Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 01, 2022

American Muslims don't CAIR (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Zahra Billoo attacked US Jews last year at the American Muslims for Palestine Conference, singling out as 'enemies' not only Jewish organizations but also "Zionist Synagogues." CAIR's national office came to her defense. After all, Billoo is the executive director of their San Franciso branch.

Among those Billoo targeted:

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

And Billoo also pointed out those Jewish groups that she finds 'acceptable':

Know your JVP leadership, your SJP leadership, your IfNotNow leadership, the list goes on. Know who is on your side. Build community with them, because the next thing I’m going to tell you is to know your enemies.

One would imagine that CAIR would agree with Billoo that groups like JVP and IfNotNow are groups that represent the kinds of Jews that are acceptable and can be associated with.

Which is kind of odd.

Because it is not at all clear if CAIR itself, which claims to be "America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization," actually represents the US Muslim community it claims to serve.

Irina Tsukerman, a human rights lawyer and national security analyst, writes that CAIR is one of those Muslim organizations that have fabricated their human rights image:

through a combination of generous political donations and influence campaigns, and by outright disinformation, presenting themselves as the mainstream of Muslim American communities and as the authoritative voices on Muslim civil rights issues. In reality, these groups are a fringe minority recycling and cross-pollinating members from charity to charity, who nevertheless go to great lengths to suppress alternative voices. CAIR and others receive the sort of support that nascent community organizations do not; they portray themselves as pan-Islamic organizations ignoring the fact that Muslim American communities are culturally and religious diverse.

They have also gained legitimacy by being the only game in town and forming partnerships with political training groups, intelligence agencies and law enforcement, and soft power institutions.

Going a step further, Abdullah Antepli, Associate Professor of the Practice of Interfaith Relations at Duke University, has stated not only that Muslim organizations like CAIR and ISNA represent only a small fraction of the Muslim community in the US, but that such organizations pose a danger to American Muslims as well:

They don’t represent in any significant portion of the American Muslim community. They represent the organized Muslim community space, which is more or less like 10%. And they are bullying and thought policing that space irresponsibly, reprehensive really with so many consequences to the American Islam and American Muslim community.

Their damage is not limited to 10%. They are further alienating American Muslim communities. They are further marginalizing American Islam. They are damaging the image of Islam as a religion and Muslims as Americans, Muslims as a people. But by all means, they are not representative. [emphasis added]

This description of CAIR as a fringe group claiming a larger role for itself than it actually has, is supported by a Gallup poll published in 2011.

The poll supports CAIR's claim to be the largest organization representing the Muslim community -- if you compare it to how tiny the support is for the other groups. However, the fact that the majority of Muslim men did not think any Muslim organizations represented their interests or, put another way, that 88% of Muslim men did not think CAIR represented them is revealing. And the responses of female Muslims was no better.

But why doesn't CAIR have a large following?

In 2007, The Washington Examiner published information on the number of CAIR's members based on CAIR's tax records. It found that CAIR's membership plummeted from 29,000 in 2000 to less than 1,700 in 2006. Their annual income based on dues fell from $732,765 in 2000 when dues were $25, to $58,750 in 2016 when dues were higher at $35.

The terror attacks in 2001 may account for some of this.

But the article quotes M. Zuhdi Jasser, director of American Islamic Forum for Democracy, who puts the blame on CAIR itself:

o CAIR marginalized itself by exploiting the media attention it garnered in order to promote 'victimization issues' at the expense of representing the priorities of the American Muslims
o CAIR's sympathy for Islamism combined with its apparent inability to condemn Muslim terrorist groups was a turn-off for American Muslims who did not share their ideology.
o Some Muslims did not want to join an organization that may be linked to other groups that finance terrorism

According to The Washington Examiner, as a result of a shrinking membership and decreasing dues --

The organization instead is relying on about two dozen donors a year to contribute the majority of the money for CAIR’s budget, which reached nearly $3 million last year.

It would have been nice to know more about who was making those contributions because it seems likely that CAIR would have been more representative of the desires of those major contributors than to the few members who were paying dues.

Maybe it's time for another look at CAIR's membership and funding?

Another indication of CAIR's desperation is noted in the conclusion to the article, where it notes how CAIR exaggerates its role on behalf of the Muslim community:

CAIR constantly notes in its press releases that it cooperates with federal law-enforcement activities and claims to conduct sensitivity training for Homeland Security officials. A February press release from CAIR’s Chicago office says it met with Homeland Security immigration officials and made an agreement to “conduct sensitivity training to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers and possibly prison personnel.”

When asked, officials from Homeland Security denied CAIR's claims, and a check of a database of government contracts since 2000 indicated that in fact CAIR was never awarded neither a grant nor a government contract.

A Homeland Security official noted:

The department does not have a formalized relationship with that particular organization. We do have formalized relations with other community groups with whom we do contracts for training and consultation on matters that are specific to a given community.

It is not uncommon for that particular organization to issue a press release attempting to overstate their interaction with the department. [emphasis added]

That was then. But what about now?

It seems that CAIR is still desperate to stay in the spotlight.
How desperate?

The Middle East Forum (MEF) reported last year that CAIR opposed the appointment of a Muslim federal judge:

In a historic June 10 vote, the US Senate confirmed Judge Zahid Quraishi's appointment to the US District Court for New Jersey, making him the first Muslim federal judge in American history. Although the nomination received bipartisan support, an unlikely source sharply criticized Quraishi's appointment: a leading civil rights organization that claims to speak on behalf of Muslim American interests.

..."I would much rather have a white Christian judge with progressive values," said Zahra Billoo, head of CAIR's San Francisco branch, a supposedly non-partisan Islamic civil rights group. "It's not enough that he is Muslim. In fact, it's insulting," she added.

While the reasons given for opposing Quraishi were based on issues relating to his record, many Muslim groups were supportive of the appointment.

MEF suggests that CAIR's motives stem from jealousy -- and an inability to compete with an up-and-coming rival Muslim group:

Despite its former proximity to the White House, CAIR failed to accomplish what a relative newcomer to Muslim political advocacy circles has achieved in the first months of the Biden administration. Founded in 2017, the American Pakistani Public Affairs Committee (APPAC) is loudly claiming credit for Quraishi's nomination, insisting that it played an "instrumental role" in selecting the judge from among "dozens of potential candidates."

...While CAIR's own political action committee raised a paltry $4,250 in federal donations last election cycle, APPAC gave over $1.3 million to the Biden campaign in a single August fundraiser. During this event, Biden was chummy with Ahmed, calling the APPAC chairman a "vouching force" in his community. [emphasis added]

Billoo's latest attack shows that CAIR is not about to change what it sees as a tried and true formula of radicalization and attacks on the Jewish community to maintain its status, at the expense of American Muslims.

When I asked Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, director of EMET’s Program for Emerging Democratic Voices From the Middle East, about how representative CAIR was of the Muslim community, he replied:

I'm sure a majority of American Muslims are not interested nor invested in any kind of activism and just trying to live normally. However I'm sure CAIR supporters numbers went up due to the radicalizing effect on the progressive wave on Muslim youth.

What will it take before CAIR is seen for what it is?

Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) issued a scathing report about routine torture by multiple Palestinian Authority security services of critics of the regime.

They admit that they are probably underreporting the problem.

They investigated 250 out of more than 2600 arbitrary arrests of Palestinians between 2015 and mid-2021. They were all for either political activity, criticism of the Abbas regime or participation in protests.

61% of the detainees were tortured, including beatings, deprivation of food, deprivation of toilets, and sleep deprivation.

One victim said, "I was subjected to falanga; they whipped my feet with a plastic tube or hose. This happened four times. After the beating, the interrogator would force me to walk in the corridor in front of the investigation office and run barefoot for ten minutes. They tied my hands in the back and threw the rope over the iron door and pulled hard until my body arched forward. The rope was tied to the iron door from behind, and they covered my head with a hood."

The report exposes cases where detainees are kept in prison even after posting bail, sometimes for months and with multiple payments.

The detainees were arrested for protests against sanctions imposed on Gaza, a social security law, and even for protesting in support of people with disabilities.

When the Amman-based ARIJ tried to get comments from Palestinian officials, they refused to answer because ARIJ is not a Palestinian organization. The Palestinian NGOs know that their job is to attack Israel, not protect Palestinians.

The report notes that the Palestinian Authority has laws against torture. In addition, it has signed multiple international treaties that prohibit torture. This gives support for my reporting that the PA/PLO signing international treaties is done only to use them against Israel and to join the ICC for prosecuting Israel - they have no intention of actually adhering to them.

The impression one gets is of a society where the rule of law simply doesn't exist. There are no checks and balances since Mahmoud Abbas is the singular power behind the legislative, judicial and executive branches. It is a dictatorship in every sense of the word.

ARIJ is a respected group that teaches reporters throughout the Arab world the techniques of investigative journalism and has created a college course in the topic.

Even though this report was released in English two days ago, it has received no coverage in Western media (and nearly none in Arab media.) Even worse, the Arabic report was reported in scattered Arabic media in December!

In many ways, that is the real story. The world's media fall over themselves to cover the most absurd and easily debunked reports against Israel, in the name of caring about Palestinians, but when it comes to protecting Palestinians from their own leaders, these self-styled watchdogs become deaf and mute.

Because the media and Palestinian leaders agree: anything that distracts from the narrative of Israeli evil must not be spoken of.

(h/t Tomer Ilan)

From the beginning, the "apartheid" slur was meant as a rhetorical weapon, not as truth. And so it remains today.

I found an interesting if quite biased academic paper called "Palestinian Non-Violent Resistance and the

Apartheid Analogy" which traces the beginnings of the accusations that Israel is guilty of apartheid - an accusation that pre-dates "occupation."

While the author, Nina Fischer of Goethe University Frankfurt, tries to position the apartheid slur as just another means of "resistance"for Palestinians, she doesn't quite realize she is saying that lying about and slandering Israel is a conscious decision on the part of Palestinian leaders as a means to destroy it - just as violent resistance is.

She traces the accusation to Fayez Sayegh, one of those "Palestinians" who was born in Syria and whose family moved to Palestine in the 1920s to take advantage of the economic opportunities created by Jews. Sayegh became a major Palestinian theorist. He wrote a book about "Zionist colonialism" before 1967 and then became the UN's special rapporteur to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which enabled him to become one of the architects of the 1975 UNGA "Zionism is Racism" resolution.

He would often equate Zionism with “genocide”, “crimes against humanity”, and “racist discrimination” alongside apartheid. It is clear to all that this was his weapon, in concert with Palestinian bombs.

Sayegh may have helped draft an UN resolution against apartheid, 3151 of 1974, by adding Zionism in its text. The resolution decried the “unholy alliance” between “Portuguese colonialism, South African racism, zionism [sic] and Israeli imperialism.”

Fischer admits that Sayegh used the apartheid slur mainly as "a metaphorical trope with much emotive power, shaping the international discourse and aiming to cause condemnations and the political isolation of Israel."

Fischer reiterates this:

[T]he term apartheid is harnessed for its emotive power. ...The Palestinian story needs telling in a way that resonates with an audience and guides listeners’ interpretations. This means that the apartheid analogy in the Palestinian context functions ...politically, as it allows being heard, aims to influence and shape opinions, and can create a reaction.....Internally, in Arabic, a different story might be happening concerning terms employed, but Palestinian discourses in English that use apartheid as a prism were always intended for international consumption.

In other words, the apartheid analogy was always all about propaganda and never about facts. Its effectiveness is not a reflection of reality but of the eagerness for many people to label Jews as evil.

The sequence of events since then is that the accusations that Zionism is racist and apartheid keep resurfacing, and every new generation tweaks the slur with more "facts" fed to them by fraudulent academics to make the accusations sound more legitimate. Even the reports of B'Tselem, HRW and now Amnesty show an evolution: each successive one tries to refine the argument because the previous ones were demolished.

The point is that when you look at the history of the slur, the accusation pre-dates the justifications. Jew-haters came up with the slander and when they are revealed to be antisemites, the next iteration tries to make the argument a little better and less obviously a manifestation of Jew hatred. The reports pretend to be an objective look at the definition of apartheid and how Israel is guilty, but they assume Israel was guilty ahead of time, and they twist the facts to fit the verdict.

When Amnesty, HRW et. al. say that Israel is guilty of apartheid, they know as well as Sayegh that they are engaging in propaganda. not truth telling. They throw in plenty of footnotes and circular definitions, knowing full well that they only need to give those who hate Israel and Jews an excuse for their hatred. Lots of footnotes are enough, along with ignoring the huge amounts of counter-evidence that proves them wrong.

The intention was always the same as it has been since the PLO was created: destroying Israel by any means necessary. Amnesty and HRW are the propaganda arms of Fatah and Hamas. And their interest in the truth is just about the same.

01/31 Links Pt2: Late to the Propaganda Party – Amnesty’s Derivative Echo of the NGO Apartheid Attack Against Israel; In NYT ad, Sharansky, Henri-Levy urge Olympics boycott over Uighurs

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: Late to the Propaganda Party – Amnesty’s Derivative Echo of the NGO Apartheid Attack Against Israel

On February 1, Amnesty International will release yet another volume in the litany of copy-paste NGO reports that label Israel as an “apartheid” state. The publication breaks no new ground and is not meaningfully different from the discredited Human Rights Watch (HRW) and B’Tselem reports from 2021 – yet Amnesty says they took over four years to produce it.

Like many previous NGO publications, Amnesty’s report manipulates and distorts international law, Israeli policy, and events on the ground, as well as denies the Jewish people their right to sovereign equality and self-determination.

Thus, Amnesty’s report can be considered antisemitic according to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which notes that: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”

Likewise, Amnesty’s report criminalizes Israeli laws and practices designed to safeguard Jewish identity – such as the Law of Return – which are enshrined under international law and parallel the practices of many nation-states.

In these attacks, Israeli policies are artificially framed as attempts to preserve “Jewish domination” – an antisemitic trope and refrain throughout the publication. Amnesty’s overarching argument is that everything Israel does is nefarious, whether it promotes peace or Palestinian self-detemination, improves the lives of Palestinians or minority groups in Israel, or if mandated by international law. In service of this paradigm, Amnesty – often illogically – ignores or downplays the material differences between Israeli policy toward Palestinians living in Gaza, those living in the West Bank, and the country’s own Arab citizens.

David Collier: Amnesty – Apartheid? What a pile of…..

A call for the destruction of Israel.

If you want to read any of the 211-page report – and I strongly suggest you don’t bother – then just read one paragraph from page 20. It is all you need.

It says Israel – by its very existence – is an Apartheid state – and always was. Regardless of government and with no interest in the enemies that lined up or invaded its borders. These people have no interest in what is real. Amnesty’s anti-Israel activists have an agenda – and this report is part of it.

In their report Amnesty International call for the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel. It is aligning Amnesty with Hamas and Hezbollah – who no doubt both received an embargoed copy in advance. The Amnesty report states in no uncertain terms – Jews defending themselves is unacceptable. Amnesty’s report is a pile of…. Amnesty’s predictable Apartheid smear
Last year B’tselem and HRW created reports suggesting Israel practices Apartheid. This year Amnesty and the UN (coming soon) are at it. Make no mistake this is a coordinated attack on Israel with the aim of delegitimising the Jewish state on the international stage.

To be honest I think both Israel and the other governments of the west are partly responsible. Amnesty is not a human rights organisation anymore – and has not been one for many years. Amnesty’s goal is the destruction of Israel. This is not about criticism of government policy – this is about a foreign politicised and hostile unit – with aims to destabilise Israel. So why do some still treat it with respect?

Yet western media and governments still continue to legitimise Amnesty – because hey – they are not the ones who really pay the price – the Jews are. If any media outlet had a real desire to expose antisemitism – they’d call in Amnesty and demand that it explains its lies and its obsessions. Amnesty spread more antisemitic hate than almost any other organisation in the west.

You may have heard that @amnesty @AmnestyUK is about to release a baseless report, filled with malicious lies, gross distortions of truth and fabrications of law, accusing #Israel of 'apartheid'.

We've saved you reading 200+ pages of hate and #AmnestyLies. Our response: pic.twitter.com/gRdVHgvjs3
— The International Legal Forum - ILF (@The_ILF) January 31, 2022

Syria says Israel is violating human rights. Yes, Syria.

On Monday, the Syrian foreign ministry issued a statement: "The government of the Syrian Arab Republic condemns in the strongest terms the criminal demolition and destruction of the property of the Palestinian people throughout the occupied Palestinian territories by the Israeli occupation forces, including the demolition of the two homes of the Salhia family in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied Jerusalem. and arresting family members. [It] constitutes a crime that contradicts international law, the Bill of Human Rights, international humanitarian law, and United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions."

Here is what the Palestinian Yarmouk camp in Syria looked like after this humanitarian government was done with it.

Over 3000 Palestinians were killed in Syria during its civil war.

01/31 Links Pt1: Israeli President Presses On With Dubai Visit After UAE Intercepts Missile; Israelis escape mob attack after taking wrong turn into Palestinian village

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Herzog's visit to UAE is both historic and heartwarming

The timing of the visit is also significant. The visit comes as the UAE and Saudi Arabia have repeatedly suffered attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen and indeed security for the visit was tightened.

Herzog’s trip can also be seen against the backdrop of the attempts by the US, Europe and others to revive the nuclear deal with Iran, something that threatens Israel and the Gulf. There is no doubt that the subject of Iran will be high on the agenda.

During the visit, it is expected that progress will be made toward the completion of a bilateral free trade agreement, and the president is scheduled to officially open Israel’s national day at Dubai Expo 2020 on Monday. This symbolizes, in many ways, the heightened importance of the three main groups of ties – political-diplomatic, commercial and technological – which benefit us all.

The visit by the president of Israel to the local Jewish community is also a sign of how far relations have come in such a short time. Jews in the UAE and Bahrain have lived openly and without fear of attacks for generations, but the ties between their countries and Israel have helped create stronger bonds within their own communities, too.

The links between Israel and the Gulf continue to strengthen, reinforcing the fact that Israel is an integral part of the region and can contribute to its growth and stability. Continuing to bridge the gulf that existed before the Abraham Accords is essential. That’s why the presidential visit is rightly described as both historic and heartwarming.

Monday's front page #TomorrowsPaperToday https://t.co/8MjFuxkUl2 pic.twitter.com/NXYC5criLd
— Arab News (@arabnews) January 30, 2022

Israeli president meets UAE crown prince in Abu Dhabi

President Herzog makes historic state visit to the Emirates

UAE's Rabbi Elie Abadie reflects on Israel's president first visit to the UAE

‘It’s safer to be Jewish in the UAE than in the USA’

Herzog is the first Israeli president to visit the UAE and see the growing Jewish community firsthand. Before the September 2020 Abraham Accords, only around 250 Jews lived in the UAE. Today, according to Abadie, that number has doubled.

“Many French, British, Canadian, American and Israeli Jews have set up homes here and many are setting up businesses here,” Abadie told JNS. He estimated that in the next three to five years, there will be as many as 5,000 Jews living in the UAE.

Moreover, since the peace treaty, an estimated 200,000 Jews have toured the country.

“The Jewish community [in the UAE] is one of the safest, if not the safest, in the world,” Abadie contended.

He said that Jews in Europe, the United States and South Africa are attacked on a near daily basis just for being Jewish.

“We do not have that here,” Abadie said. “The UAE is absolutely, without a doubt, safer than the United States for Jews… We know that the government is protecting us, as it is all the citizens and residents of this country.”

The leaders told Herzog about the services that the community is now striving to provide, such as kashrut services and synagogues. In addition, they said they are looking to establish a Jewish day school, mikveh, kosher bakery and pizza shop “in due time.”

“With God’s help, may you continue to go from strength to strength in building the institutions of the community, the education system, and of course synagogues and other institutions that every community has,” Herzog said. “Good luck to all of you.” ‘You want to pinch yourself to see if it is reality’

Abadie said the Jewish presence in the country is celebrated on a daily basis. Sometimes people salute him on the street, stop to say “shalom” or tell him how happy they are that the Jews are in the UAE.

But while he feels how special it is to live there on a daily basis, “when we have the president of the State of Israel received with such a beautiful welcome and the Israeli national anthem is played in the palace, and you see all the Israeli flags flying around the palace and the airport next to UAE flag—you want to pinch yourself to see if it is reality, and it is reality.”

Lots of attacks against Jews in the past few days, from the Right to the Left and in between

Yesterday in Orlando,FL, a neo-Nazi antisemitic rally.

The Jewish community in our country must get serious about our self-defense, real quick. This was today in Orlando. pic.twitter.com/4UgCJXDFv6
— Mayor Gabriel Groisman (@GabeGroisman) January 31, 2022

Last week in Brooklyn, a young visibly Jewish woman was verbally attacked on a subway car by a Black man who threatened her and screamed for her to leave the train while passengers watched and didn't intervene.

Because to help a Jewish woman might be racist.

On Saturday in Lakewood, NJ, a snowplow driver laughingly took a video of himself purposefully dumping snow on two Orthodox Jews.

In Chicago:

The Jewish Community in West Rogers Park, Chicago was hit by string of hate crimes over the past 24 hours, YWN has learned. Two Jewish institutions have had swastikas scrawled on them, two Jewish stores had their windows smashed, and a Jewish man was attacked.

The two Jewish institutions that had swastikas scrawled on them are the Hanna Sacks Bais Yaakov, and Congregation F.R.E.E.

The two Jewish stores that had their windows smashed are Tel Aviv Bakery, and Kol Tuv Kosher Supermarket.

Meanwhile, on Sunday night a frum [Orthodox] man walking was attacked and bloodied in an unprovoked incident.

The victim was walking near W. Devon Ave. and N. Sacramento Ave. when he was attacked by an unknown male.

In London, a group of youths smashed the windows of a Jewish-owned house.

Meanwhile, also in London on Saturday,

Reports of an open bus being driven along #StamfordHill #N16 at 12:20pm with speakers blaring "Yidos Go Home"

Appeared to be targeting Orthodox Jews leaving #Synagogue

A Palestinian newspaper wrote today:

History depicts Nazi Übermensch against the Jews in Europe, and the correct truth is that Jewish Zionism is the Übermensch over the Palestinian.

Which happens to be the same message that Amnesty International is communicating in its upcoming report accusing Israel of "apartheid," with its repeated message of "Jewish domination" over Palestinians.

When no one does anything about the "little" incidents, they turn into much worse incidents.

Israel has existed for 73 years. During that time, the rights of the Arab citizens of Israel have only increased. They lived under military rule until 1966 and not thereafter. Since then, while it has been slow, their rights as full citizens have been strengthened and supported by Israel's High Court. Today, they have unprecedented rights and have become successfully integrated in fields like medicine and high tech, and millions of shekels are earmarked to improve the lives of Arab Israelis.

Palestinian Arabs lived under effective belligerent military occupation from 1967 until the Oslo process in the 1990s. Since then, the vast majority of them have been living under full autonomy in Area A and Gaza, and partial autonomy in Area B, under their own governments. They also have more rights than they had before the 1990s.

Yet at the exact same time that Palestinian Arabs both within and without the territories have been gaining more rights, human rights groups like B'Tselem, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been steadily accusing Israel of worse and worse crimes.

Nothing makes that clearer than their recent jihad. During the course of a single year, each of those groups decided that Israel's treatment of Palestinians has crossed the line into being considered "apartheid."

And, amazingly, each of them - B'Tselem, HRW and Amnesty, whose report is being published Tuesday - relied on different and provably twisted legal analyses to reach this same conclusion.

They didn't use that term in 1993. They didn't use that term in 2019. But now, suddenly, all three of them reach the same conclusion when there are more Arab rights under Israeli rule than ever before. (Even the Nation State law goes not say a word that contradicts the idea of equality under the law.)

Put this together, and it is blindingly obvious that these three organizations deciding over the past year to label Israel as guilty of apartheid is not a coincidence. In each case, the decision to find Israel guilty was made first, and the lengthy, multi-page, laughably flawed "legal analysis" to justify it was written afterwards.

In each case, counterexamples that prove that their fact-finding is biased and wrong is ignored or buried.

In each case, the same arguments they use against Israel would find scores of nations worldwide far more guilty of the same crime, yet they are silent about those.

So why are these purported human rights groups, who are still reluctant to call Chinese persecution of Uyghurs "apartheid," suddenly on the same page to make that accusation against Israel when they never did before?

I cannot know if there was any collusion to bring these three organizations to the same predetermined conclusion. Yet it does seem curious that these accusations follow Israel's historic normalization agreements with Bahrain, the UAE and Morocco. The Abraham Accords may have incentivized these groups who had relied on a solid Arab hatred of Israel as their reliable anti-Israel allies. When that dam burst, the "human rights" groups may have felt it was time to open up a new front against Israel to forestall Israel being treated by the world the same as its autocratic, human-rights violating neighbors.

Whatever the reason for the timing of this choreography, there is an underlying theme between all three reports that points to the real goal for the "human rights" community: to claim that the concept of a Jewish state is itself a crime.

The B'Tselem report concentrates its claims on the idea of "Jewish supremacy." Since that was largely decried as antisemitic, the other two reports mostly stayed away from that formulation (Amnesty prefers "Jewish domination.") But both HRW and Amnesty make it clear that they consider the very idea of a Jewish state to be the source of "Israeli apartheid," even when Israel's Declaration of Independence and numerous High Court rulings affirm the equality of all citizens.

To all three, the entire raison d'être of Israel is immoral. They aren't against apartheid - ask the Palestinians in Lebanon if they would gladly change places with the Palestinians under "apartheid" in Gaza or Ramallah or Jerusalem or Abu Ghosh. The word "apartheid" is simply a rhetorical weapon to attack Israel's very legitimacy as a place of refuge for Jews who are persecuted worldwide.

These "human rights" NGOs are against Jewish statehood, Jewish self-determination, Jewish self-defense from antisemitic attacks and even peaceful, harmonious relations between the Jewish state and its neighbors. They want to set the calendar back to the days before 1948 when Arabs attacked Jews daily and Jews could not legally defend themselves.

Like all antisemitic movements throughout history, they justify their immorality and hate of Jewish human rights behind the lie of universal human rights.

In 1939, in the wake of Kristallnacht, the Wagner–Rogers Bill was proposed in the Senate to allow 20,000 Jewish children from Germany to immigrate to the United States. It did not even make it to a vote because of an antisemitic senator, Robert Rice Reynolds (D-NC.)

During hearings, one opponent of saving the lives of the Jewish children, Francis H. Kinnicutt of Allied Patriotic Societies, gave five reasons against allowing the Jewish children to be allowed to immigrate. His very first reason was:

On the humanitarian grounds on which all social agencies agree that children should not be separated from their parents and that foster parentage or institutional upbringing is prejudicial to children

Jewish parents in Germany would have been making the wrenching decision to save a remnant of their families by sending their own children away before things got even worse under Nazi rule, and Kinnicutt pretended that his immoral stance was based on his care about the welfare of the doomed children being taken away from their parents!

That is the kind of cynicism we are seeing from these so-called human rights groups today. They claim to care about universal rights, but when it comes to the human rights of Jews, they find "moral" reasons to oppose them.

The Israel/Palestinian conflict is not about human rights for Palestinians, as these groups assert. It is about competing human rights for Jews and for Arabs. There is no perfect solution, but the optimal solution requires drawing the line that maximizes the rights for all and minimizes the violation of rights for all.

History shows that no one besides Jews in a position of power will consistently defend the human rights of Jews, while lots of people - including Jews - will defend the human rights of those who want to take away the human rights of Jews. History also shows that Arabs under Jewish rule will always have more rights and more opportunities than Jews under Arab rule ever did or ever would.

Which means that the Jewish state, with all its arguments and flaws and critics, is the optimal solution to maximize human rights for all. It will never be perfect, and there will always be people who are unhappy about the compromises needed to maximize rights for all, Jew and Arab. Yet the Jewish state will always be better than the alternative that these human rights hypocrites are proposing - the dissolution of the Jewish state.

Israel is the only guarantor of Jewish human rights - not the UN, not the ICC, not Amnesty or Human Rights Watch, and not even the US. These NGOs attack Israel's very existence as a Jewish state because they don't want Jews to enjoy the same human rights that everyone else has. B'Tselem's repeated use of the slander "Jewish supremacy" proves that.

That is the reason they all decided to get behind the Big Lie of "Israeli apartheid." They don't care about apartheid. Their goal is destroying the only state that can assure Jews will always have true political rights.

The black hole of Donald Trump has sucked the Abraham Accords out of American liberal thinking

Jodi Rudoren, the editor in chief of the Forward and formerly of the New York Times, sends out a weekly newsletter to subscribers and potential subscribers.

In last week's newsletter she wrote a very nice story about Bob Cumins, a photojournalist who has taken some of the most iconic photos in history, and how he went out of his way to send her a replacement copy of a New York Times edition with her very first front page story from 1998 that she had lost in a flood.

But one sentence in that story seemed jarring to me.

He would eventually cover some 30 General Assemblies of the Jewish Federations of North America and make about 300 trips to Israel with politicians, business moguls and philanthropists. He’s witnessed every peace-treaty handshake — Camp David in 1978 and 1979; the Oslo Accords in 1993 and Jordan the next year; Wye River in 1998. He spent 18 months working for Hillary Clinton during her first Senate campaign. He caught Joe Namath in the locker room after Super Bowl III. He made a stunning collection he calls “Snows of Jerusalem” during a 1980 storm.

In Rudoren's list of peace treaty handshakes, she doesn't mention anything about the Abraham Accords.

I messaged her and asked if Cumins had witnessed them as well, and she replied that this was a fair point and she didn't know.

Now, I have nothing against Rudoren. I used to criticize her a lot when she covered Israel for the NYT but my impression is that a lot of that should have been directed at the Times' own editors. I think The Forward, which I have also been very critical of, has improved since she took the job as editor in chief.

But when a major player in the liberal Jewish media doesn't even think that the Abraham Accords were worth thinking about in her list of US diplomatic accomplishments in the Middle East, there is something wrong.

The Abraham Accords are arguably the most important peace deal between Israel and the Arab world since the Israel-Egypt peace treaty 42 years prior. Israel's peace with Egypt and Jordan remain ice cold - the amount of antisemitism in those countries' media even today is astounding, today. Israel's Oslo agreements with the PLO did not result in the peace that everyone hoped it would, and Nobel prizes prematurely celebrated a man who continued to be an architect of terrorism against Jews years after he "agreed" to stop all support of terror.

But the Abraham Accords have prompted a dizzying list of accomplishments and "firsts" that happen so often 16 months later than stories that would have been front page news two years ago are barely newsworthy today. Even yesterday, Arabic media was fascinated that Israeli president Isaac Herzog arrived in the UAE with a beard because he is mourning the death of his mother.

Yet the Abraham Accords are simply not considered to be that important in the media, and are not top of mind to the Forward's editor in chief.

The reason? Because they were brokered during the Donald Trump administration, and all proper liberals want to think of those four years as a black hole that simply didn't happen. To the liberal media, Trump was an aberration who should only be remembered as representing an immoral and evil part of American history, whose very position as President of the United States must be removed from history - along with anything associated with him.

There is plenty I dislike about Trump, but the Abraham Accords was - and remains - a game changer in the Middle East. No longer can it be assumed that a warm peace between Israel and Arab nations are impossible. No longer can it be assumed that Arabs are endemically antisemitic. No longer can Arabs easily point to Israel as being irredeemably racist against Arabs (although they still do, every day!) Positive articles about Israel and Judaism are now regularly published in Arabic media along with the constant antisemitic stream of articles that remain from Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian, Houthi and Iraqi media.

When dislike for Trump outshines the fact that he was able to accomplish what no one else could even visualize, that is no longer criticism of Trump but an obsessive hate. Even the Biden administration has problems mentioning the term "Abraham Accords," although its members do seem to be trying to spread them to other Arab countries.

Accurate reporting requires getting rid of bias. Criticize Trump all you want, but don't throw out the good with the bad just because of antipathy towards him.

"Most Influential Arab Newspaper" says "Palestinian Holocaust" worse than ...The Holocaust

Ad Dustour is a pro-government Jordanian newspaper that was declared as the most influential newspaper in the Arab world in Industry Arabic's latest rankings. It is partially owned by the Jordanian government itself, so it will never say anything that goes against official government policy.

That includes Holocaust denial.

Columnis Rashid Hassan not only casts doubt as to whether the Holocaust actually occurred, but he parrots a claim that the "Palestinian Holocaust" was the worst calamity of the past century.

More than the Shoah. More than Cambodia or Rwanda or Darfur.

He writes about how Holocaust Remembrance Day is a cynical ploy by Israel to gain sympathy and distract the world from the real genocide.

While the hypocritical world - and most of it - celebrates the so-called “Zionist Holocaust” and makes a date for it January 27, we find this world ignoring the Palestinian Holocaust, which has been going on for 105 years... since the ominous promise... the Balfour Declaration of 1917 until today..

The Arab population in Palestine in 1917 was about 600,000. Today it is claimed that there are over 12 million Palestinians.

Some "holocaust!"

Oh, and the UN spends orders of magnitude more time and money on Palestinian issues than on the Holocaust.

Certainly, this hypocrisy is linked to the major international conspiracy carried out by Britain, America and many Western countries to establish the Zionist entity on the land of Arab Palestine... and to displace its people in the four winds of the earth.

Of course, it was a conspiracy. Otherwise, how could weak despised Jews have defeated the combined warrior armies of the Arab world?

Washington is behind the marketing of the Western world with a stick, in order to remember by force the so-called “Zionist Holocaust.” In return, the world must shut its mouth, eyes and ears from the Holocausts that the Palestinian people are exposed to, from the year of the Nakba until today. As the Palestinian historian Salman Abu Sitta says, "No people in the world have been subjected to massacres over a century like the Palestinian people... who gave more than half a million martyrs, and more than a million have entered Israeli prisons and prisons since 1967, and 7 million people were sentenced to displacement in places of refuge in the diaspora, while the other half, more than 7 million at home, suffer the bitterness of Zionist terrorism around the clock.. which desecrated trees, stones, and sanctities, and burned homes on the head of their residents.

Somehow, the Palestinian "Holocaust" didn't make it on Wikipedia's list of genocides. It must have been an oversight.

Half a million martyrs? By the most generous count, no more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in conflicts with Israel, and the majority of them have been militants. And at the same time thousands of Palestinians were killed by Arabs (Lebanese civil wars, Black September, War of the Camps in Lebanon, Sabra/Shatila) and by fellow Palestinians (Second Intifada.)

The article goes on to curse the Arab nations that are normalizing relations with Israel.

And this is coming from Jordan, which has been at peace with Israel for close to 30 years.

This is not unusual for Jordanian media. But perhaps it is time for Israel to tell Jordan that if this is the way the official government media feels, then perhaps Jordan should look elsewhere for water and natural gas.

After all, Israel shouldn't want to make deals with a nation that trades with such immoral people as are described here.

01/30 Links: In ‘message to the region,’ Herzog meets UAE crown prince in Abu Dhabi; Statue of ‘most important Jewish woman in medieval England’

From Ian:

In ‘message to the region,’ Herzog meets UAE crown prince in Abu Dhabi

President Isaac Herzog met on Sunday with Abu Dhabi’s powerful Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, known colloquially as MBZ and seen as the UAE’s de facto ruler.

The meeting, which lasted over two hours, was described by the president’s office as “warm and cordial.”

“I wish to emphasize that we completely support your security requirements and we condemn in all forms and language any attack on your sovereignty by terrorist groups,” said Herzog at the beginning of the meeting. “We are here together to find ways and means to bring full security to people who seek peace in our region.”

He also called for more nations to join the Abraham Accords, saying that his visit “sends a message to the entire region that there is an alternative — of peace and living together — and that the sons and daughters of Abraham can reside and dwell together in peaceful coexistence for the benefit of humanity.”

Bin Zayed thanked Herzog for Israel’s condemnation of recent missile and drone attacks on UAE facilities by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“It is a stance that demonstrates our common view of the threats to regional stability and peace, particularly those posed by militias and terrorist forces, as well as our shared understanding of the importance of taking a firm stance against them,” he said.

The crown prince said bilateral relations “are moving full steam ahead, and that there is a common and strong will to strengthen them for the benefit of our countries and peoples.”

Afterward, Bin Zayed invited Herzog for an unscheduled follow-up personal meeting at his private palace.

Israel Supports UAE Security Needs, President Says on First Visit

Israel’s president said his country supports the United Arab Emirates’ security needs and seeks stronger regional ties during the first such visit to the Gulf state on Sunday, as world powers try to revive an Iran nuclear deal.

The UAE, along with Bahrain, signed US-brokered normalization agreements with Israel, dubbed the “Abraham Accords,” in 2020. The two Gulf states and Israel share concerns about Iran and its allied forces in the region.

Isaac Herzog discussed security and bilateral relations with the UAE’s de facto ruler Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The UAE has in the past fortnight been attacked twice with drones and missiles by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group.

“We completely support your security requirements and we condemn in all forms and language any attack on your sovereignty by terrorist groups. We are here together to find ways and means to bring full security to people who seek peace in our region,” Herzog said during the meeting, in comments released by his office.

Sheikh Mohammed said Israel and the UAE share a “common view of the threats to regional stability and peace, particularly those posed by militias and terrorist forces.”

En route to the UAE, President Herzog’s plane flew over Saudi Arabia, which he said was “truly a very moving moment.” Riyadh and Israel do not have diplomatic ties, but Israel has said it would like to establish a relationship with the kingdom which is home to Islam’s two holiest sites.

“The Abraham Accords should be continued and more nations should join us in this endeavor,” Herzog told Sheikh Mohammed.

Israel's national anthem, HaTikvah, playing in the United Arab Emirates—that's what peace between nations sounds like. ???????? pic.twitter.com/BRuYJjpODl
— ???? ????? Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) January 30, 2022

Shalom and Marhaba! #Israel’s President @Isaac_Herzog arrives in Abu Dhabi, where he is greeted by FM @ABZayed, on historic visit to #UAE! ???? ?? ????pic.twitter.com/wEHQZhyrSP
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 30, 2022

Kuwaiti paper pushes normalization with Israel, criticizes Palestinians

Al-Jarallah called for the Gulf states to cut support for the Palestinians and to stop mediating whenever they launch missiles towards Israel. "In this case, let them rebuild what they destroy by their own acts."

"Enough is enough! The camel’s back has been broken from the burden of grief we endure due to the ingratitude of the Palestinians," wrote the editor. "All the Gulf states should normalize relations with Israel due to the fact that peace with this most advanced country is the right thing to do. Let the foolish fend for themselves."

This is not the first time the al-Jarallah has pushed for relations with Israel. In 2020, they welcomed the United Arab Emirate's move to normalize relations with Israel, saying this would prevent Israel from continuing to annex land. In 2005, they wrote, "After a long time, we have finally decided to leave the Palestinian cause to Palestinians."

In December, Kuwaiti Public Works Minister Dr. Rana Abdullah Al-Fares issued an order banning the entry of commercial vessels loaded with goods to and from Israel into Kuwaiti territorial waters, according to Kuwaiti newspaper Al Anba.

The order prohibits entry permits being requested for ships carrying goods to or from Israel, even if goods being carried from Israel are being brought to another country outside of Kuwait.

Under Kuwaiti law, individuals and companies cannot conclude agreements with organizations or persons living in Israel and cannot deal financially or commercially with persons who have an interest in Israel, even if they live outside Israel.

It is also illegal to import, exchange or possess any Israeli goods, commodities or products, whether received directly or indirectly. Products also cannot include any material from Israeli products.

Iran and Arabs are alarmed: too much normalization!

As the old joke goes, Jews should read the antisemitic newspapers - that's where we can learn about how well Jews are doing.

And right now the thing that alarms antisemites the most is Israel's continuing normalization with the Arabic-speaking world.

The Iraqi National News Agency reports that a member of Iraq's parliament has found evidence that Kurds have sold oil to Israel, and he wants to bring this terrible fact up to parliament this week.

Iranian media reports on a French Intelligence Online report that says that Bahrain has officially embarked on a process of reorganizing its security and intelligence services to work more closely with the Mossad and to purchase Israeli technology that can be used for intelligence like drones, satellites, and anti-drone systems.

A group called "The Council of the General Secretariat of the World Coalition for Youth and Sports for Solidarity with Jerusalem and Palestine" condemned Morocco's agreement with Israel for closer sports cooperation. (The group is nothing more than a few people maintaining a Facebook page.)

At Al Mayadeen, a columnist says that Israel is becoming too successful at normalizing with Morocco, brainwashing its intellectuals that Israel is an oasis of peace and democracy. He worries that Morocco might actually start teaching students that the Holocaust actually happened.

It sure sounds like normalization is going full steam ahead.

In our last post, we discussed how an upcoming Amnesty International report is trying to copy other NGOs and declare Israel to be guilty of "apartheid."

In order to do that, it realizes that concentrating on different laws for Palestinians in the territories is quite obviously not apartheid since they are not citizens. Amnesty must find - or manufacture - evidence of discrimination against Arabs in Israel that rise to the level of the definition of "apartheid" that it made up.

Like HRW, Amnesty realizes that it must trump up the idea that discrimination against Arabs in Israel rise to the level of oppression and persecution. So, like HRW, it has to cherry pick examples that would seem to indicate that level of discrimination, without mentioning counterexamples that disprove it.

Some examples:

Israel maintains Jewish domination over the Palestinian economy through the exclusion and intentional neglect of Palestinian communities inside Israel...

Yet Israel's largest Arab-majority city, Nazareth, is a high tech hub, hosting R&D centers from Amdocs, Microsoft, Broadcom and Salesforce. Nazareth hosts over 70 startups. Thousands of Arabs work in technology and the number is skyrocketing.

If Israel intends to have Jewish dominance over the Arab economy by neglecting Arab communities, then why does it allow so many major companies to open up in Nazareth?

Amnesty is lying. And they know it.

Whilst Palestinians largely refuse to join the Israeli army for national and political reasons, the exemption of Palestinian citizens of Israel from military service has resulted in their discriminatory exclusion from substantial economic benefits and opportunities guaranteed under Israeli law to those who have completed military service.

And Haredi Jews who also choose not to join the army? Since they have the exact same social obstacles to joining the workforce, that proves that this has nothing to do with "Jewish domination."

Also, an increasing number of Arabs are volunteering for the army. Meaning that Israeli Arabs have the opportunity to gain the same social advantages that Israel's military-centric society provides. The discrimination is based on army service, not religion or national origins. It isn't apartheid.

Amnesty is lying. And they know it.

In 2014, the Knesset raised the electoral threshold from 2% to 3.25%, primarily affecting parliamentary representation of Palestinians and other minority groups in Israel. Adalah and ACRI argued that raising the electoral threshold for parties to gain seats at the Knesset violated Palestinian citizens’ voting rights and enabled the disqualification of their candidates and parties. CERD also noted that raising the electoral threshold in Israel considerably weakens “the right to political participation of non-Jewish minorities”.

Yet in the 2021 elections, not one Arab party fell below the 3.25% threshold - and about 25 "Jewish parties did. Which means the Arabs did not lose a single seat with the 3.25% threshold law.

The current government includes an Arab party in the ruling coalition,. Amnesty doesn't mention that because it contradicts its thesis of Israeli Arabs living under apartheid.

Amnesty is lying. And they know it.

[T]he Ministry of Interior also requires children under the age of 12 of these “mixed couples” to be registered, with proof that Israel is their “centre of life”.397 According to the Society of St Yves, a legal support centre in East Jerusalem, from January 2004 to July 2013 the ministry received 17,616 applications for registering children of “mixed marriages”. Of these, 12,247 were approved and 3,933 were rejected. As a result, nearly 4,000 children live separated from at least one of their parents for bureaucratic reasons.

But if Israel approved 69% of those applications, doesn't it mean that those "bureaucratic reasons" have nothing to do with racism?

For Palestinian Bedouins living in the Negev/Naqab, accessibility of health services is even worse, as there are no medical clinics in most Bedouin villages.Israel does not provide healthcare facilities or medical services in unrecognized villages. These villages are not connected to public transport, forcing families to travel long distances to receive basic healthcare.

Name one country that provides medical clinics where residents build entire illegal communities on public land.

In these and countless other cases in this long report, Amnesty is going out of its way to twist the facts to make Israel appear guilty. The decision that Israel is guilty of "apartheid" was made by HRW, B'Tselem and HRW way before they gathered any evidence. It was a pre-ordained conclusion and any facts that prove they have been dishonest in their information gathering is simply ignored or buried.

It isn't an honest report about Israel. It is a hatchet job. And Amnesty knows that very few people will read it critically, because they assume that Amnesty is an honest broker. So later this week we will see Ap and Reuters and the New York Times give fawning coverage of this report, and not one mainstream reporter will take the time and effort to look at it critically.