria would be the end of it. The PLO has never abandoned Arafat’s “Grand Strategy” to bring about an Arab Palestine from the river to the sea, which depends on first reversing Israel’s gains in the 1967 war. The plan got a great boost with the Oslo Accords, that gave legitimacy to a PLO-ruled entity (and later gave birth to one ruled by Hamas). It’s certain that an Israeli withdrawal would immediately be followed by demands for the Arab “refugees” to realize their “right of return.”

Unfortunately, many Israeli politicians seem to have internalized the mindset that is promoted by the psywar campaign; otherwise, they wouldn’t be so quick to bend when pressure is applied from Europe or the US on questions of Jewish and (illegal) Arab building in Judea and Samaria.

Judea and Samaria are the spiritual heartland of the Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael and are essential to her security. There is no other single goal that is more critical to Israel’s long-term survival than establishing a strong Jewish majority there and fully incorporating them into the state – and rejecting the antisemitic lies of our enemies.

The Emma Watson debacle

As everyone knows by now, actress Emma Watson's Instagram account sent out this message to her 64 million followers:

It is not clear if Watson herself, known best for her role in the Harry Potter movies, posted this or some group that she outsourced her account to. Either way, she is responsible.

There was the expected backlash and support from the usual players. And it should have stayed there. But Israel's former ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, responded: “10 points from Gryffindor for being an antisemite.”

I always liked Danny but this was a very stupid thing to tweet.

Now the conversation is no longer about the merits of supporting Palestinians at the exact time they were shooting rockets towards Israel. Now it is about whether supporters of Israel reflexively call all critics of Israel - or even ostensible supporters of Palestinian nationalism - antisemites.

Pro-Israel activists have emphasized for years that we do not consider all criticism of Israel to be antisemitic. Most follow the IHRA working definition of antisemitism which says explicitly that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic."

Now the haters have this tweet as evidence that they were right all along.

Watson's tweet, on the face of it, was not antisemitic. You can argue that she is wrong, that she is misinformed, that she is clueless, that she is following trends, or that she is an idiot (as evidenced by the simple fact that solidarity is not a verb) - but the message isn't antisemitic without any further context. It doesn't fit any of the examples of antisemitism in the IHRA Working Definition. It doesn't fit in my definition of antisemitism:

It would have been bad enough if Danon called her tweet antisemitic. But he did something much worse. He called Watson herself an antisemite.

Certainly no one can conclude based on this tweet that Watson is an antisemite. Making that claim is irresponsible and wrong without a great deal of other evidence that has not been produced.

My corollary to Hanlon's Razor is, "Never attribute to antisemitism that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Now the story is no longer about a debate on the merits of supporting Palestinian nationalism. Now it is about how Zionists try to shut down any pro-Palestinian sentiment. It is about how people who are pro-Israel try to shut down debate by instantly calling everyone an antisemite.

That's what the headlines are about.

The haters of Israel have been given a free gift, and defenders of Israel have been immeasurably hurt, as has Israel's just cause. A person who is in the public spotlight for defending Israel should have known better.

01/05 Links Pt1: Ruthie Blum: Mahmoud Abbas plays Benny Gantz for a fool; Eugene Kontorovich : The International Community Never Cared about the Arabs

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Mahmoud Abbas plays Benny Gantz for a fool

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz must have known that hosting Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas at his home in Rosh Ha’ayin would arouse the ire of the right. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have cloaked the outcome of his tête-à-tête last Tuesday night with the octogenarian honcho in Ramallah in typically euphemistic language.

Following the meeting, Gantz tweeted that he and Abbas had “discussed the implementation of economic and civilian measures, and emphasized the importance of deepening security coordination and preventing terror and violence—for the well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians.”

His office subsequently released the details of a slew of so-called “confidence-building measures,” a phony term suggesting some kind of mutual arrangement that actually means Israeli concessions. These include: VAT, import-tax and excise-duty benefits; a NIS 100 million ($32.2 million) loan; more than 1,000 permits for Palestinian businessmen entering Israel by car; dozens of VIP permits for P.A. officials; and the legalization of the status of 9,500 undocumented Palestinians and foreign nationals living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

The above benefits are in addition to the 500-million-shekel ($160 million) “loan” that Gantz vowed to provide the P.A. after convening with Abbas in Ramallah at the end of August.

Despite the left’s fantasy of a return to the misnamed “peace process” that’s been on hold since 2010, the reason for Jerusalem’s unwarranted generosity towards Ramallah over the past few months is that it’s in “Israel’s interest” to keep the financially strapped P.A. from collapsing.

The tragic irony is that one cause of the P.A.’s dire straits is Israel’s deduction of hundreds of millions of shekels from the taxes on Palestinian imports and exports that it collects on behalf of Ramallah. Offering Abbas compensation for this move—aimed, like the Taylor Force Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 2018, to coerce the P.A. to cease its “pay-for-slay” policy—is a twisted, back-door reversal of sound Israeli legislation.

Did Biden Help Finance Hamas Rocket Attacks on Israel?

When the Biden administration colluded with the South Korean government to free up billions in Iranian assets early last year, the move may have had serious consequences in Israel.

Later in 2021, Hamas launched 4,300 rockets at targets across Israel, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, hitting a synagogue, and killing 13 people, including 2 children.

Now the Islamic terror group is at it again.

Hamas boss Ismail Haniyeh recently revealed to Al Jazeera that its terror campaign would not have been possible without the $70 million provided by Iran to fund its war machine.

The Hamas leader described the rocket attacks that took place in the spring of last year as a "rehearsal for the liberation of the Palestinian territories from the occupation".

That's code for the destruction of Israel.

As Hamas once again renews its rocket attacks, including two that landed near Tel Aviv, it’s impossible to understand the actions of the terrorist group without looking toward Tehran.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s weapons capabilities are almost entirely dependent on Iran.

Claims of Occupation and Illegal Settlements as Excuse for Call to Genocide

The sooner that those who despise Israel realize that by bashing Israel and the Jewish people they are supporting agendas of corrupt self-serving bad operatives, who stand for everything that they, personally, vigorously condemn, the better it will be for the free world. It is not difficult to see that these corrupt self-serving operatives support terror and do not care about human rights, equal rights, women’s freedom, or even their own innocent children. They do not hesitate to brainwash their own children and their oblivious supporters, only to exploit them later.

Unfortunately, many, if not most, of those who support these bad operatives, will end up becoming their victims, as we are seeing across the globe. Examples of this have been well-documented – some became human shields to protect dictators, others lost their personal freedom due to becoming accomplices to terrorists, and others undermined their own wellbeing by joining the wrong groups.

Once one knows and understands the ways in which many of these bad operatives think and act, it becomes obvious that they cannot be appeased, accommodated, or converted into peace-loving individuals. For the Radical Muslims, even if Israel made the most generous concessions, including committing national suicide and closing down the country, the Radical Muslims would continue to move toward conquering the entire Land of Israel and the rest of the free world, with the intended dream of imposing the rules of Radical Islam and Shariah law across the globe. For the Radical Left, it would not stop their desire to gain absolute power and totalitarian domination, such as we are seeing currently in China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea. For the Radical Right, their level of brainwashing would be very difficult to reverse easily. They would need a durable, extended, and wise program of proper education, that would address their wild conspiracy theories and irrational principles. The rehabilitation program would have to start at an early age and include the adults too.

Providing these groups with financial support and political recognition and connections will only make them better-financed and better-connected malicious operatives, and it will not make our world a better or more peaceful place.

This very important information must be shared with the oblivious anti-Israeli Jewish people, with the confused EU and USA leadership, and with so many others who irrationally support the terror-promoting Middle Eastern groups and countries.

To be able to have a better future for all good people, we must wake up and unite, we must educate as many people as possible with truthful facts and with honorable values, and we must expose and marginalize the bad operatives, as to give the free world the chance to thrive and ultimately excel.

Eugene Kontorovich : The International Community Never Cared about the Arabs

Legal scholar Eugene Kontorovich joins JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin to discuss the way international law is used to delegitimize Israel and Jewish rights in Jerusalem and the land of Israel.

The two talk about recent controversies over the Biden administration’s efforts to reopen a consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, the legal status of settlements and why the international community is determined to invalidate Jewish property rights in Jerusalem.

German Jews at 1935 Zionist Congress voted against condemning German antisemitism

This headline from AP on September 3, 1935 is awful. Obviously the German Zionists weren't Nazis.

The resolution's text, translated from the German report of the Congress, was:

The 19th Zionist Congress raises its voice against the systematic disenfranchisement of the Jews in Germany, whose ever increasing vehemence undermines the moral and material existence of the German Jews. This results in a defamation of the entire Jewish people and their intellectual and ethical cultural achievements.... The Zionist Congress, which has always regarded the preservation of Jewish honor as one of its legitimate and most important tasks, resolutely rejects, on behalf of the Jewish people, the defamation of Jews because of their race as contradicting the elementary principles of morality and justice. The protest against this disenfranchisement is not only a matter for the Jewish people, but a task to defend the principle of equal rights for all peoples. The 19th Zionist Congress declares that the Jewish people, which in the course of several thousand years of history have preserved their honor and their character under endless sacrifices, will never, in any situation, surrender their honor. It will defend the claim to equal rights for Jewish citizens in all countries, as well as its right to exist as a people among the peoples of the world, with the same determination with which it is willing to build its national home in Palestine - as a solution to its existential question . The Jewish question, which today more than ever is an acute world question, and requires the cooperation and sympathy of the non-Jewish world for its solution. The 19th Zionist Congress appeals to the peoples to lend their assistance to the Jewish people in the struggle to preserve their honor and secure their existence.

The German Jewish delegation objected, saying that the Zionist Congress should only be dealing with Zionism and not other issues:

The delegation of Zionists from Germany came to this Congress in the conviction that the aggravation of the Jewish question has revealed more emphatically than ever before that Zionist work must be stepped up. For thousands of Jews, especially for the Jewish youth, and for large parts of the Jewish middle class, emigration to Palestine is the only solution to their existence and future problem today. We worked primarily at this Congress to help pave the way for large-scale Jewish immigration to Palestine through a renewed surge in Zionist work. ...We have always seen it as the central, specific task of Zionism to concentrate all our efforts on the constructive solution of the Jewish question through the building of the Jewish national home. We must reject the resolution that has just been read out because, in our opinion, it departs from this clear Zionist line. We will vote against the resolution.

This sounds a lot like how Iranian Jews are careful with their words today, concerned that saying the wrong thing could get them imprisoned.

The plight of Jews in Germany was the topic of many discussions at the Congress, with delegates looking for ways to save Jews.

James G. MacDonald, who was the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Coming from Germany, spoke:

First and foremost, on behalf of the Council of the High Commission for Refugees from Germany and on my own behalf, I would like to express our great satisfaction with what they Zionist Organization and the other bodies united in the Jewish Agencv have done for the Jews from Germany who have gone to Palestine. I have said many times that our daily prayer after dinner should be: "Lord, God, we thank you for Palestine" (stormy, repeated applause). Without this homeland, the prospects for the Jews from Germany would be during the been far more gloomy in the last two and a half years.
At this time, when the gates of almost all countries, the largest as well as the smallest, are almost completely closed to all objections, it is a tremendous thing that Palestine was able to give a home to some thirty thousand Jews from Germany. And in my opinion it is an even bigger thing that Palestine today represents a hope for tens of thousands, yes for hundreds of thousands of Jews in Germany, Poland and elsewhere. It is only this hope, according to my firm feeling, that gives the Jewish people their resolve today and gives them the strength that lies in solidarity.

By 1939, some 60,000 German Jewish refugees made it to Palestine. While the British limitations on immigration doomed hundreds of thousands of Jews in Europe, if it wasn't for Zionism, those 60,000 would have perished as well.

MacDonald said he had spoken to British government officials to plead for allowing more Jews into Palestine, and at the time he was guardedly optimistic that they would. He was sad he hadn't had the chance to visit Palestine himself as of that time, but he spent most of his time trying to convince other countries to accept Jews.

MacDonald later became the first United States Ambassador to Israel.

From Morocco World News:

Morocco has officially ended the duties of its ambassadors assigned to Iran and Algeria.

In its most recent official gazette, Morocco’s government announced that the country’s Foreign Affairs ministry ended the duties of several of its ambassadors, most notably including Morocco’s envoy to Iran Hassan Hami and Moroccan ambassador to Algeria Lahcen Abdelkhalek.

Morocco severed relations with Iran in May 2018, with the country saying it had obtained hard evidence that the Iranian embassy in Algeria was facilitating logistic links between the separatist Polisario Front in Western Sahara and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.

It looks like Iran's aggressive moves might have helped push Morocco into wanting relations with Israel's orbit - exactly the opposite of what Iran wanted.

Meanwhile, tensions between Morocco and Algeria reached a new low in August last year, when Algeria announced its decision to sever all ties with Morocco. Many observers saw in the official severance of relations the tipping point of the long-simmering Algerian-Moroccan tensions.

Long before the official rupture of diplomatic relations, however, the two neighbors' rift reached their highest point in years when the Algerian presidency accused the Moroccan government of being involved in a plot to “sabotage Algeria democracy” and undermine Algerian interests.

Beyond last summer’s tensions between the two countries, Algeria has long undermined Moroccan interests by challenging the country’s sovereignty over its southern provinces. The Algerian regime shelters, arms, finances, and backs the Front Polisario, the separatist group claiming “self-determination” in the Western Sahara region.

Israel is often a more reliable ally to Arab countries than other Arab and Muslim countries are.

Egyptian teacher under investigation for ..."scandalous dancing." (video - WARNING - it isn't scandalous)

There is a controversy in Egypt over a video showing a female teacher dancing with male teachers.

The teachers were taking a cruise down the Nile, a trip which was organized by the Teachers Union in West Mansoura.

The female teacher was honored as the "ideal teacher" for teaching Arabic.

The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education in Dakahlia, Egypt, decided to refer five teachers in the West Mansoura Educational Administration to the Administrative Prosecution for investigation.

The women who is encouraging the dance is also under investigation, as are the male teachers.

The video is all over Arab websites as "scandalous."

At no time is the teacher not modestly covered. At no time does she touch any of her dance partners. I don't know why this is more scandalous than anyone going on a bus in Egypt.

Here's the video:

The female teacher is angry, claiming that she didn't know anyone was videoing her, and saying, "By God, I do not know that I can imagine why would they defame me and my reputation and destroy my future and the future of my three children."

01/04 Links Pt2: Anti-Zionist Jews are more in tune with the Palestinian Arabs than Jewish liberals; When They Start Talking About 'Anti-Zionism,' Natan Sharansky Knows What They Really Mean

From Ian:

When They Start Talking About 'Anti-Zionism,' Natan Sharansky Knows What They Really Mean

Listen to my interview with the former Soviet refusenik on how to spot antisemitism. Also, fixing the sometimes fraught relationship between Israel and the Diaspora.

About a month ago, I finally had the opportunity to talk to him in advance of something called the Z3 Project on Israel-Diaspora relations. The California-based group asked me to interview Sharansky to discuss his work in improving ties not between Jews and gentiles but between Jews and Jews—primarily between Israel and the Diaspora. Of course, I jumped at the chance to talk to my childhood hero. I was curious about many things, but I wanted to get his take on the current wave of antisemitism.

To say that Sharansky has experience with antisemitism disguised as anti-Zionism would be an extreme understatement. As a former Soviet “Prisoner of Zion,” he spent years under torturous conditions in the gulag. He knew that when Soviet leaders began to talk about Zionism, all Jews, Zionist or not, were in trouble. When he was finally released and immigrated to Israel, he was surprised to notice the same phenomenon. That’s when he came up with what he called his “3D test” of antisemitism. They are:

Delegitimization of Israel

Demonization of Israel

Double standards in judging Israel

Put them together, you can bet that what is billed as criticism of Israel is actually antisemitism. The 3Ds became the basis for widely accepted definitions of antisemitism. But the battle is still being fought, he says, not with other nations, but with Jews in America who are reluctant to be seen as equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

In this interview, we discussed this dilemma and other areas where Israel and the Diaspora meet.

Jonathan Tobin: Anti-Zionist Jews are more in tune with the Palestinian Arabs than Jewish liberals

Pro-Israel liberals took particular pleasure last month in mocking the latest evidence that Jews on the far left know no limits in their hatred for Israel.

The object of their derision was Jewish Currents, a far-left publication that issued a formal apology to its readers for accepting an advertisement from the Dorot Fellowship for a 10-month-long fellowship program for American Jews in Israel. But as much as it’s hard not to laugh at the contortions those on the far-left go through to maintain their standing as the “good Jews” in the eyes of their anti-Semitic ideological allies, mainstream Jewish groups that are still trying to promote a two-state solution with the Palestinian Arabs may be the ones who have lost touch with reality.

The fellowship was explicitly pitched as open to both Zionists and non-Zionists, and requires participants to return to the U.S. upon completion of their stay rather than remaining in Israel. Many of its past graduates have gone on to careers in progressive groups that are bitterly critical of the Jewish state, like J Street and the New Israel Fund, and are vocal Israel-bashers. But the mere fact that this program took place in Israel was enough to generate a backlash against the magazine. Within a day, its editor issued a public apology, claiming that it was “not in line with our values” and had somehow “not been vetted properly.” That seemed to imply that the “values” of Jewish Currents consist of support for boycotts of Israel.

Jewish Currents was founded in 1946 as an organ of Communist Party USA. It tottered along for decades as an organ of red diaper babies still trying to justify the Stalinism of their deluded parents, even as it retreated a bit from their ideological extremism. Eventually even that limited audience died out, and the publication merged for a few years with the socialists of the group formerly known as the Workmen’s Circle, before collapsing altogether. But it was revived in 2018 by a new generation of radicals and scored something of a coup in 2020 when author Peter Beinart, the former tribune of liberal Zionism-turned dedicated anti-Zionist, left The Forward and joined its ranks.

This publication ought to be one of the preferred outlets of members of anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine. But the audience of Jewish Currents remains small, perhaps because in its target demographic, the appetite may be limited for any title that includes the word “Jewish.”

Still, some of the mockery of Jewish Currents from liberal Zionists who still believe in Israel’s right to exist struck me as a bit hollow.

Emily Schrader: 2021 proves that antisemitism manifests as anti-Zionism

The year 2021 proved unquestionably that modern antisemitism is often manifested in anti-Zionism and anti-Israel hatred.

Last week was no different, with a violent attack on an American Jew wearing an IDF shirt in Brooklyn. Yet instead of acknowledging reality, far left Jews and anti-Israel activists try to excuse these antisemitic incidents, even when the incidents involve violence.

On December 26, Blake Zavadsky and Ilan Kaganovich were approached by two assailants in Brooklyn and asked if they support “those dirty Jews,” a reference to the IDF sweatshirt Zavadsky was wearing. When Zavadsky refused to remove the shirt, the assailants began violently attacking him and threw iced coffee on the shirt.

In response, a social media campaign in support of Zavadsky and Kaganovich has popped up, with Jews and supporters of Israel around the world sharing photos of themselves in IDF shirts, in solidarity. New York Councilwoman Inna Vernikov also helped organize a rally of support against antisemitic incidents, which have been on the rise there and elsewhere.

But not everyone is on board.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, anti-Israel extremist Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of Within Our Lifetime, republished a video of her trying to set fire to a man’s IDF sweatshirt, calling it the “original IDF shirt challenge.” In her post she also encouraged further attacks, claiming that destroying Zionist property “isn’t illegal.” She deleted the post altogether several hours later.

Kiswani is a known extremist who was a leader of last year’s controversial anti-Israel rallies titled “Globalize the Intifada,” in which she was filmed protesting outside American Jewish institutions and stating “we don’t want two states, we want all of it.”

While most people who learned of the attack were able to recognize the inherent antisemitic nature of it, social media had no shortage of fools ready to broadcast their bigotry to the world.

'They called us dirty Jews,' says antisemitism victim Blake Zavadsky

In Peter Beinart's Substack, he writes:

In 1984, in an essay in The London Review of Books, Edward Said observed that while Palestinians were increasingly talked about, they still weren’t often listened to. “Never has so much been written and shown of the Palestinians, who were scarcely mentioned fifteen years ago,” he noted. “They are there all right, but the narrative of their present actuality – which stems directly from the story of their existence in and displacement from Palestine, later Israel – that narrative is not.” Said was the exception that proved his own rule. In the 1990s and early 2000s, he was a frequent guest on Charlie Rose. His columns graced The New York Times. But he was largely alone. A study by the University of Arizona’s Maha Nasser found that of the opinion columns in The New York Times that discussed Palestinians between 1970 and 2020, less than two percent were written by Palestinian authors. In The Washington Post, the figure was one percent.

They were absent because America’s public debate about Israel-Palestine largely pitted dovish Zionists against hawkish Zionists. Anthony Lewis versus William Safire. Arthur Hertzberg versus Elie Wiesel. Thomas Friedman versus Charles Krauthammer. Daniel Kurtzer versus Dennis Ross. Jeremy Ben-Ami versus Alan Dershowitz. Roger Cohen versus Bret Stephens. The participants changed but the terms of the debate remained largely the same: The doves said Israel could not afford to stay in the West Bank. The hawks said Israel could not afford to leave. Both sides shared a common belief that the Jewish state must survive.

During the fighting last spring, that began to change. While still underrepresented, Palestinian commentators gained more prominence. Noura Erekat appeared on CNN. Mohammed El-Kurd appeared on MSNBC. Refaat Alareer and Yousef Munayyer published in The New York Times. Rula Jebreal and Rashid Khalidi wrote for The Washington Post. Their presence shifted the terms of debate about Israel-Palestine...

Beinart made a similar claim in 2020, saying that "For decades, Palestinians have been largely excluded from the mainstream US media conversation about Israel-Palestine. That exclusion continues today, and represents one more form of Palestinian dispossession."

I then noted that the New York Times had published op-eds from the following Palestinians in the years since Oslo:

Marwan Barghouti

Saeb Erekat

Diana Buttu

Ahmed Abu Artema

Mahmoud Abbas

Hanan Ashrawi

Ali Abunimah

Ayman Odeh

Raja Shehadeh

Zena Agha

Daoud Kuttab

Yasir Arafat

Ali Jarbawi

Yousef Munayyer

Rashid Khalidi

Khalil Shikaki

Linda Sarsour

Zahi Khoury

Beinart says, "Of the opinion columns in The New York Times that discussed Palestinians between 1970 and 2020, less than two percent were written by Palestinian authors. In The Washington Post, the figure was one percent."

That study included editorial pieces by columnists and the editorial board, who are all Americans. That is really skewing the data. If you actually wanted to prove an anti-Palestinian bias in the media, you would compare the number of Palestinian-authored pieces with the number of Israeli-authored pieces. Probably there were more from Israelis - but if you further subdivide them into whether the pieces were pro-Israel or anti-Israel, I would bet that the number of pro-Israel pieces from Israelis were less than the number of anti-Israel pieces by Palestinians.

Under this methodology, Peter Beinart's own op-eds count as "pro-Israel."

If you want fairness, then include op-eds by Palestinians who are critical of Fatah and Hamas. Include op-eds by Khaled Abu Toameh or Bassem Eid. Only then can you claim that these statistics are based on a level playing field. Of course, the New York Times would never publish any op-ed by a Palestinian (or Muslim) who is critical of Palestinian national actions, and they eagerly publish op-eds by anti-Israel Israelis and Jews.

Beinart also shows, again, what a disgusting human being he is. When he says that the overwhelming number of op-eds agreed that " the Jewish state must survive," he is saying that this is a debatable issue.

How many op-eds in any newspaper say that the Italian state or the French state or the USA (or Yemen and Lebanon, for that matter) must be destroyed? The answer is zero. But Beinart, whose propaganda methods are second to none, is saying, as accepted fact, that Israel's existence should be debated - the only nation on Earth whose very existence is subject to debate.

That is antisemitism.

This is not an example of how the media should be fair. It is an example of antisemitism that Beinart slyly throws in as an assumption so that most people won't notice. Which makes Beinart possibly the most effective propagandist for antisemitism today.